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Indy 4

Started by Beefy, June 22, 2007, 07:04:49 AM

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dazie

Quote from: CatchrNdRy on May 28, 2008, 01:28:55 PM
we wouldnt have seen those awful gophers either

Gophers were pre-skull discovery.
"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
I think so, Brain, but how will we get the Spice Girls into the paella?

Dry then Catch

Quote from: dazie on May 28, 2008, 04:04:35 PM
Quote from: CatchrNdRy on May 28, 2008, 01:28:55 PM
we wouldnt have seen those awful gophers either

Gophers were pre-skull discovery.

excellent point.  maybe I am getting more nitpicky than when I was 5 but I found the movie tiresome and overly far fetched.  I realize its supposed to be pulpy and campy. 

Beefy

Quote from: CatchrNdRy on May 28, 2008, 04:08:58 PM
overly far fetched.

Part 1 - A box that melts people's faces off and elaborate booby traps.
Part 2 - A guy who could pull your beating heart of your chest and leave you still alive.  Mine cart race.
Part 3 - The elixir of eternal life.

Dry then Catch

Quote from: Beefy on May 28, 2008, 04:50:33 PM
Quote from: CatchrNdRy on May 28, 2008, 04:08:58 PM
overly far fetched.

Part 1 - A box that melts people's faces off and elaborate booby traps.
Part 2 - A guy who could pull your beating heart of your chest and leave you still alive.  Mine cart race.
Part 3 - The elixir of eternal life.

i still say its far-fetched.   I echo VJ's statements.  now if you will excuse me I'm going to mine google to find forums that list nitpicks

VikingJuice

Something else that bothered me and it's the same issue I had with the new SW trilogy: 

1)Some scenes look overly synthetic because the CG is too smooth and not properly textured or showing the right natural visual border between the animated and the natural.

2) A large number of set pieces LOOKED like set pieces and not the real thing.  I remember in Raiders, when they were in the first scene with the hidden chamber that had deadly spears, a deep pit and poisonous darts, it still had a very real/organic type feel.  You felt like you were in an overgrown jungle temple.  In the new movie, you feel like you're on the set of a HS play that has elaborate paintings and props but is still a HS set none the less.

Dry then Catch

Quote from: CatchrNdRy on May 28, 2008, 05:04:01 PM
Quote from: Beefy on May 28, 2008, 04:50:33 PM
Quote from: CatchrNdRy on May 28, 2008, 04:08:58 PM
overly far fetched.

Part 1 - A box that melts people's faces off and elaborate booby traps.
Part 2 - A guy who could pull your beating heart of your chest and leave you still alive.  Mine cart race.
Part 3 - The elixir of eternal life.

i still say its far-fetched.   I echo VJ's statements.  now if you will excuse me I'm going to mine google to find forums that list nitpicks







Quote
   Disappointed doesn't even come close to how I feel about this movie.

- Area 51 guarded by a whole 6 infantry. Yup, the warehouse that guards America's biggest, darkest secrets. 6 guys at the gate. The base was evacuated because of nuclear testing that was occurring a day and nights walk away. Bullshit.
- Cate Blanchett's horrible accent and Red Alert 2 Yuri psychic voodoo.
- The inevitable double-cross by Mac, followed by his 'return', followed by his triple-cross and his split second resignation to his death. Just such a flat character.
- The Russians in their trucks instantly catching up to Indy on his rocket-train going 300km/hr across the desert, and his subsequent escape by rolling down a ditch.
- The CGI gophers that watch the rocket fly past.
- Surviving a nuclear detonation and landing impact inside a fucking fridge.
- Indy translating a 3000 yr old dead language perfectly in about 20 seconds flat, and the transparent reference to the Nasca Lines.
- The camera shots making such a big deal about Mutt bringing his motorbike to Peru, only to leave it tied up in a marketplace and reference it in passing later in the film - just why? The kid likes fixing bikes, big deal. That factoid could have been revealed without making a point of flying it across the country.
- The 'selectively magnetic' crystal skull that only attracts objects when it serves a plot purpose.
- The patented 'Indy gets captured mere moments after finding the treasure' bit.
- Escaping from the camp to run 30 metres into the jungle, fall into some quicksand to have an excuse for a scene of comedic relief, only to have the jungle come alive with Commies and surround them the moment they are rescued. The snake was funny, but this just felt so forced.
- Mutt-Tarzan swinging through the trees with a hundred marmosets, who magically come to Mutt's aid by jumping into the enemy car with him. What. the. fuck.
- The way they went out of the way to hold that crystal skull up to the cave painting to line the shadow up with the head to show that they are infact the skulls of the aliens - why did this need to be pointed out again in such a dramatic fashion when it was quite obvious from the Roswell Grey dissection scene in the tent at the camp almost an hour previously?
- Let me get this straight: Ox discovers the skull in Peru, makes it all the way to the temple (a plane and boat ride across half the country), can't figure out how to open it but then goes crazy nuts by looking into its eyes, somehow makes it back across the country while being insane, replaces the skull where he found it, THEN he gets locked up in prison? The only way this could make any sense at all is if he went insane at the last possible moment after putting the skull back in the graveyard, of which they don't elaborate on. How did he get past the dart firing pygmies AFTER putting the skull back WHILE being insane?
- If the extra-dimensional aliens had that temple built 7000 years ago, and then filled a few rooms with artifacts from around the ancient world, why would they be archaeologists? Since they were objects from the time they were living in, they would just be collectors of nice new shit. Minor nitpick that irritated me.
- The alien skulls telling them "thanks for reuniting us, I want to give you something to repay you" then KILLING anyone that remained in the room and obliterating the temple - What? On top of that, 13 alien skeletons that have been dead for 7000 years somehow coalesce into one being that's now flesh, blood, living, breathing and apparently wants to phone home quite badly. 

No doubt I'm going to get lambasted for some of the things I'm picking on but I couldn't care less. Suspension of disbelief isn't uncommon for any Indiana Jones film, but for the hype this movie had to live up to, it's asking too much. Also, Indy kills a single person in this film  (the poison dart) . In the first movie he shoots a sword-wielding Muslim in the streets of Cairo just because it was convenient. In Temple of Doom he cuts a rope bridge and sends tens of men to their death at the hands of crocodiles. I don't even know how many people he killed escaping with Connery in Last Crusade. Why make him such a pussy in his old age?

Indiana Jones was appealing because he was a real guy, taking real punches to the face, bleeding, falling under cars, catching hold of ropes - you could imagine it really happening. But  surviving a nuclear blast inside a fridge  is just beyond the pale for an Indiana Jones film. This franchise is meant to be about supernatural themes and the Hitler-inspired Nazi quest to own and exploit religious relics. Not science fiction.

the poster goes on to say he knows he is nitpicking, but it was just too many things to ignore.  much more than any of the other 3.   


I guess for me was the plot felt clunky and dialogue felt forced.  They were aware of the 4th wall. 

Jessie

Quote from: CatchrNdRy on May 28, 2008, 11:24:35 PM
Quote from: CatchrNdRy on May 28, 2008, 05:04:01 PM
Quote from: Beefy on May 28, 2008, 04:50:33 PM
Quote from: CatchrNdRy on May 28, 2008, 04:08:58 PM
overly far fetched.

Part 1 - A box that melts people's faces off and elaborate booby traps.
Part 2 - A guy who could pull your beating heart of your chest and leave you still alive.  Mine cart race.
Part 3 - The elixir of eternal life.

i still say its far-fetched.   I echo VJ's statements.  now if you will excuse me I'm going to mine google to find forums that list nitpicks







Quote
   Disappointed doesn't even come close to how I feel about this movie.

- Area 51 guarded by a whole 6 infantry. Yup, the warehouse that guards America's biggest, darkest secrets. 6 guys at the gate. The base was evacuated because of nuclear testing that was occurring a day and nights walk away. Bullshit.
- Cate Blanchett's horrible accent and Red Alert 2 Yuri psychic voodoo.
- The inevitable double-cross by Mac, followed by his 'return', followed by his triple-cross and his split second resignation to his death. Just such a flat character.
- The Russians in their trucks instantly catching up to Indy on his rocket-train going 300km/hr across the desert, and his subsequent escape by rolling down a ditch.
- The CGI gophers that watch the rocket fly past.
- Surviving a nuclear detonation and landing impact inside a fucking fridge.
- Indy translating a 3000 yr old dead language perfectly in about 20 seconds flat, and the transparent reference to the Nasca Lines.
- The camera shots making such a big deal about Mutt bringing his motorbike to Peru, only to leave it tied up in a marketplace and reference it in passing later in the film - just why? The kid likes fixing bikes, big deal. That factoid could have been revealed without making a point of flying it across the country.
- The 'selectively magnetic' crystal skull that only attracts objects when it serves a plot purpose.
- The patented 'Indy gets captured mere moments after finding the treasure' bit.
- Escaping from the camp to run 30 metres into the jungle, fall into some quicksand to have an excuse for a scene of comedic relief, only to have the jungle come alive with Commies and surround them the moment they are rescued. The snake was funny, but this just felt so forced.
- Mutt-Tarzan swinging through the trees with a hundred marmosets, who magically come to Mutt's aid by jumping into the enemy car with him. What. the. fuck.
- The way they went out of the way to hold that crystal skull up to the cave painting to line the shadow up with the head to show that they are infact the skulls of the aliens - why did this need to be pointed out again in such a dramatic fashion when it was quite obvious from the Roswell Grey dissection scene in the tent at the camp almost an hour previously?
- Let me get this straight: Ox discovers the skull in Peru, makes it all the way to the temple (a plane and boat ride across half the country), can't figure out how to open it but then goes crazy nuts by looking into its eyes, somehow makes it back across the country while being insane, replaces the skull where he found it, THEN he gets locked up in prison? The only way this could make any sense at all is if he went insane at the last possible moment after putting the skull back in the graveyard, of which they don't elaborate on. How did he get past the dart firing pygmies AFTER putting the skull back WHILE being insane?
- If the extra-dimensional aliens had that temple built 7000 years ago, and then filled a few rooms with artifacts from around the ancient world, why would they be archaeologists? Since they were objects from the time they were living in, they would just be collectors of nice new shit. Minor nitpick that irritated me.
- The alien skulls telling them "thanks for reuniting us, I want to give you something to repay you" then KILLING anyone that remained in the room and obliterating the temple - What? On top of that, 13 alien skeletons that have been dead for 7000 years somehow coalesce into one being that's now flesh, blood, living, breathing and apparently wants to phone home quite badly. 

No doubt I'm going to get lambasted for some of the things I'm picking on but I couldn't care less. Suspension of disbelief isn't uncommon for any Indiana Jones film, but for the hype this movie had to live up to, it's asking too much. Also, Indy kills a single person in this film  (the poison dart) . In the first movie he shoots a sword-wielding Muslim in the streets of Cairo just because it was convenient. In Temple of Doom he cuts a rope bridge and sends tens of men to their death at the hands of crocodiles. I don't even know how many people he killed escaping with Connery in Last Crusade. Why make him such a pussy in his old age?

Indiana Jones was appealing because he was a real guy, taking real punches to the face, bleeding, falling under cars, catching hold of ropes - you could imagine it really happening. But  surviving a nuclear blast inside a fridge  is just beyond the pale for an Indiana Jones film. This franchise is meant to be about supernatural themes and the Hitler-inspired Nazi quest to own and exploit religious relics. Not science fiction.

the poster goes on to say he knows he is nitpicking, but it was just too many things to ignore.  much more than any of the other 3.   


I guess for me was the plot felt clunky and dialogue felt forced.  They were aware of the 4th wall. 
If I'd have taken notes during the movie, I'd have written almost exactly the same thing as that guy.
we should have kept the quote pyramid up to rape Jessie in the face.

meredith

Quote from: VikingJuice on May 28, 2008, 09:06:42 PM
2) A large number of set pieces LOOKED like set pieces and not the real thing.  I remember in Raiders, when they were in the first scene with the hidden chamber that had deadly spears, a deep pit and poisonous darts, it still had a very real/organic type feel.  You felt like you were in an overgrown jungle temple.  In the new movie, you feel like you're on the set of a HS play that has elaborate paintings and props but is still a HS set none the less.

I think this may be related to the increasing quality of recordings. The earlier movies were recorded using film, which imparts its own grain and qualities, and has the side-effect of obscuring low-quality sets.  This was almost certainly done with digital hardware that was calibrated, so the final result will have much less visual noise after processing.  They probably used higher-quality sets in this movie, if I had to guess.

VikingJuice

Quote from: hatt on May 29, 2008, 09:40:20 AM
Quote from: VikingJuice on May 28, 2008, 09:06:42 PM
2) A large number of set pieces LOOKED like set pieces and not the real thing.  I remember in Raiders, when they were in the first scene with the hidden chamber that had deadly spears, a deep pit and poisonous darts, it still had a very real/organic type feel.  You felt like you were in an overgrown jungle temple.  In the new movie, you feel like you're on the set of a HS play that has elaborate paintings and props but is still a HS set none the less.

I think this may be related to the increasing quality of recordings. The earlier movies were recorded using film, which imparts its own grain and qualities, and has the side-effect of obscuring low-quality sets.  This was almost certainly done with digital hardware that was calibrated, so the final result will have much less visual noise after processing.  They probably used higher-quality sets in this movie, if I had to guess.

I can buy your argument because it seems sound but then doesn't that notion seem counter-intuitive to do by the studio if you know the outcome is that things look fake?  Also, I remember watching a scene recently from the first film.  When they are seeking the chamber room for the Ark, there are several shots that indicate it is outside at a genuine place.  One shot is a great sunset shot with the digging men in silhouette.  Another is when they are finally breaking the seal, off in the distance, you can see dark cloud cover that look really creepy and real.

If a synthetic look and feel is the end result of "improved" technology, then they need to deliberately go back and add in visual distortion enough that it counters the effect and makes it look more real.  And they actually did that in a lot of the scenes in which Indy was back in the States.  Everything was shot with a fuzzy lense like many Redford movies have been (The Natural comes to mind).  It attempts to make the actor not look as old but it feels more like a dream sequence in a film.

Oh, and that long criticism above was dead on!

ReBurn

So is this movie any good?
11:42:24 [Gamplayerx] I keep getting knocked up.
11:42:28 [Gamplayerx] Er. OUT!

dazie

Quote from: ReBurn on May 29, 2008, 09:43:40 PM
So is this movie any good?

Definitely worth going to see, cuz, comeon- it's Indy.  But make sure you take an extra helping of "suspension of disbelief."
"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
I think so, Brain, but how will we get the Spice Girls into the paella?

Jessie

Quote from: dazie on May 29, 2008, 10:36:58 PM
Quote from: ReBurn on May 29, 2008, 09:43:40 PM
So is this movie any good?

Definitely worth going to see, cuz, comeon- it's Indy.  But make sure you take an extra helping of "suspension of disbelief."

I'd recommend waiting to rent it.  I tried to do that, but was overruled by the boys.
we should have kept the quote pyramid up to rape Jessie in the face.

VikingJuice

Quote from: ReBurn on May 29, 2008, 09:43:40 PM
So is this movie any good?

Don't pay more than a matinĂ©e price. 

Alice

I enjoyed it, save for the three year old girl that wouldn't shut the fark up right behind me.  I felt like a kid again watching it.  The alien thing made me a little meh, but the rest of it was great.  I don't think it was that far off of the old Indy movies except for the last 10 minutes.  If they'd picked a different ending, I think it would have been a stellar movie.


Jessie

My biggest problem with it was probably that Indy was just written so differently.  He wasn't as charismatic as the old movies, or something. 
we should have kept the quote pyramid up to rape Jessie in the face.

BigDun

Saw it yesterday. This line almost made me puke:

"Well, the word for 'gold' translates as 'treasure.' But their treasure wasn't gold, it was knowledge. Knowledge was their treasure."

Other than that, it was a fun flick.
16:26:25 [DownSouth] I'm in a monkey rutt

Beefy

Thanks for the diminished expectations, guys!  Waiting a month and a half was a good idea, I think.  I enjoyed the film.  It wasn't great cinema, but it was an Indy film.  I agree with BD about that line of dialog, and I think the biggest weakness of the film was the patchwork script.  The concept, though, I had no problem with.  Indy has always been about pulling back the veil to show a world bigger than the one we realize.

Blanchett, sad to say, didn't maintain the accent.

Beefy

Rereading this thread I think the problem most people are having is that they can't view this film the same way they did when they were young.  The sets in Raiders looked ridiculous as often as not, but we didn't care because they were magical to us as children and as moviegoers who hadn't seen much better at that point.  The fact is, we're older and we've seen more cinematically.  We changed as movie viewers, so going and expecting to feel like you did twenty years ago is going to lead to disappointment.  It's what we did with Phantom Menace and why I saw that crap on screen something like nine times - I couldn't let it go that I didn't feel like a kid watching Empire Strikes Back for the first time.

This felt very much like an Indy film to me, but it was a film with faults nonetheless.  Too many versions of screenplays about the same idea patched together with exposition rather than action that actually moves the film forward.

Also, driving down the tree was kind of eyeball roll inducing.  But I bet kids dug it.

dazie

OK- riddle me this Batman- how come when I watch Raiders it still gets me giddy?

I can see the point you're making, that our age has made us more jaded or less likely to suspend disbelief or whatever, but wouldn't that apply to re-watching old movies?

(playing devil's advocate.  I lubs me some Indy no matter how goofy the movies are.)

"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
I think so, Brain, but how will we get the Spice Girls into the paella?

Beefy

Quote from: dazie on June 28, 2008, 05:27:28 PM
OK- riddle me this Batman- how come when I watch Raiders it still gets me giddy?

I can see the point you're making, that our age has made us more jaded or less likely to suspend disbelief or whatever, but wouldn't that apply to re-watching old movies?

(playing devil's advocate.  I lubs me some Indy no matter how goofy the movies are.)



Raiders is undeniably the better film.  The thing is, they didn't go hogwild with Raiders because they hadn't established a franchise yet.  So it's a tighter film.  It wasn't until after the audience love started pouring in that they were able to go in the wild narrative directions they were interested in. 

Also, a critical factor is that Lawrence Kasdan wrote Raiders, just as he did Empire Strikes Back.  Indy 4 had five writers, all with their own take.  And it shows.

dazie

Got it.  I should have clarified- when I said "Raiders" I meant it to encompass all the films that made me giddy in youth and still do (including Star Wars etc)

But I see your point- the earlier films in the "-ilogies" of our youth were still trying to prove themselves so to speak.  Now that they have, they can afford to coast on past glories?

This is also why I prefer college sports to pro.  ;)
"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
I think so, Brain, but how will we get the Spice Girls into the paella?

Infobahn

I thought the movie was cool.  Until the end, with the whole end of the movie thing.