Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Speaking of Last Crusade and James Bond, Julian Glover as Donovan is essentially playing the same character as he did in 1981's For Your Eyes Only. In that film, Glover's Aristotle Kristatos is a smuggler secretly working with the Soviets, who initially presents himself to Bond as an ally, but in fact turns out to be the main villain.

 

Yeah, but we'd keep expecting him to take down the Nazis with a sonic screwdriver.

I like all four of them, though I have some problems with "Temple of Doom" being too dark and violent, especially against kids. I'm glad they went for a lighter tone for "Last Crusade".

 

I never got the criticism for TOD being too dark. Raiders was a pretty dark movie too and arguably even more violent and gruesome with the headshots and face-melting.

 

Looking back from today's standards, yeah, the difference is minimal, but I think at the time, TOD seemed darker than Raiders due to the child slavery, black magic and human sacrifice - elements which audiences at the time may have found a bit more confronting in a mainstream film than they would now.

 

I absolutely, utterly disagree with every point you made lol. I love the Last Crusade.

 

Fair enough. I know I'm in the minority here re: LC. Most everyone thinks the film is great, but that doesn't change my view.

On a similar note, I find TPM superior to the other two prequels (AOTC & ROTS), which I know is another unpopular opinion....

 

I like The Last Crusade, but it isn't my favorite of the series.

 

At the time it was definitely a more darker turn in tone in TOD from what we saw in Raiders. I can remember the reviews from the time reflecting that. Also remember that back then film certification boards were much more strict than they are now.

Here is the original BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) report on TOD (its in PDF format). I like the opening paragraph on page 5 where the censor discusses Raiders and how much they were looking forward to seeing TOD, and overall it makes for very interesting reading and shows how times have changed in what we find acceptable to us now.

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/sites/default/files/attachments/Indy-Final.pdf

All in all I think this is why TLC went back to a more lighter tone.

 

Last Crusade is Indy's epic, and it's my second favorite, trailing only the pulp perfection that is Temple of Doom.

Raiders is my least favorite. A bit flat and subdued for me. Crystal Skull is fun, and might've been excellent had Indy been the focus rather than bringing back Marion and introducing Mutt and the double agent guy.

 

Thread title updated at user request..

 

Great. Well I guess I won't bother watching that one!!!!!

 

Huh, I remember the original thread title of this asked if TLC was anyone else's least favorite Indiana Jones film. Thought it was a new thread at first until I saw my name and avatar on it.

I still like TLC but it's my least favorite, unpopular and controversial as that is. While still entertaining, it's the only one of the series with a "been there, done that" feel with how much alike Raiders it is. Nazis again, a Christian relic again, the desert setting, etc. it's the only Indy with a deja vu feeling to it which in hindsight is a bit of a letdown after how well TOD showed Indy doesn't necessarily always need Nazis or Christian relics to work. Plus the amped up comedy and slapstick aren't to my liking and what it did with Brody and Sallah was just criminal to me. I found the villains the dullest of the series and the movie while entertaining for some reason don't have the same enjoyment as the rest.

Not to say it doesn't have high points for sure, though. Ford is in top form as usual, the interplay between him and Connery is for the record books, the music as usual is excellent (especially the grail theme, simply great) and the tank and grail trials are outstanding sequences in particular. It's a fine movie for sure, but forced to pick a least favorite Indy movie, it'd be at the bottom for me. It's uncommon but I do wonder if there's other who feel similarly.

 

I watched this over the weekend, I still think it was a conscious effort (after TOD) to return to a style more like Raiders.In the main this film achieves that and I think thats one factor why this is so popular. The relationship between Indy and his dad is a strong point in addition to a better MacGuffin in the Holy Grail. Throw in Salah and Marcus too and its a winner.

Despite there being 4 heroes on the quest at the end (Indy, Henry, Sallah & Marcus) this film gives the characters space, which ensures it doesn't become a jumbled mess. It doesn't throw them all together at the same time for big scenes like KOTCS did, and that for me is one of the reasons why KOTCS failed and got the Indy formula badly wrong.

This film is second to Raiders in my list of Indy films, if I'm being critical I'm not a fan of the opening scene with a young Indy and I wasn't a fan of the humour at the expense of Marcus too.

 

After marathoning all 4 Indy films yesterday, my rankings remain unchanged.
1. Raiders (this will always be #1 for me, seen it over 20 times)
2. Crusade (solidified its spot at #2 after my fourth viewing now)
3. Doom (this continues to drop, used to be #2, seen it over 10 times)
4. Kingdom (this one is rising, I liked it even more on my second viewing yesterday)

I like the story in TLC. Loved the opening with young Indy and all the circus animals. The scenes in Petra at the end are incredible. The banter between father and son is perfect. I love Elsa Schneider.
Although the creative darkness of ToD is a neat change of pace, the humor is forced in that one, imo, and I find Willie Scott annoying.

TLC has a much more enjoyable tone and atmosphere that rekindles the spirit of Raiders more so than Doom, although the final bridge sequence in Doom is amazing.

 

I think that TOD is a reflection of Lucas and Spielberg not realising what they had. It's just an action movie with a new girl, a new ally and a new setting but with the same hero. It just proved that if those respective elements in common were the prerequisite for a good action movie then they could go on with that formula.

It doesn't try to improve on Raiders except in spectacle. The Last Crusade is a conscious effort to improve in all areas. The familiar characters and new ones in last crusade are better. It has more locations than the previous two. So I can cope with the reuse of the Nazis (who else is going to be the bad guy in the 30s?) and the Christian relic. It just so happens that the relic is a well known synonym for the ultimate goal. So it has far more resonance in terms of the main characters than either of the two maguffins in the previous films.

 

There are some great set-pieces in TLC but it isn't my favourite either. I think that the Nazis are too comic-book and the whole tone is a bit too silly. That said, Connery is fantastic and has some great moments such as setting his watch in the motorcycle sidecar, "I think they're trying to kill us!" etc

Indy not wearing the iconic costume until halfway in (and with a tie!!) I think hurt the movie as well.

 

Last Crusade is IMO the perfect Indy film. To me it represents all that makes an Indiana Jones adventure great. The McGuffin, the locales, the action, the characters, the humor, even the soundtrack...all of it was fantastic to me. There's literally nothing I dislike about this film. At all. Probably ranks as one of my top 10 favorite single films (as apposed to a whole series qualifying on that list) of all time.

 

Catching up on a thread I apparently missed in 2014,

One of the things I've long said about the Indiana Jones franchise is that in some ways it's a lot more low-key and less over-the-top than a lot of more modern films, including its imitators. And the fight scenes are one of the ways it really shows. There's not much of Lara Croft's acrobatics or Ardeth Bay's swordsmanship, not much of Jackie Chan's kung fu or Jason Bourne's close-combat, and definitely no punching a guy through a building and flying away. It's all just punch, punch, punch, elbow, kick, punch, dodge, punch, shove, grab, punch, punch. Which is something I really liked about it. Even as a kid, I knew there was no way I or 99% of people could ever ninja our way through one of Jason Bourne's fights, and couldn't even imagine being in a situation like that - let alone the kind of megadisaster superhero fights we see in today's cinema. But, say, Indy's fights with the various Bigger Stronger Minions? Heck, anybody who's ever had a bully problem on the playground can relate to that. Making the fights in that simple bar brawl style made them way more real for me and kept me on edge in a way that the more over-the-top fights never did.

 

I read a review of FYEO a while ago that argued that Julian Glover in that movie was actually the perfect foil for Roger Moore's Bond. He's a bland, ordinary businessman, for whom all the international conflicts Bond plays in are just opportunities to do business - the opposite of James Bond for both his patriotism and his iconic and memorable persona (especially Moore, the kind of Bond who'd jump right off a cliff and flash a Union Jack parachute at his pursuers).

Feel like the same is true for his character in Last Crusade in contrast to Indiana Jones.

 

"Underwhelming" is what comes to mind when I think about Last Crusade, and that feeling of "having seen it all before". It's not a particularly bad movie per se, but it couldn't live up to TOD's standards, sorry. MY opinion only of course! The action, humor, sets, settings, atmosphere, characters, style, excitement, imagination, scale, sense of adventure, suspense... all of that was better in the previous movie. LC tries too hard to be another Raiders, just like TFA tried too hard to be another OT. Nazis AGAIN? An object from the Bible AGAIN??
What it lacks is that excitement and freshness of TOD. I admit I would have liked it better as a direct sequel to Raiders. Had there not been TOD my expectations would have been way lower. But I actually expected the sequel to TOP Doom. Quite obviously I was expecting too much. It's not really non-stop action or fights that I wanted, just that kind of unique atmosphere TOD has.
For me the best way to go after TOD would have been to take the plot in a completely new direction and culture, meaning new and fresh locations as well. And meaning, especially, an artifact from another different culture, not the western Christian world once again. Personally, I would have liked China as a cultural background, or maybe the Aztec/Maya world, even though we already got a glimpse of that in the beginning of Raiders. There are lots of other cultures that have a lot to offer visually as well. Easter Island civilization? Indonesia? Cambodia? Somewhere in that direction would have been more satisfactory IMO.

 

Personally, I've always liked that each Indy movie is mostly set in a different continent: Raiders is mostly an African film (except for the prologue basically), Temple of Doom is 100% set in Asia, Last Crusade mostly happens in Europe (I know many people complain about the desert setting being used again, but the desert only appears in the third act; most of the movie happens in a clearly weastern european setting, and it feels like it), and Crystall Skull is 100% America.
If a fifth movie has to be made, I'd really like it to be set in a different culture/world/continent. But without Lucas, I doubt it.

 

I basically agree. However, do people really complain that Last Crusade has another desert setting? The final act is set in a fictional country (which I frankly tend to dislike in movies set on planet Earth), which is really Jordan, technically an Asian country. My complaint isn't really that, it's more like it's culturally too close to Raiders, meaning the main object is yet another biblical one. That's why I personally found it repetitive. On the whole though, it seems that among viewers TLC is FAR more popular than TOD, and I honestly haven't heard many people criticizing it. While TOD, sadly, is the AOTC of the Indy saga, the most hated of all, generally speaking!

 

Both objects may be biblical, but they are treated very differently. The ark is something to be feared, something not meant to be handled by humans: it contains the wrath of God. The Holy Grail is a symbol of the goodness in God and in all of us, and it's more of a spiritual quest.

 

Temple of Doom and Raiders are my favorites. I enjoyed Last Crusade, but mostly due to the Connery Ford chemistry. It really comes to life when Connery enters the picture.

 

OK, I get that. Still, I would have preferred something from a totally different culture/religion.