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Topic:
Critiquing of the Crystal Skull - What Went Wrong?
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Princess_Tina
Registered:
May '01
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Date Posted:
6/18 6:49pm
Subject:
RE: Critiquing of the Crystal Skull - What Went Wrong?
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Vortigern99 posted:
I do want to point out that, although I too found Mac to be "pointless" the first time I saw the movie, it later occurred to me that he represents exactly what Indy is not: a greedy tomb-raider out for fortune and glory. Mac makes a compelling counterpoint to Indy's essential goodness and heroism, and underscores the idea that these movies are about doing the right thing even more than they are about nifty archeological hunts and supernatural artifacts.
That's also a good point.
Also, if Lucas ever decides to explore Indiana's WW2 adventures further (either in novels, comic books or other media), they can always cast a younger Mac to be his WW2 sidekick. It would be nice to see them together again, in an earlier era.
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GhostbusterGuy
Registered:
May '07
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Date Posted:
6/18 7:38pm
Subject:
RE: Critiquing of the Crystal Skull - What Went Wrong?
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Vortigern99 posted:
I find that the unrealistic aspects of the jungle chase -- the monkey king scene and the tree-driving shots in particular -- take me out of the movie and cause me to roll my eyes at the level of ludicrosity involved. But these are brief, and of a piece with similar moments of implausibility in the other sequels, so I forgive them and move on.
This is it for me. Although I wish I were able to forgive and move on. I've seen it twice, with different people, and they ALL had the same reaction. Two of em were big Indy fans like me too.
When you're asked to suspend disbelief so the character can survive, that's one thing. (Which is why I barely let the fridge scene pass) However when you're asked to believe a character can do unbelievable things for no reason, it's hard to digest. I mean honestly, why did Mutt have to swing on the vines and have monkey friends?? It's nothing more than a (imo) stupid tarzan reference. One possible alternative: Mutt could've found a commie who crashed a motorcylce in the jungle and used that to catch back up with Spalko. At least there you're putting to use previously established skills, instead of granting new ones conveniently on the spot.
And yes, the other movies had unrealistic stuff, but this time its a whole lot more pronounced and it builds up. (Caps show what I consider unrealistic stuff)
Example 1:
Indy survives a NUCLEAR BOMB blast!
Indy survives a NUCLEAR BOMB blast in a FRIDGE that is LAUNCHED MILES from the blast zone!
Indy immediately WALKS OUT OF THE FRIDGE after being LAUNCHED and ROLLED!
Example 2:
Mutt swordfights Spalko on top of SPEEDING jeeps!
Mutt swordfights BETWEEN SPEEDING jeeps, keeping a PERFECT balance and DEFENSE!
Mutt swordfights BETWEEN SPEEDING jeeps, keeping a PERFECT balance and DEFENSE, while being HIT IN THE GROIN!
Example 3:
Mutt watches CGI monkeys swing in a CGI jungle and SUDDENLY LEARNS HOW TO SWING through a CGI jungle!
Mutt SWINGS THROUGH A CGI JUNGLE with CGI monkeys who become his FRIEND, and CATCHES a SPEEDING car!
Mutt SWINGS INTO THE CAR, along with his CGI monkey FRIENDS who ATTACK the commies!
(CGI is caps not just b/c of acronym- it was bad, unrealistic fx)
Example 4:
Marion drives a car over the edge of a cliff and ONTO THE BRANCHES OF A CGI TREE!
The CGI tree GENTLY LOWERS the car INTO THE WATER allowing Marion to DRIVE OFF THE TREE exactly as MARION HAS PLANNED ALL ALONG!
The CGI tree branches LAUNCH BACKWARDS and INTO THE COMMIES!
Princess_Tina posted:
I didn't think they were any cornier than the Nazi-sympathizing monkey in Raiders, personally.
Okay but that was one real monkey who did two things
1) salute nazis
2) yell and scream on top of marion's basket
how hard is it to believe that's possible, especially when you see it actually happen in the movie? in kotcs you had several fake, cgi monkeys instantly befriend mutt, follow/show the way to Spalko, and then attack without any provocation or order from mutt. There is a world of difference between the two cases.
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Princess_Tina
Registered:
May '01
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Date Posted:
6/18 7:53pm
Subject:
RE: Critiquing of the Crystal Skull - What Went Wrong?
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GhostbusterGuy posted:
When you're asked to suspend disbelief so the character can survive, that's one thing. (Which is why I barely let the fridge scene pass) However when you're asked to believe a character can do unbelievable things for no reason, it's hard to digest.
First of all, I don't know that anyone actually comes out before the movie begins and literally asks you to suspend disbelief. To me it's more of a tacit agreement between filmmakers and moviegoers.
Some of the criticisms that have been made about Indy 4 apply even more appropriately to many other summer movies that we've seen in recent years, and in those movies, it really was enough to totally ruin the movie. I don't believe the case applies to Indy 4, nor do I know anyone IRL who felt that way. Most people I know enjoyed the movie just fine, and for that matter so did many highly respected film reviewers who aren't usually very generous with a lot of the mainstream commercial movies being made in America today.
Monkeys? Love them. Waterfalls? Hey, this may be one of the very few times in my life when I've actually watched something in a summer movie and actually kinda wish they would build a theme park attraction based on what we were watching.
There are a lot of things in all of the Indy movies that are kind of like that, too. And the fact remains, for the most part it doesn't seem all that much more far-fetched than the stuff in the old serials of the 30's and some of the sci-fi movies of the '50 - the only difference being one of technological advances and a bigger budget.
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Jango10
Registered:
Sep '02
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Date Posted:
6/18 8:46pm
Subject:
RE: Critiquing of the Crystal Skull - What Went Wrong?
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Tina, you do realize this is the "What Went Wrong?" thread, don't you?
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Princess_Tina
Registered:
May '01
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Date Posted:
6/18 9:13pm
Subject:
RE: Critiquing of the Crystal Skull - What Went Wrong?
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Jaina_and_Jag
Registered:
Apr '03
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Date Posted:
6/18 10:31pm
Subject:
RE: Critiquing of the Crystal Skull - What Went Wrong?
- Date Edited:
6/18 10:33pm (2 edits total)
Edited By:
Jaina_and_Jag
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I agree that the monkey bit was just a little too much for me. When Mutt started swinging my mouth gaped in shock. It just looked completely absurd. They could have found a better way to get Mutt back into the action and get rids of the Commies in the car. The monkey bit was just completely unrealistic to me.
And I didn't much care for the "interdimensional beings" either. The McGuffin was fine, but when we saw them it just wasn't as cool as it could've been. What my imagination would've conjured would've contented me, I didn't need to actually see them.
And Tina, I had no forewarnings whatsoever about this film. I read no spoilers and even steered clear of articles that talked about it. The only information I had going in to watch the film was the title, the actors, the director, and the date it came out. So I would say no, I wasn't expecting to see an alien. I would say that I was expecting to see another Indiana Jones film 19 years after the last one. I had no idea what to expect, but the alien bit didn't meet my non-existent expectations.
(And for the record I loved the movie.)
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Princess_Tina
Registered:
May '01
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Date Posted:
6/18 10:42pm
Subject:
RE: Critiquing of the Crystal Skull - What Went Wrong?
- Date Edited:
6/18 10:43pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Princess_Tina
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Jaina_and_Jag posted:
And Tina, I had no forewarnings whatsoever about this film. I read no spoilers and even steered clear of articles that talked about it. The only information I had going in to watch the film was the title, the actors, the director, and the date it came out. So I would say no, I wasn't expecting to see an alien. I would say that I was expecting to see another Indiana Jones film 19 years after the last one. I had no idea what to expect, but the alien bit didn't meet my non-existent expectations.
(And for the record I loved the movie.)
Well I think we all have some expectations coming into a movie, especially one many of us have been waiting for 19 years. For me the greatest thing about the Indy movies right from the beginning is that they obviously showed such a deep appreciation and fond memories of the old-school movies and serials, because I love those, too. It's not just the movies & serials themselves - it's the application of a new medium to certain fantasy/adventure kinds of storytelling that before the movies could only be explored in the comics and the radio.
With that in mind, and the fact that the movie was obviously going to deal with crystal skulls, I don't think I doubted for a minute that it would have something to do with beings not of this world, or some such thing. The only thing left for me to ponder about was how it would be handled in the movie.
The Tarzan homage is fundamentally that -- simply paying homage to yet another one of those old movie series that many kids growing up in the late 30's/early 40's might have been fans of. Of course it would have been even better if they'd found a way to stick it to the old movies, which were the ones set in the 30's, but the character has remained popular thoughout the years so it's never totally out of place, in my opinion.
I guess all I'm trying to say is, it's kind of ironic to me to see that some people see as a flaw the mere fact that Lucas and Spielberg pay homage to the kinds of movies that inspired them to become filmmakers themselves, to make movies like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, should somehow be seen as a hinderance to enjoying these homages. In other words, they make these sort of movies mostly to pay tribute to the product of the Golden Age of Hollywood, and to think that there would be a point to the movies if it weren't paying tribute to those cinema classics seems a total paradox.
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HanSolo29
Title: Manager:
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Registered:
Apr '01
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Date Posted:
6/18 11:58pm
Subject:
RE: Critiquing of the Crystal Skull - What Went Wrong?
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I don't think anyone has a problem with Lucas and Spielberg paying homage to Tarzan, the old school B-movies, the 50's or whatever else you want to place in that blank. It was the way it was executed. Take the monkey scene with Mutt, for example. It would've been fine just to have a random Tarzan moment in there with Mutt swinging one or two vines through the trees(Indy did something similar at the beginning of Raiders). But as soon as the horde of monkeys started following him and he just kept on going in this dramatic way, I wanted to crawl under the seat. It looked bad. Again, it has absolutely nothing to do with the idea itself, it was the way they went around it.
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Vortigern99
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered:
Nov '00
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Date Posted:
6/19 12:11am
Subject:
RE: Critiquing of the Crystal Skull - What Went Wrong?
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A Tarzan homage might be fine, except that it's totally unrealistic and out of place the way it's done in this movie. People aren't born with the skill to swing from vines; it takes practice and the development of certain muscle groups if one wishes to avoid injury. Tarzan himself, even in the somewhat-less-than-100%-plausible films of the 30s - 50s, could only do so because he spent a lifetime learning how from his primate friends and family. Thus, to have Mutt, who as far as we know has never engaged in this particular activity, swinging from vine to vine with the greatest of ease, as though he had been born to it, is preposterous.
Also:
GhosBusterGuy posted:
Okay but [the Raiders monkey] was one real monkey who did two things
1) salute nazis
2) yell and scream on top of marion's basket
how hard is it to believe that's possible, especially when you see it actually happen [not in CGI] in the movie? in kotcs you had several fake, cgi monkeys instantly befriend mutt, follow/show the way to Spalko, and then attack without any provocation or order from mutt. There is a world of difference between the two cases.
Other than that scene and the tree-driving, the film is aces with me.
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yodas_waiter
Registered:
Oct '06
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Date Posted:
6/19 2:27am
Subject:
RE: Critiquing of the Crystal Skull - What Went Wrong?
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Overall, I greatly enjoyed the movie. I could forgive many of the more fantastic because they were so darn entertaining, such as the fridge scene, the vine swinging scene, the waterfalls etc.
However, there were a few things that took me right out of the movie. One was the poor marksmanship of the Soviet, which was particularly blatant in the Area 51 scene. I know, "character shield" yadda yadda but that kind of stuff always makes me roll my eyes and detracts from the excitement of the scene.
Whilst I have no problem with the alien aspect, I would've preferred it if the skulls weren't so outlandish and instead more human-like (resembling closer the Nazca mumies we see), making that whole aspect more ambigious. I think showing a live (frowning) alien and a flying saucer took away a lot of the mystery. It makes it hard to buy the whole "inter-dimensional being" explanation.
That's really it. Otherwise, everything was pretty much top. 
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Princess_Tina
Registered:
May '01
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Date Posted:
6/19 5:52am
Subject:
RE: Critiquing of the Crystal Skull - What Went Wrong?
- Date Edited:
6/19 5:56am (2 edits total)
Edited By:
Princess_Tina
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HanSolo29 posted:
I don't think anyone has a problem with Lucas and Spielberg paying homage to Tarzan, the old school B-movies, the 50's or whatever else you want to place in that blank. It was the way it was executed.
Vortigern99 posted:
A Tarzan homage might be fine, except that it's totally unrealistic and out of place the way it's done in this movie.
I think the execution is totally fitting with the tone set in the series. There have been a lot of really cutesy moments in every single movie, starting with the girl in Indy's classroom with "I Love You" in her eyelids, Short Round driving Indy around in TOD, Indy accidentally getting Hitler's autograph, etc. In the context of what the series has shown before, I don't think there's anything unusual or out of place regarding the Tarzan sequence - and in fact, I loved that they went all out to make it as memorable as possible. It's a matter of taste, I suppose, but I think they totally aced it and made it the most lovable and adorable Tarzan homage that could be imagined. I love it! 
yodas_waiter posted:
Overall, I greatly enjoyed the movie. I could forgive many of the more fantastic because they were so darn entertaining, such as the fridge scene, the vine swinging scene, the waterfalls etc.
However, there were a few things that took me right out of the movie. One was the poor marksmanship of the Soviet, which was particularly blatant in the Area 51 scene. I know, "character shield" yadda yadda but that kind of stuff always makes me roll my eyes and detracts from the excitement of the scene.
Wasn't their marksmanship just about as good as the Nazis' in the earlier movies? 
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yodas_waiter
Registered:
Oct '06
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Date Posted:
6/19 6:10am
Subject:
RE: Critiquing of the Crystal Skull - What Went Wrong?
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Princess_Tina posted:
Wasn't their marksmanship just about as good as the Nazis' in the earlier movies?
Never claimed otherwise. Nazi marksmanship and stormtrooper marksmanship are also pet peeves of mine. However, I think KotCS had the worst example of this with the Soviets failing to hit Indy from six feet as he slowly climbs up some crates in Area 51
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Princess_Tina
Registered:
May '01
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Date Posted:
6/19 6:25am
Subject:
RE: Critiquing of the Crystal Skull - What Went Wrong?
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yodas_waiter posted:
Princess_Tina posted:
Wasn't their marksmanship just about as good as the Nazis' in the earlier movies?
Never claimed otherwise. Nazi marksmanship and stormtrooper marksmanship are also pet peeves of mine. However, I think KotCS had the worst example of this with the Soviets failing to hit Indy from six feet as he slowly climbs up some crates in Area 51
Well, the old "bad guys with bad marksmanship except when the script calls for it" thing is probably almost as old as the movies. I'm not sure if it was any worse with these Soviet guys than it was with the Nazis because I stopped thinking about it a long time ago. Of course there's also the plot element that the Soviets really didn't want Indy hurt or killed, because they were hoping he'd be the one who could help them figure out where Akator was, which they weren't able to do on their own. That's even the reason they "allowed" Marion to mail the letter to Mutt, wasn't it?
But on another level, to have a particularly striking example of the "bad marksmanship" routine (or maybe it qualifies as a cliché?) might just be a way to comment on the nature of the adventure movie in itself. In a somewhat subtle way, of course. 
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yodas_waiter
Registered:
Oct '06
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Date Posted:
6/19 6:37am
Subject:
RE: Critiquing of the Crystal Skull - What Went Wrong?
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Princess_Tina posted:
Well, the old "bad guys with bad marksmanship except when the script calls for it" thing is probably almost as old as the movies. I'm not sure if it was any worse with these Soviet guys than it was with the Nazis because I stopped thinking about it a long time ago.
Oh, definitely. But then again, there are some movies that handle this better than others.
Princess_Tina posted:
Of course there's also the plot element that the Soviets really didn't want Indy hurt or killed, because they were hoping he'd be the one who could help them figure out where Akator was, which they weren't able to do on their own. That's even the reason they "allowed" Marion to mail the letter to Mutt, wasn't it?
Yeah but that wasn't until after the Area 51 incideny. Spalko even comments on how lucky it was for the Soviets that they failed to kill Indy.
Princess_Tina posted:
But on another level, to have a particularly striking example of the "bad marksmanship" routine (or maybe it qualifies as a cliché?) might just be a way to comment on the nature of the adventure movie in itself. In a somewhat subtle way, of course.
Nah, that's stretching it a bit, IMO. An Indiana Jones movie doesn't need that kind of comment. I think that particular scene was just poorly executed. Hey, it happens even to the best.
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Princess_Tina
Registered:
May '01
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Date Posted:
6/19 6:40am
Subject:
RE: Critiquing of the Crystal Skull - What Went Wrong?
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yodas_waiter posted:
Nah, that's stretching it a bit, IMO. An Indiana Jones movie doesn't need that kind of comment. I think that particular scene was just poorly executed. Hey, it happens even to the best.
I don't think it was poorly executed at all, just personally it doesn't seem like a big deal in an Indiana Jones movie. I mean, to me at least it really didn't seem all that different from stuff in other Indy movies. I mean, the Nazis at one point have both Indy and his dad prisoners in a room, they're aiming machine guns at them from less than 4-5 feet, and the Jones boys get away? Equally fantastic stuff, I think.
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