Indiana Jones and the Slipped Disk

[Slurktan]

So I saw this:

 

Spoiler

It was awful.  The story and character arcs were bad but the biggest thing was just how bad the filmmaking was.  Multiple "dramatic" closeups of unknown people that you never see again with heavy music to tell they are important but..... not as they are never seen again.  Bizarre continuity errors, for example:  Fight scene happens on rope bridge, rope bridge collapses into water, 4 scenes later rope bridge is back up standing for characters to walk across.  There is a scene at the start where Indy punches a guy who was getting into a car.  Standard movie thing is to have a person or people come in from the opposite side to make the car thief taxi them.  This movie has that except they come in the same side literally seconds after Indy punches the guy so they would have seen the body and him punching the guy.  Just stupid shit like that.  Bizarre.

I actually quite liked Phoebe Waller-Bridge, she was quite charismatic despite her character arc flip flopping and being a complete retread of Indys in Temple of Doom. (The writers also gave her a completely tone deaf scene which Indy comments on but then is kind of awkwardly played for laughs.)  Mads while one note was quite amusing as a cowardly scientist villain.  Harrison Ford was way too old and they really only had one scene addressing that and then pretty much wasn't relevant to the rest of the movie.

You can tell they wanted to kill Indy off and then had to do reshoots to fix that.  Sad thing is the movie would have worked much better had he been killed off, quite a few of the character arcs would then mostly work.

 

[IlyaP]

On 5/31/2023 at 3:33 PM, Heartofice said:

I think Crystal Skull has made it quite clear in my mind that there is no benefit to watching yet another soulless entry that doesn't come close to capturing the magic of the original trilogy. I don't really even mentally recognise that Crystal Skull exists, I can just blank it out.

The reviews for this would really need to be staggeringly good to convince me to watch, as it is they look like they are really damning. 

The wife and I saw this tonight. She enjoyed it much more than I did. I'm...frustrated with it. It isn't bad, but it's also not great. And while it lines up its themes in a strategically logical way, the emotional payoff never feels earned or sincere, even though *structurally* it's all cohesive and sound. And there's just too much nostalgia baiting, of the "hey, remember that?" kind of way, that frustrates me when watching sequels. All of the movies to which I could compare it to/against, I found myself thinking of Die Hard with a Vengeance and Die Hard 4.0 a lot when watching it. Which is not, I think, where my brain should be when watching a movie like this. 

[Heartofice]

The reviews are even worse than I feared, it's making me feel rather sad. I have been rewatching the REAL 3 movies and they are all so good, such a world away from Dial of Diarrhoea or Crystal Skullfuck. Maybe these type of movies are impossible to make any more, I don't know. Very sad.

[IlyaP]

8 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

The reviews are even worse than I feared, it's making me feel rather sad. I have been rewatching the REAL 3 movies and they are all so good, such a world away from Dial of Diarrhoea or Crystal Skullfuck. Maybe these type of movies are impossible to make any more, I don't know. Very sad.

I've mentioned it before, but I will stand by and salute the Riddle of the Gods fan edit, which on my honor, improves upon Crystal Skull so fiercely that it's almost unbelievable, and transforms it from a very average, so so movie into a pacey, fun, weird romp. And it adds Hugh Jackman, which...kinda works.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

54 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

All of the movies to which I could compare it to/against, I found myself thinking of Die Hard with a Vengeance and Die Hard 4.0 a lot when watching it. Which is not, I think, where my brain should be when watching a movie like this. 

Well that's a horrifying comparison. My step-dad and step-brother went to see it and were both pretty meh about it.

10 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

The reviews are even worse than I feared, it's making me feel rather sad. I have been rewatching the REAL 3 movies and they are all so good, such a world away from Dial of Diarrhoea or Crystal Skullfuck. Maybe these type of movies are impossible to make any more, I don't know. Very sad.

Idk, two movies come to mind, Jungle Cruise and The Lost City of Z. The former was expensive to make, but also made a couple hundred million plus whatever the Disney+ buys were. And it was not very good. Meanwhile Z was a very well made adventure movie on a budget that lost money. You can still make good adventure movies, but the formula needs to change thought I'm not sure what the answer is.

[IlyaP]

I'm gonna sleep on it, in the hopes that I have a better opinion of the film in the morning.

[Heartofice]

18 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Idk, two movies come to mind, Jungle Cruise and The Lost City of Z. The former was expensive to make, but also made a couple hundred million plus whatever the Disney+ buys were. And it was not very good. Meanwhile Z was a very well made adventure movie on a budget that lost money. You can still make good adventure movies, but the formula needs to change thought I'm not sure what the answer is.

Haven’t seen Jungle Cruise but as far as I’ve seen it’s a pretty low brow ‘theme park ride’ kind of movie. 
 

Z I have seen and really enjoyed, but it’s really more a historic tale with a bit of adventure thrown in. I’m not surprised it didn’t make money but that’s a shame
 

I suspect the kind of comparison movie more likely to be made these days is Uncharted.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Haven’t seen Jungle Cruise but as far as I’ve seen it’s a pretty low brow ‘theme park ride’ kind of movie. 
 

Z I have seen and really enjoyed, but it’s really more a historic tale with a bit of adventure thrown in. I’m not surprised it didn’t make money but that’s a shame
 

I suspect the kind of comparison movie more likely to be made these days is Uncharted.

Yeah, that's a fair way to describe Jungle Cruise. It's not good, but if you like that kind of thing it's worth the two hours, especially if you can get it for free. It's pretty much the same movie as Romancing the Stone. 

Z is a historical movie, but it's also an adventure film. Problem is it will never have the same mass appeal as something like JC because it isn't flashy or happy. And that's where the rub with these movies comes in. The best are ones where you know people will die, but the popular ones are those that you kinda know everyone will be fine and studios tend to go with what will make money.

There's actually a decent amount of these kinds of films coming out of Europe lately that feel like some of the older films. Nothing great, but if you scroll through Netflix or Hulu you can find some real B movie gems. 

And lastly, I thought Uncharted was terrible. JC is better. 

[Corvinus85]

Not much to say. It was meh. 

One odd thing about it was that

Spoiler

the villain didn't get melted or vaporized like all the other villains.

 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

On 5/31/2023 at 9:53 PM, RumHam said:

... The Spirit …

Yeah I saw that in the theater as well. I was actually looking forward to it, having seen Sin City and liking that so much.

I think it was the scene where Sam Jackson is decked out in full nazi regalia I said, “Oh, fuck off already.” Gorgeous to look at, but so very tedious. 

[dbunting]

I saw this and was pleasantly surprised. It was much more like the originals and nothing like that Skull garbage. Is it Raiders, no, but it was pretty good.  There is of course some stuff that makes little sense, like there always being an alternate route in and out of the secret tomb, but each of these movies has had that.  I am glad I went to see it despite what any reviews might say.

 

On 7/1/2023 at 11:36 PM, Slurktan said:

So I saw this:

 

  Hide contents

Bizarre continuity errors, for example:  Fight scene happens on rope bridge, rope bridge collapses into water, 4 scenes later rope bridge is back up standing for characters to walk across.  

 

Spoiler

I don't remember it being a fight scene? The hulk and kid were crossing and some planks very predictably broke and they fell through. The next time you see that bridge there are two planks broken and clearly visible hanging down where they fell through. Now the real complaint is how did that kid magically end of exactly where he needed to. The same way all Indy films do it, the alternate path is always there and always leads to the same place.

 

[williamjm]

8 hours ago, dbunting said:

I saw this and was pleasantly surprised. It was much more like the originals and nothing like that Skull garbage. Is it Raiders, no, but it was pretty good.  There is of course some stuff that makes little sense, like there always being an alternate route in and out of the secret tomb, but each of these movies has had that.  I am glad I went to see it despite what any reviews might say.

I saw it yesterday and I feel the same. It was missing the many things that were annoying about Crystal Skull, and while it still isn't close to Raiders/Last Crusade it did at least feel like an Indiana Jones film. I thought Phoebe Waller-Bridge was good in it, although her characterisation felt inconsistent. Ford can't really do the action scenes now but is good at the rest.

I think it's a bit of a shame this isn't the film they made 15 years ago because they wouldn't have to work around Ford would have been fitter and then they wouldn't have made Crystal Skull.

I'm sure we're all devastated that...

Spoiler

Shia La Boeuf's character died in the interim period between the films. The movie wisely doesn't try to make us feel all that sorry about it.

 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Im glad this bombed. Maybe now Disney will finally fire Kathy Kennedy and save Star Wars.

[IFR]

I didn't watch this movie and I won't. It gives me no end of pleasure to see the Lucasfilms-Disney machine stumble again as it churns out abomination after abomination. I did enjoy the Pitch Meeting though, which is free and I'm sure far more intelligent and entertaining than the movie itself.

 

[Corvinus85]

Yeah, you can argue that Indy had plot armor in all the movies, but definitely in the last act of this movie.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I rewatched Raiders for the umtheenth millionth time.  I always enjoy that movie even if there is random shit (where does that cliff the car drives off of come from…) and the “White Savior vibes are very strong.  

I’m re-watching Last Crusade and it’s not landing like it used too.  Very cartoony.  Very camp… and not in a good way…

Edited July 11, 2023 by Ser Scot A Ellison

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

5 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I rewatched Raiders for the umtheenth millionth time.  I always enjoy that movie even if there is random shit (where does that cliff the car drives off of come from…) and the “White Savior vibes are very strong.  

I’m re-watching Last Crusade and it’s not landing like it used too.  Very cartoony.  Very camp… and not in a good way…

At least last crusade is miles better than that travesty known as the temple of doom ! And Sean Connery is awesome in it.

Edited July 11, 2023 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II
NA

[Heartofice]

19 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

At least last crusade is miles better than that travesty known as the temple of doom ! And Sean Connery is awesome in it.

Temple of Doom is awesome. I stand by that. 
 

I do get the campy complaint about Last Crusade, I actually think the movie doesn’t really kick in until Connery turns up and it’s his performance that manages to settle the tone, which I always felt was a little off by that point. 

[Veltigar]

I hadn't seen that there was a separate thread for this film, so I wrote a rather long review of this in the Watched thread:

 

One thing I did forget to mention and that annoyed me to no end was the weird scene in the lecture room in the beginning

Spoiler

It just shows how lazy the plotting is, when you have Indy give a lecture that jumps from Neo-Assyrian vases into the siege of Syracuse without any discernible link between the two subjects. He's not teaching at an Ivy League college anymore (they never explain why by the way), but surely Hunter College's teaching standards can not be that low?

Like, there is no temporal, geographical or topical link between his lessons on the vase and the Battle of Syracuse. What made it even worse however, is the fact that in an auditorium full of students who specifically chose to follow this course and were motivated enough to come in on Moon day, not one of them had ever heard of Archimedes?

This is such basic stuff and Archimedes is such a towering figure that I believe I actually had classes on him and his inventions/discoveries in at least three separate high-school classes (physics, mathematics and history I believe) and I wasn't even enrolled in a field of study with a particular focus on the Classics. 

I get that the American educational system of that era and my own probably were very different, but I can't imagine it containing less classes on Archimedes than I had myself. This must have been the worst generation of students in the college's history.

 

Edited July 11, 2023 by Veltigar

[Corvinus85]

4 hours ago, Veltigar said:

I hadn't seen that there was a separate thread for this film, so I wrote a rather long review of this in the Watched thread:

From your post there I strongly agree about the film's laziness for historical accuracy. Adding to this point:

Spoiler

The tomb of Archimedes not being discovered in the Ear of Dionysus, despite that place having been crawling with tourists since time immemorial (in fact, the name of the Ear is from the early 17th century and was given by Carravagio)

Yes, and is the tomb that big of a secret? We know how he died and the Romans buried him. Did they take the time to make all that elaborate stuff?

My opinion on this, which in the end was the main premise

Spoiler

The idea that storms open up time portals at convenient intervals. As someone who has flown quite a bit in life already, if that were true, we would have disappearances of plains all the time. If the dial itself had opened a portal, it would make far more sense that they draw people to the Battle of Syracuse.

The time fissure thing was clearly inspired by the Bermuda Triangle myth but the movie makes no connection to it and it would have been better if it had. I was OK with the dial being able to predict such events, because if the dial itself could open actual wormholes, there is no way I could have suspended my disbelief. What would have powered it?

But the whole time fissure thing fails majorly because of one aspect, and that is the worth of its popular culture mystery. Yes, plane disappearances happen, and further back in aviation history there are more unexplained disappearances than today. But is this sufficient enough to craft a story of myth and adventure? The Lost Ark, the Holy Grail, and yes even the crystal skull are objects that are still surrounded by a lot of mystery out of which you can craft stories. Planes disappear sometimes and are never found - must be time portals. smh