Why is a non-earth entity less believable than a religious entity?

blueoakleyz said:

Then I'm sorry to say, don't do them!
even if the one in caddyshack looked faker, at least it was there, IN the shot

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It's a special effect. Who cares how it's achieved.

ILM was created as a special effects company, that's what they do. They create special effects. They were cutting edge in the 80s and they are cutting edge today.

I just have a problem with things when they're not actually there.
I watched the new TMNT movie and I thought "what the heck is the point?" the karate doesn't impress me since it's not actually happening.

MolaRam2 said:

CGI is one of Indy 4's biggest problems. It looked very, very goofy and out of place.

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Well of course it did (for the most part). We're use to Indy movies being more realistic and since we've come to expect that, we expected the same in this movie. So of course we picked out all the CGI bits and criticized them. It's not like the Star Wars Prequels where almost everything was CGI so you didn't really go looking for the CGI shots, they were there in every scene.

CGI isn't always a bad thing, though in Indy's sake, i would rather have no CGI, but it would have been hard to do the things they did with the CGI in this film without it, like the nuke for example.

It was still a great movie, i enjoyed it immensely. Raiders and LC are still my favs of course, but Indy 4 was still a treat. It was fast paced in my opinion and left me wanting more by the end. I didn't want Indy to go, and the end of the film didn't seem like the end to me in the least bit. It was like a new beginning.

You can't expect sequels to be the same as the originals, so why bother criticizing them on that point? We already know it isn't as good as Raiders, but that doesn't mean it is bad.

blueoakleyz said:

I just have a problem with things when they're not actually there.
I watched the new TMNT movie and I thought "what the heck is the point?" the karate doesn't impress me since it's not actually happening.

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I see what you mean, but with the exception of some ants, a gopher and some other creepy crawlies. Most everything else was real, the stunts all the actors, and some of if not the best sets the IJ franchise have ever seen. There's so much that's cool in this film that was real it seems odd to focus on a bit of CGI.

God how I despise CGI. Other then using it for backgrounds, it sucks.

Since this is turned into a CG thread I must say I thought it was pretty good but I didn't like the death of Spalko as much because it was CGI. I love the death of Belloq in Raiders and Donavon in Crusade. It was cheesy but entirely awesome, I wish they had did Spalko's death using physical models, etc. It would have been outdated, but a nudge to the previous ones, haha.

The problem with CGI is the limitless creativity it provides. To steal a line from another Spielberg flick (I will badly paraphrase) "You were so preoccupied with whether or not you could, you didn't stop and ask whether or not you should." George Lucas is simply very guilty of this.

MolaRam2 said:

The alien aspect of this movie would have been more convincing if it didn't just play off stereotypical images of what aliens look like

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Close Encounters did the same thing though, and it's widely praised.

Aliens aren't less believable, they're just hard to make look real using CGI. It ruined Signs...and it didn't look very convincing here either.

Vendetta08 said:

Since this is turned into a CG thread I must say I thought it was pretty good but I didn't like the death of Spalko as much because it was CGI. I love the death of Belloq in Raiders and Donavon in Crusade. It was cheesy but entirely awesome, I wish they had did Spalko's death using physical models, etc. It would have been outdated, but a nudge to the previous ones, haha.

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I thought Spalko was transported to another dimension...are you sure she actually died? I know she was screaming and all, but...why would the aliens kill her? She just wanted their knowledge. Simple request. Looked to me like she just beamed away to another dimension.

The Aliens and the Flying Saucer are MORE believable because they are so stereotypical. It means that all of the sightings of UFOs and descriptions of Aliens are based on reality in Indy's world. Its connecting the McGuffin to a real world mythology that millions of people believe in.

blueoakleyz said:

It's not something to get over. They continue to bastardize films with CGI and it makes them look totally goofy and unrealistic. If they're going to do CGI they should at least take the time to make it look absolutely 100% realistic. Now if they were puppets, and the audience knew they were puppets, at LEAST they're right there in the scene. Nothing is a cartoon mixed with real life. All the angles of light reflection are perfect etc.
I mean lucas and spielberg have lost all creativity because of this crutch.

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Ok I understand what you are saying, but what we saw in this film looked far more real then any special effect we watched in the original trilogy. Also those complaining about the ship. The whole point was it was a 50's saucer. Come on now.

Yes, They actually animated the effects instead of floppy miniatures and dummy's which look like dummy's and minitures.

You still have to "direct" CGI characters...


how do some of you enjoy anything?

If go watch a movie done the "old" way, you would be saying they should have used CGI......Lucas and Co. stopped trying to make the 30+ fanboys happy a long time ago. I am in that crowd and I simply GET IT!

I do agree there is some unnecessary use in this film, however on a whole it was really well done.

Vance hit on some excellent points, but for me... it's less about believability and more about it just not fitting in with the feel of Indiana.

Raised Christian and still very much a believer myself, I still have no issue at all watching and loving the heck out of ToD which has nothing to do with Christianity at all (except that Mola Ram wanted to "bring down the Christian God"). I have no issue watching and loving Star Trek/X-Files/Babylon 5/Star Wars, etc, etc... all with aliens out the wazoo. Aliens and Indiana Jones just don't feel right together. Like Gary Cherone fronting Van Halen... it's still Van Halen, but it doesn't feel like Van Halen. And I think the alien angle would have been a bit more "Indy" if it was left to more mystical devices. More allusion, more mystery. Have things happen that don't flat out tell you and show you "look aliens" but have it more like "what the hell was that!? could that have been aliens?" Lucas (and just about everyone these days) feels the need to explain everything flat out, under estimating the intelligence and imagination of the viewer, gone is the allusion, the subtle hints, the ambiguity that left the view wondering... now we get a blatant flying saucer, a blatant "living alien". It's like the original Wampa scene in Empire vs. the SE Wampa scene. The original was cut and shot that is left you with glimpses, sounds, enough information to stir the imagination and form your own pictures and conclusions. It was still the Wampa, and it still beat the crap out of Luke... but we got to fill in the gaps about the power and terror of this giant snow beast, but then we get the SE version and it's very "this is a wampa, this is how it eats, this is how it walks, this is how it howls when it gets it's arm cut off, ok next scene". That's my take on it.

For me it was all worth it when they explained that they weren't "Saucer men from Mars", but rather Interdimensonal beings.



And yeah! What kind of movie would end with the bad guy (or in this case, girl.) getting what they want but turning out that it's too much, and actually blows them up. And then it's just a bunch of colors and other-wordly sights dancing about in a massive uproar of special effects! What a sham...












Oh wait...

ForbiddenEye said:

For me it was all worth it when they explained that they weren't "Saucer men from Mars", but rather Interdimensonal beings.

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Yeah, that sold it.

ForbiddenEye said:

For me it was all worth it when they explained that they weren't "Saucer men from Mars", but rather Interdimensonal beings.



And yeah! What kind of movie would end with the bad guy (or in this case, girl.) getting what they want but turning out that it's too much, and actually blows them up. And then it's just a bunch of colors and other-wordly sights dancing about in a massive uproar of special effects! What a sham...












Oh wait...

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Well in Raiders, there was a logical explanation between why the Ark would kill everybody who had there eyes open. The Hebrews (and Nazis) could have used it as a weapon by closing their eyes and unleashing it upon their enemies. Spalko's death in KOTCS, felt like a desperate attempt at doing a tamer version of the Ark opening, but with no logical explanation (at least that I can find) of why Spalko would die then.

I think Spalko was a "wanna be". Meaning that she was not really that strong of a Psychic at all. She thought that she could control the powers of the Skull but it overwhelmed her.

Has anyone even stopped to remember where the roots of Indian Jones come from? Its all based upon serials that were made during the time periods that the flicks were set in. back in the 30's it was all about the germans and whatnot, all the pre-war stuff brewing.

the 50's was all about the ruskies and their communist plots to destroy America and the fears of the atomic age that the cold war brought with it. There was also a lot of paranoia about the russians trying to control the minds of Americans (the psychic element) and turn them traitor. That time was ALSO all about UFO's and conspiracies to cover them up from joe public.

So every plot point of this movie was justified, they used the Crystal Skull as the link to get all the points together.