Indiana Jones LOVE thread

x-post Temple of Doom sucked ass. The only good bit - when he takes his gun out to shoot the swordsman and has no bullets.
he has no gun, he lost in the Beijing car chase, when Speilberg's girlfriend tossed it out the window.

Of the three films, Temple is easily the weakest altough the openening sequence in the bar with the poison/anitidote slapstick is sweet, when the goons are all there laughing at Indie and he's like "haha err...."

Indy Jones - middle-of-the-series film more sunny & retarded, first & last fim more dark and intense

(although it seems a stretch to call Temple of Doom [wherein a guy RIPS PEOPLES HEARTS OUT OF THEIR CHEST] "sunny" or "retarded" [okay sure "Doctah Jones Doctah Jones" psh], I still stand by this attempted observation)

the unleashing of the Ark's powers really really spooked me as a kid - its infinitely more powerful than in Last Crusade when Nazi dude chooses the wrong cup

Austrian Butler: "If you are Scottish Lord, zen I am Mickey Mouse!"

Nazi or not, chick was still hot as hell.

I have a soft spot for Karen Allen though, not that she was even as hot as the Nazi girl but she was basically like, wow, they wrote a movie character based on me, excellent.

x-post, I think Data's name in ToD was Short Round and Spielberg's girlfriend was called Willie. Which wasn't even the stupidest thing about her character.

Also, ToD might have the best opening scene what with the Bond-white-tuxedo to fight scene to car to plane to rafting to wizened Indian guy progression.

Haha! Having rewatched Raiders for the first time in a long while last night (thank you DVD box set as Xmas gift), I can see the truth of this.

That said, seeing it again was both a kick for realizing how much I had forgotten in the films -- I didn't even immediately remember the plane fight sequence until it actually started! -- and just a touch disappointing. More than once I was thinking about how some of the action scenes really could be better (like for instance when Indy and Marion get into the fight in the Cairo streets -- I was noticing how Karen Allen had been directed to apparently only slightly pound a bad guy on the head in the side of the shot, where these days I'd be expecting a little more in the way of Michelle Yeoh style asskicking). Also, John Williams' gift and limitations as a composer were pretty obvious; aside from the Raiders march and the Ark theme nearly everything musically just made me think of Star Wars.

Minor complaints, though, it's still a romp and a half, nothing about the film feels wasted, it uses economy to excellent effect, and even more successfully really pulls off suspension of disbelief well (when I first saw it in 1981 I wouldn't have known that the idea of 1936 Nazis having an openly armed force in British-controlled Egypt or a secret base on a Greek island was utterly ridiculous, but even though I do know it's not a worry because that's what Nazis do in the popular mind, have openly armed strike forces everywhere and plenty of secret bases).

Fun geek revelations -- the midget servant (who up until last night I just thought was meant to be a kid) who brings the poisoned dates to Indy and Sallah while they're waiting for the translation of the amulet is played by Kiran Shah, who was Elijah Wood's stand-in in Lord of the Rings which of course also starred John Rhys-Davies who played Sallah etc. Also, the guide who helps Indy into the temple at the start of film ("Throw me the idol, I give you the whip!" etc.) is Alfred Molina! As soon as I saw him on-screen I thought 'wait a minute...' and then his name popped up in the opening credits a couple of seconds later.

Oh and for all that they've changed the name on the packaging (to Indiana Jones and the Raiders etc.) the actual title of the film remained the same in the opening credits. Good thing too.

Very much so -- one thing that's great about the Ark is that its powers are implied or uncertain most of the time. People know what it IS but everyone's guessing about what it can DO, and that makes the unexpectedness of the ending all the more unsettling. That and it's flat out gruesome as well -- but one of the most effective things about the death of Belloq is that while we see him looking in horror at something within the Ark after the angels change to skeletons, we never see exactly what it is (and the only view of what is in the Ark a bit earlier is equally peculiar, seeming to show clouds and smoke rising up from impossible depths).

Hm, a lot of this is making me think of the unknown thing in the suitcase in Pulp Fiction.

The woman who played Elsa Schneider was asked to play Eowyn in LotR, and she would have been WAY BETTER than whoever ended up doing it.

Hey, you're mean (one reason I really like Miranda Otto in the role is that she's not a conventional Hollywood beauty as such -- she's definitely attractive but not a blonde bombshell like the actress you mention).

what are your thoughts on temple of doom? on re-viewing some years ago I was kind of shocked by it--

but the opening scene is still perfect.

But I'm sure I'll break out Temple of Doom here soon enough and I freely agree the opening scene roolz down to the weird Dan Ackroyd cameo. Last Crusade...maybe when I'm REALLY bored and a bit drunk one night, that could work.

xpost I like the way you both think.

(although the dad stuff is a bit rough)

and temple of doom is sort of a colonialist nightmare

(I was thinking specifically of the scene when the british army shows up and saves our heroes from the savage brain-eating indians!)

http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/153/501840~Indiana-Jones-and-The-Temple-of-Doom-Posters.jpg

WAHT

I take it you mean the title and not Jeff's poster (which is indeed great, I still remember seeing that one at movie theaters and getting impatient for it).

exactly. there is no question that the sword represents his cock

Dun-dah-dun-dun

Machete, technically. It's a machete that represents his cock.

whatever it is it makes the vadge look like that limply hanging whip when he's done

Oh, so the whip represents his good-natured affability I suppose?

no. see previous post.

Indiana Jones and the Secrets of Dr. Freud

http://www.indianajones.com/site/index.html

aaaaaand the new title is released

duh, i are late. oh well

Indiana Jones and the Tomb Studio Robbers

John Hurt, the new ungrateful Alec Guinness:

"I enjoyed working with Steven hugely, and we had a great cast. I just wish we'd had something of fabulous interest between each other to act!"

"George is a bit socially crippled, really. Not good with people. So I just left him alone."

http://www.premiere.com/features/4335/q-a-exclusive-john-hurt-on-indiana-jones-and-the-kingdom-of-the-crystal-skull.html

We looked into it and there were various things about it — like the time I had to be on set — where I thought, "No, this isn't going to work out." But then I was advised by everybody that it'd be a good thing to do.

I said, "Well, I need to have a little bit of previous knowledge even if God is doing it." So they sent a courier over with the script from Los Angeles, gave it to me at three o'clock in the afternoon in London, collected it again at eight o'clock in the evening, and he returned the next day to Los Angeles. So that was an expensive read.

Great short interview in any event. Hurt should write an autobiography if he hasn't already!

http://io9.com/345132/first-look-at-indiana-jones-in-the-cobwebby-alien-dungeon

"If I burn this giant sage smudge-stick, it should dispel all the evil spirits."

is that the ghost of Ray Winston appearing in the second pic?

Indy doesn't look very rough and ready in this shot, his trousers are far too clean for a start.

intrsting!

http://mysterymanonfilm.blogspot.com/2009/03/raiders-story-conference.html

wtf lucas.

George Lucas — I was thinking that this old guy could have been his mentor. He could have known this little girl when she was just a kid. Had an affair with her when she was eleven.

Lawrence Kasdan — And he was forty-two.

G — He hasn't seen her in twelve years. Now she's twenty-two. It's a real strange relationship.

Steven Spielberg — She had better be older than twenty-two.

G — He's thirty-five, and he knew her ten years ago when he was twenty-five and she was only twelve. It would be amusing to make her slightly young at the time.

S — And promiscuous. She came onto him.

G — Fifteen is right on the edge. I know it's an outrageous idea, but it is interesting. Once she's sixteen or seventeen it's not interesting anymore. But if she was fifteen and he was twenty-five and they actually had an affair the last time they met. And she was madly in love with him and he...

S — She has pictures of him.

okay George Lucas is a big NO

You know, I just watched "Temple of Doom" again for the first time in ages, and I was wondering: if the Thugees can hypnotize people with their magic blood and have voodoo dolls that work, and if the sacred stones glow during their sacrifice ceremonies ... then doesn't that legitimize their evil supernatural magic power, and sort of imply it's the villagers who are misusing this magic, intrinsically evil power?

The metaphysics of the Indiana Jones movies is very perplexing

http://www.filmfreakcentral.net/ffc/2012/10/indiana-jones-the-complete-adventures.html

If there is a better piece of writing on these films, I haven't read it.

Didn't know until yesterday that Temple of Doom was a prequel.

The part of my personality that's still eleven years old thinks that's big news and wants to talk to people about this.

also the part of me that thinks the coolest part about Blade Runner is the "is he an android?" discussion and the part of me that desperately wants to know if Bond is one man or five different guys who go by the same code name James Bond.

Dun dah dun dun

Yeah wow that last article is intense. I never realized what a horrible person Indiana Jones is.

Of course, he's a cartoon though!

Does anyone else feel any poignancy in the Belloq/Marion relationship, culminating in his upset at her being tossed into the snake pit with Indy, or have I just watched Raiders so many times at this point that now I'm only looking for new things?

saw Temple Of Doom around midnight on an *actual cinema* at a festival last week at very loud volume with a whooping, cheering crowd. it's scarier than i recall! the bit where they force him to drink from a skull in the Temple and all that stuff.. real intense. i'm surprised there wasn't much more of a fuss made back in the day about the horror aspect of a kids film, being as it was a PG over here. maybe there was a fuss made and i forget?

Well, it (and Gremlins) started the PG-13 rating.

Yeah, there was total fuss.

Welp.

http://variety.com/2013/film/news/disney-acquires-indiana-jones-rights-from-paramount-1200927216/

How long til this gets handed over to J.J. Abrams?

This is much worst news than Star Wars IMO.

agreed, either they keep making them w/ harrison ford which plz no or they start making them w/o harrison ford which god fucking no.

Oh, come on, isn't the answer obvious?
http://img2-2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/080521/shia_l.jpg

agreed, either they keep making them w/ harrison ford which plz no or they start making them w/o harrison ford which god fucking no.

― balls, Saturday, December 7, 2013 2:24 AM (1 hour ago)

Well if they were to come up with a really really good screenplay for one more film then obviously I wouldn't be complaining, but how likely is that to happen. Indiana Jones without Ford and Spielberg would not be Indiana Jones.

If they do spin-off films with his kid that wouldn't really bother me.

Me neither, cause then I'd have absolutely zero reason to see them.

christ this reminds me i saw Temple.. at a festival in summer with a VERY loud sound system and fuck me some bits of it are as good as terrifying.