Cinemassacre Defends KotCS

Cole

New member
StoneTriple said:
I don't think there's a generational battle going on, but I do think there are fundamental differences between older fans and younger fans. Those differences may sometimes come across as a battle.

I saw the films in their theatrical releases. While I don't know the character better than newer fans, I certainly have a much different insight into the character & the passage of time he struggles with in the film. When I saw Kingdom, I felt a different kind of connection and appreciation for the character.

There are quite a few younger fans here who - no matter how much they want to imagine it - simply cannot possibly understand aging to the extent that our hero has. When I saw him struggling with things or reacting differently, I understood it. I don't want the same character that I saw when I was sitting in the theater in 1981 - because I'm not the kid I was back then.

Many of the younger fans around here, who grew up with a video 3-pack, saw Kingdom and reacted with "he's slower, he didn't shoot anyone", etc. My reaction was - yeah, the years have been brutal and life is starting to take things away. My criticisms of the film have nothing to do with the character - they nailed it. My criticisms are minor things that I would have done differently (Tarzan, showing ship fully, etc). They have nothing to do with me having been on board since the beginning.

My life experiences are much different than yours Cole, that's why I don't "have to laugh at people who" don't view the character the way I do. They'll get where I am one day - and things will make much more sense to them.
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Well-said......I still appreciated those aspects. I think they work particularly well because Indy always has been a distinctly human character (not a superhero). And humans age and loved ones die - it's part of life. So I did appreciate that angle, even if not everyone did.
 

Dr.Jonesy

Well-known member
ResidentAlien said:
And yet you're the one that has his panties in a bunch over the fact that not everyone likes your ****ty beloved movie?

I've never really had you say anything to me, but do you ever try to be somewhat diplomatic/nice or at least agreeable? To me it seems like you just try to **** people off. I'm actually surprised you're not banned or at least suspended yet.

He may have his panties in a bunch for something unreasonable, but discussing the public perception of this film is important to us fans of the entire series. I don't think Cole saying you guys sound like old men was in good taste, but you really look like a jerk by responding with profanity and snarkiness. You shouldn't feel he's worth replying to, so next time simply "Let it go..."

I really am surprised that you haven't been banned or suspended for your attitude towards other posters. I hardly believe I, Cole or Montanna could get away with half the crap you do and say. The Mods/Bouncers would've thrown us out of the Raven like a couple of drunks playing quarters.

You have to remember you are on the section for Indy IV, and this board contains the most whiners on here; whether it be haters who cry about the movie or people who cry that the film wasn't recieved in the manner they'd have liked. So if this isn't what you want to hear then don't let the door hit ya.
 
Dr.Jonesy said:
I've never really had you say anything to me, but do you ever try to be somewhat diplomatic/nice or at least agreeable? To me it seems like you just try to **** people off. I'm actually surprised you're not banned or at least suspended yet.

He may have his panties in a bunch for something unreasonable, but discussing the public perception of this film is important to us fans of the entire series. I don't think Cole saying you guys sound like old men was in good taste, but you really look like a jerk by responding with profanity and snarkiness. You shouldn't feel he's worth replying to, so next time simply "Let it go..."

I really am surprised that you haven't been banned or suspended for your attitude towards other posters. I hardly believe I, Cole or Montanna could get away with half the crap you do and say. The Mods/Bouncers would've thrown us out of the Raven like a couple of drunks playing quarters.

You have to remember you are on the section for Indy IV, and this board contains the most whiners on here; whether it be haters who cry about the movie or people who cry that the film wasn't recieved in the manner they'd have liked. So if this isn't what you want to hear then don't let the door hit ya.

I can't believe you haven't been banned. I can't believe you haven't been banned. I can't believe you haven't been banned. I can't believe you haven't been banned.


Uhm... congratulations?


I implore you to put me on your ignore list if you find my own brand of wit and bile so distasteful. Though I really don't care how you perceive me or how flabbergasted you are by my presence here.

I have nothing more to say on the matter, so I'll leave you to your indignation.
 

Attila the Professor

Moderator
Staff member
ResidentAlien <I>has</I> been suspended before. He's gotten plenty of attention from the upkeep, don't you worry.

But as you say, Dr. Jonesy (nice name, by the way - big fan of Winstone's performance here), this is the Indy IV table. So let's not discuss the membership, but rather the movie.

***

I think StoneTriple is quite right that original viewing plays a role in how we respond to the films. My earliest memory of Indy is the tank chase in Last Crusade. I more or less saw the original 3 all at once, and never saw any in theaters prior to Crystal Skull. Now, I had read the novelization and played the graphic adventure for Last Crusade, so I naturally knew it somewhat better than the other two. I've only in the past year or so come around to the belief that Raiders is the superior film, even though there's a lot of depth in Last Crusade that I appreciate.

So I grew up with Indy. I don't view them as perfect films, but they are a part of my childhood. However, when Crystal Skull came out, I was past the point of them being my favorite films - I watch them once or twice a year, if that, even with the time I spend at the Raven. I'm just not an action movie guy, by and large.

There's a very particular world that's been created in that trilogy, one that varies from film to film and that certainly departs from our own, but is rooted enough in it to have all the points of contextual contact to make it interesting to me. (Hence why I've never gotten in Star Wars or any other science fiction or fantasy all that much.) I also feel like I've come to understand a fair amount about film and storytelling in general in that time, as that's more or less what I spend my time doing and thinking about.

So I agree with StoneTriple - even though I haven't lived through seeing the films in the 1980s, which is to say, even though I haven't lived a life even approaching the length of Indy's, the character changes did resonate with me. I do think that Sharkey has a point, that he has become less physically vulnerable over time, and has had an entire superhero-like mythology added onto him as time has worn on, but the characterization was pretty on.

And then there's the stuff that doesn't fit in, that probably ought to have been done differently. I have no interest in recuts of any kind, but knowing things that were originally planned (the Soviets threatening to run Mac over with a jeep, Mutt falling through the floor in the burial chamber) or character development that was originally going to be fuller (a lot of stuff with Mac, that killer line of dialogue that was to be in the scene between Indy and Stanforth) or thinking of things that appear to me to be missed opportunities (a better snake gag using the skull, perhaps, or fuller usage of the jungle cutter) or just bizarre inclusions (monkeys, prairie dogs) or performances/dialogue that I was left unimpressed with (the return of Marion) are all interesting elements to leave on the table of things to discuss. It's not so much monday morning quarterbacking as it is assessment of the work by considering alternate forms in which it might have existed.

All of which is to say - we all come at these things differently. By this I mean fans of various ages and background experiences, critics of various proclivities, and, of course, artists themselves. The question of validity is <I>entirely</I> apart from the question of presentation. Some perspectives probably do matter more than others, or are at least more worth consideration. Let's not let the way things are said by those in the public sphere affect too much what we think of what they're saying. Even if Shia or Raimi were just trying to cover their own asses, it's not as though stubbornness is an unknown commodity in Hollywood, or as though that immediately discounts a world in which their words can be taken at face value as sincere. The hot new thing <I>isn't</I> going to stand up to Steven Spielberg that much, but might regret it later. The comic book franchise director probably is going to run into a maddening level of studio interference. There are many ways folks find to act ignobly, and if Shia and Raimi really wanted to stand by their works, they surely could have found other means.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Attila the Professor said:
...the character changes did resonate with me. I do think that Sharkey has a point, that he has become less physically vulnerable over time, and has had an entire superhero-like mythology added onto him as time has worn on, but the characterization was pretty on.

I never thought of Indy as a superhero, and even resisted the temptation to assign that trait to him in KOTCS. I like the idea that across the four films he is a constant (though naturally evolving) character.

My solution to the issue of Indy's virtual invulnerability in KOTCS is simply to view his life as protected by supernatural good luck, which has been the protector of pulp heroes since they emerged into our culture.

It's necessary that the hero (or anti-hero) survives, despite huge odds. They always evade the fatal hail of bullets, occasionally taking a hit to a non-vital area. They bleed, they bruise, they suffer, but they always have to survive. It's in the very essence of the cliffhanger and the serial hero.

In ROTLA there are numerous occasions where luck plays a most important role in his survival - even luck more than his own skill in combat. Luck combined with precognitive intuition has been the saviour of many a pulp protagonist.

KOTCS threatens to stretch the formula by making the cliffhangers even greater, more deadly, and therefore requiring a sequence of luck elements. The fridge in Doomtown presupposes that Indy finds it in time, it's lead-lined and very strong, the blast carries it clear of the danger area, Indy is packed so tightly inside that he fridge absorbs the impact on his behalf when it lands.

That's a lot of "ifs". Primarily it's a moment of pure fun, of playing with the cliffhanger genre and '50s culture. Each event in isolation is possible, though unlikely. Each event in sequence is possible, though extremely unlikely. Only a pulp hero could manage to call on that much luck.

Not only that but we also have to believe that the tree lowers the DUKW safely down to the water, and that it and it's passengers survive every waterfall.

It's all in the realm of possibility in Indy's world. He's survived these kinds of dangers before, but not on this scale.

It's then the scale of the cliffhangers which is stretching our imagination, not, as I see it, any change in Indy's character, which is the very thing that carries the movie.

In ROTLA we accept that Indy is dragged over rough terrain behind a truck without serious injury or damage to his clothes. In KOTCS we have to accept the same unlikelihood, but just on a bigger scale.

Personally, I can accept the cliffhangers in KOTCS, but I would rather they weren't quite so extreme. Just as there are the little inclusions of the monkeys, the snake and the sandpit, and the underuse of some of the more interesting characters.

KOTCS missed the mark, but there's still too much good in it to allow me to hate it. There are some great moments, great visuals, great music, and even some subtle touches. Yet, they sit uncomfortably with some of the pumped-up cliffhangers, and some of the more child-like, revisionist sensibilities that have crept into Lucas' work.
 
Montana Smith said:
In ROTLA we accept that Indy is dragged over rough terrain behind a truck without serious injury or damage to his clothes. In KOTCS we have to accept the same unlikelihood, but just on a bigger scale.

Scale is the key word. Skull was off the charts. I can enjoy the film in a certain manner, but I have to agree, they made Indy into some superhero. Sorry to say, there was no tension in the film. You can go into a haunted house at a fair or a carnival knowing full well things will pop out at you and still be scared. Crystal Skull achieved no equal. It was full of promise and developed SOME themes but delivered on none.

Indy was invulnerable, sad to say. The Dovecheko fight(s) were the only time you felt he was challenged and even they couldn't carry the film.
 

StoneTriple

New member
Good stuff Montana. I do have a slightly different view of your points, however.

Montana Smith said:
My solution to the issue of Indy's virtual invulnerability in KOTCS is simply to view his life as protected by supernatural good luck...

... Each event in isolation is possible, though unlikely. Each event in sequence is possible, though extremely unlikely. Only a pulp hero could manage to call on that much luck.

But hasn't that always been the case with Indy? He's been a pulp hero from the very beginning. A much more believable pulp hero early on, but still a pulp hero none the less.



Montana Smith said:
It's all in the realm of possibility in Indy's world. He's survived these kinds of dangers before, but not on this scale.

In ROTLA we accept that Indy is dragged over rough terrain behind a truck without serious injury or damage to his clothes. In KOTCS we have to accept the same unlikelihood, but just on a bigger scale.

I think the scale has always been the same. The presentation in Raiders was less over-the-top, but being strapped to the periscope of a sub for about 500 miles is every bit as silly, it's just not in your face roller coaster silly. As far as "on a bigger scale", we were treated to that almost as soon as Temple got up to speed. Crusade had it's share as well, they just came across as silly, more than preposterous.

That supernatural good luck has been Indy's companion since 1981. I would agree, however, that they leaned on it a bit more in Kingdom.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
StoneTriple said:
Good stuff Montana. I do have a slightly different view of your points, however.

But hasn't that always been the case with Indy? He's been a pulp hero from the very beginning. A much more believable pulp hero early on, but still a pulp hero none the less.

Yes, that's what I meant: only a pulp hero = only a character like Indy, who is a pulp hero. With pulp heroes we have to accept that they will survive the things that will put an ordinary guy six foot under.

StoneTriple said:
I think the scale has always been the same. The presentation in Raiders was less over-the-top, but being strapped to the periscope of a sub for about 500 miles is every bit as silly, it's just not in your face roller coaster silly. As far as "on a bigger scale", we were treated to that almost as soon as Temple got up to speed. Crusade had it's share as well, they just came across as silly, more than preposterous.

That supernatural good luck has been Indy's companion since 1981. I would agree, however, that they leaned on it a bit more in Kingdom.

By scale I mean that the dangers are greater, and their survival requires more luck. An atomic bomb trumps everything. It's a great statement about '50s culture, and of pulp heroes. The 'bomb' has been a terrifying symbol since 1945. It's the closest man has come to destroying the world at the press of a button. For Indy it's the ultimate challenge.

TOD did prepare us for KOTCS. But KOTCS takes the elements and makes them even grander, as though a modern audience won't stand (or sit) for the merely mundane.

Taking in Rockets, points, the promise of KOTCS was unfulfilled.

I've remarked elsewhere that Lucas seems to me like a kid in a candystore. He wants one of everything on the shelf, and because he's at a stage in his life where he's at liberty to accomplish what he wants, he makes the movies that he wants to see. His revisionism of the original Star Wars trilogy is the expression of his later sensibilities, whether Star Wars fans like it or not.

Likewise, with Indy, whether we like it or not, we are watching Lucas' expression of the situations he wants to see Indy face.

The character of Indy is still there, as is Harrison's committment. Yet, the world he lives in is offering up greater challenges.

I agree that KOTCS would have benefitted from less scale. More excitement and involvement could have been attained by creating more suspense, more mystery, and spending more time with the more interesting characters. The challenges need not have been so grand, and could still have been exciting, while being easier to accept.
 

StoneTriple

New member
Montana Smith said:
I've remarked elsewhere that Lucas seems to me like a kid in a candystore. He wants one of everything on the shelf...
Thank God his parents (Spielberg & Ford) tell him no. To me, that's THE difference between Star Wars & Indiana Jones. George is kept in check with Indy.


Montana Smith said:
More excitement and involvement could have been attained by creating more suspense, more mystery, and spending more time with the more interesting characters. The challenges need not have been so grand, and could still have been exciting, while being easier to accept.
Here's hoping for just that, if they go again.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
StoneTriple said:
Thank God his parents (Spielberg & Ford) tell him no. To me, that's THE difference between Star Wars & Indiana Jones. George is kept in check with Indy.

:D

Lucas the Hutt still eats too many sweets, but at least he does have caring parents! As I said, KOTCS wasn't as terrible as I initially feared before pressing play on the DVD.

StoneTriple said:
Here's hoping for just that, if they go again.

(y)
 

Cole

New member
It takes its liberties of course, but I think some people are also under the wrong assumption....

The bomb isn't dropped directly on Indy's head - it detonates where it's seen on that stand thing.......the town is seen a few miles in the distance. The tests were to see what happens to civilians on the bomb's outskirts.

And contrary to belief, not everything was decimated in these tests:

"You are right at ground zero," said Darwin Morgan, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration in Las Vegas. "What you are seeing right here is where an atmospheric test went off in May off 1955.

"Not everything was destroyed. A lot of people think everything gets vaporized, but they don't."

That's why people come here -- to see what's left

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local-beat/Top-Secret-Tourism.html?yhp=1

So maybe the biggest question is withstanding injuries caused by a fridge propelled by a shockwave travelling speeds perhaps near 1,000 mph.

But it's the same guy who could be dragged under a truck at speeds around 50 mph, and his clothes don't rip, his hat stays on, no injuries.

To some extent, I think it's only natural that the sequels get a little more fantastical in order to outdue the previous ones (where can you go after that amazing truck scene in Raiders?). But it's all very much within the realm of "pulp fiction" to me.

Most important of all.......it's just damn entertaining.
 

Perhilion

New member
Very good points made in the video. Really I think people overreact with KotCS and many of the arguments are irrational or hypocritical.
 

Gabeed

New member
Cole said:
So maybe the biggest question is withstanding injuries caused by a fridge propelled by a shockwave travelling speeds perhaps near 1,000 mph.

But it's the same guy who could be dragged under a truck at speeds around 50 mph, and his clothes don't rip, his hat stays on, no injuries.

A key difference being that a stuntman actually did get dragged under the truck in Raiders, whereas that is obviously not the case with the atomic blast (nor, indeed, the leap from the plane in Temple of Doom). We see that at least someone is doing the things that Indy is doing in the truck scene, rather than, in the atomic blast scene, we have a CGI deus ex machina escape from a scene made mostly to hammer it into us that we're in the 50's. Again, Temple of Doom's plane jump is just about as silly, but . . . I dunno. I guess being at the site of a nuclear blast has a special certainty of death about it that lends its improbable escape a greater degree of incredulity.
 

Cole

New member
Gabeed said:
A key difference being that a stuntman actually did get dragged under the truck in Raiders, whereas that is obviously not the case with the atomic blast (nor, indeed, the leap from the plane in Temple of Doom). We see that at least someone is doing the things that Indy is doing in the truck scene, rather than, in the atomic blast scene, we have a CGI deus ex machina escape from a scene made mostly to hammer it into us that we're in the 50's. Again, Temple of Doom's plane jump is just about as silly, but . . . I dunno. I guess being at the site of a nuclear blast has a special certainty of death about it that lends its improbable escape a greater degree of incredulity.
I'm not making the argument that it's a better scene than the one in 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'...........that whole truck scene is probably one of the greatest action scenes ever IMO, and the real stunt indeed makes it a thrill.

What I'm saying is it's in the spirit of the pulp serials, just like the refrigerator.

It's not the actual flying of the fridge that's exciting.......it's the intense build-up and wondering how Indy's gonna get out of this one.

I do think Crystal Skull features some great physical stunts - chief among them perhaps Indy jumping from a moving car onto the back of a moving motorcycle.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Cole said:
I'm not making the argument that it's a better scene than the one in 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'...........that whole truck scene is probably one of the greatest action scenes ever IMO, and the real stunt indeed makes it a thrill.

What I'm saying is it's in the spirit of the pulp serials, just like the refrigerator.

It's not the actual flying of the fridge that's exciting.......it's the intense build-up and wondering how Indy's gonna get out of this one.

I do think Crystal Skull features some great physical stunts - chief among them perhaps Indy jumping from a moving car onto the back of a moving motorcycle.

I remember having great fun defending the fridge in this thread:

http://raven.theraider.net/showthread.php?t=19686
 

Darth Vile

New member
Cole said:
I'm not making the argument that it's a better scene than the one in 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'...........that whole truck scene is probably one of the greatest action scenes ever IMO, and the real stunt indeed makes it a thrill.

What I'm saying is it's in the spirit of the pulp serials, just like the refrigerator.

It's not the actual flying of the fridge that's exciting.......it's the intense build-up and wondering how Indy's gonna get out of this one.

I do think Crystal Skull features some great physical stunts - chief among them perhaps Indy jumping from a moving car onto the back of a moving motorcycle.

To be honest, I think the days are gone where you can impress an audience simply by using real stunts. That's not too say that the original Indy movies relied purely on that aspect... but I honestly don't believe you could better (as far as real stunt work is concerned) something like the jump to the tank from the horse (TLC). That why, IMHO, most modern movies have to go with frenetic editing and/or CGI in order to create some sense of 'event'/spectacle i.e. modern audiences demand more (even if that demand is misplaced).
 
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