[Aptorian]

Thought I'd make a thread for some Crystal Skull discussion instead of having to look at page after page of spoiler boxes in the "Big Movie" thread.

I went to see it last night and I loved it. I really loved it and I'll go so far as to say that it is probably the best Indiana Jones film ever. That's right I think it's better than Lost Arc and Last Crusade.

All this criticism I'm hearing from people on the board makes me think of the same whinning I hear when people discuss Star Wars Episode 1-3 vs 4-6. People get all nostalgic and talk about "feel" and Lucas ruining stuff with his CGI, etc. The truth is that the acting in the Star Wars films was atrocious, the spcial effects look like something made on a commodore (which it was), the fight scenes are embarrising and the plot has holes the size of the death star in it. Episode 1-3 has better acting, better fights, better CGI (which is given) and while Episode 3 was completely messed up, Lucas did a good job of retconning the past to fit The rebel vs empire war.

Admittedly, I've never been a die hard Indiana Jones fan, I've only seen the movies a handfull of times since I was a kid, but Old Indiana Jones is certainly not any better than New Indiana Jones. I'm not going to point out every flaw of the old Indiana Jones films (I prefer to pretend Temple of Doom doesn't even exist) but they suffer from the same fate the Star Wars films have. They're better when you remember them than when you actually sit down and watch them again.

Going to the cinema I've had my hopes and dreams crushed again and again by the likes of Spiderman 3, Superman Returns, Terminator 3, etc., so I've learned to enter the halls of moving pictures with low expectations, not daring to hope for greatness. I'd seen the grumpy remarks from people here on the forum, so I was prepared for mediocrity. I was positively surprised.

I thougt the opening was a bit rough. The Russian bad guys were a bit cheesy and Russian Bitch was pretty over the top, but then again so was the Monocle Nazi from Lost Arc. I was sort of uncertain of the film, Indiana Jones flee's from a couple of dozen russians spraying bullets with the AK47s that are apparently about as effective as a Storm Troopers rifle. He falls and gets beaten and kicked and messed up, ending on some rocket sled, flies through the desert and stumbles into nuclear testing area. Around here I was sort of "this is just... stupid... The movie is too over the top". I was looking slack jawed when Indy is thrown a couple of kilometers in a refrigerator by a nuclear explosion and comes out UNHARMED! But then as I was looking at Indiana Jones standing on a hill and looking up at the most beautifull image of a mushroom cloud ever, I let go and I was just oversome by how fucking awesome that scene was. A fucking NUCLER EXPLOSION! From there on I was hooked.

I certainly don't mind that the film was about a alien crystal skull and interdimensional aliens. How is that more over the top than Indiana Jones finding the actual Arc of the Covenant or Zombie priests that can rip out your heart or the Holy Grail actually existing and a knight living for five hundred centuries in a cell? I think what Lucas and Spielberg might have been going for was having a religious/magical inspired story telling in the seventies/eighties and a more scientific inspired storyline for for the new millenia with our modern myths.

I agree with the criticism that certain elements were just silly. Long car chase is looooong. All that throwing around with the skull got old around the third time it switched hands. The sword fight was fun but really, how hard would it had been for her to just open up Juniors thigh and letting him bleed out? I thought the monkey swing scene was over the top, but it's an adventure movie. I laughed and having Russian Bitch being attacked by monkeys was worth it.

I thought the ending was awesome. As soon as Russian Bitch made her claim "I want to know everything" I knew she was fucked. It smacked of greed and the ultimate hubris to crave the knowledge of what no man should know. Sort of like the Nazis in Last Crusade. I though the aliens were really awesome. Perhaps it was a shame that they actually showed their original form in the end, they were more mystical when you only saw their skeletons. I would also had prefered they had disappered through that twirling fan thing in the temples ceiling rather than a spaceship being revealed, but then again, if there hadn't been a space ship we wouldn't had gotten the awesome scene of skycraper size chunks of rock flying around in the air and the big river crashing in to fill the dead valley.

I liked Shia Lebouf (or how ever you spell that silly name) he was a nice opposite to Indiana Jones sophisticated yet macho appearance. Showing emotion in Ox cell, being visibly terryfied in the cript of the spaniards (like a normal person would be) and generally being awesome. I also liked the mother, I could actually recognize her as the girl from Lost Arc. I thought her character was hilarious, scenes like her mooning over Indy or her sitting and giggling with the steering wheel in her hands after the waterfall crash. Ox was perhaps the most amazing, he sort of stole the picture when ever he appeared. I can't remember the actors name, but he's always been awesome.

I liked the wedding at the ending and that almost spooky scene with Indies hat flying up against Juniors legs. When Indy snatched it out of his hands just as he was about to put it on I immediatly thought "sequel".

Generally Crystal Skull had cool evil russian baddies, funny one liners, hilarious "fifties" scenes like the cafe "bar fight", puzzles, gunfights, snakes, lots of disgusting animals and dead people, aliens, a nuclear explosion, cool sidekicks, a motor cycle crash in a library, spooks and russian spies, dozens of hidden nods to the old films, quicksand, action scenes with people jumping from cars to cars like only Indiana Jones does it and I'll repeat A NUCLEAR EXPLOSION!

Five stars. Lets hope we get two more.

[drinksinbars]

i admit i wouldnt ask for my money back, but i regret not just going and seeing iron man.

i felt the level of writing wasnt up to previous indy movies and the constant homage to previous films was way over board. none of the others felt the need to hark back to the previous ones, but it happened too much in this.

and mutt swinging with monkeys was just too much.

[The Tyrant Lizard]

I concur about the monkey thing. That was awful. It reminded me of the shit bit in King Kong with the rampaging diplodocuses. CGI ruined many parts for me. Dont really like the way Mutt nicked some of the action scenes off of Indie either.
I dug Harrison Ford though. He was great in the film, even if his fight scenes were a little slow.
And I know I just slagged the CGI offm but the atom bomb and the fucked up whirlwind at the end were awesome.

[cerveza_fiesta]

Since I'm lazy, here's a repost/rewrite of my comments from the movie thread.

I thought the movie was totally fine. It was certainly no less retarded nor less fun than any of the others. IMO most of the negative criticism stems from people looking at the movie with a too-adult point of view. Like they expect indy to be the pinnacle of acting. It was the same as all the other indy movies. Hammy over the top action, humor all through, relentless bad guys....everybody's just 50+ years old instead of 30.

It was plain to see where Lucas weasled his grimy influence into the show though. No less than 3 usesless CGI (and poor looking CGI I might add) ground-hog scenes and about 500 monkeys. Lucas must get such a hard on for CGI animals. He polluted Star wars with them...and it was probably only Spielberg that kept him from CGI-ing a different animal face onto every actor in the film.

-Indy's son gets wet-eyed and teary like 5 times. What the fuck. Suck it up princess.

-I really liked the final temple scene until the damn thing turned into a flying saucer. It was very classic, with interlocking stone pieces holding all the doors shut and linked to gether so they would all open in a chain reaction.

-Hated Indy's ex-wife. Total flake, useless character except to introduce the young guy as Indy's son. annoying through and through.

-The psychic crystal skull was awesome in it's lameness to THA MAX. So amazingly stupid looking and they carried it through the whole film. Made me laugh every time they pulled it out and pointed it at something. I don't care what anybody says. If anything was classic indy in that whole film it was the skull.

-I really liked the bit at the end when the temple is falling apart and the alien skeletons come to life. I just thought it was nicely done and had not over-the-top cool lookng CGI in it....again, right up until it turned into a flying saucer.

-The car chase scene through the jungle was waaaaaaaaaaaaay too long. way too long. waaaaaaaaaay tooooooooooo looooooooooooong. About halfway through I was already praying for it to end.

-Killer ants. Killer ants. Killer ants. ridiculously pure win. They were the only thing that saved the car chase scene. That and going over the waterfalls with an amphibious car. Cool in it's lameness.

-I really liked the whole first 20 minutes in the area 51 hangar. It was a cool setup and had good action...plus the quick tip-o-the-hat to the lost ark right before they left the hangar was nice.

-Instant oxidation of the spaniard's mummified corpse after they take it out of the burlap sack. Just looked rad.

-The end at the wedding chalpel when the wind blows indy's hat to his son's feet and he's about to put it on. Just when you think "oh fuck, here's the set up for a dozen more sequels with this retard playing indy", Harrison Ford takes the hat back with a "fuck you kid" look and walks out the door.

-Mostly, I liked very much that a lot of the effects like gunfire looked very oldschool. Bullets hitting the ground looked like firecrackers and stuff. Like what you'd expect had the movie been made only a couple years after "the last crusade"

ANyways. I liked it. If you don't go in expecting it to be Oscar Best Picture quality acting and screenplay, you'll probably enjoy it. It's just like the old ones IMO.

EDIT: And after reading others' comments, must say that the atom bomb though being about as over the top as it possibly could be, was absolutely incredible looking. It's one of those moments that had I a DVD, I would have rewinded it like 20 times. I also maintain that the spaceship was retarded, but the after effects were amazing with the river crashing in and all that. Pure filtered awesomesauce.

[Morgoth]

Now I had fun watching this movie. I thought it was spectacular in just the right way, Frod did excellently, and I enjoyed the movie references.. however, to repost my last comment from the movie thread:

What is it with Steven Spielberg and having to add tall skinny aliens in every single film he makes?

The major problem I had with this movie was that it was so sloppy. Background changes between camera shifts. Things that fall amazingly end up standing when the camera pans back. Shirts shift between being tucked in, and hanging out. The number of soldiers change all the time. There are several places where wires are visible.

Not to mention that the Spanish soldiers stole the crystal skull from the city, yet you needed the skull to get into the chamber in the first place. And also all the inconsistencies with technology compared to time (1957). Not to mention that countries had wrong names (Belieze was not of that name for instance), cities were placed horribly wrong (Kusko on the other side of the country). The Mayans were located much farther to the north, it was the Inca who reigned in the Peru area. And so on... The whole thing just struck me as lazy

To me, it is important that a movie keep details right. I mean, I'm not bothered by Jones' mum actually having been born in 82, not 83, or whatever, but I still expect some commitment to detail. This movie had none and it bugged me a lot.

[Coco with marshmallows]

three things got me about this film:

1 - where the F*** was Indy's pistol. as far as i'm concerned its as much a part of him as the hat and whip. Yet it was a no-show, probably for the same reason ET got walkie-talkied up.

2 - No honest to god laugh out loud moments. Think about it:
Raiders - swordsman appears, Indy shrugs, shoots him
Temple - Swordsman appears, Indy shrugs, pistol is missing.
Crusade - "no ticket"
If you can honestly say you never laughed the first time you saw each of those bits, you have no sense of humour . And there is nothing of that class in Kingdom, unfortunately.

3 - The theme tune. They decided to use the Raiders march. Excelllent, its a fantastic bit of music. But they then proceeded to use the middle part of the tune, aka the love theme, repeatedly, rather than the actual high point of the main piece.

I dunno, overall i was a little disappointed, it just seemed very... meh.

by the way, anyone else half expecting to hear the five-tone piece of music from close encounters when the ship appeared?

[QuickTidal]

I enjoyed it a lot actually. I liked most of it, though I feel the first act is far better than the second act.

My only REAL problem is with what George EFFING Lucas decided it HAD to be about. Crystal Skulls....which are a tenuous historical artifact at best as the actual skulls are thought to have been faked in the 1800's and placed in ancient temples and locations to swindle treasure hunters, and the whole inter-dimensional beings aspect (which don't get me wrong, is WAY WAY better than straight up space aliens) just bugged me. There are literally hundreds of other artifacts or places Indy could have gone on this adventure that are earthbound and still hella interesting....and more like the predecessors artifacts...

Examples: Atlantis...which could easily also tie into Alexander the Great, the Phoenicians, and the Library at Alexandria. Or how about the ruins at Angkor Wat in Cambodia and the Khmer empire? The Seven Ancient Wonders of the World even.....(like James Rollins Map Of Bones which was riveting!). There are so many earthbound mysteries that still exist to us today that could have been delved into and made the archaeological aspect of the film FAR more entertaining.....but no, George Lucas shunned the other scripts about stuff like that in the 90's and said he wanted it to be about the Crystal Skulls cause he thought they were interesting....well George....the REAL skulls are NOT elongated. All the ones that actually exist are regular human sized skulls, and like I said above are thought to be fakes made with modern tools in the 1800's. It just all seemed so forced, and the big part about the other films is the sense of wonder at the ancient civilizations involved in the artifact....The Lost Ark and the Holy Grail are both biblical artifacts of the highest calibre and have huge wonderful stories to go along with them, and the Chankarra stones from Temple are cool as well, and we get some cool Indian deities like Kali in that one.

Sigh. Like I said...good, and I liked it, but the story literally puts the nail in the George Lucas coffin for me. I am done with anything he has his hands in. I love both Harrison Ford and Spielberg, and I believe that Harrison played Indy perfectly and Spielberg directed the film in his old style and it fits with the other 3 in that capacity.

It all comes down to this. If George Lucas hadn't been involved.....the film would have gotten made 15 years ago (as Spielberg and Ford both approved scripts back in the early 90's....it was only George all this time objecting), and it would have been about something more interesting than Crystal skulls, and they might have even been able to have made a 6 film series at that point had they kept going.

Double Sigh.

[QuickTidal]

[QUOTE=Morgoth;319308

What is it with Steven Spielberg and having to add tall skinny aliens in every single film he makes?
[/QUOTE]

Spielberg didn't write it, Lucas did...so blame Lucas for the aliens.

[Illuyankas]

A film based on the Fate of Atlantis game would have been much, much better. Man, that game was awesome.

[QuickTidal]

Illuyankas;319809 said:

A film based on the Fate of Atlantis game would have been much, much better. Man, that game was awesome.

Yeah, that game kicked ass!

[paladin]

well, he's done religion/mysticism in every indy movie. they wanted to take something else on thats "undiscovered". i understand the choice even if i think its a bit wierd.. stargate was a lot more believable/realistic as an aliens setup, and while they tried to do a little bit of it with the heiroglyphs, it was too little too late.

sort of expanding on what qt said, crystal skulls dont have any real historical significance to the target audience like the ark of the convenant and the holy grail do.. taking on the pyramids in stargate is easier for people to get and understand than central/southern american crystal skulls who most people haven't even heard of. maybe involve the same cultures, like the disappearance of the technologically advanced mayans, who quetzalquoatal is for the aztecs(apparently mormons believe it to be jesus), the disappearance of the olmec, or if i recall they've been finding evidence recently along the rio grande river in the american southwest/mexico suggesting culture in the area prior to originally thought

[Obdigore]

Cocoreturns;319796 said:

2 - No honest to god laugh out loud moments. Think about it:
Raiders - swordsman appears, Indy shrugs, shoots him
Temple - Swordsman appears, Indy shrugs, pistol is missing.
Crusade - "no ticket"
If you can honestly say you never laughed the first time you saw each of those bits, you have no sense of humour . And there is nothing of that class in Kingdom, unfortunately.

I disagree with this Coco. When he got his kid to punch the college boy in the face to start the brawl, it was hillarious. (Get that Greaser!). I enjoyed that part a lot, and them riding through the library on his motorcycle, and then Indy says 'You are going too fast' and his kid says 'no I'm not' and then the kid lays the bike down....

[QuickTidal]

Obdigore;320288 said:

I disagree with this Coco. When he got his kid to punch the college boy in the face to start the brawl, it was hillarious. (Get that Greaser!). I enjoyed that part a lot, and them riding through the library on his motorcycle, and then Indy says 'You are going too fast' and his kid says 'no I'm not' and then the kid lays the bike down....

actually, my real laugh out loud moment was with Mudd throwing him the snake to grab onto to get out of the sand. THAT was great!

[cerveza_fiesta]

hell yeah QT...the snake scene was wonderful in it's absurdity.

My real LOL as I said up there ^ was the skull itself. It was so amazingly stupid looking that every time it got busted out I had to laugh at it. I thought it was going to be something kinda small...like palm-sized...but then they made it this great big mongo cone-head alien thing. Totally great.

[Obdigore]

QuickTidal;320337 said:

actually, my real laugh out loud moment was with Mudd throwing him the snake to grab onto to get out of the sand. THAT was great!

'Tell me to grab the rope' 'Just say it!'

Fire ants was, as Bostonians say, Wicked Awesome.

Anyway, very enjoyable movie all around, although not as good as Raiders imo, it was better than like the Mummy series (theres a 3rd coming out btw) or the one with Nicholas Cage... 'Treasure Hunter or something'

[Aptorian]

I'm telling you people. Go find a streaming site or get out your old DvD/VHS and rewatch Raiders or Crusade today while Crystal Skull is still fresh.

The old ones are not as good as you remember them.

In defense of Indy not using his gun in the film, he only has it for a short while. It's taken from him by the Russians in the beginning and confiscated again when they're captured in the city of the dead. I would have liked to see him spray a group of them with an AK47 like in Crusade, but that would have made the kids cry... unlike all the skeletons, aliens and crazy bugs.

[caladanbrood]

Ahh, saw this today, much hilarity was had by all

"Can't find a storyline? Don't worry, trans-dimensional aliens will fill it for you!" :lachen70:

[Cold Iron]

Don't have time to read everyone's post, but I'm with apt 100%. I loved it and I'm seeing it again before it leaves the cinema.

[McLovin]

I can see why a lot of people got put off by this film, but I enjoyed it. It could've stood some tightening up (the bit beginning with the jungle chase runs overlong, IMO), but other than that, it was good. Not as good as Raiders or Last Crusade, but waaaaaay better than Temple of Doom.

[MrXIII]

After re-watching the 1st and 3rd films (there is no 2nd) before going to see this I was expecting dissapointment, while Apts right and the old films while not what I remembered them hae their own greatness all the same. Supprisingly I loved this film, well sort of. I know grumbling about deus ex machina at an Indy movie is kinda redundent but honestly it seemed like everything was solved with that bloody skull. Ants, doors, restless natives... no worries just wave the skull and it's sorted.

Ray Winstone was great till the very end when he mumbles something, winks, dies, not sure what he said but I'll assume it filled the fallen hero/redemption obligation.

So far as the plot goes I was fine with it till the end, when the Alien pops up and as if thats not enough John Hurt has to add that their extra-dimensional beings, utterly pointless clarrification. Made no difference to the plot could have been left out.