Which of the Indiana Jones sequels is the best?

Nah, just that the first is better.

Would not be surprised to find that the hoi polloi don't agree with Morbs on the 2's theory.

The 2s almost always have it: Frankenstein, Superman, Star Wars, Alien, Star Trek etc.

Morbz is OTM here, in general (left out Batman lol)

no, only on rare occasions do sequels clearly surpass their predecessors. agree on frankenstein and star trek, but that's about it.

are you serious?

Superman II, The Empire Strikes Back, Aliens, Bride of -- leagues better than their predecessors.

http://i2.listal.com/image/264049/600full-step-up-2%3A-the-streets-poster.jpg

superman and superman ii both suck. empire strikes back and star wars are both great. alien is better than aliens.

agree about bride, as i said.

Superman II, Empire, Batman Returns, and the Dark Knight are all better than their predecessors (disagree w Morbz re: Alien)

xp

and Godfather II is better than I

this sort of only applies to non-horror genres tho imho

okay, i'll grant superman ii, but it's not good enough to care about or haggle over, imo

http://cdn.fd.uproxx.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Terence-Stamp-General-Zod-Photograph-C10101814.jpeg

"Why do you say this to me when you know I will kill you for it?"

i still haven't seen crystal skull. and haven't seen 2 & 3 since i was a kid. voted temple

Batman Returns, and the Dark Knight are all better than their predecessors

these are interesting cases. both of the batman sequels are longer, more ambitious and much more interesting than their predecessors. otoh, they're both a bit shapeless, narratively. i do like them better than what they followed, though they're both messes with GREAT detailing.

oh cool this thread turned into a kevin smith script

do I have to derail this thread with lame Dark Nought jokes

Dork Knight iirc

what me, worry?

the dreck blight

oh cool this thread turned into a kevin smith script

i was bored sunday afternoon, so i watched that hardwicke/seyfried red riding hood flick, which i half enjoyed despite awfulness. then i watched that pegg/frost paul flick, which i half enjoyed despite utter inconsequentiality. then the (drumroll) the game of thrones season finale. which i fully enjoyed, etc.

somewhere amidst this five-hour television orgy, i realized that i am a complete and total nerd and that i should probably own a hellboy t-shirt or something. so sticks and stones...

We. are going. to die.

or, well, four-hour orgy. i only saw half of red riding hood.

alien >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> aliens

^truth

it's not a lot of movies that ill say this about but paul could have used a rewrite by kevin smith and/or aaron sorkin.

H4A, I can assure you that your life will be so much more rewarding having never seen Crystal Skull

also temple of doom should have been directed by the guy who did cannibal holocaust. i would have felt less icky watching it.

have never seen The Spiel dissing ToD.

As I've said elsewhere, it has levels of zany sexism and cult xenphobia entirely fitting to a '30s potboiler. A-

(none of them can touch ET, obv)

Temple Of DJP

I have a weird amount of affection for Crystal Skull because the rifftrax for it was one of my all time favorites. Everything about is so absurd, I can't imagine what Spielberg and Lucas were thinking.

you have affection for Rifftrax then? PLEASE? I dunno if I can handle conflating that with love for the Crystal Skull, lol

Last Crusade all the way

anyone who disagrees gets a slap for blasphemy

Blashphemy surely.

*remembers the lengthy Sean Connery impersonation offered by da croup at a Manhattan breakfast place in the summer of '03*

it's not the last time that's happened

and then i remembered my charlemagne...
does anyone speak english?
and this is how we say goodbye in GERMANY!
no tickets
he chose...poorly

I watched the Last Crusade again a few weeks ago and I think it holds up.

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4057/4385305706_3c1f44cd58_z.jpg?zz=1

i feel like everyone i know IRL agrees that Last Crusade >>>>> Temple, surprised this is even a question

gooshtepping mohrahns

Last Crusade isn't a movie: it's a cavalcade for Sean Connery. When I watch it (more often than I admit) I skip over everything else.

I hated Last Crusade when it came out and haven't bothered to watch it since.

I shuddenly remembered my Charlemagne: ket my ahrmies be the ROHKS and the trees — and the bahrds in the shky."

i should have sent it to the MARCKSH BROTHERS

favorite moment might be when indy sends the motorcyclist flying, smiles to dad and gets rebuffed

she talkshs in her shleep

it belongs in a MUSEUM!

favorite moment might be when indy sends the motorcyclist flying, smiles to dad and gets rebuffed

― da croupier, Tuesday, June 5, 2012 9:54 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

oh man, totally

"Indiana, let it go."

I dig the fraternity greeting or whatever that he and Marcus exchange.

Voting for Short Round, though "I should've mailed it to the Marx Bros." makes it really close.

lol such an obviously terrible 90s blockbuster studio note. you can easily imagine that movie and it stinks, both for the reason you outline and because it would clearly drain the momentum out of the movie. interesting that the director's next project, Keanu Reeves in Chain Reaction, revives the "romance on the run" idea.

it would definitely have ended w/Jeroen Krabbe holding a gun to Julianne Moore's head, maybe her kicking him in the balls or something, he releases her, TLJ drops him with a shot.

"I didn't kill my wife"

"I didn't care then, Richard. I care now."

what if he said "my wife" Borat-style the whole movie

peaking of screenwriting, Jaymc posted a great interview with Tony Kushner, mostly about the making of "Munich" but also containing the revelation that his initial script for "Lincoln" was 500 pages! Apparently Spielberg was elated, but he was essentially able to sculpt his story out of that solid block of screenwriting marble. Spielberg doesn't get credited as a writer that often, but clearly the guy has a knack for that, too. Just a natural born storyteller.

The "sentimental" material in A.I. is Kubrick's, the harder stuff is Spielberg's. I always thought his screenwriting credit was decorative but, no, apparently he reshaped the script and wrote the dialogue almost entirely (his other writing credits include Close Encounters and The Fablemans, the latter again with Kushner).

And "Poltergeist"! Spielberg has a mean streak, that's for sure, lol. It was his muscle that enabled "Gremlins" its edge.

For reference, Spielberg in a 2002 interview: "...all the parts of A.I. that people accuse me of sweetening and softening and sentimentalising were all Stanley's. The teddy bear was Stanley's. The whole last 20 minutes of the movie was completely Stanley's. The whole first 35, 40 minutes of the film – all the stuff in the house – was word for word, from Stanley's screenplay. This was Stanley's vision... eighty percent of the critics got it all mixed up... but in fact it was Stanley who did the sweetest parts of A.I., not me. I'm the guy who did the dark center of the movie, with the Flesh Fair and everything else. That's why he wanted me to make the movie in the first place. He said, 'This is much closer to your sensibilities than my own.'”⠀⁣⁣⁣

I remember everyone (in life, not critics) hating the movie when it came out for a variety of reasons. It was enough to dissuade me from seeing it until much later. I had mixed feelings initially, but as I got older and more mature, I went back to it every now and then and grew to appreciate it each time. I think by 2015 or so, I came around to it altogether, and Spielberg really was the right director for it - it's easily my favorite of his films and a masterpiece. I'm not alone in that regard, but it probably still has more detractors than supporters and I wish more people could see how brilliant it really is.

The critical tide has considerably turned. The 2000s were Spielberg's best decade.

and Kubrick, not much of a writer, often claimed screenplay credit for things.

We talking "A.I."? Even if I didn't think it was a masterpiece, it's been a long time since I've seen any serious negative criticism of it and not some knee-jerk immature reaction. It reminds me of a time I was working at a summer camp with a bunch of normies. One night off we all went to see "Unforgiven," and iirc everyone (but me) hated it. "Too slow!" "Not enough action!" Whatever.

I don't agree that the 2000s were Spielberg's best decade, or at least not that they were any better than the previous decades, but it sure has been an interesting run of crowdpleasers and personal detours, huge spectacles and smaller films alike, just about all as deftly made as (if very different from) his formative films.

The teddy bear was Stanley's … The whole first 35, 40 minutes of the film – all the stuff in the house – was word for word, from Stanley's screenplay. This was Stanley's vision...

motherfuckers act like they forgot about Brian

The 1970s is still Spielberg's best decade IMHO, but the 2000s isn't that far behind, partly because he was more prolific:

The 1970s in total: Duel, The Sugarland Express, Jaws, Close Encounters, and even the underrated 1941 (flawed but wonderful set pieces)

The 2000s: A.I. (again my favorite hands down), Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can...but The Terminal is very disappointing (though I have a soft spot for the use of jazz history), I absolutely hated War of the Worlds, have mixed feelings about Munich (some great scenes though), and don't care for the fourth Indiana Jones movie (not as terrible as some make it out to be, but still worthless).

I'll add that Spielberg was a great producer before he decided to make worthless junk out of crappy cartoons like the Flintstones and the Transformers, and I've even preferred the films he's produced over the ones he directed concurrently: see Joe Dante, Robert Zemeckis's earlier movies, even minor films of merit like Batteries Not Included.

Re: Kubrick's writing skills, I don't find anything wrong with his writing at all. I would emphasize he's a brilliant interpreter of strong literary works, and that he typically worked with strong collaborators when coming up with a script (Terry Southern, Arthur C. Clarke, Jim Thompson, Michael Herr, etc.) IIRC the only time he's written original material was for his earliest (and very low-budget) films, minor works compared to his first great and fully realized film, The Killing (which was an adaptation). It's very possible he could have come up with a much better and original story later on, but I don't think he ever had any interest in doing do once he could afford to purchase the rights to literary properties.

Morbs is smiling down today

I absolutely hated War of the Worlds

what??? come on

I wouldn't want a Spielberg filmography without The Terminal even if I don't care for it. I'll take the '00s because he put all he'd learned about how editing and interpreting good scripts into A.I, Catch Me If You Can, War of the Worlds, Munich. If Crystal Skull's the worst of the lot, that's an incredible run.