Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull Discussion Thread (Spoilers)

[Gruson]

Well said Dusty. I agree.


Temple has always been my favorite sequel, right behind Raiders. Loved it as a kid and still love it today. Great action, good story, and great interaction between characters. Fun movie with real emotion too.

 

[Deak Starkiller]

You know after letting this one marinate (or rot) in my mind I really wonder what the Frank Darabont script was like. Why did George turn it down, and why did Spielberg call it "the best script I've read since Raiders"? Does anyone have a pdf. of the Frank Darabont script?

 

[Rock83]

Just got home from the cinema,i really enjoyed the movie,i felt the Indy magic for sure.

The negative part of the movie is the Alien thing,the treasure was the knowledge,know that Aliens excist,and the UFO appeared in the end,Indy and Aliens doesnt go well together.

 

[The Josh]

Getting ready to go see it in about 3 hours. Just wanted to read through here and see what people where thinking. I've seen nothing that just ruins the movie for me but with all the disliking of the film I have funny feeling I'm gonna love it.

We shall see.

 

[icruise]

You know after letting this one marinate (or rot) in my mind I really wonder what the Frank Darabont script was like. Why did George turn it down, and why did Spielberg call it "the best script I've read since Raiders"? Does anyone have a pdf. of the Frank Darabont script?

I wondered the same thing. Who knows? Maybe they'll still use it for a subsequent movie.

 

[Deak Starkiller]

Getting ready to go see it in about 3 hours. Just wanted to read through here and see what people where thinking. I've seen nothing that just ruins the movie for me but with all the disliking of the film I have funny feeling I'm gonna love it.

We shall see.

Well if this gives you any perspective Josh, I had no hopes for the movie which usually means I can find something to lift me up...and that never happened. Hell, it worked in Transformers but not Indy. It really breaks my dork heart to see this kind of movie, I know that's lame but actually true. I didn't think it was the "second coming", I just wanted to like it as much not more than the previous installment of the series.

 

[RevRanger]

I have lost any respect I once had for both Spielberg and Lucas. Seriously.

This was such a terrible story I still can't believe it.

Like I said, the main problem is that the hero could have succeeded or failed on his journey and it made no difference in the end. The flying saucer would have just disappeared either way. That is not a story.

Harrison could have pulled it off. He was just handed a bad script, bad director and god-awful exec producer.

Shia was excellent with what garbage they gave him.

The first 20 minutes should have been cut. No purpose. Story should have started with Indy at the tail end of his latest and last adventure, then back at university either retiring or losing his job. Leaving the states. Then answering the call to adventure from Mutt.

The University sequences were the only good parts of the movie.

The entire roles of Marion, Ox, and the the crazy old guy should have been cut. Double agent, triple agent, quadruple agent -- who cares!

Indy was captured and escaped over and over for over an hour!

The unbelievable action (fridge, duck vehicle in tree, waterfalls, tarzan, etc.) should have been dropped.

They never demonstrated what would happen if the bad guys got the skull. Just said they would get the power. WHAT POWER? We saw a drawing of some guys shooting lightning from the ark and leveling an army. We knew Indy HAD to get it. We need to know the threat.

Spalko the mind reader? Boy, let's mention that and NEVER follow up on it.

Indy used his whip what? TWICE?

Indy didn't kill anyone. I know he's not a "killer", but when you have him in the kill or be killed situations, you know the stakes are high. Blowing away the swordsman, killing three nazis with one shot in crusade -- great stuff.

He drew his gun ONCE. And they villain screamed like a girl and ran away into a hole!

All the CGI crap. All the bad sets. The cemetary being the worst.

There were a million other things wrong with this movie. What a TURD!!!

 

[The Josh]

My expectations are low just because I am trying to keep mentally clear on it. I'm taking my sister so I'll make sure to make note of what she thinks.

 

[Deak Starkiller]

You make good point Rev, this movie feels more like DieHard 4, but I think I enjoyed that one more. Excellent point about the gun and whip.

 

[icruise]

They never demonstrated what would happen if the bad guys got the skull. Just said they would get the power. WHAT POWER? We saw a drawing of some guys shooting lightning from the ark and leveling an army. We knew Indy HAD to get it. We need to know the threat.

They made the threat perfectly clear -- Irina said that they wanted to use the skull to control the minds of their enemies. She talked about it for quite some time, actually. There were WAY more concrete examples about how they would use the power than in Raiders or Last Crusade.

 

[pjam]

The DekadentDave Review

Hold onto your Hats!

This is not an Indiana Jones movie.

This is a farce of an Indiana Jones movie.

From the moment the Paramount logo dissolves into a mount of dirt and a gopher pops up it is clear that this film is a joke that makes fun of not just every Indy film but also every Lucas and Spielberg film from American Grafitti, 1941 and Close Encounters. They were having fun making fun of themselves at the audiences' expense.

Crystal Turd is like a Mad movie spoof of Indy 4 on the big screen. I'd like to know where the real Indy 4 is hidden. Probably in a magnetic crate somewhere inside of Hangar 51. What I saw last night wasn't it. I was waiting for Ashton Kutcher to step out from behind the screen and tell everybody they just got punk'd. It is so drivelously dull that it plays like a TV reunion movie where all of the aging cast members come back for one last big bruhaha to celebrate their lifetime achievement cumuppance.

When Indy makes his silhouetted entrance, Harrison is so creaky in his delivery of cringe inducing dialogue you'd think he was a relic in his own museum. When Marion makes her entrance, I could almost hear the applause track from the studio audience as if there was an electronic cue card flashing below the screen. John Hurt delivers an embarrassing performance looking like an acid-wasted John Lennon hippie stoned out of his mind and speaking in acerbic riddles pined from the pages of Dr. Seuss. Shia is like Fonzie-lite. Every time he pulled out his comb I was waiting for the "Ayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy." The Judas traitor Mac has no problem selling out his best friend and his country in the name of Capitalism but whenever he's in a bind has no qualms about turning to "Jooooooonneeessssyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!" for help and which Indy willingly obliges him. Cate Blanchett chews every scene she's in with her villainous Russian dialect but takes it so far over-the-top that you'd think she was an evil-doer from a Saturday morning cartoon.

To say that the characters were never in any kind of peril or jeopardy is an understatement. All of the action is so ridiculously contrived and over-the-top with slapstick comedy that makes Last Crusade and Temple of Doom look like Schindler's List. It's one cheap laugh gag after another and feels like 1941 all over again. In fact, it's worse than 1941. Dovenchenko is not just Pat Roach-lite but the fight scenes between him and Indy are so tediously long without any of the choreography that made the fight scenes so brilliant in the first two films. Spielberg relies so much on his own cliches and once brilliant movie-magic and storytelling that he takes it all for granted asking us to fall for the old Close Encounters/E.T. crap that I was waiting for Indy to pull out the Reese's Pieces from his bag. The Mom/Dad jokes wire tirelessly delivered and Karen Allen spends the last half of the film staring doe- eyed at Indy like a grade-school girl with a puppy-love crush on her hero Indy that I wanted to put a gun to my head.

The ending is so embrarrasing that I was expecting trumpeting Gungans and Boss Nass to burst into the wedding while ceremoniously rejoicing to the Ewok yub-yub song. I wish to God this film had never been made. I don't want to acknowledge it's existence and relegate it to the same toxic landfill as Batman and Robin, Highlander II, Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions and Phantom Menace.

Get ready for Son of Indy coming to a theater near you May 2011 because if adventure has a name, it must be Mutt Williams.

 

[Dusty]

The DekadentDave Review

Hold onto your Hats!

This is not an Indiana Jones movie.

This is a farce of an Indiana Jones movie.

From the moment the Paramount logo dissolves into a mount of dirt and a gopher pops up it is clear that this film is a joke that makes fun of not just every Indy film but also every Lucas and Spielberg film from American Grafitti, 1941 and Close Encounters. They were having fun making fun of themselves at the audiences' expense. Crystal Turd is like a Mad movie spoof of Indy 4 on the big screen. I'd like to know where the real Indy 4 is hidden. Probably in a magnetic crate somewhere inside of Hangar 51. What I saw last night wasn't it. I was waiting for Ashton Kutcher to step out from behind the screen and tell everybody they just got punk'd.It is so drivelously dull that it plays like a TV reunion movie where all of the aging cast members come back for one last big bruhaha to celebrate their lifetime achievement cumuppance. When Indy makes his silhouetted entrance, Harrison is so creaky in his delivery of cringe inducing dialogue you'd think he was a relic in his own museum. When Marion makes her entrance, I could almost hear the applause track from the studio audience as if there was an electronic cue card flashing below the screen. John Hurt delivers an embarrassing performance looking like an acid-wasted John Lennon hippie stoned out of his mind and speaking in acerbic riddles pined from the pages of Dr. Seuss. Shia is like Fonzie-lite. Every time he pulled out his comb I was waiting for the "Ayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy." The Judas traitor Mac has no problem selling out his best friend and his country in the name of Capitalism but whenever he's in a bind has no qualms about turning to "Jooooooonneeessssyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!" for help and which Indy willingly obliges him. Cate Blanchett chews every scene she's in with her villainous Russian dialect but takes it so far over-the-top that you'd think she was an evil-doer from a Saturday morning cartoon. To say that the characters were never in any kind of peril or jeopardy is an understatement. All of the action is so ridiculously contrived and over-the-top with slapstick comedy that makes Last Crusade and Temple of Doom look like Schindler's List. It's one cheap laugh gag after another and feels like 1941 all over again. In fact, it's worse than 1941. Dovenchenko is not just Pat Roach-lite but the fight scenes between him and Indy are so tediously long without any of the choreography that made the fight scenes so brilliant in the first two films. Spielberg relies so much on his own cliches and once brilliant movie-magic and storytelling that he takes it all for granted asking us to fall for the old Close Encounters/E.T. crap that I was waiting for Indy to pull out the Reese's Pieces from his bag. The Mom/Dad jokes wire tirelessly delivered and Karen Allen spends the last half of the film staring doe- eyed at Indy like a grade-school girl with a puppy-love crush on her hero Indy that I wanted to put a gun to my head. The ending is so embrarrasing that I was expecting trumpeting Gungans and Boss Nass to burst into the wedding while ceremoniously rejoicing to the Ewok yub-yub song. I wish to God this film had never been made. I don't want to acknowledge it's existence and relegate it to the same toxic landfill as Batman and Robin, Highlander II, Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions and Phantom Menace.

Get ready for Son of Indy coming to a theater near you May 2011 because if adventure has a name, it must be Mutt Williams.

Classic!

And I totally forgot how horribly Indy was introduced in this one... trussed up like a pig in a trunk? ARRRgggggg

And the whip! I shall not get into the travesty of the (lack of) whip... not that I'm into S&M or anything.

 

[Trevolver]

My God, that was one hilarious review!
hahah!

And I find myself agreeing completely!

Trev

 

[RevRanger]

Quote:
Originally Posted by RevRanger
They never demonstrated what would happen if the bad guys got the skull. Just said they would get the power. WHAT POWER? We saw a drawing of some guys shooting lightning from the ark and leveling an army. We knew Indy HAD to get it. We need to know the threat.

They made the threat perfectly clear -- Irina said that they wanted to use the skull to control the minds of their enemies. She talked about it for quite some time, actually. There were WAY more concrete examples about how they would use the power than in Raiders or Last Crusade.


IN RESPONSE ---


Um. No.

In movies, rule #1 is SHOW, don't TELL.

We need to SEE what will happen if the bad guys get the power.

RAIDERS -- history book SHOWS army being leveled. They SHOW the power of god is real at the end. Good thing it's now hidden in hands of U.S.A. thanks to Indy.

DOOM -- Mola Ram SHOWS what he can do. Will soon do it to everyone in his way once he has all the stones. Good thing Indy stopped him and returned to stones to the village so they can survive.

CRUSADE -- We see the GRAIL does have power. SHOW it heals dad. Adventure was worth taking after all, keep it from Nazi hands. If the Nazis got the grail and drank from it, they would be unstoppable.

SKULL -- Spalkos says BLAH BLAH BLAH. tries to read Indy's mind and can't. BOY, IS SHE DANGEROUS! She can't do anything!

They should have HAD ONE SKULL and used its power to take control of a big group of US soldiers and make them turn on their comrades. THEN Spalko says "when we have ALL the skulls in our hands, and control the temple, we can make the entire world do as we say."

There was an oportunity in the beginning. Instead of a bunch of Russains disguised as US soldiers, the should have had JUST SPALKO and her MAIN GOON using REAL US soldiers to get in. She is controling their minds already. And why did they even need the alien body? What did they gain by getting it? NOTHING.

And in the end, we saw that there was no threat. The UFO would have given no one power, the legend was NOT TRUE. It just took off! BYE BYE!

 

[Gruson]

The DekadentDave Review

Hold onto your Hats!

This is not an Indiana Jones movie.

This is a farce of an Indiana Jones movie.

From the moment the Paramount logo dissolves into a mount of dirt and a gopher pops up it is clear that this film is a joke that makes fun of not just every Indy film but also every Lucas and Spielberg film from American Grafitti, 1941 and Close Encounters. They were having fun making fun of themselves at the audiences' expense.

Crystal Turd is like a Mad movie spoof of Indy 4 on the big screen. I'd like to know where the real Indy 4 is hidden. Probably in a magnetic crate somewhere inside of Hangar 51. What I saw last night wasn't it. I was waiting for Ashton Kutcher to step out from behind the screen and tell everybody they just got punk'd. It is so drivelously dull that it plays like a TV reunion movie where all of the aging cast members come back for one last big bruhaha to celebrate their lifetime achievement cumuppance.

When Indy makes his silhouetted entrance, Harrison is so creaky in his delivery of cringe inducing dialogue you'd think he was a relic in his own museum. When Marion makes her entrance, I could almost hear the applause track from the studio audience as if there was an electronic cue card flashing below the screen. John Hurt delivers an embarrassing performance looking like an acid-wasted John Lennon hippie stoned out of his mind and speaking in acerbic riddles pined from the pages of Dr. Seuss. Shia is like Fonzie-lite. Every time he pulled out his comb I was waiting for the "Ayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy." The Judas traitor Mac has no problem selling out his best friend and his country in the name of Capitalism but whenever he's in a bind has no qualms about turning to "Jooooooonneeessssyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!" for help and which Indy willingly obliges him. Cate Blanchett chews every scene she's in with her villainous Russian dialect but takes it so far over-the-top that you'd think she was an evil-doer from a Saturday morning cartoon.

To say that the characters were never in any kind of peril or jeopardy is an understatement. All of the action is so ridiculously contrived and over-the-top with slapstick comedy that makes Last Crusade and Temple of Doom look like Schindler's List. It's one cheap laugh gag after another and feels like 1941 all over again. In fact, it's worse than 1941. Dovenchenko is not just Pat Roach-lite but the fight scenes between him and Indy are so tediously long without any of the choreography that made the fight scenes so brilliant in the first two films. Spielberg relies so much on his own cliches and once brilliant movie-magic and storytelling that he takes it all for granted asking us to fall for the old Close Encounters/E.T. crap that I was waiting for Indy to pull out the Reese's Pieces from his bag. The Mom/Dad jokes wire tirelessly delivered and Karen Allen spends the last half of the film staring doe- eyed at Indy like a grade-school girl with a puppy-love crush on her hero Indy that I wanted to put a gun to my head.

The ending is so embrarrasing that I was expecting trumpeting Gungans and Boss Nass to burst into the wedding while ceremoniously rejoicing to the Ewok yub-yub song. I wish to God this film had never been made. I don't want to acknowledge it's existence and relegate it to the same toxic landfill as Batman and Robin, Highlander II, Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions and Phantom Menace.

Get ready for Son of Indy coming to a theater near you May 2011 because if adventure has a name, it must be Mutt Williams.

Nice review, I love it!!!

 

[photoshopmagician]

Quote:
Originally Posted by RevRanger
They never demonstrated what would happen if the bad guys got the skull. Just said they would get the power. WHAT POWER? We saw a drawing of some guys shooting lightning from the ark and leveling an army. We knew Indy HAD to get it. We need to know the threat.

They made the threat perfectly clear -- Irina said that they wanted to use the skull to control the minds of their enemies. She talked about it for quite some time, actually. There were WAY more concrete examples about how they would use the power than in Raiders or Last Crusade.


IN RESPONSE ---


Um. No.

In movies, rule #1 is SHOW, don't TELL.

We need to SEE what will happen if the bad guys get the power.

RAIDERS -- history book SHOWS army being leveled. They SHOW the power of god is real at the end. Good thing it's now hidden in hands of U.S.A. thanks to Indy.

DOOM -- Mola Ram SHOWS what he can do. Will soon do it to everyone in his way once he has all the stones. Good thing Indy stopped him and returned to stones to the village so they can survive.

CRUSADE -- We see the GRAIL does have power. SHOW it heals dad. Adventure was worth taking after all, keep it from Nazi hands. If the Nazis got the grail and drank from it, they would be unstoppable.

SKULL -- Spalkos says BLAH BLAH BLAH. tries to read Indy's mind and can't. BOY, IS SHE DANGEROUS! She can't do anything!

They should have HAD ONE SKULL and used its power to take control of a big group of US soldiers and make them turn on their comrades. THEN Spalko says "when we have ALL the skulls in our hands, and control the temple, we can make the entire world do as we say."

There was an oportunity in the beginning. Instead of a bunch of Russains disguised as US soldiers, the should have had JUST SPALKO and her MAIN GOON using REAL US soldiers to get in. She is controling their minds already. And why did they even need the alien body? What did they gain by getting it? NOTHING.

And in the end, we saw that there was no threat. The UFO would have given no one power, the legend was NOT TRUE. It just took off! BYE BYE!

That's a really good point. While I liked the movie, it's so true that the villain wasn't really a threat. All I saw was that she failed to read Indy's mind and she was killed off at the end. No real threat at all besides the point that she was going to shoot people

 

[Dusty]

That's a really good point. While I liked the movie, it's so true that the villain wasn't really a threat. All I saw was that she failed to read Indy's mind and she was killed off at the end. No real threat at all besides the point that she was going to shoot people

And she couldn't even do that correctly - remember, her gun jammed, and then she couldn't even kill someone right in front of her face with a giant machine gun

Ridiculous! RevRanger's points are all completely valid.

 

[icruise]

IN RESPONSE ---


Um. No.

In movies, rule #1 is SHOW, don't TELL.

We need to SEE what will happen if the bad guys get the power.

They did show that it made Ox temporarily insane, and it did seem to have an effect on Indy, but they could have done a better job of showing how it could be used as a weapon, it's true. (That did not appear to be what you were arguing in your original post, though.)

That said, I would argue that the skull not living up to what was thought about it is totally consistent with how the ark and grail were handled. It turned out that none of them would really have been an unstoppable weapon. Take the grail. Yeah, it could heal people one at a time but that's it. You can only be immortal if you stay in the temple where it was housed. And the ark? The Nazis did in fact get it, and it killed them.

 

[RevRanger]

Which of the following works better on the big screen?

INT. SECRET GOVERNMENT WAREHOUSE - DAY

INDIANA JONES is held at gunpoint by several RUSSIAN GOONS.

AGENT SPALKO steps foward, reaches into a burlap bag and reveals a CRYSTAL SKULL.

AGENT SPALKO
Each of the skulls holds incredible power. Once they are returned to the temple, their combined strength will make us unstoppable.

INDY
I don't believe it.

AGENT SPAKO
It's true. The skulls are very powerful. I will have that power.

INDY
What power?

AGENT SPALKO
Powerful power!


---OR---

INT. SECRET GOVERNMENT WAREHOUSE - DAY

INDIANA JONES is held at gunpoint by several RUSSIAN GOONS.

AGENT SPALKO steps foward, reaches into a burlap bag and reveals a CRYSTAL SKULL.

AGENT SPALKO
Each of the skulls holds incredible power.

INDY
I don't believe it.

AGENT SPALKO touches the base of the skull. It GLOWS with supernatural power.

AGENT SPALKO
You will help us find the others.

INDY stares at the skull, unable to turn away -- its glowing eyes influencing his thoughts.

INDY
I'll -- I'll do it. I'll do whatever you ask.

MAC
Indy?!

INDY doesn't respond, his eyes still locked on the skull.

 

[Entropy]

And I totally forgot how horribly Indy was introduced in this one... trussed up like a pig in a trunk? ARRRgggggg

And the whip! I shall not get into the travesty of the (lack of) whip... not that I'm into S&M or anything.

I looked at the comic book Skull adaptation today and it's even worse. Indy's introduced with a panel showing him curled up in the fetal position looking quite pathetic with a "how did I get into this lame story" look on his face.

And Dekadent Dave and RevRanger make very good points.