Is it just me or do I like least of all, LC?

Z dweller

Well-known member
Udvarnoky said:
Anyone who thinks Last Crusade is what an Indy movie looks like on autopilot clearly has not seen Crystal Skull.
They way things are shaping up with Indy 5, I fear the worst is yet to come...
 

Raiders90

Well-known member
Z dweller said:
They way things are shaping up with Indy 5, I fear the worst is yet to come...

I think no matter how that film comes out you'll be disappointed simply because Harrison is involved tbh.
 

Z dweller

Well-known member
Raiders112390 said:
I think no matter how that film comes out you'll be disappointed simply because Harrison is involved tbh.
If they introduce a new actor in flashback scenes, laying the foundations for future "canon" sequels, it may be interesting.

But with Ford over ten years older than in KOTCS, Koepp again writing the script and Spielberg well past his best years, realistically it looks like a perfect storm in the making.

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Sakis

TR.N Staff Member
Nobody was disappointed from Ford in Skull. If Spielberg and Koepp manage to find a way to treat the character properly, Ford is the only one to pull it off. Both Spielberg and Koepp have to try hard to come clear after Skull, Ford just has to be himself, once again.
 

Pale Horse

Moderator
Staff member
Raiders112390 said:
I think no matter how that film comes out you'll be disappointed simply because Harrison is involved tbh.

I'd be disappointed that any writer/director thinks they can make a quality serial pulp action film with anyone over 65. It defies the laws of physics and is an insult to the natural world.

Sure, CGI and stunt doubles can help, but it makes it harder for the suspension of disbelief so necessary in storytelling.
 

Z dweller

Well-known member
Pale Horse said:
I'd be disappointed that any writer/director thinks they can make a quality serial pulp action film with anyone over 65. It defies the laws of physics and is an insult to the natural world.

Sure, CGI and stunt doubles can help, but it makes it harder for the suspension of disbelief so necessary in storytelling.
Well put. :hat:

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Raiders90

Well-known member
Pale Horse said:
I'd be disappointed that any writer/director thinks they can make a quality serial pulp action film with anyone over 65. It defies the laws of physics and is an insult to the natural world.

Sure, CGI and stunt doubles can help, but it makes it harder for the suspension of disbelief so necessary in storytelling.

Not really. You don't seem to have known many people over age 65. "It is an insult to the natural world." A little melodramatic, no?

John Wayne was 69 years old and suffering from cancer when he did the Shootist. Even with 1970s technology it worked fine.
 

Sakis

TR.N Staff Member
People were making fun of Ford's age for a decade and Skull arrived in theaters nobody said anything about him. 3 years ago draw people back with Star Wars, same thing. I still have faith in him.
 

emtiem

Well-known member
I?m fascinated to see it, but more because I have no idea how they?ll make it work at this point. They can?t exactly ruin Indy because we have thre great films that can never be taken away; so why not?
 

Raiders90

Well-known member
emtiem said:
I?m fascinated to see it, but more because I have no idea how they?ll make it work at this point. They can?t exactly ruin Indy because we have thre great films that can never be taken away; so why not?

Exactly.

Lemme tell you something. My grandpa is 89 years old. The man has a keener mind than most of his children - not senile - and still carries bundles of logs in, alone, for his fireplace every day. In the summertime, he mows the grass with a regular handheld rower. Without help. When he was 70, he was up on a ladder 20 feet in the air pruning trees for my family's house.

I'll put it this way, without hyperbole: He's probably in better shape than his son who is going to be 64. My grandpa always remembers birthdays and special occasions. My dad has trouble remembering his own anniversary date.

My father retired at 49. My grandfather at 67.

My grandmother - not his wife, other side - will be 91 this year. She only retired in her mid 80s. My mother retired at 41. My grandmother's last job was homecare of the elderly. Even at 91 she makes it a point to walk at least two miles per day. She no longer cooks (she hasn't since her 50s - personal choice) but still buys all her own groceries. Another keen mind, sharp as a tack - you can't pull BS on her.

So perhaps having seen the elderly in more active roles in life, I have a certain respect for them, and a certain insight into their abilities, that others here do not share. I do not consider a person over the age of 65 being outside of a nursing home to be a "violation of natural law" for example.

There are ways of making an older Indy film still have action. You can have SMART action, have Indy cheat more during a fight, use his gun more often. There's ways of making it work and not having it be cringey. Don't show him as a superman. Don't show him doing literally impossible things like dragging himself behind a truck or surviving a nuclear blast. Do, you know, sensible stuff that is still exciting. It's not rocket science.
 

Pale Horse

Moderator
Staff member
Raiders112390 said:
Not really. You don't seem to have known many people over age 65. "It is an insult to the natural world." A little melodramatic, no?

John Wayne was 69 years old and suffering from cancer when he did the Shootist. Even with 1970s technology it worked fine.

A) The Shootist isn't an action serial pulp.
B) Clint Eastwood was fabulous in Gran Torino
C) Tommy Lee Jones was phenomenal in No Country for Old Men

Know your audience, and your medium.
 

Raiders90

Well-known member
Pale Horse said:
A) The Shootist isn't an action serial pulp.
B) Clint Eastwood was fabulous in Gran Torino
C) Tommy Lee Jones was phenomenal in No Country for Old Men

Know your audience, and your medium.

What level of action does an "action serial pulp" need consist of that Indy (let's say Indy, the character, at age 66, as opposed to Ford's real life age) can't do?

In an age where you have John McClane as Die Hard still and you have 60+ action heroes in the Expendables, and you'll have Linda Hamilton in her 60s reprising the role of Sarah Conor, an older action hero isn't honestly anything extraordinary. Sean Connery was 66 when he did The Rock. It may not have been "pulp serial" but it was an action film, and action is action whether its in a pulp serial context or not.

And frankly, the films haven't been pulp serial since Last Crusade, anyway. Last Crusade threw out a lot of the pulp elements to focus on character development and fleshing out Indy as a character rather than as simply a pulpy avatar. Even Raiders was more of an adventure film than a cheesy pulp serial. The closest film to those serials is Temple of Doom. So, we're a long way from pulp adventure serial. While Indy is definitely INSPIRED HEAVILY BY those films, and shares certain elements, Indy has a bit more in common with the adventure film, the epic adventure film (like Ray Harryhausen but better scripting and effects) and the western than pure cheesy pulp.

As long as you do it the right way, it can work. There is literally no reason on Earth it can't if you do it right. No jokes about age. Treat the subject with dignity if it must be addressed, but don't address it too much. Smart, exciting action. More gunplay. More whiplay. Use Indy's age in combat as an advantage - wisdom as opposed to brute strength.

All that matters, in the end, is a good story, a good execution and a compelling enough of a MacGuffin to base the story around, as well as the right mood and feel. Harrison's age, and Indy's age with it, is window dressing. The time period its set in, so long as we keep it to a point say prior to the Moon Landing, and we keep it away from American counterculture, is also window dressing.

Look at the forest beyond the trees. If done right, this could potentially be an awesome film.
 

Raiders90

Well-known member
Z dweller said:
Maybe, but with Spielberg/Koepp/Kaminski at the wheel, I highly doubt it.

How much of KOTCS being mediocre was Lucas pushing a film on Spielberg that he had no interest in making, though? As far as Koepp and Kaminski - With Koepp, it seems he was brought in at the last minute and basically told to cobble together a compromise script from several different ones, which is what he did basically. Kaminski was the least of all problems. I don't care what the film looks like so long as it is a good film. Different photography and lighting wouldn't have made KOTCS any better, really.

With Spielberg having virtually no interest in doing KOTCS, sighing and saying "fine, fine we'll do aliens but can we at least call them something different?" it's a different ballgame from now. Now, Spielberg can make the kind of Indy film he wants to make, and honestly, Spielberg seems to have a better idea about what Indy is about versus what he's not about. I mean Steven was the one putting the brakes on an Indy alien movie for a decade, and of the scripts we have available, the one Indy IV script people generally agree would've made a good film (City of Gods) is the one Spielberg himself loved.

My main concerns lie with Kathleen Kennedy and the Mouse, not Spielberg. Without Lucas' iron grip and feeling obligated or forced into doing an Indy film I don't think we'll see Spielberg on autopilot again. Without having to cram certain elements from various scripts and cobble it all together and make it work, we'll likely see a better script from Koepp too.
 

Z dweller

Well-known member
I'm impressed with your unbridled optimism these days*, i just don't share it.
I am not convinced that Spielberg still has that much fire left in him, at least not for an Indy movie.

Raiders112390 said:
we'll likely see a better script from Koepp too.
Well, it'd be hard for him to write a worse one...





*It's good to see that you managed to exorcise that silly Pratt demon that seemed to possess you for months. ;)
Guess the news that Ford will star in Indy 5 really made you happy, and that's fair enough.
 

Raiders90

Well-known member
Z dweller said:
I'm impressed with your unbridled optimism these days*, i just don't share it.
I am not convinced that Spielberg still has that much fire left in him, at least not for an Indy movie.


Well, it'd be hard for him to write a worse one...


*It's good to see that you managed to exorcise that silly Pratt demon that seemed to possess you for months. ;)
Guess the news that Ford will star in Indy 5 really made you happy, and that's fair enough.

If we're being honest though, the one Indy film that really calls for an energetic young director is TOD. Raiders has plenty of action but there is a skillfullness and finesse to those action scenes that really doesn't require youth and vigor. The action scenes in Raiders are almost musical in a sense; at least, what I am trying to say is they flow with John Williams' music perfectly. LC's action scenes for me, outside of the 1912 prologue, are very by the books and boring. TOD is the only one of them that really meets the modern definition of a rollercoaster sort of action film in terms of pacing and pure kinetic energy.

I am not like, optimistic over the moon about it; I don't have unbridled enthusiasm. Any project that Kathleen Kennedy has any creative control over gives me pause. There is plenty of peril to be found with the Mouse in pushing certain agendas and also in turning Indy V into a soulless, safe nostalgia flick. One could argue that that is what the franchise needs after KOTCS, but I'm not so sure. I also don't want to see an ultra PC non-violent Indy. I also worry that Spielberg will be kept on a short leash by the mouse and forced to make a very 'modern' Marvel-esque film, that won't FEEL like an Indy film. KOTCS for all its flaws had a similar, if lazy, directorial style. A worry is that we'll get something with tons of gags and modern editing and things like that that feels like a different beast. Those concerns all stem from Disney, though.

One non-Disney concern for me is John Williams. I haven't heard an inspiring score from him in almost 20 years. I feel a great musical score - bombastic, over the top, almost cartoonish music - is as important to Indiana Jones as anything else. Put a lesser composer in there and the truck chase in Raiders is good, but not as great. The pure MAGIC of the 1912 prologue's music helps make that sequence quite possibly the best in the film. The Temple of Doom slave children theme is just iconic. I haven't heard that from John Williams - I haven't heard a hum-able, grandiose score from him in a very long time. That was a major failing of KOTCS, actually - an uninspired score and a film wherein the music took a backseat.

If someone hummed a certain musical piece from one of the first three Indy films, I would know immediately which scene it was from and what's going on during that scene; I can even recall musical pieces from some of the YIJC with ease too. I've seen KOTCS as much as any other Indy film and yet for the life of me I cannot recall a single musical piece, much less relate it to a scene in the film, outside of the rock n' roll music in the movie. The music was as halfbaked as anything else in the movie and I worry that this will be a problem with V as well.

Harrison to me is probably the strongest asset of this film, and I say that without bias or 'fetishism.' He seems to have found a second wind as an actor doing his old characters and seems to put a lot of effort into those old roles - more than he has with other films since 2000 or so. Age to me is just a number.

People call it fetishim but I do think Harrison is the last of a certain kind of actor, of the Humphrey Bogart sort of mold, which you really don't see today. I hated Pratt so much because Pratt for me represents a very dumbed down and goofy version of that. Like the worst apsects of Flynn and Gable thrown in a Millenial friendly blender - No Bogart.
 
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Temple Raider

Active member
I worry for Indy 5 that it'll essentially be TLC 2.0 instead of something different and bold to end the series on a good note with. With the backlash KOTCS got that Spielberg is surely aware of, it's a cause for concern that he may simply xerox TLC for the next movie to deliver something he thinks the masses will like.

Which for me is another issue TLC has, it's very for-the-masses feel. Regardless of Spielberg's feelings on TOD, you can tell when he made it he put all his effort into it and had all hands on deck. With TLC it's very through the motions and by the numbers.
 

emtiem

Well-known member
Raiders112390 said:
If we're being honest though, the one Indy film that really calls for an energetic young director is TOD. Raiders has plenty of action but there is a skillfullness and finesse to those action scenes that really doesn't require youth and vigor. The action scenes in Raiders are almost musical in a sense; at least, what I am trying to say is they flow with John Williams' music perfectly. LC's action scenes for me, outside of the 1912 prologue, are very by the books and boring. TOD is the only one of them that really meets the modern definition of a rollercoaster sort of action film in terms of pacing and pure kinetic energy.

I heard that Tarantino called Temple of Doom the best bit of directing Spielberg ever did (not the best film: the best directing). I can see what he means: it's so completely assured and confident (moreso than even Raiders I'd say), so energetic, so inventive and bristling with wit and perfect timing.

Raiders112390 said:
I've seen KOTCS as much as any other Indy film and yet for the life of me I cannot recall a single musical piece, much less relate it to a scene in the film

Can't agree there: that's a great score. The Skull theme is as good as anything he's done for Indy.

Raiders112390 said:
People call it fetishim but I do think Harrison is the last of a certain kind of actor, of the Humphrey Bogart sort of mold, which you really don't see today. I hated Pratt so much because Pratt for me represents a very dumbed down and goofy version of that. Like the worst apsects of Flynn and Gable thrown in a Millenial friendly blender - No Bogart.

No, I'd agree entirely there. For my money he's the greatest movie star there's ever been. Genuinely: I can't think of better.
 

Raiders90

Well-known member
emtiem said:
I heard that Tarantino called Temple of Doom the best bit of directing Spielberg ever did (not the best film: the best directing). I can see what he means: it's so completely assured and confident (moreso than even Raiders I'd say), so energetic, so inventive and bristling with wit and perfect timing.



Can't agree there: that's a great score. The Skull theme is as good as anything he's done for Indy.



No, I'd agree entirely there. For my money he's the greatest movie star there's ever been. Genuinely: I can't think of better.

TOD is taut, lean, assured and brutal. It doesn't waste time and gets right to the point. Raiders is a classic film but for today's audiences would be a bit slow and exposition heavy. I mean, even as someone who grew up with it, the film drags a bit from the time we leave South America until the gunfight in Marion's bar. LC feels like anyone could've directed it, really. There's nothing special about the action scenes outside of the prologue and the motorcycle chase. The whole film just feels so by the numbers and tame. It feels tired, actually. KOTCS is lazy and doesn't seem to have any confidence in itself.

I don't know about the best. I would rank him in a class with John Wayne, Clark Gable, and Humphrey Bogart. I would say he is equivalent to those guys and the last of that sort of breed of actor. All of those guys, like Ford, were kind of wooden and one-note, in that, they pretty much played the same character their entire careers for the most part but they were perfect in doing so - as these charming, confident, cynical rogue type guys.
 
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