Is Indy 4 that bad?

Like father, like son?

I don't know if I'd call it unoriginal per se. Analyzing it on a micro-level, it's still a very imaginative movie with plenty of inventive setpieces the likes of which we hadn't seen in any previous movie. The train-top pursuit in the Young Indy segment, the boat chase in Venice, the Austro-German castle adventure, the motorcycle chase, the plane fight, the tank battle, the three trials, etc. This is all good, new stuff.

Furthermore, the Holy Grail is a great choice of artifact, and given that focus it makes sense that at least part of the movie would take place in a Middle Eastern desert, just like Raiders. I also have to admit I can't imagine a more appropriate adversary in such a holy quest than the epitome of all evil in the popular consciousness, the Nazis. It's fun to finally have Brody along on the adventure, and it's good to see Sallah again. So I can't find really find fault with any of this stuff on an individual basis.

I think it's more the overall sentiment involved in the approach Spielberg took that bothers me, as if Last Crusade was a well-deserved apology for all that Temple of Doom did "wrong." If Last Crusade was just one Raiders-esque installment in a bunch of diverse Indy movies that were more adventurous in their approach, I don't think I'd have any reservations. But as it turns out, Raiders and Last Crusade make up half the Indy corpus, and there's this widespread perception that they're the only films in the series that are representative of what Indiana Jones should rightfully be about (Judeo-Christian artifacts, Nazis, a relatively conservative approach in its pulp referencing). So it's more what the film has come to represent metatextually than the film itself that I take issue with. I love Last Crusade itself unabashedly.

 

It's probably the second best after Raiders for various reasons (mostly the relationship with the father is more affecting than either Willie or Mutt) but as above it has a story kinship with Raiders (the Ark of the Covenant and Holy Grail) that makes it seem more "Indy" like.

The first 3 movies were very much in the golden age of the serials tradition while Crystal Skull was more 50's b-movies and the waning days of the serials.

 

I agree with you overall. I think the idea of Crusade being a copy of Raiders is based on very superficial similarities:
-Yes, Sallah and Broody are back, but Broody has a very different kind of role.
-Yes, part of it happens in the desert again, BUT, most of Crusade takes place in Europe, which creates a very different atmosphere (more "civilized") from Raiders, which is mostly African.
-Yes, the McGuffin is again religious, but it has a very different significance. The Ark represented the wrath of God, the unkown powers that have to be feared. The Grail represent the goodness of God, redemption, "illumination"; it's a much "kínder" McGuffin. (and it's beautifully tied to the father-son storyline).
-Yes, the structure is once again episodic. Temple of Doom is the exception here.
-And overall, Crusade is funnier, more optimistic, more emotional than Raiders (in which we have a darker Indy, a more violent tone, less humor and no emotional storyline other than the romance between Indy and Marion).

The problem is not so much that Last Crusade is not original, the "problem" is that Temple of Doom ir RADICALLY different from the Raiders formula.
And by comparison, it SEEMS that Last Crusade is an apology from Spielberg/Lucas.

(And it gets more complicated by the fact that Spielberg has openly dismissed Temple and favoured Crusade; Crusade is closer to Spielberg's more conservative approach of Indy, while Temple seems to be closer to Lucas' radical storytelling sensibilites, which means that Lucas haters tend to hate Temple, while Lucas fans tend to hate Crusade.
That being said, I'd love to hear Lucas talk about Temple nowadays, because I'm not sure how he really feels about that movie).

 

I could be wrong, but I don't recall ever hearing him (or Ford, for that matter) speaking ill of it.

 

I know Ford suffered a back injury from riding on the elephants.

 

I thought Indy 4 was silly summer fun

 

I find it really strange that Spielberg has this regretful attitude towards Temple of Doom given the fact that he met his beloved wife on the set and she is also the female lead in the movie.

 

Whenever I think about this film, I find myself thinking that Shia's 'controversial' comments regarding Mutt of the Jungle were not all that off-base. But then I think about the ridiculous Hollywood logic of the first three films.

I think the more noticeable CGI and the preposterous refrigerator scene leaves a bad taste in the audience's mouth, but I had fun watching the movie. I'll go back and rewatch it in the same way as the Star Wars prequels, which aren't as classic, but are essential.

 

The worst thing about Indy 4 wasn't the fridge scene or the Alien thing. It was Shia and his crappy acting and overall appearance in the film. It was just unfortunite casting due to everyone at the time thinking he was a hot new actor. Now he's just lame. He also comes of as a jerk and rather unlikable in real life. Honestly for me crystal skull is right up there with Temple of doom as my second favorite! Yeah call me crazy but i never really liked the ones with the Nazi's. I thought temple of doom was alot of fun and it was my introduction to the series as a kid. Gotta love short round! Oh and who doesn't love the mine cart chase, the spike trap and all that awesome stuff towards the end?

Crystal skull was okay i thought. The alien plot wasn't nearly as far fetched as ripping a guys still beating heart out of his chest bare handed and the guy is still standing there breathing and able to scream as he's lowered into a fire pit. Now tell me that made a lick of sense crystal skull haters.
Oh but climbing in a fridge during a nuclear blast, that's too much!

 

I'm with you on all of this. Crystal Skull has grown on me a lot, even though it's still my least favorite of the four. I made my peace with the whole genre shift from divine artifacts to aliens, telepathy, and Cold War pseudoscience. But the one thing I still can't get over is Shia. I could probably overlook it if he were a one-off character like Willie Scott, but as it is, I'm like "really? This is Indiana Jones' son and presumably his heir. Is that really the best they could do?"

Incidentally, the last time I watched the movie, the friend I was watching it with pointed out that the movie did provide a potentially awesome heir to Indy, namely... the kid they bump into in the library. This is a guy who just watched his professor and a greaser hooligan pop out from underneath his study table on the back of a motorcycle in the middle of a library... and he's so unfazed by it that his only reaction is "oh, Doctor Jones? I'd been meaning to ask you a question about the readings." That's freaking awesome! I want to see that guy spend the next hour and a half getting Soviet troops, hostile natives, telepathic skulls, and "interdimensional beings" thrown at him!

"Uh... Doctor Jones, what's this?"
"It's a Soviet, kid! It wants to kill you!"
"But what should I do?"
"Well if you feel at all qualified, you might try punching it in the face!"
"Oh yes, I see." ::WHAM:: "Like this?"
"Harder. He's getting up again."
"Sorry." ::WHAM:: "Ah, I think I've got the hang of this."
"That's the spirit, kid!"

 

I like the direction of your thinking here, but two things come to mind:

• They don't need to hand off the franchise to anyone else. It's OK that Shia's not a better Jones than Harrison Ford.
• As much as the Nazi-punching in the original films is pure fun, I don't think the correct move is to merely move on to the next nameless group of baddies (e.g. commies, terrorists, etc.). Since there will probably only be one more film, I'd rather see the action be more humanizing. Kind of like how Unforgiven reflected on the previous violence of lots of Westerns, maybe we can see the motivations of the Germans/Russians/etc. in more depth. Between the Cold War and Watergate there was a lot of espionage and paranoia. It doesn't have to be as morally black-and-white as the bad guys getting lined up and shot down like bowling pins.

 

For some reason Spielberg seemed to think Shia was going to become a big star.

 

He was already was one. And then he joined the cast of Indy 4.

 

It's less about handing off the franchise and more about making sure the guy has a worthy son/heir on general principle. When they introduced Indy's dad, we all knew it wasn't going to become the Adventures of Professor Henry Jones, Senior, and that even if he did return in later movies, it would still be Indy's story. But it still mattered that the character be able to measure up to Indy - as Spielberg said in an interview, they chose Sean Connery because he was the only person they could think of that they actually found credible as Harrison Ford's match. That was important to them. Mutt Williams required an actor that was also in that class, and Shia just wasn't it. (Though admittedly, I haven't thought about who else would have been).

I'd find it a lot less interesting there than it might be in Westerns, simply because humanizing Germans/Russians/etc has already been done quite a lot. Heck, the plot of half the action movies/series in the Cold War is "Westerners and Communists team up against Greater Evil," and the World War Two genre has been giving us a steady supply of "German soldiers who're actually worthy opponents and also not really Nazis, or at least very uncomfortable with them" for over half a century at this point. (To the point that movies like Indiana Jones, which refuse to make those kinds of distinctions grading different levels of "a Nazi"/"not really a Nazi"/"kind of a Nazi but not THAT kind of Nazi" actually feel refreshing to me by comparison).

 

But aren't they being humans, even when they commit evil deeds?

"Kingdom of the Crystall Skulls" is not my least favorite Indiana Jones movie. I think "The Last Crusade" is.

 

I'm still way less interested if they rehash old material. I don't want a retro film.

This isn't Star Wars (wherein the theme is much more about passing on the torch to the next generation). Instead it's a dysfunctional family story where the main characters resist heroism and act in their own interest. They are more like antiheroes. And while Henry Sr. at least had influence and created opportunities for his son when he was younger, Indy didn't even know Mutt existed until he was grown up. His son should be nothing other than the greaser archetype played by Shia.

 

I liked that Mutt was nothing like Indy. No one can live up to Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. There's no point in trying.

I know there's a lot of anti-Shia sentiment but I grew up watching him in Even Stevens and I always liked him. He had a genuine goofy charisma about him, that's why he was once a big rising star. I think it was the expectations that killed him. Everyone wanted Indiana Jones's son to be a mini Indiana Jones who could carry on the series without missing a beat, but instead we got this snotty greaser who's obsessed with his hair. Obviously that was a very deliberate choice by Lucas and Spielberg, and Shia played that role to perfection, but it's just not what a lot of people wanted to see.

 

I wasn't mega keen on Shia, but I do think that the best scene in KOTCS is the one where they walk through the marketplace in Peru and have that chat.

 

Somewhat off-topic, but I always thought River Phoenix was very convincing as a young Indy. He had the Ford mannerisms down to a T.

 

Definitely the best Indy not played by HF.

 

Shia is underrated af. I really enjoyed him in his roles around his blow up after Transformers 2007.

Kingdom was a lot of fun imo and theres a lot a great adventure and action.

 

I think indy 4 is the worst of the 4. However, that isn't really saying its terrible. Before crystal skulls, i thought temple of doom was the "worst" of the trilogy, yet its a fantastic film. I thought indy 4 was enjoyable and adventurous. The only part that made me physically react in a negative way, was mutt swinging with monkeys. Indy 4 also featured the worst on-screen death in the entire series, so thats a plus too.

 

River was amazing. He would have been a great Indy.

 

Exactly this. Plus I'm not a fan of the nuke the fridge scene.

But I liked Mutt a lot and the majority of the film.

 

yeah the nuke fridge only seemed to exist so they could create an "iconic" image of indy standing in front of a mushroom cloud. I also didn't dig it too much.