Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (June 30th, 2023)

[batfan08]

Kids can't afford to go to movies on their own.

You know how kids get access to mainstream entertainment? Their parents usually. This is a problem for Major League Baseball. It used to be that families would go to baseball games ( and they still do somewhat for minor league teams where it's cheaper and more fan friendly and more kid friendly) A little kid grew up being around baseball and loving baseball, and that kid grew up to be an adult and bought tickets, merchandise, followed the sport, maybe played it in high school, etc, etc.

You want to get fans when they are young. Look at how powerful the pull is/was for those of us who saw Terminator in the theaters or The Matrix or some of the older people here, something like the first Star Wars.

If you upset the parent for whatever reason, they have more and more incentive to not show things to their kids or allow their kids near it.

Disney, ideally, is designed to be family friendly. Kid friendly. There are things around Disney that are clearly raising questions how family friendly and kid friendly it is now in current times. People can agree or disagree on those issues, but if you alienate up to half your possible audience base, that's not good business.

She Hulk twerking might drive off parents from ALL MCU properties period. They won't want their kids involved, they don't want the risk and that's OK. It's their children. I'm not going to tell someone what is good or bad for their child.

Losing a fan is a problem. Losing an entire family of potential fans is a much bigger animal. Losing fans across possible generations is a huge catastrophe waiting to happen.

If you like a specific IP or property and it manages to alienate half it's audience, whether you agree or not, there's a good chance that show or movie franchise will die off.

Money rules over everything. Let's see who prevails. Are there enough viewers and fans on your side of things to practically financially support the way you'd like to see shows and movies be made?

You are trying to wash away many legitimate criticisms by citing the most extreme viewpoints so you can package them together to be dismissed. You don't like the "haters"? Well maybe they don't like people who "hate the haters" back. You don't own the entire market share on being offended.

I’m citing the extreme viewpoints because they are exactly that and because, despite the narrative that we’re somehow “losing our values,” this is nothing new. The only difference is that social media has given a particularly vocal sect of the public a larger megaphone to amplify and thusly, normalize their own agenda.

In the early 2000’s, it was Jack Thompson waging a holy crusade on Grand Theft Auto, Eminem, and Marilyn Manson as subversive forces turning the youth of America into crazed Mass Killers. We had NWA and Public Enemy in the early ‘90s. Before that, it was Ozzy Osborne and Dungeons & Dragons and the Satanic Panic in the early ‘80s. Before that, Black Panthers and Hippies and The Beatles. Before that, oh, would you look at that? Comic books are corrupting the nation’s youth and turning them into juvenile delinquents. Movies and TV are spreading pro-communist sentiments and those subversive elements must be driven out and replaced by God-fearing, red blooded Americans, according to Joe McCarthy.

Somehow, now, the narrative is that if your little boy sees a Pixar movie where a kid has two moms, he’s going to grow up to be Nathan Lane-in-The-Birdcage gay and who knows what’s next? Because nuance isn’t a thing that exists and, by golly, “it’s a slippery slope!” The fact is that, when Deadpool came out, there were parents freaking out because they didn’t do their due diligence and they brought their 9-year old to see it. And, however much I may disagree, I’m not going to tell people how to raise their kids. That’s every parents job and every parents’ prerogative, but to suggest that all content must conform to a particularly myopic structure of values or suffer the economic consequences is utterly ridiculous.

But you’re right. Money does rule over everything and that’s what I don’t think the certain contingent of fans who say “we’re gonna boycott Disney over Gina Carano” don’t understand. It’s a different world and a lot of people who didn’t have a voice now do. There are Pride parades, and Neil Patrick Harris and his husband can adopt a child…

Then, they can take that child to Disney World, spend $30 a piece on matching, rainbow Pride themed Star Wars T-shirts and show them off to their 1.7 million followers on Instagram, many of whom may, also, in fact, be gay, and a lot of whom are gonna go straight to Disney’s website, find the shirt in their size, and cash out with all manner of other goodies in their carts. Your username is Gordon Gekko. You should realize that none of this would be happening if there wasn’t a market for it. “Greed, for lack of a better term, is good.” That’s the line isn’t it?

You want to know why there are no big budget Westerns anymore? They don’t sell. Why there are no Big Band Troupes playing Benny Goodman tunes to millions of prospective listeners on Spotify and Apple Music? Because half their audience is dead and the other half can barely hear it. Whatever the sentiment or whatever the values, there is only one color that truly matters to the Walt Disney Company, to Warner Bros, Sony, Amazon, Apple; whoever: green. And with that, they are going to cater to the broadest spectrum of potential customers because, ultimately, that’s going to be a large pool to bolster their earnings.

 

[Wor-Gar]

a Pixar movie where a kid has two moms, he’s going to grow up to be Nathan Lane-in-The-Birdcage gay and the next thing we know, your neighbor’s married to an 8-year old and having an affair with his pet goat, apparently?

 

[Dark_Knight_89]

I don't give a **** if he doesn't have his gun in this new movie, cause I'm not going to pay to see it. But I DO care that if/when they get around to issuing the perfect 6 inch figure of Indiana Jones that millions of collectors around the world have been waiting for, I want it to be as comprehensive and accurate as possible.

 

[ArtDamage]

The culture war won't stop (as far as entertainment goes...) until they stop "updating" the past.

But there's too much money to be made to just let it lie.

As far as Indy goes...James Mangold seems like a check in the pro column for this, but with the rest im dubious. Would love to be proven wrong and have it be great or at least better than KOTCS though.

 

[Kebron]

I’m citing the extreme viewpoints because they are exactly that and because, despite the narrative that we’re somehow “losing our values,” this is nothing new. The only difference is that social media has given a particularly vocal sect of the public a larger megaphone to amplify and thusly, normalize their own agenda.

In the early 2000’s, it was Jack Thompson waging a holy crusade on Grand Theft Auto, Eminem, and Marilyn Manson as subversive forces turning the youth of America into crazed Mass Killers. We had NWA and Public Enemy in the early ‘90s. Before that, it was Ozzy Osborne and Dungeons & Dragons and the Satanic Panic in the early ‘80s. Before that, Black Panthers and Hippies and The Beatles. Before that, oh, would you look at that? Comic books are corrupting the nation’s youth and turning them into juvenile delinquents. Movies and TV are spreading pro-communist sentiments and those subversive elements must be driven out and replaced by God-fearing, red blooded Americans, according to Joe McCarthy.

Somehow, now, the narrative is that if your little boy sees a Pixar movie where a kid has two moms, he’s going to grow up to be Nathan Lane-in-The-Birdcage gay and who knows what’s next? Because nuance isn’t a thing that exists and, by golly, “it’s a slippery slope!” The fact is that, when Deadpool came out, there were parents freaking out because they didn’t do their due diligence and they brought their 9-year old to see it. And, however much I may disagree, I’m not going to tell people how to raise their kids. That’s every parents job and every parents’ prerogative, but to suggest that all content must conform to a particularly myopic structure of values or suffer the economic consequences is utterly ridiculous.

But you’re right. Money does rule over everything and that’s what I don’t think the certain contingent of fans who say “we’re gonna boycott Disney over Gina Carano” don’t understand. It’s a different world and a lot of people who didn’t have a voice now do. There are Pride parades, and Neil Patrick Harris and his husband can adopt a child…

Then, they can take that child to Disney World, spend $30 a piece on matching, rainbow Pride themed Star Wars T-shirts and show them off to their 1.7 million followers on Instagram, many of whom may, also, in fact, be gay, and a lot of whom are gonna go straight to Disney’s website, find the shirt in their size, and cash out with all manner of other goodies in their carts. Your username is Gordon Gekko. You should realize that none of this would be happening if there wasn’t a market for it. “Greed, for lack of a better term, is good.” That’s the line isn’t it?

You want to know why there are no big budget Westerns anymore? They don’t sell. Why there are no Big Band Troupes playing Benny Goodman tunes to millions of prospective listeners on Spotify and Apple Music? Because half their audience is dead and the other half can barely hear it. Whatever the sentiment or whatever the values, there is only one color that truly matters to the Walt Disney Company, to Warner Bros, Sony, Amazon, Apple; whoever: green. And with that, they are going to cater to the broadest spectrum of potential customers because, ultimately, that’s going to be a large pool to bolster their earnings.

Another well written post I completely agree with.

 

[Kebron]

Kids can't afford to go to movies on their own.

You know how kids get access to mainstream entertainment? Their parents usually. This is a problem for Major League Baseball. It used to be that families would go to baseball games ( and they still do somewhat for minor league teams where it's cheaper and more fan friendly and more kid friendly) A little kid grew up being around baseball and loving baseball, and that kid grew up to be an adult and bought tickets, merchandise, followed the sport, maybe played it in high school, etc, etc.

You want to get fans when they are young. Look at how powerful the pull is/was for those of us who saw Terminator in the theaters or The Matrix or some of the older people here, something like the first Star Wars.

If you upset the parent for whatever reason, they have more and more incentive to not show things to their kids or allow their kids near it.

Disney, ideally, is designed to be family friendly. Kid friendly. There are things around Disney that are clearly raising questions how family friendly and kid friendly it is now in current times. People can agree or disagree on those issues, but if you alienate up to half your possible audience base, that's not good business.

She Hulk twerking might drive off parents from ALL MCU properties period. They won't want their kids involved, they don't want the risk and that's OK. It's their children. I'm not going to tell someone what is good or bad for their child.

Losing a fan is a problem. Losing an entire family of potential fans is a much bigger animal. Losing fans across possible generations is a huge catastrophe waiting to happen.

If you like a specific IP or property and it manages to alienate half it's audience, whether you agree or not, there's a good chance that show or movie franchise will die off.

Money rules over everything. Let's see who prevails. Are there enough viewers and fans on your side of things to practically financially support the way you'd like to see shows and movies be made?

You are trying to wash away many legitimate criticisms by citing the most extreme viewpoints so you can package them together to be dismissed. You don't like the "haters"? Well maybe they don't like people who "hate the haters" back. You don't own the entire market share on being offended.

You are assuming kids are going to the movies like they did when we were young. Many just stream them at home, or don't watch them and prefer YouTube over watching a movie. Times are changing.

I also think you are putting to much power into parents dictating what their kids will like. If that was true we never would of seen the rise of popularity of the movies and shows we see today, and almost all Rock music would be dead. My parents never introduced me to comics, Sci Fi, or any of they things that I'm into now as a adult. They did try to get me into liking Country Music, WW2 movies and sports, and failed. Kids like everyone else will like what they like in the end. My daughter despite me trying to get her to like things I do, doesn't like super hero movies/shows, LOTR or Star Trek. She has some interest in Star Wars but it's only because of the sequel trilogy and Grogu.

Kids grow beyond the likes and dislikes of their parents into their own person, and that's how it's suppose to be.

 

[jye4ever]

 

[Dark_Knight_89]

View attachment 598727

Hey, Dr. Grace, no time for love!

 

[Mad Old Lu]

I’m genuinely so tired of this crap. Every thread is the same non-sense.

“I can’t believe She-Hulk twerked!”

“Worst show ever!”

“LOL. With how Marvel’s been going lately, I bet this show is gonna suck!”

“I doubt this new season of Mando’s gonna be any good knowing that Boba Fett was such garbage.”

“Disney’s going to Disneyfy Indy to pacify the woke crowd by getting rid of his guns!”

I say this objectively: who the hell cares? Honestly, everything becomes a culture war, everything becomes a bastion of negativity. Nobody has to like all the same stuff; that’s fine. Opinions are subjective, but when people dislike everything? It becomes less a question of disliking something and more a question of “maybe you’re the one with the agenda and you dislike the fact that the companies’ public moves run antithetical to it.”

I adore Indiana Jones. Raiders is arguably my favorite movie of all time, but you know what? Die Hard didn’t stop being an amazing film despite A Good Day to Die Hard, so, to hell with it. I hope Kathleen Kennedy and Harrison Ford both agreed that this is the movie where Dr. Henry Jones becomes Dr. Helena Jones and he finally realizes that he was always meant to be a she. She returns all the artifacts he’s ever looted to the Native tribes he nabbed them from, comes back home, and undergoes hormone treatments and surgery to live her fullest life. She goes back to being a Professor at the University because retirement wasn’t suiting her and she specializes in archaeology through the lens of Critical Race Theory and highlights how western archaeologists have historically stolen most of their artifacts from indigenous communities and the importance of returning them.

Alternatively, we can just accept that societal norms are constantly shifting and that some things aren’t always going to be the same. That Steven Universe isn’t going to be lighting up and selling Winston-Salem cigarettes to people during the commercial break. I want Indy to have his guns. I’m as liberal as they come and it still annoyed me when WB did their “No Guns” thing and my MAFEX Joker and Batman no longer came with their little plastic pew pew blasters. I even like real guns, but I also know how to enjoy things and how to tune out my own politics when it comes to entertainment. Yellowstone is one of the most aggressively Republican shows I have ever seen and I also binge watched every episode and loved every second of it. Not once did I think “ZOMG! John Dutton voted for Trump! I’m gonna go cry in my liberal safe space and schedule an emergency session with my therapist tomorrow to deconstruct why it triggered me.”

I’m also, again, not saying you have to like everything. There are elements of the Sequel Trilogy I disliked immensely. I, too, thought The Book of Boba Fett made the big man look like kind of a chump, but it’s that age old question: “is the glass half empty? Or is the glass half full?” I could spend every waking hour parsing every single detail of whatever pop culture or media I consume for something I hate and I’d probably hate everything…or I can enjoy the parts I enjoy and be entertained and until this movie comes out and I decide I hated it, I’m gonna enjoy the anticipation of seeing Indy on screen one last time. Gun or no gun.

I’m citing the extreme viewpoints because they are exactly that and because, despite the narrative that we’re somehow “losing our values,” this is nothing new. The only difference is that social media has given a particularly vocal sect of the public a larger megaphone to amplify and thusly, normalize their own agenda.

In the early 2000’s, it was Jack Thompson waging a holy crusade on Grand Theft Auto, Eminem, and Marilyn Manson as subversive forces turning the youth of America into crazed Mass Killers. We had NWA and Public Enemy in the early ‘90s. Before that, it was Ozzy Osborne and Dungeons & Dragons and the Satanic Panic in the early ‘80s. Before that, Black Panthers and Hippies and The Beatles. Before that, oh, would you look at that? Comic books are corrupting the nation’s youth and turning them into juvenile delinquents. Movies and TV are spreading pro-communist sentiments and those subversive elements must be driven out and replaced by God-fearing, red blooded Americans, according to Joe McCarthy.

Somehow, now, the narrative is that if your little boy sees a Pixar movie where a kid has two moms, he’s going to grow up to be Nathan Lane-in-The-Birdcage gay and who knows what’s next? Because nuance isn’t a thing that exists and, by golly, “it’s a slippery slope!” The fact is that, when Deadpool came out, there were parents freaking out because they didn’t do their due diligence and they brought their 9-year old to see it. And, however much I may disagree, I’m not going to tell people how to raise their kids. That’s every parents job and every parents’ prerogative, but to suggest that all content must conform to a particularly myopic structure of values or suffer the economic consequences is utterly ridiculous.

But you’re right. Money does rule over everything and that’s what I don’t think the certain contingent of fans who say “we’re gonna boycott Disney over Gina Carano” don’t understand. It’s a different world and a lot of people who didn’t have a voice now do. There are Pride parades, and Neil Patrick Harris and his husband can adopt a child…

Then, they can take that child to Disney World, spend $30 a piece on matching, rainbow Pride themed Star Wars T-shirts and show them off to their 1.7 million followers on Instagram, many of whom may, also, in fact, be gay, and a lot of whom are gonna go straight to Disney’s website, find the shirt in their size, and cash out with all manner of other goodies in their carts. Your username is Gordon Gekko. You should realize that none of this would be happening if there wasn’t a market for it. “Greed, for lack of a better term, is good.” That’s the line isn’t it?

You want to know why there are no big budget Westerns anymore? They don’t sell. Why there are no Big Band Troupes playing Benny Goodman tunes to millions of prospective listeners on Spotify and Apple Music? Because half their audience is dead and the other half can barely hear it. Whatever the sentiment or whatever the values, there is only one color that truly matters to the Walt Disney Company, to Warner Bros, Sony, Amazon, Apple; whoever: green. And with that, they are going to cater to the broadest spectrum of potential customers because, ultimately, that’s going to be a large pool to bolster their earnings.

Great posts. Agree 100%

 

[davejames]

Still no trailer leak huh? I read some descriptions and it does sound fairly promising, and according to The Wrap does a much better job capturing the spirit of the original films that KOTCS did.

 

[Wor-Gar]

Still no trailer leak huh? I read some descriptions and it does sound fairly promising, and according to The Wrap does a much better job capturing the spirit of the original films that KOTCS did.

I'll believe it when I see it. I have no trust right now.

 

[meanstreak]

And I guess nobody talked about the trailer shown, so here goes:

The “Indiana Jones 5” trailer was wonderful, showing a bunch of great moments: Mads Mikkelsen as a Nazi, Indy riding a horse through the New York subway, a chase that takes place in a Manhattan tickertape parade, and Sallah (played, once again, by John Rhys-Davies). We also see Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s character and the trailer ends with Indy getting his whip out and snapping it at a bunch of bad guys, who promptly get out a lot of guns. He ducks.

It looks like it really captures the spirit of the original three films, a spirit that was sadly missing during the most recent installment, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.”

https://www.thewrap.com/indiana-jones-5-trailer-footage-description-d23/
I also read that Phoebe Waller-Bridge's character is Indy's goddaughter. I wonder how they will reference Mutt and if Marion plays any role in the film (which she should since they are married)

 

[Wor-Gar]

I'd like to see this trailer...

Mangold and Mikkelsen are the two bright spots for me so far.

 

[davejames]

I just pray the whole time travel rumor turns out not to be true. Because that to me would be just as ridiculous and Indy meeting aliens in the last movie, and I can't even see Mangold making that idea work.

 

[Dark_Knight_89]

I just pray the whole time travel rumor turns out not to be true. Because that to me would be just as ridiculous and Indy meeting aliens in the last movie, and I can't even see Mangold making that idea work.

To me, both time travel and Aliens are no more ridiculous or implausible than;

The "Wrath of God" in the form of ghostly spirits melting human beings into nothingness.

An evil cult being able to remove a man's still-beating heart from his chest using nothing but black magic. Oh and the man is still alive by the way.

The flora and vegetation of an entire village exploding into life because of the presence of a magic stone.

Meeting a knight that is literally thousands of years old; kept alive by the powers of the "Holy Grail".

Completely healing a bullet wound and bringing the victim back from near death simply by pouring/drinking some water from the "Holy Grail".

etc.

I actually quite like the idea of time travel and seeing prime Indy fighting Nazis again. But equally open to whatever else they may or may not have in store.

 

[ArtDamage]

To me, both time travel and Aliens are no more ridiculous or implausible than...

To me those things despite being "magic" seem a bit more appropriate because the series roots them in mythology. The ancient powerful artifact shtick is an Indy staple.

Its not that they are unbelievable. Its that both Time Travel and Aliens are rooted more in science or sci-fi (for lack of a better way to put it). More of a creature feature than say a pulp hero type tone.


More subjectively, to me both Time Travel and Aliens represent a more "shark jumping" plot device.

 

[davejames]

Yeah there's a big difference in my book between the mystical nature of the Ark, Sankara Stones and Holy Grail and the hard-scifi nature of aliens, spaceships, and time travel. I know the movie did try to root the story somewhat in Mayan culture, but that new agey "ancient alien" stuff has always been so laughable and schlocky that it was hard to take remotely seriously.

 

[Dark_Knight_89]

To me those things despite being "magic" seem a bit more appropriate because the series roots them in mythology. The ancient powerful artifact shtick is an Indy staple.

Its not that they are unbelievable. Its that both Time Travel and Aliens are rooted more in science or sci-fi (for lack of a better way to put it). More of a creature feature than say a pulp hero type tone.


More subjectively, to me both Time Travel and Aliens represent a more "shark jumping" plot device.

Yeah there's a big difference in my book between the mystical nature of the Ark, Sankara Stones and Holy Grail and the hard-scifi nature of aliens, spaceships, and time travel. I know the movie did try to root the story somewhat in Mayan culture, but that new agey "ancient alien" stuff has always been so laughable and schlocky that it was hard to take remotely seriously.

Seems a little like splitting hairs to me; they're all plot devices that are equally stemmed in fantasy and that defy the laws of physics/reality as we know it. But we'll agree to disagree.

 

[Mr.E]

The whole ancient aliens idea could've worked better if it had been handled with more ambiguity. Less is more. Any who, it wasn't to be.

 

[Kebron]

Yeah there's a big difference in my book between the mystical nature of the Ark, Sankara Stones and Holy Grail and the hard-scifi nature of aliens, spaceships, and time travel. I know the movie did try to root the story somewhat in Mayan culture, but that new agey "ancient alien" stuff has always been so laughable and schlocky that it was hard to take remotely seriously

The Ancient Alien stuff has been around for decades. Got real popular in the 70s for awhile, died down then came back with the History Channel show.

For me, KoTC problem wasn't the alien part of it, it was the bad writing. Fun idea to explore, poorly executed.