Why is LC not as action packed as ROTLA/ToD?
 

I just watched the trilogy last night back-to-back-to-back and loved every minute of it. All three films were a treat. I was wondering though, why is Last Crusade not as stuffed full with as much epic over-the-top action as the first two films? Don't get me wrong, it's still an excellent movie and has plenty of action, but by comparison, it just feels tame.

Even though I don't find Crusade to be the Indy film with the least action I think it may feel that way to you due to the father/son story and the slightly comedic overtones.
I think the action in Last Crusade is only second to Raiders, though I haven't watched them back to back in years.

Crusade:
Train chase
Coronado tanker fight
Venice boat chase
Castle Brunwald fire/escape
Motorcycle chase
(then in the same breath we have)
Zeppelin escape/biplane battle/stolen car vs. Messerschmitt
tank chase (which is comprised of quite a number of action sequences in itself.)

That's about seven or eight action set pieces right there. Maybe the tone makes it feel less "actiony" to you?

It feels like TLC has the same amount of action as Raiders, but I actually haven't counted the actual minutes/scenes dedicated to fist fights and explosions. ;)

I'd agree that TOD appears to have more action... it's certainly pretty much non stop from the first reel. Conversely I think TLC is a more considered movie than TOD, and some of its best moments are non action scenes e.g. "Brody's got friends in every town and village from here to the Sudan" etc. etc.

There certainly was action, but it just seemed to a lesser extent than the other two films. I mean, the whole end set piece, "get through the booby traps to get to the grail," was extremely tame. Perhaps I was just hoping for a more extreme climax? I don't know. The three challanges should have been... more challenging.



But again, don't get me wrong, LC is great the way it is. I'm just saying, it could have also been great had they added MORE action and bigger set-pieces (i.e. a much more challenging climax) to the end while simultaniously keeping the same amount of backstory and character building. In other words, the same story, just with the epicness of ToD (which had just insane amounts action).

Uhg, it's tough to talk about it without sounding like Im trying to dog on the film. That's not my intention. It's just, after watching the three films one after the other, I could definately tell that LC was the most easy going of the three. It had great action, but it was noticeably less over-the-top than the of the other two films. (Maybe the best way to put it would be: LC has the same amount of action, but the action we're seeing is less extreme than what was in the other two)

I think it probably does have as much action, its just not as intense and memorable as the previous two films, tank chase aside.

I personally much prefer the action in TLC to TOD. Quantity does not always equate to quality e.g Transformers. Don't get me wrong, I think TOD has some top quality action sequences... but many of the action sequences are spurious and are used as filler between the bigger set pieces (IMHO)... a consequence I think of being too focused on the action and not the story. TLC has a more personal finale (IMHO), and as you state is "less over the top". The story is always driving the action rather than the action driving the story... and that's why I think TLC works much better as a movie (even if it has less action).

Where's Stoo to bring up the numerous threads made about LC's action scenes? I forgot, I didn't make this thread :rolleyes:

1) Raiders, if you feel you're the only one who has been subjected to my pointing out pre-existing threads, think again. Don't feel so victimized.

2) Certain, specific topics deeply interest me while others don't. General opinions on the original trilogy are not high on the list so I don't keep track of each & every discussion concerning them. (Likewise, there are loads upon loads of duplicate threads in the Indy Gear section but I never bother with those because they aren't my bag.)

3) DoomsdayFAN joined in Dec. 2007 and has started a mere, 6 threads. You, Raiders112390, joined in Jan. 2007 and have started MORE THAN a whopping, +245 threads!:eek:

4) What are your thoughts about the supposed lack of action in "Crusade"?
I agree that "Raiders" and "Crusade" probably have the same amount of action but the spacing between sequences is different. If the actual minutes were counted, it's most likely that the totals would be almost equal.

(Now, who would be crazy enough to the count the minutes/seconds?:p)

1) I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who has been banned twice because of it.
2) Whatever.
3) Don't see how that factors into anything or has anything to do with what I said. You joined here two years before me and yet you have more than double my number of posts. Since he's made 6 threads, it should be easier to pick out where he's being redundant. You sure know how to use the search function when it suits you.
4) If I said what I thought about it, I'd probably be banned, yet again, for being 'repetitive' since I made a thread on the subject years ago.

1) If you believe you're the only one, then that should be a clear sign of something. (Not to mention, I think you've been suspended 4 times because of it.)
2) Brilliant reply!:rolleyes:
3) Post counts are irrelevant to the matter. I don't start threads on topics that have already been discussed, let alone ones I've already created, as you often do. Furthermore, DoomsdayFAN is not repeating himself with this one.
4) Raiders, if you are able to recall an older thread on this very subject than it would have been better to just provide a link to it instead of announcing your paranoia. Help organize this place instead of cluttering it up.;)

Comprende, amigo? That aside...what do you think of the supposed lack of action in "Crusade" compared to the first 2 films?

4) What could be more exciting than dressing up as a waiter and throwing an SS Colonel out the window of a zeppellin?



TLC is about as action packed as they come.

To reiterate Dr. Gonzo:

An extended fight on a train
A fight on a ship in a storm
A conflagration in a crypt
A speedboat chase
Escape from a burning room surrounded by SS
A motorcycle chase
Escape from a zeppellin while in flight
Aircraft vs aircraft
Aircraft vs car
Aircraft vs tunnel
Aircraft vs seagulls
A battle between Germans and cultists
A fight on a tank
A series of deadly traps
A collapsing temple



I don't think there was much room for any more action, unless the talky bits had been removed in favour of some more battles and chases.

As far as the climax goes, how do you guys feel about the three challenges?


What do you think was more deadly.... getting through the three challanges, or getting in and out of the "Golden Idol" (from Raiders) cave?

The "Golden Idol":rolleyes: bit is at the start of the movie. Did you watch "Raiders" backwards?:confused:

If you take the prologue and epilogue away from KOTCS, it resembles ROTLA in reverse. Begins in a warehouse, ends in a jungle. ;)


Chasm, 'bottomless' pit and head lopping were pretty hair raising (or lowering in the case of the latter). Rather than repeat the traps of ROTLA, TLC went for different motivation: they were tests of faith.

The Fertility Idol was designed to test a Chachapoyan boy on his journey to becoming a warrior. That is, his prowess, not his faith. (He wasn't supposed to actually take the idol, as Indy did.)

Really? I don't understand how that would work. Getting to the idol wasn't that difficult, as long as you stayed out of the light, made the jump across the pit, and didn't trigger the poison darts. It was the getting out that was the problem (if you triggered the trap). So I'm not sure I understand what purpose this place served to those people. Were they supposed to just go in and look at the idol and then come back out? What if a Chachapoyan boy triggered the rolling ball? Did the tribesmen just push it back up the ramp and tell the child he failed? I thought the ball permanently sealed the entranced once released?

If it had been impossible then no Chachapoyan boy would ever have lived to become a warriror.

I'm sure I read the history of the Temple of the Chachapoyan Warrirors first in the West End Games Raiders of the Lost Ark Sourcebook. It's also now recorded in part in the Indiana Jones Wiki.


http://indianajones.wikia.com/wiki/C...Fertility_Idol

It's as though you're tiptoeing around something that you could say and actively choosing not to say it. Just as Last Crusade gets a lot of dramatic mileage out of what it does alter in its variations on the Raiders formula (Indy succeeds in getting away with the opening artifact, he nearly falls off a cliff when he gets too into his chase scene headbanging, etc.), its final sequence is in certain respects a variant on the Raiders temple sequence, simply more serious in treatment. Heck, even in the SNES Greatest Adventures game, the penultimate Grail Temple level, before the requisite Donovan boss battle, is a direct remake of the first level in the game set in the Temple of the Chacopoyan Warriors, but with larger, and hence more lethal, traps.

Consider what were cited above as the primary threats in Peru. First, some sharp things come out of the wall after being triggered in a mysterious way. That sounds a lot like the Breath of God. Both even are littered with a corpse or more to raise the stakes. Then there's the bottomless pit. Of course, in Crusade it is made longer across so as not to be whippable or literally jumpable, and is moved to the more dramatically compelling final position in the sequence, but it's there too. Then the tiles shooting out the poison darts; surely this is the least perfect correspondence, but even then in both cases we have Indy's near stumble at the end of the sequence. Oh, and remember what was originally supposed to happen when someone stepped on the wrong letter? Right. Tarantulas. We've even got a replay of the massive, tunnel-spanning cobwebs.

Up to this point, the sequence is more or less just playing around with the Raiders traps, successfully replacing, as Montana suggests, tests of prowess with tests of faith. Then the test of judiciousness occurs, and after Donovan is done in by his own attraction to that which glitters (also: he chose the wrong friends, and it cost him), it's Indy's turn. There's no room for trickery on his part; he can't fool the device, whether it's God himself or not, as he'd tried to before. It's not the gold. It's made of wood. And even when choosing wisely, he still can't get it out of the Temple without the temple collapse sequence happening. (Incidentally, the extended universe treats this as a regular occurrence, to the point that Crystal Skull seemed inconceivable without it in the wake of the Atlantis and Babylon adventures, but you know how many times it happens in the original trilogy? Just twice.)

And then he goes off into the sunset.

I think you're on the money Montana. We all want to see booby traps in an Indy movie (I assume), and as you correctly state, the "different motivation" allows the filmakers to justify the use of, what are now, familiar booby trap scenarios whilst upping the anti. Indy HAS to get to the Grail to save his father. With a direct connection to a higher being, the Grail doesn't simply require a bit of cunning and daring do to be obtained... it requires knowledge, faith, humility and understanding. You have to be "worthy". :)

And in addition I think Indys faith is truly tested in the Grail legend, because for much of the movie I get the impression he doesnt truly believe in his fathers quest for the grail. Indy has to believe in it for his fathers life too.

I always thought that LC has a lot of action whilst also maintaining a solid underbelly of the relationship between Indy and his father. I have never sat and timed the scenes and compared them all though.

Darth you mentioned earlier about TOD having wall to wall action, for me that film suffers from a huge lull from the moment they land in India to when they eventually find the hidden tunnels in the palace.

There's a nice symmetry, isn't there? But with a change in motivation and method of problem solving. Both temples also span divergent and unrelated cultures.

On the one hand we can see the film-makers hand at work, yet with a desire to see things in their story context, I also see the trickster gods at work behind the scenes. Some things are purely mechanical, such as triggers operating traps, while others are beyond logical explanation, such as the light trap and the hidden bridge. The bridge, to the inquiring mind, must be more than cunning paintwork. It works from both the viewers' perspective and from Indy's. Yet it exists as a bridge. It's as inexplicable as the shaft of light.

Then there's the over-riding symmetry of Peru in ROTLA and Peru in KOTCS. The adventure ends where it began, and Däniken was discussed during the Raiders story conference.


Yes, it presents a new set of challenges, designed for a different kind of adversary. Once passed, the adversary becomes accepted as worthy. Then it's only a matter of picking the right Grail. But for what purpose?

If Henry Sr hadn't been dying there would have been no point to choosing the correct cup, beyond the pride of success, as the cup could never be taken beyond the seal.

What I see here is yet more work of the mysterious tricksters. To them it's a game. Though the cup would cure any injuries sustained in reaching it - implying that the 'gods' have a concept of mercy and justice. The quester can then choose whether they want to live forever or not. That's also a pretty pointless act, if you're stuck in the temple. It made the Grail Knight's obsession quite depressing. He was a victim of the temple's creators, and his duty wholly without purpose as he was protecting something that could never be removed.

Not that this has much to do with the topic of this thread, except that TLC is similar in action and plot elements to the other films.

Sounds like a suitable challenge for a superstutious young buck...probably whacked out on some psychotropic compound from licking a frog or eating a shroom.

If you want some conjecture, the test was to simply recover the idol. Consider it the final test a boy would have to pass before he officially joined a hunting party. It may be it proved he was carefull, cautious and observant...just to stand before the idol. Then no matter what he might do, once he took the idol the last test was escaping, (his last job would probably putting much of it back together).
They got it up there in the first place...with enough tribesmen that would be another bonding experience not unlike the Amish community raising a barn together.



The action wasn't quite as raw or well planned as it was in Raiders. Too much humor and self reverence. Sallah ushering Brody into the back of a Nazi truck just made ZERO sense.

Everyone likes the "wall to wall action" response as some fall back position, but Temple does suffer from the lulls. When there is action, no matter how cool the rope bridge is/was/could have been, that mine cart jump takes some of the life out of it.

It wasn't for taking, just looking at. But I don't think it's explained how the elders would know that the boy actually got that far. (That he simply hadn't lied that he saw it).

TSR wrote that?

Maybe the boy who lied, (having had to describe it or leave a marker), had to go back in and bring it out...?

It's in the WEG book at least, and on the Indy Wikia.


Or if the Chachapoyans were anything like the original inhabitants of Akator, then they might have had some other worldy assistance... (!)

Agreed - The section in the village and trek to Pankot is the movies expositional section... and the place where the audience has a chance to catch a much needed breath. The pace of the rest of the movie makes that section in particular stand out. As mentioned in other threads, I think the template designed for Temple of Doom and Return of the Jedi is pretty much what is being used today for the majority of action movies (with all respect to TOD and ROTJ).

I think if anything the action in TLC was too planned perhaps... with not enough improvisation on set/location??? Either way, yes I'd agree that Raiders has the best vibe to its action - in terms of realism and sense of peril.