Pale Horse said:
I'm not saying give up the dream, but the denizen's of Indy lore and character development such as this thread suggests are long gone.
Getting new blood in here for that sort of thing would be easier than trying to get the current bloodstream up to health.
KOTCS too, sucked any life or hope of such depth away. I know that there are those that still occasionally post or lurk in the shadows, but if there is any sort of participation, it'll be like a 20 year high school reunion. There is no new generation.
You sound like a beaten horse, and that's no surprise. Even Orwell's loyal Boxer was forced to give up in the end, and despatched to the slaughterhouse before his time.
That for me describes the grinding frustration with KOTCS. A wasted opportunity, reliant on mimicry with little intention of extracting anything other than a superficial excitement in a youthful audience.
There seemed very little attempt at injecting originality into KOTCS, because it was outwardly a pastiche of itself and of popular culture. It runs along ticking off a list of clichés until it's time to wow the audience with the next great spectacle.
There was no attempt at injecting anything original storywise. There was no real challenging issue, and Indy himself was for the most part a helpless passenger on a train with predestined stopping-stations. There was little free will, but instead clumsy plot direction.
Oxley will be insane and unhelpful until the plot requires him to explain the movie. Mac will change sides at regular intervals to spur the plot in the intended direction, but he will do it with so little acting-conviction that you wonder how Indy survived this long. Indy himself is driven by the Skull against his will.
This really wasn't an adventure but a dictated course.
And to make sure that all the 'deeply intellectual Cold War references' don't overpower and bore the little ones, there are some CG animals to lighten the load.
I don't see anything superficially original in the film. Back in 1981
Raiders presented pastiche in what appeared to be an original manner. Even TOD challenged boundaries and tested it's protagonist. TLC was a character driven storyline. KOTCS just feels like a weak skating lesson on thick ice, with no hope that the ice would break to reveal a hidden depth.
There was never any sense that the characters were in real situations, real danger, or even real relationships. Instead they spouted clichés at each other, resurrected lines and instances from previous movies.
However, there are ways of finding meaning, even if it requires creating meaning where it wasn't intended. Finding a subconscious text in the movie. It's not easy, because KOTCS doesn't lend itself to thinking too deeply.
Even TOD had a moment of self-reflection, a gnawing ethical shift in Indy's conscience. He wasn't a natural hero, but a hard-edged fortune-seeker. In
Raiders he's a thief in Peru and a mercenary in Egypt. In TLC he elected to undertake a very personal quest against great odds.
In KOTCS he was at first intrigued to find the skull, and then compelled to do so. The skull chose to speak to him, knowing that his previous encounters with the supernatural would preserve his sanity after this one. We have to assume that the aliens saw in him something naturally good, knowing for sure that this was the right man for job. That this time he would not run off with the object of his desire.
Maybe that, then, is the deeper meaning of KOTCS? It's an innate belief in another entity. We might extend that to Marion. Indy always knew that she was the girl for him, despite all the other close encounters. Despite their differences he has an innate belief that it's right.
This meaning, however, is lost because the actors sound like they're regurgitating lines. They don't for the most part appear to be expressing genuine relationships. KOTCS has lost the original power and impetus that made
Raiders that almost perfect movie.