Spielberg discusses 'Kingdom's problems!

[RIDDICK]

*Shuts off all electronics connected to the internet and hides under bed*

You'd better find some refrigerator for this purpose

 

[EVILFACE]

Well Spielberg is as much to blame as Lucas. If something sucks, he should point it out.

Swinging Greaser Monkeys?

Srsly Spielberg?

 

[RIDDICK]

Well Spielberg is as much to blame as Lucas. If something sucks, he should point it out.

You can't blame Spielberg after "War of the Worlds" coz... coz... It's just pointless...

 

[Ex-Parrot]

I still say the fridge gag would have worked if Indy actually came out of it all bruised, bloodied and battered, maybe even with a busted or dislocated arm or something. So he actually looked like he was lucky to be alive, rather than popping out almost like it was no nig thing.

And because that was basically 'end of act one' there is no reason they couldn't have done that, because a couple of weeks or a month or whatever could have easily passed until he hooks up with Mutt, so story wise he still could have been back to fighting shape, story wise, before the next phase of the film kicked off.

The monkey/Tarzan bit? Yeah, no saving that one...

 

[a-dev]

I don't hate Shia. I really don't get how he was any more annoying than Shortround or Marcus who I've never had a problem with.

However, KOTCS still sucked IMO, for various other reasons.

 

[CollectorNC]

They should have used Darabont's script that had no 'Mutt' character.

 

[IrishJedi]

Darabont's script was pretty terrible, too. The only real improvement there would have been Marion.

 

[a-dev]

She would have been less annoying and giddy whilst supposedly in mortal peril?

 

[CollectorNC]

Darabont's script was pretty terrible, too. The only real improvement there would have been Marion.

I agree it still had the alien ending, but it was a lot better overall without the b.s. stuff.

 

[Ex-Parrot]

Half the worst stuff in the film is directly from Darabont's script.

 

[Mad Old Lu]

Obviously Spielberg just did the best he could with the material he was given. Although he seems to think the only thing wrong with Kingdom is the MacGuffin. Sure, it's not the greatest, but he doesn't seem to feel any of those silly things in the movie are bad. I guess they both are to blame for making the movies skew so young.

Seriously, would you show Raiders to a young kid? My B-I-L asked to borrow Raiders from me for his (then) 9 year old daughter, and I told him that I thought it would scare her too much (after refreshing his memory by previewing the movie himself, he wholeheartedly agreed). But LC and Kingdom would be completely appropriate. That's kind of what I'm getting at-- the fact that you wouldn't think twice about showing LC or Kingdom to a young kid, but you would definitely have to think about showing Raiders or TOD to that same kid. And it isn't just about gore. It's about the intensity of the danger and action in those movies.

 

[MarfMaster]

I strongly believe that Spielberg feels there was a lot more wrong with the film than he's letting on. I bet he's just afraid of ruffling Lucas' feathers.

 

[galactiboy]

I strongly believe that Spielberg feels there was a lot more wrong with the film than he's letting on. I bet he's just afraid of ruffling Lucas' feathers.

That's how I read it, either afraid to ruffle feathers or just knows it wouldn't do any good. And really, if Spielberg (one of the most respected people in Hollywood) can't influence George, then who can?

Kind of goes a long way to explaining why the Prequels have so many problems and we continually have stupid changes to the movies like the ROTJ "No" or disappearing rocks.

 

[youbastards]

The fridge, I don't mind. The gophers were cute, but overdone, one appearance was plenty. Shia wasn't a dealbreaker for me, although the vine swinging was ridiculous, I can overlook it.

Here's my biggest problem with KOTCS. Indy was so 'neutered' by SS and GL, you never felt like he was ever in any danger. Look back at the other Indy movies, Indiana Jones never had any problem killing an enemy, sometimes even in cold blood (see Cairo scene in Raiders). Sure, it eventually started to happen off screen (machine gun in Last Crusade), but it showed that even though he was a professor, he wasn't afraid to do what needed to be done to protect both himself and others. Some may argue that he is older, and may not be as quick to take a life. Bull____. He is still dealing with the loss of his father and closest friend (Marcus Brody), and suddenly learns that he has a son. That should be the only motivator he needs to see that both he and his son return safely, at all costs.

In KOTCS, Indy drew his gun once (graveyard), and never fired it. He killed the native with his own blowgun. All of the enemy deaths were either from being thrown from a moving vehicle, or somehow they caused their own demise (ants, vaporized by alien technology).

This, to me, was this biggest problem with the movie. Indiana Jones was no longer a hero. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and fate took care of the villains for him. Mac was a useless character, because you didn't care if he was a traitor or not. The audience had no ties to him. If they had simply replaced that character with Sallah, then the audience would instantly care that one of Indy's long time friends may have betrayed him. Hell, 'Jock' from Raiders would have even worked for that role. It would have been a more obscure reference, but at least there would have been some history there.

My only other gripe about this movie was that although they took the time to explain Henry Sr. passing away, there was no reason for either Sallah or Short Round not having cameos at the wedding. Simply a lost opportunity to give one last nod to Indy fans, and help the movie end on a slightly higher note than it did.

 

[CollectorNC]

KOTCS came out 10-15 years too late. In those 10-15 years I went from a teen to my early 30's so I was not as easily entertained with this Indy movie as I might have been in my teens. Although I will say, the other 3 still hold up though even they seem to be aging more and more. The script also is not as original as the other 3 and blatantly steals stuff from the other 3 like a cliffside jeep chase (ROTLA), a floating jeep over a waterfall (ToD, it was a raft), etc. It was like watching Indy-lite, not a true Indy movie. It opened with potential, quickly went absurd with the fridge, became serious again with espionage thrown in and the meeting with Mutt, then became silly again with Indy on a motorcycle, literally doing his own Henry Jones, Sr. imitation from LC. The villains were cardboard cutouts, cliches and the heroes were not very heroic. Everything seemed phoned in. Even John Williams reused cues from all three movies and was very little orginal music. It was like they were bound and determined to finally get Indy IV out one way or another.

 

[SAB]

They also seemed to be hell bent on showing Indy hadn't aged at all and he could still do everything as if he was 25. That to me was silly. I thought the best part of the Darabont script was the original intro in which they riff off the Raiders boulder scene but with an old Professor Jones running from falling book cases in the library like an old fool ....and then getting sent off on an adventure and rediscovering his mojo.

The tagline should have been 'you're never too old for adventure' or somethings similar.

And its amazing how badly they managed to screw up almost every character on screen.

John Hurts character - an obvious bad replacement for both Marcus and Henry Jones Sr ...they should have kept upping the pay cheque offered to Sean Connery until he accepted. Everyone has a price. And if they really couldn't get him, then Indy should have been the oldest character on screen.

Marion - shoe horned in at the last minute into a script where she didn't belong and had nothing to do

Mac - seriously, what the hell was that? He should have been killed off in the opening (similar to Indy's assistant in ToD) to show the villains ruthlessness.

Cate Blanchett's psychic Russian - who didn't demonstrate her powers successfully at all. Was she supposed to be just crazy? Did anyone get what was going on there?

Its easy to hate on Shia and 'Mutt Walker' but he was not the problem and was one of the better things on screen in that movie. Do people think he had input into the monkey scene or something?

I think the problem was too much time. Ideas keep getting piled on and have to be sorted through continually. After years of working through everything they are happy they've got a script that makes sense from A to B and includes all the ideas...but they are then too close to it to realize its ____.

Guillermo del Toro did an interview recently about problems in script development. I don't have his exact quote close at hand but he basically said that you can spend a year writing an amazing horror script and then an executive will come in and say, "why don't we make the bad guys screaming monkeys!" and everyone will say, "wow, that is an interesting idea, we never thought of that!" and everyone confuses 'interesting' with good.

hmmm long rant....that was not my intention

 

[Khev]

If I want to seen an awesome period adventure/fantasy brought to life with modern filmmaking I can watch Peter Jackson's King Kong, Joe Johnston's Captain America, or even the maligned Sucker Punch (might as well throw the POTC films in there as well). There is little in the way of a viewing experience that KOTCS really offers.

Some of it is kind of cool, and its not horrible, but just so pedestrian without any stakes or peril at all.

 

[CAZAFANTASMA]

I saw this interview a couple of weeks ago and i was surprised and dissapointed, on how he reacts when Conan asks him about Indy 5...

fast forward to 9:17

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBI4L72S-vM[/ame]

 

[CAZAFANTASMA]

He's more interested in the money than a good script i guess

 

[RIDDICK]

He's a great and honest to the bone old fart... And I love it