General Indy 5 Thread - rumors and possibilities

Honestly...will there be another Indy film in the next decade?


  • Total voters
    148

Pale Horse

Moderator
Staff member
Montana Smith said:
How about Indiana Jones 5: The Musical?

With a little bit of work Harrison Ford could be as good as Rex Harrison, so there's really no need to look for replacement actors yet.

Production by Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Pale Horse said:
Production by Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

287.jpg


Mmmm
Baby, every time that we kiss
Hot Lava!
Every time that we make love, hot lava
Hot Lava!
Lava so hot it makes me sweat
Lava so warm and red and wet
Lava!
Brrrrrrrrrrrr.



Hey, Horsey, you're onto something!
 

Grizzlor

Well-known member
punisher5150 said:
I agree, I think he was the weakest link for the last Indy. First, he refused to film at any location outside of the US. Second, the laziness in the humor (which is the saddest part, since he has juggled the inclusion of humor in his films admirably in the past.) I just think he wasn't that invested in the story, so he gave a barely-passable effort directing it. It seemd kind of passionless for a project that lamented in developmental hell for nearly 20 years! It was almost certainly just "phoned in."

Well, it seemed like he opted or was forced into shooting quite a bit faster than he had before. He took too many CGI shortcuts, to the point where it started looking like a Zemeckis movie! As for not filming outside the US, not a big deal given the script setting. I thought the outdoor sequences were the best parts of the movie, looked authentic. The soundstage interiors look extremely cheesy and poorly designed. I don't think he was EVER interested in the script though, and as I said, phoned it in.
 

Udvarnoky

Well-known member
Grizzlor said:
I thought the outdoor sequences were the best parts of the movie, looked authentic. The soundstage interiors look extremely cheesy and poorly designed.

I thought Guy Dyas' work was phenomenal, personally. Sure you're not mistaking production design for lighting choices?

The opening sequence was the best-looking of the movie for me, but otherwise I don't know that I agree with you.

Grizzlor said:
I don't think he was EVER interested in the script though, and as I said, phoned it in.

That's probably the bottom line. From jump street, it was pulling teeth to get Spielberg involved. He apparently had resigned to just produce the project when it was still the saucerman concept. I strongly suspect he was excited, or excited enough, during the Darabont era, but once that incarnation went by the wayside I think the project became more of an obligation for him than anything, and it shows.

We would have all been better off if one of the Beards would have "won." By 1995 Lucas had got the straight-up aliens version of the movie he wanted to a certain state of polish, and had Spielberg not vetoed it due to Independence Day, we would have gotten a movie that was probably at least focused if controversial (which face it, EVERY version would have been). When, further down the line, Spielberg worked with Darabont on a "compromised" version (from Lucas' perspective) that resulted in a wonderful (Spielberg's word) screenplay, they should have pulled the trigger. From what I can tell the final story is something neither Lucas or Spielberg would have done without some checks and balances.
 

Grizzlor

Well-known member
Udvarnoky said:
I thought Guy Dyas' work was phenomenal, personally. Sure you're not mistaking production design for lighting choices?

The opening sequence was the best-looking of the movie for me, but otherwise I don't know that I agree with you.

The entire Soviet camp scene, and then when they get stuck in the quicksand....looked absurdly amateur and cheesy. The Area 51 warehouse looked great, as did the temple at the end though. That quicksand segment, in addition to the CGI cartoonish animals, stuck out the most as being the most out of place. The jungle jeep chase also looked really, really fake.
 

BadDates

New member
It's been a while since I've watched it but I remember thinking that the Chauchilla Cemetery (above ground) looked really fake. Very disappointing.

In my opinion, everything after (but not including) the first CGI gopher and until (but not including) the appearance of Mac is absolutely perfect. The rest of the movie - not so much.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
BadDates said:
It's been a while since I've watched it but I remember thinking that the Chauchilla Cemetery (above ground) looked really fake. Very disappointing.

Intentional B-movie homage?

PlanNine_02.jpg


Bad example. Plan 9 was more realistic.
 

kongisking

Active member
BadDates said:
It's been a while since I've watched it but I remember thinking that the Chauchilla Cemetery (above ground) looked really fake. Very disappointing.

In my opinion, everything after (but not including) the first CGI gopher and until (but not including) the appearance of Mac is absolutely perfect. The rest of the movie - not so much.

I remain baffled at this perplexing idea that the sets somehow looked fake in KOTCS. I mean, what exactly are your' folks standards for a 'real-looking' set? You're honestly gonna tell me the cemetery, Orellana's grave, the caves where the gang find the drawings of the IDB's, and the door to the throne room in Akator looked cheap and unbelievable?

Ladies and gentlemen, THIS is a fake-ass set:

lw2145k.jpg


This...is a perfectly acceptable set:

Crystal_Skull_Temple.jpg


Kindly rethink your standards, my friends. :hat:
 

Lance Quazar

Well-known member
Montana Smith said:
The cobwebs look fake. :gun:

Heck, I remember seeing that image in a magazine before the movie opened (when I was still naively enthusiastic that it was going to be good) and I still thought, "gee, that set looks TERRIBLY fake!"

Now, in retrospect, there were some other parts of the previous films that weren't exactly bursting with verisimilitude. The lion statues in the grail temple come to mind. But the Indy ride at Disneyland looks cooler than some of the sets in KOTCS.
 

Grizzlor

Well-known member
The cemetery is a good example though. The physical set looked very believable, and yet the setting still looked fake. I don't know if it was the lighting, or the camera angles? The interior cemetery looked fine, but the exterior night scene looked lousy. I think it was the lighting, combined with the CGI effects they added to the night sky. Overall I did not like the set lighting on the film. It was a clear departure from the 80's films, and in many cases did not work.

The other issue I feel was detrimental to the film was that script-wise, it never seemed like Indiana Jones was even all that interested in the Macguffin. I think that was the biggest problem of all. He was focused on finding his friend Ox, and then Marion. But aside from the 5 minutes in his living room, he wasn't particularly interested in the skull itself. Not like his passion for the Ark, the Grail, or even the Shankara stones. He was pretty much surprised by the alien thing that showed up at the end of the film, as if he had never considered it. This was not the case with the previous installments. Sure there were "surprises" at the end, but for the most part he knew what he was getting into. And really, were the Soviets in the film all that scary? Not really. Was it that believable, even in a fanciful sense, for them to use a skull to control minds?

So when the main protagonist isn't really "into" the script, how can the audience be? For me that is the biggest hurdle they have to get over.
 
Sets

A good point being brought up. TLC sets looked very fake to me as well. It was my biggest complaint of the movie. Almost all of the interior shots simply looked like they were filmed in a studio (Donovan's apartment, the castle scene and the temple cave at the end.) As for KotCS, the camp site in the jungle and the quicksand all looked very fake. The cemetary looked fake. I actually thought the cave was OK. And I liked the temple/alien ship at the end but some of those scenes looked like sets too.

Going back to ToD, the interior shots of Pankot felt legitimate (except for the couple of matte paintings in the Cult temple). The cave felt real except for the one obvious matte shot in the cave. Even the rope bridge scenes that were filmed in the studio meshed very well with the exterior shots and kept me believing. Ecery scene in Raiders felt legitimate. Just comparing the simple classroom scene in Raiders to the one in TLC and you'll see the difference.

I am not sure if it was the lighting of the last two films or not, but the sets seemed more obvious. Maybe its that Star Wars prequel problem where everything looked clean and new in the last two films and everything was old and dusty in the first two. Not sure.

Raiders and Temple made me feel like I was watching a movie in the 1930s. TLC and KotCS made me feel like I was watching a movie made in in present and SET in the 1930s (1950s for KotCS).
 

Udvarnoky

Well-known member
Grizzlor said:
The cemetery is a good example though. The physical set looked very believable, and yet the setting still looked fake. I don't know if it was the lighting, or the camera angles? The interior cemetery looked fine, but the exterior night scene looked lousy. I think it was the lighting, combined with the CGI effects they added to the night sky.

I think it's all the background plating they had to do that hurt pretty much all the Peru exterior scenes. I've always felt that if they had a few strategic instances of the actors actually trekking across Peru it would have helped immensely. (Temple of Doom did more or less the same thing - there were mattes and sound stages abound in the India trekking, but the use of legit footage too completed the illusion.)

Grizzlor said:
The other issue I feel was detrimental to the film was that script-wise, it never seemed like Indiana Jones was even all that interested in the Macguffin. I think that was the biggest problem of all.

He at least needed some kind of motivation. You could argue Indy didn't particularly want the grail in Last Crusade, until he needed it to save his dad. Once they escaped the Soviets, there should have been a better impetus to proceed on to the lost city than the heroes just having nothing better to do (which is entirely how it comes across). I think it would have been brilliant to have Indy lose his mind and be impelled to continue to Akator due to possession, and the others having no choice to follow him. Ya know, stakes.

On the subject of the living room scene, the script has it run a bit longer where Indy actually has a moment where he reflects on Akator as the discovery of a lifetime not only archeologically but as something "no politician can touch." This would have helped (and set up the inexplicable clearing of his name in the ending) a skosh, mostly because Indy's primary motive to head to South America is too muddled in the final film, but it wouldn't have corrected anything fundamental.

On the illusion of the sets - I maintain that Spielberg and his DP get the blame on this one and not Dyas. His temple stuff was all fantastic, and I agree that in terms of the sets, this movie beats Last Crusade. (That production still is not a fair exhibit - sets are designed to look a certain way on film, which with its distinct resolution and softness, combined with the lighting choices, portrays things completely differently than a promotional photograph will. All sets look like sets in real life.)
 
Last edited:

Finn

Moderator
Staff member
Udvarnoky said:
He at least needed some kind of motivation. You could argue Indy didn't particularly want the grail in Last Crusade, until he needed it to save his dad. Once they escaped the Soviets, there should have been a better impetus to proceed on to the lost city than the heroes just having nothing better to do (which is entirely how it comes across). I think it would have been brilliant to have Indy lose his mind and be impelled to continue to Akator due to possession, and the others having no choice to follow him. Ya know, stakes.
I thought the motivation was quite obvious - to stop the Reds from claiming whatever it is that waits at the end of the road. Incidentally, you could argue that the very same reason (to stop the MacGuffin from falling to the hands of the bad guys) has been at least one of the motivators to take the quest in the preceding three films as well.

Also, he's obviously in it for personal glory. As a matter of fact, there's a line stating he almost died of typhus while looking for the city last time - so why should he go home now and suffer another failure? TBH, does he have any higher reasons than self-gratification to go after the MacGuffin in Raiders or ToD either? Not that I recall.

Finally, you could say there are some additional stakes in it as well. They're subtle, but there. Keep in mind that Indy was accused of collaborating with the Soviets after the warehouse scene. Finding the prize and taking it home means clearing his name, while just turning tail and letting Spalko carry on and win would probably spell the opposite. You could say it's a futile exercise because it apparently happens despite him coming home with nothing to show for it. But hey, that's yet another recurring theme when you look at the original trilogy.

As final pointer, which is arguably a bit more meta and thus could be considered apologetic, but does there need to be a motivation? Indy is an established character, and obviously a product of an era when men even in real life, like Sir George Mallory, did not go after something for any other reason than it simply being there. As a matter of fact, you could say it drives some men even this day...
 

Stoo

Well-known member
Udvarnoky said:
I think it's all the background plating they had to do that hurt pretty much all the Peru exterior scenes. I've always felt that if they had a few strategic instances of the actors actually trekking across Peru it would have helped immensely. (Temple of Doom did more or less the same thing - there were mattes and sound stages abound in the India trekking, but the use of legit footage too completed the illusion.)
Abound?:confused: For the jungle trek, there was *1* matte painting (palace in the distance) and *1* stage set (the campsite).
Millions said:
Er.... thanks, Stoo. Can she not speak for herself though, no?

And if she's being sarcastic in suggesting he has a bulge like he's smuggling a boxing glove down there, then is she suggesting he is hung like a button mushroom? What exactly are you saying???

Do you know the meaning of 'sarcastic'???
The sarcasm involves the fact that Le Saboteur is not really interested in how fit Harrison's body is.

Oh, and "she" is a he, by the way.;)
Millions said:
It's only a rumour for now so, hopefully, you didn't waste too much time looking for more information.

Worth noting: The original deal with Paramount in 1979 was for 5 films and it still hasn't been fulfilled (35 years later). Even if this latest gossip is true, a contract on paper wouldn't positively guarantee that a 6th Harrison movie would get made. Contracts are broken everyday.
Raiders112390 said:
Given Lucas' track record since 1999 and Spielbergs detachment from the directorial style he used on the Indy films, I don't see why a new Ford Indy might not actually be better in fresher, younger hands.
I can think of a number of reasons why a younger director would not be better for "a new Ford Indy" movie.
 
Top