Matt deMille said:
I guess I tend to favor an older style of film-making. I watch more old movies in the theaters than new ones. There are indeed changes in moviemaking going on all the time. I guess I just don't personally agree that changes are for the better.
For action in particular, I think changes have been for the worst as well as the better, actually. In Hollywood's increasingly desperate bid to outdo its competitors (and even its own products of yesteryear), with action movies of the last decade or two I think we've mostly got quicker-cuts, shakier cameras and bigger explosions. The best example of that is Bayformers. Both of them. I just couldn't tell what the hell was going on. I got lost in those shows.
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Don?t get me wrong? I?m not stating that more contemporary equates to better (as most of it doesn?t), and I firmly believe that something like
Transformers is the antithesis of
Raiders and indeed TOD (although one could argue that TOD and Return of the Jedi are responsible for the template that modern Hollywood action movies use). But as with most artistic mediums, it?s usually the younger/less established artists that are best placed to take a different approach to expression (for both good and bad). The net result is that established techniques/styles soon become dated as Hollywood continues to consume/absorb its competition and attempts to reflect contemporary ?culture? through its output. Again, this isn?t necessarily about good or bad, but more about the natural evolution of modern western cinema (as it?s broadly the same process that gave us
Star Wars and
Raiders).
So in a round about way I?m saying that at the very worst, the Indy movies increasingly became less contemporary, as external style/methods of executing action sequences changed, which made Indy movies (by comparison) look old fashioned. However, the set pieces/action scenes from all three original movies still remain well conceived and expertly crafted? and that?s regardless of how out of date they may appear. One of the challenges w KOTCS was that by attempting to keep it traditional, it was copying a style that was circa 20 years out of date.
Montana Smith said:
Marion and the frying pan was almost the equivalent of TOD's sledgehammer on the head.
Generally the overt cartoon element was played down in ROTLA. It was more slapstick. Yet, ROTLA set out the direction in which Indy films were going. It was full of humour with mildly absurd moments, which developed into humour with much more absurdity. The rolling boulder of ROTLA gradually evolves into the flying fridge of KOTCS. I find these absurdly funny, and something that can be rationalized, or normalized, in Indy-verse. Yet, where TOD limited the moments, KOTCS presented a succession of even grander absurdities.
I agree with your general sentiment Montana i.e. distinguishing
Raiders from the other 3. Although for me, it?s TOD that is still the worst offender by some margin. KOTCS at the very least, attempts to ground the movie in a sense of reality (be it heightened), by pursuing the more reflective moments? be that in the rather sobering scenes between Indy and Dean Stanforth, or the asylum scenes, Orellana?s tomb or even the scene between Indy and Spalko in the tent (all great Indy moments IMHO). Whereas, in TOD, virtually every key moment has some form of visual gag underpinning events e.g. the camp fire scene, or more annoyingly for me, misplaced jokey dialogue e.g. ?that no fortune cookie?, ?Pass me your hat? I?m gonna puke in it? etc. etc.
I do believe that TOD is infinitely more violent than KOTCS, but again the violence on display is tonally closer to
Bugs Bunny, Roadrunner and Tom and Jerry, than it is to anything representing the reality of violence. And it?s for those reasons I find TOD less believable and more excessive in terms of absurdity? simply because it never really attempts to ground the movie in any reality (other than the reality of a cartoon or comic). Conversely, it?s for those reasons that TOD is probably the closest Indy movie to a live action comic. So perhaps TOD is more true to its pulp origins than
Raiders ever was? That said? ?It doesn?t mean you have to like it?.
