Rank the Indiana Jones Films Part 2 (Now Including Dial)

Raiders
Last Crusade
Crystal Skull
Temple of Doom
and finally Dial.

 

Spoiler

I don't think it is anything to do with Lucas or Spielberg, and everything to do with LaBeouf. After he panned the last movie, odds of him coming back were minuscule at best.

How so?

 

That comment was made before I learned about all the behind the scenes drama of KOTCS. Now I think it could still have been KK trying to avoid a risk (she did that liberally with TFA), but if also could have been Spielberg being upset at him. I’m not sure and I don’t profess to be an Indy superfan so I will probably never find out.

Regardless, it still doesn’t sit well with me from a story perspective.

 

I don't like it so it must be Kennedy's fault!

 

Last Crusade 10/10
Temple of Doom 9.5/10
Raiders of the Lost Ark 9/10
Dial of Destiny 7.5/10
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull 5/10

 

I legitimately said it could be another reason and then followed it up by saying it doesn’t matter whose fault it was, I just didn’t like it.

 

I’m not sure what role mutt could have in 5. From a story perspective killing him makes him more relevant to the plot and the whole series than he otherwise would be

 

Raiders, Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade in that order, no need to even mention the other 2 lol

 

Rewatched them all recently and I think the order of the original 3 has changed slightly:

Raiders
Temple
Crusade
Dial
Skull

For me Skull is far and away the worst of the 5 and Raiders is far and away one of the best films of all time IMO. Theres not much between Temple and Crusade. Crusade suffers from a lack of threat and being a bit safe (Raiders-lite almost). I've seen Dial twice and really enjoyed it, I think its a worthy addition. Theres no doubt in my mind that the original trilogy are 3 of the best action/adventure moves put to film though. A standard that some films can only dream of attaining.

Its funny how we view things differently. Personally I like it when they have different sidekicks in there. I felt that the Marion and Mutt were terrible in KOTCS, so badly written and one of the worst aspects of the film. Also keep the sidekicks to a minimum, too many loses focus. If you keep taking the same ones it becomes a bit contrived to squeeze them in I think, sure they could have found a way to, but I was happy with the road they took with Dial. I also felt that Indy was more of a side character in KOTCS than he was in Dial, again less sidekicks for me means more focus on less characters on screen.

The dial was rigged to always go back to the same time so they could get help, I'm sure someone says it in the film.

As already mentioned there was no chance of Shia returning after his comments in the press about KOTCS & Spielberg, it even prompted a response from Harrison. KOTCS isn't a great film and he probably isn't wrong, but he shot himself in the foot. Heres an article on it, hopefully you can see it in your country:

Shia LaBeouf: 'I don’t like the movies that I made with Spielberg' | Shia LaBeouf | The Guardian

You also could throw the same argument at each subsequent film, was Temple trying to replace Marion with Willie and so on and so on. I don't think they need to retain the same sidekicks in each film. But thats just me. Personally I'm not a fan of the cliche of adding a young son to the mix in adventure sequels, they rarely work. The Marion / son relationship is played for laughs in KOTCS, theres no pay off, I felt no affinity to Mutt at all and hes poorly written. That film would work better without him for that matter. They have no relationship, nothing was built up between Mutt and Indy, they paid it lip service, joked about it and expected us to take it all in without good writing. Theres nothing to draw me in to the film to feel something for them as a father son duo. If they were going for a Last Crusade Connery / Ford dynamic they failed miserably. That last act of KOTCS sees 5 people thrown together on the quest and they built no good will from the audience to them all, compare how the side kicks are introduced in the original 3, the foundations and relationships are laid within the story early doors. Personally I think they went with a minimal approach in Dial on the sidekicks to mirror Raiders or Temple and the film was all the better for it I think, I enjoyed Helena much more and I felt she was a capable sidekick.

 

Finally saw Dial of Destiny and to my surprise its way better than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, id rank it Raiders of the lost Ark, Temple of Doom, The Last Crusade, Dial of Destiny ,Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Mangold did a good job and Ford was wonderful if this is indeed his swan song as Indy.

 

As another fan who's only just seen Dial of Destiny on digital, I think I'm gonna settle on...

1) The Last Crusade
2) Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
3) Temple of Doom
4) Dial of Destiny
5) Raiders of the Lost Ark

Dial creeps in above Raiders simply because it's able to trade on nostalgia to make a few moments hit harder. Otherwise there's not much between 'em, to the point where they'd probably share last place if I could ignore my inner fanboy.

 

Its a beautiful movie. A bit safe and TFA-like. The kid character is a clunker, they should have worked on his character more. But overall I loved how it closed out the story. It's very much a farce, but it's better than ending on the flippant quirkiness of KOTCS.

Raiders
Temple of Doom
Dial of Destiny
Crystal Skull
Last Crusade

Though, I have love for them all.

 

1) Raiders of the Lost Ark
2) Temple of Doom
3) Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
4) The Last Crusade
5) Dial of Destiny

Note this is a ranking of my personal enjoyment and not an attempt of some objective critical Time Magazine/BFI-type list.

I think all the Indiana Jones movies are good though. At least good enough. I think Indy is the rare series where I like all the entries. That said, I get the feeling Dial might be the one I rewatch the least going forward.

 

Been letting the series simmer in my head for a bit the past week or two, and I feel like the real Indiana Jones will always be just the original trilogy. The other two movies work in themselves, but they ultimately feel like something separate, and unnecessary.

 

Totally agree it will always be a trilogy for me but i have to admit ill get Dial of Destiny dvd when it comes out , Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is banished forever lol

 

I get that view given how long it was between films until KOTCS came out. Had we got an Indy film in the early 90s then we probably wouldn't look at it like that. But it may sound strange to say that I feel a similar way about TLC. It felt like an eternity, the wait from Temple to 1989 and I still look at TLC as being a bit separate from the first 2. I don't go along with seeing the later ones as unnecessary, even though I'm not a fan of Skull I welcome any new Indy content and DOD is a very worthy addition and is a throwback to a type of film we don't get too often.

 

I kind of feel this. "Real" is too strong a word for me, but I think I rank KOTCS and DOD as being on the same level as the Young Indiana Jones series. There's a lot of good stuff there, there's also a lot of bad stuff there, but in either case it's different enough from original trilogy Indy that it feels like extra credit material rather than being fully on the same level as Raiders, Temple, and Crusade.

The genre probably helps too. The fact that the two postwar movies shift from the more explicitly magical/religious archaeology adventure of the Indy trilogy, to the weird science of the Space Age feels similar to Young Indy's shift towards pure historical fiction/docu-drama. None of these are genres that I don't like, none of them feel incompatible with Indy, but they're still doing something very different from what the first three movies did.

 

DOD is a solid movie
Maybe not as good as I'd hoped, but not as bad as its press. The original 3 will always be magical.

 

I've seen DOD twice now, and it was even better the 2nd time, since I was able to better absorb all that was going on.

1. Last Crusade (one of my favorite movies of all time!)
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark (a classic of course)
3. Dial of Destiny (For me it hit all the best things about an Indiana Jones film, while introducing some risky but effective new concepts-like time travel)
4. Temple of Doom (Too "silly" for me to be ranked higher, but still entertaining at times)
5. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (not last because of the alien thing-I don't see aliens as any harder to believe than time travel-but there were too many goofy scenes for my taste. [see: swinging with monkeys and nuke the fridge] Other than that IMO it's not altogether a BAD film...just not as good as the others)

 

I feel for a sequel that came 15 years later and with an 80-year old Harrison Ford it was as good as could've been.

 

Raiders
Temple of Doom
Last Crusade
Dial of Destiny
Crystal Skull

 

I look forward to rewatching DOD soon and seeing how it's held up since the theater. I'm sure I'll still enjoy it.

Still pretty mind-blowing to think Harrison reprised Indy again at 80.

 

Reconsiddering at the end of the year, my ranking goes:

1. Raiders, perfect movie
2. Doom, dumb but irresistible, campy fun
3. Crystal Skull, far-fetched but wild, and some of Spielberg's best action
4. Last Crusade, a feel-good father-son movie with great action, but not very intense and not many new ideas
5. Dial of Destiny, its biggest crime is not being directed by Spielberg. Honestly If somebody told you it was going to be the sequel trilogy of the Indiana Jones franchise, the movie you would imagine in your head is so close to the actual movie they made, that even though it might not be as disjointed as the sequel trilogy, it's still a strong young English woman convincing Harrison Ford to go on his last mission, and replicating the celebration scene it's supposed to be replacing. I did like the idea of the movie, with the dial and all, and I do think Harrison Ford and Phoebe Waller-Bridge worked well together, but it was just another nu-nostalgia movie. It's 2023. It is what it is