Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead

indyjones2131 said:

First the movie.

Then the game.

Now the novel.

Not a good time to be an Indy fan.

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In your opinion.

Thanks for the review, Jeremiah.

Sounds pretty dreadful. I just can't stand the habit of EU writers (SW, primarily) of needlessly having characters reminisce about and refer to events from the films. Yeah, we KNOW they're the same characters. Sheesh. It's so forced and inorganic 99.9% of the time. Must be in their contract or something to name drop the films at least once. Ugh.

But why the hell would Indy keep reminiscing about the Boy Scouts? And the Cross of Coronado? More than once?!?! Yipes.

Ideally, a novel like this would help illuminate the characters more, would go deeper into their personalities and relationships, particularly with underdeveloped characters like Mac. Seems criminal that he dropped the ball on that, as well.

Sounds like the book was a whole bunch of missed opportunities.

I never really saw the point in reading any Indy novels. I've only read a handful of SW offerings before swearing them off forever. No reason to break the trend now.

But, yeah, it really does seem like a terrible time to be an Indy fan. It's not just that the offerings are so meager, but they're so consistently mediocre to awful - the game, the comic book, now the novel.

And, yes, first and foremost, the film.

Dr.Sartorius said:

In your opinion.

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HAHA! What'd you think I was doing, offering up your opinion? Geez.

indyjones2131 said:

First the movie.

Then the game.

Now the novel.

Not a good time to be an Indy fan.

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So Adventures Volume 2 is mediocre as well as this book. I wonder how the Staff of Kings novel would've turned out if it got published.

Up to chapter 4 and I'm enjoying it. Yes, it doesn't beat the best of the Bantam novels, but it's better than the weakest MacGregor books and leaps and bounds better than Caidin.

References to past events don't bother me at all. In fact, I enjoy them. When reading the Bantam novels it really bothered me that Marion didn't run through his mind more often. Hell, even I have ex-girlfriends run through my mind from time to time.

I particularly enjoyed (MINOR SPOILER) when Indy compared this adventure to his quest for the Heart of the Dragon in the Emperor's Tomb. Even his doubt that the Chinese dragon was real is brought up. Nice touch.

Its good you're enjoying it, I didn't have problems with references to past events at all, just that he keeps referencing the same events over and over.

I must be carazy

I love all the novels. Especially McGregor.... I have only started on Army of the dead, but I want something that ties to Young Indy for christ's sake! The only thing we have is his reference to riding with Pancho Villa in KOTCS!!

I just finished it, not bad...but certainly nothing special either.
Spoilers ahead so if you do didnt finish yet do not read ahead.



Negative: I didn't like the authors portraly of Mac as an arcelogist. The movie never says that he is or even implies it. His character is portrayed as being ignorant and certainly not a scholar, just doesn't feel like an archeologist to me. Perry also didn't delve deep enough into Mac's character, his role in the adventure was almost nonexistent even though he was there the whole time with Indy. There is no character development on his part at all. I dont think any of the story was ever told from his prespective. I also would have loved for the author to flesh out Indy and Macs missions during the war. We know about Flensburg and Berlin from the movie( plus Jakarta Indonesia is mentioned in the Ultimate Guide). What year where these missions and under what circumstances. No mention of them at all.

I also didn't like the continuing subplot of the Japanese and Germans looking to betray each other even though they were on the same side in the war. Didn't make much sense and was just stupid, it never went anywhere in the book and just bogged the story down with unnecassary detail.

I also didn't like the implication that Indy's hat is the same one throughout all his adventures. Isn't it pretty clear that he has had several different hats in all of the movies, not to mention Young Indy. The hat clearly looks different in all of the films and the show. Didn't he lose his hat in Raiders?



Positives: I liked the local. Caribbean is one of the places we have yet to see Indy in and the Vodoo/Zombie plot was pretty original. It fit nicely into the kind of adventure we expect from an Indiana Jones story. It lacked the globtrotting appeal of most of Indy's other adventures but that wasn't a big deal to me.

Also didn't mind the refrences to the films and video games. I thought there wasn't alot of them in the book like others have claimed. I would think Indy would think about some of the past encouners once and while anyway, pretty amazing adventures.

Overall I didn't think it was anything special but certainly not horrible either. Alot like the Staff of Kings video game.

Mine actually came in the mail yesterday (much sooner than I expected) and hopefully I'llhave a chance to start it in the next week or so. I'm going on vacation next week and this seems like a good book to bring along if I get the chance.

Goonie said:

So Adventures Volume 2 is mediocre as well as this book. I wonder how the Staff of Kings novel would've turned out if it got published.

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After the terrific "Volume 1", "Volume 2" was a big disappointment.

I posted some thoughts in this thread -

http://raven.theraider.net/showthread.php?t=17977&page=5

It's not terrible, just pretty mediocre throughout.

IISo we like Army of the Dead? I was not sure as I've been too busy here to post but have been extremely curious as to the general conscensious of the opinion was here at the Raven.

Do i pick it up?> I really want to, though it seems frivolous in regard to biullls and life

Captain Smitty said:

I love all the novels. Especially McGregor.... I have only started on Army of the dead, but I want something that ties to Young Indy for christ's sake! The only thing we have is his reference to riding with Pancho Villa in KOTCS!!

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Actually, the young adult Pyramid of the Sorcerer and Mystery of Mount Sinai have references aplenty.

WeAreGoingToDie said:

A copy is reserved at my local Borders! I'll be picking it up tonight and will post photos of it here (unless somebody beats me to it!)

My collection eagerly awaits it...

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I didn't know they reprinted the novelizations of the original trilogy. I'll have to keep an eye out for those.

Now they were entertaining reads, full of action sequences and great. Those references were my favourite bits actually

dr.jones1986 said:

I also didn't like the implication that Indy's hat is the same one throughout all his adventures. Isn't it pretty clear that he has had several different hats in all of the movies, not to mention Young Indy. The hat clearly looks different in all of the films and the show. Didn't he lose his hat in Raiders?

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It's unclear if he lost his hat. After he rides along with the u-boat, you don't see him wear his hat again. He disguises himself in a nazi uniform, and then at the end, he's wearing what appears to be a gray hat (similar to the gray one he wears when he is on the train in Crystal Skull).

I don't see anywhere that he could have carried his hat in his nazi uniform, so he may have lost it while holding onto the u-boat, or left it behind when he disguised himself.

But it's unclear what actually happened to it.

Osceola said:

It's unclear if he lost his hat. After he rides along with the u-boat, you don't see him wear his hat again. He disguises himself in a nazi uniform, and then at the end, he's wearing what appears to be a gray hat (similar to the gray one he wears when he is on the train in Crystal Skull).

I don't see anywhere that he could have carried his hat in his nazi uniform, so he may have lost it while holding onto the u-boat, or left it behind when he disguised himself.

But it's unclear what actually happened to it.

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He doesn't have the hat when he swims to the u-boat. Presumably, it's safely back in his quarters and Katanga mails it to him once they get home.

Despite the variations in appearance across films, I think we're definitely supposed to think it's the same hat. Otherwise, the joke about him never losing it (or losing it and getting it immediately back, a la "Temple" and "Crusade") isn't as funny.

Particularly since they bother to create an "origin" story for the hat on screen, I think we're supposed to assume it's a very special hat indeed.

Although of course presumably the army incinerate it at the beginning of KOTCS!

Lance Quazar said:

He doesn't have the hat when he swims to the u-boat. Presumably, it's safely back in his quarters and Katanga mails it to him once they get home.

Despite the variations in appearance across films, I think we're definitely supposed to think it's the same hat. Otherwise, the joke about him never losing it (or losing it and getting it immediately back, a la "Temple" and "Crusade") isn't as funny.

Particularly since they bother to create an "origin" story for the hat on screen, I think we're supposed to assume it's a very special hat indeed.

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see I always took it more like he tried to emulate "fedoras" style, not that he always wore that old hat, just a hat that resembled that one. Hence the reason that he also copies some other aspects of fedoras look such as the leather jacket, safari shirt etc. Even if Katanga mailed him the hat, how did the original fedora survive throught the show? I mean we see him wear it on and off throught his adventures during WWI, did he have some special hiding place for it or something?

Also im drawing a blank but what hat gage was there in temple...I have seen the movie so many times but im drawing a blank. I do remember the tank going over the cliff scene in crusade and the hat gage there.

dr.jones1986 said:

see I always took it more like he tried to emulate "fedoras" style, not that he always wore that old hat, just a hat that resembled that one. Hence the reason that he also copies some other aspects of fedoras look such as the leather jacket, safari shirt etc. Even if Katanga mailed him the hat, how did the original fedora survive throught the show? I mean we see him wear it on and off throught his adventures during WWI, did he have some special hiding place for it or something?

Also im drawing a blank but what hat gage was there in temple...I have seen the movie so many times but im drawing a blank. I do remember the tank going over the cliff scene in crusade and the hat gage there.

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In the spike room, Indy dives out and realizes it fell off, sticks his hand in and yanks it out at the last second... which is cued up perfectly with John Williams' music.

|ZiR| said:

IISo we like Army of the Dead? I was not sure as I've been too busy here to post but have been extremely curious as to the general conscensious of the opinion was here at the Raven.

Do i pick it up?> I really want to, though it seems frivolous in regard to biullls and life

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I'd recommend picking up it, especially since it's 7.99 on Amazon and pretty cheap in other places as well. I haven't read it yet but for that price it's a bargain for any Indy collector.