New Indiana Jones film

[Madraccoon]

I hope that it will be better that the previous one 

[Igor Hardy]

Am I the only one here that actually enjoyed KOTCS for the most part? Well, enough to consider it a true  Indy movie at least.

There were two major problematic bits for me in the movie. One was the ending. They evidently kept changing and cutting it so much that it had little sense and the last comment by Indy about "knowledge being the 'El Dorado' inhabitants' treasure" was plain ridiculous in face of everything being wiped from the ground and Jones having little interest in the "oh so precious" knowledge which just got irrevocably lost.

Another thing about the ending is that after beating the ants Indy is passive till the very end - just running around with the group.

The other weak part was how the film jumps from the cemetery to the jungle. It's awfully done - pulls the viewer out from the movie. And we are supposed to believe that Jones stayed a well-behaving prisoner during the whole journey to the boat and then on the boat...

One more thing. The character of Marion was mostly wasted in the film, but Karen Allen seems to have lost her charm anyway.

[InCreator]

I find it wrong or atleast hysterical to go solid pro/anti-CGI.

A movie is a movie. If well-done 3D animation let's screenwriter make movie as good as he wants, without becoming too apparent, crossing some physics law or whatever hard to reproduce otherwise, why not?

Imagine Matrix done with classic cinematography... while it would be a fun experiment to see movie itself would probably suck (more... :/ face the fact, the movie is nothing but one good dystopian idea and some neat fx, sucks in every other department... and IMO, for that unattractive, old broad somehow being oh-so-important)

Or take a look at Dune (1984). I watched this movie and cried. They SERIOUSLY lacked 3D-technology back then, everything's abysmal, from shields to worms to weapons, save for steampunk scenery, which wasn't that bad or simply stood out from everything much, much worse.

Then again, true, if CGI is in, it can and usually will be overdone.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Opinions about visual effects are just that: opinions.  I found the effects in Dune to be quite effective and nice!

[InCreator]

You're first one I know saying that then.
I'd feed costume/scenery/fx designer to a sandworm if I were David Lynch.

I hope some brave director makes a decent remake someday in my life.

[GarageGothic]

My main peeve about KotCS was the overuse of the crystal skull itself as a deus ex machina. Seriously, if it had been an adventure game you could pretty much have gotten through it with the skull as your only inventory item:

You are attacked by a swarm of giant fire ants -> Use Crystal Skull with Fire Ants
You are threatened by a tribe of angry Aztecs -> Use Crystal Skull with Angry Aztecs
You are standing in front of an ancient stone door, it is locked -> Use Crystal Skull with Ancient Stone Door

I'm sure there's even more examples.

Overall the screenplay just seemed lazy, especially considering how long they had to write it. There was nothing clever at all about John Hurt's deranged riddles, unlike the grail diary and the X marks the spot scene in Last Crusade, which is my favorite Indy movie - probably because I loved the game so much. Also, the locations were kind of samey, it didn't have the globetrotting feel of the previous movies at all. Way too much jungle. I, for one, actually loved the intro with the nuclear test site - and yeah, the fridge part was silly, but so was the airplane lifeboat escape in ToD. It didn't seem out of place in the Indy universe, and I couldn't help feel it was a nod to the original Back to the Future screenplay (where the time machine was an old fridge and they had to drive it into an atomic test site to generate the 1.21 gigawatts necessary to send Marty back to 1985).

[Jared]

My main peeve about KotCS was the overuse of the crystal skull itself as a deus ex machina. Seriously, if it had been an adventure game you could pretty much have gotten through it with the skull as your only inventory item:

You are attacked by a swarm of giant fire ants -> Use Crystal Skull with Fire Ants
You are threatened by a tribe of angry Aztecs -> Use Crystal Skull with Angry Aztecs
You are standing in front of an ancient stone door, it is locked -> Use Crystal Skull with Ancient Stone Door

I'm sure there's even more examples.

Cate Blanchette's overracting is pissing you right off > use Crystal Skull with decapitated alien.

Interesting question: which was better: The Mummy 3 Or IJatLotCS? Both had their dire moments.

Assuming Mummy 3 is the one where Jet Li appears to play a CGI character who does nothing but roar angrily - there's no question at all for me. I could watch Cyrstal Skull. From beginning to end. Okay, I'm not a big Indy fan so I could just switch my brain into Neutral and laugh at how ridiculous it all was. (Though even as a braindead CGI action-fest it was sub-par...)

Mummy 3 was unholy in it's badness. A turgid combination of writers with no good ideas at all, a director who seemed to have only the vaguest notion of what a film is meant to be, and the worst editing EVER - every single frigging scene seems to last for 30 seconds. It's okay in an episode of Scrubs but this is meant to be a bloody film! Not even the 'action' could sustain my interest in the slightest.

To put it in perspective, I had never before walked out of a movie. I walked out of Mummy 3 twice. (My friends wanted to go to the movies, but there was no way I was watching The House Bunny with them, so I plumped for Mummy 3 seeing as nothing else was on - the film got too awful when they met the goddess in the cave and I figured they must have been through - but they weren't. So then I went in and watched some of the retarded final battle scene until I JUST COULDN'T TAKE IT ANY MORE.)

[TheJBurger]

The Mummy 3 was so 'so bad it's good' that I had plenty of fun watching it. Honestly, if you expect anything out of it then don't watch it at all.

Now, watching Kingdom of the Crystal Skull--that was just painful. I could not help but cringe the whole time through while waiting for any non-existent redeeming qualities in it.

[monkey0506]

I was working in a movie theatre/restaurant during both these movies (IJ & M3). Indy did far better for me. People who are generally more satisfied with the film tend to leave better tips, so I guess the general public thought it was okay. Though I did hear a lot of people raising the question, "ALIENS?!?"

The Mummy 3 was one of the worst films I think I've ever seen (and I never actually watched it straight through start to finish). It was much more popular with "families" and young teens than anybody else. Which I guess that was who they were targeting but still, I found the movie horrid personally.

So yeah, I pretty much agree with Jared.

[Matti]

Opinions about visual effects are just that: opinions.  I found the effects in Dune to be quite effective and nice!

You're first one I know saying that then.
I'd feed costume/scenery/fx designer to a sandworm if I were David Lynch.

I hope some brave director makes a decent remake someday in my life.

Gotta second ProgZ there. More modern technology would've been nice but when I watched Dune I didn't really care, cause that movie is great and it looked okay (especially the worms). In fact it's my favorite sci-fi movie ever.

[Blackthorne]

You're first one I know saying that then.
I'd feed costume/scenery/fx designer to a sandworm if I were David Lynch.

I hope some brave director makes a decent remake someday in my life.

I also think Dune's effects and photography is awesome.  The movie's script it a mess, but it's beautiful.

Bt

[Igor Hardy]

You're first one I know saying that then.
I'd feed costume/scenery/fx designer to a sandworm if I were David Lynch.

I hope some brave director makes a decent remake someday in my life.

I also think Dune's effects and photography is awesome.  The movie's script it a mess, but it's beautiful.

Bt

The lasers and all optical effects were complete crap. Some of the space traveling scenes were just photo cutouts of ships with fake looking drawings in the background. There were a lot of beautiful scenes in Dune, but many things just looked silly.

I gave up on the Mummy movies after watching the first 15 minutes of the first one. Zero excitement or intrigue. KOTCS is way better. Also, there are more interesting mummy movies around.

[Snake]

Imagine Matrix done with classic cinematography...

Poor example. The Matrix is about the world around you being computer generated. It's expected and blends right the hell in. Indiana Jones? Not so much.

They may as well have made the prairy dogs talk with a little squirell voice and the monkeys sing a song from Jungle Book.

I also expected a ton of CG for Transformers, which I didn't like to begin with, but the CG didn't bother me since, I was expecting it. I expect very little CG use in Jones movies.

I am Legend? Ruined by CG. I loved the story only because I'm in to zombie's and post apocolyptical stories, but ruined by those CG people running around constantly openening their mouths and roaring while their mouth is shaking... much like a cartoon character in a kid's movie would roar.

I don't hate CG, it's handy and can most certainly fill in the lines if needed, but over-use and done poorly where a non CGI alternative would have worked better in the first place, scrapes the underside of my penis.

[Gord10]

What I believe is that a CG is successful as long as the audience doesn't think it of being a CG. We all know a plenty of CG's were used in the Lord of the Rings films, but I think only a few people would think of "How a nice effect, it must be hard to make it!" or "That's not a successful one" while watching Gandalf on work, the only thing audience perceived was Gandalf creating miracles. A CG must be persuasive.

[Snake]

I agree, Gord.

Like I said, I don't hate CG. The prairy dogs weren't even badly animated, it just didn't fit with the movie. Same with the monkeys in the jungle or the ants. They could have taken all of those out and it wouldn't have made a difference (they could have deleted that whole scene anyway). Well, besides the ants. But they could have done something else... like a plain old fist fight. The ants were too outrageous (not mentioning the spaceship) to begin with. It was too reminiscent of those beetle things in The Mummy (but I didn't mind them in that movie at all).

Besides those three CG things that dissapointed me, I can't remember anything else that stood out like that. Maybe the waterfall scene (compared to the plane scene in Indy 2)?

But anyway, like Gord said, the CG being used has to go along with the movie itself and not take anything away from the story telling. If you're off in you mind wondering, "Jesus, that could have been done better" or similar, it's bad enough where it's a distraction.

[Chicky]

Imagine Matrix done with classic cinematography... while it would be a fun experiment to see movie itself would probably suck

This is silly, have you seen the special features from the matrix DVD? The way they do the 360 camera is bloody clever and i would consider it classic and innovative cinematography (not sure if they did it first though). Also if you take the first matrix film and compare it to the toss that is Matrix Revolutions you can clearly see the negative effect CGI has, even in a film based around a computer generated reality.

It's clear that CGI is over used in almost every hollywood action flick, this is largely down to the rules put on producers regarding actors safety when stunts can be substituted by CGI. Why risk people's lives when the same effect can be achieved with a good 3D artist? Because it makes a far more satisfying watch! I like to know that someone has risked their life for a role convincing scene, i respect them for it. I'd choose real life action heroes blowing themselves up over sweaty men sat in middle of a rendering farm.

Sorry to rant.

[Domino]

I liked the last Indiana Jones movie, even bought it on DVD. But during the whole movie I was thinking, WOW, Indy looks so damn old now.   :'( (Temple of Doom was my favorite of all of them)

How about the Movie TRON. I have that movie on DVD also and to this day I think it looks great. I never really researched how they made that movie, but how much CGI was in that movie or green screen?

I might be off-topic, I don't know.

[Matti]

I liked the last Indiana Jones movie, even bought it on DVD. But during the whole movie I was thinking, WOW, Indy looks so damn old now.   :'( (Temple of Doom was my favorite of all of them)

Really? I think the last movie sucked and Temple of Doom was the worst of the old movies. My favorite was The Last Crusade.

[Phemar]

Really? I think the last movie sucked and Temple of Doom was the worst of the old movies. My favorite was The Last Crusade.

Same here, except I don't harbour as much as hatred as everyone else for the last movie. Sure it was overdone, but it was great to see Harrison Ford reprise his role and I love that Indy charm he has. Kind of makes up for all the sucky bits.
Guess I'm just a Ford fanboy