Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - its legacy and reputation

[British Raider]

Biggest hurdle KotCS faced was the time jump we had to make going from 1989 to 2008 in which the whole cinematic landscape had changed. What if we had gotten an Indy in 1996/97 that had some CGI in it. Then another in the early 00s etc audiences got eased in to the new eras of the movies. But hey, it’s Indy after all, anything goes…

 

[fedoraboy]

Which actually - the nuke scene was mostly practical. The neighborhood was real for the most part - and the destruction of it was done in miniature.

And it looked great, I felt.

Best scene in the film!

Biggest hurdle KotCS faced was the time jump we had to make going from 1989 to 2008 in which the whole cinematic landscape had changed. What if we had gotten an Indy in 1996/97 that had some CGI in it. Then another in the early 00s etc audiences got eased in to the new eras of the movies. But hey, it’s Indy after all, anything goes…

I think it might have helped people accept the look & tone of Skull if we’d had those intervening films. It still would’ve needed a complete script rewrite, though!

 

[Dr.Jonesy]

Those VFX showreels for DoD have shown that it has WAAAAAY more CGI work than Skull, yet the FX are done a lot better IMO - it’s way more seamless & a lot of it really is invisible. I think on the face of it Skull does look a lot more CGI-y, even though plenty of the film really was done ‘the old fashioned way’. It’s just a few scenes like the nuke, the monkeys, the ants and the waterfalls stick in peoples heads. Much of everything else was practical I think.

Yeah, I'm still shocked at how bad Kingdom looks, at times. Even in the same scene!

For instance, the scene where Mutt and Irina are sparring on the jeeps. Cool scene! But, the brief shot before she stabs the bag is so bad - it has this unclear, glow-y blur to it. Then when she and Mutt get close for the "You fight like a young man" moment, the camera is shaky (almost like its less frames) and the glow-y, artificial everything just looks awful.

Then we cut to the "Hey! Hey, I got the skull!" segment where Mutt's ready to throw the bag and it's such a breath of fresh air because it looks real again.

But the jump between the sword-fight sequence to where he throws the bag feels like a completely different film.

When he goes to throw the bag just looks real and so contrasting to the scene before it, it's jarring.

NOTE - the 4K recoloring really helps the film, invaluably.

 

[fedoraboy]

Isn’t it documented that they ran out of time to finish the FX, so a lot of them aren’t fully realised? But I’ve never been particularly put off by ropey FX (all the films have a few) as long as the story & ideas are good - and that’s where Skull does fall done a fair bit.

 

[FordFan]

"I never should have doubted you, my friend" is one of the most awkward line deliveries I've ever heard and I hate that it's in an Indiana Jones film.

 

[Dr.Jonesy]

"I never should have doubted you, my friend" is one of the most awkward line deliveries I've ever heard and I hate that it's in an Indiana Jones film.

Okay, it's not just me, then. It's just a clunky line for an ongoing conversation.

Like if he said that as Charlie was dying or they're about to part ways, cool.
But in conversation? Awkward.

Even just a "I didn't mean to doubt you, Charlie" would've been fine. The next line isn't dependent on Indy shoe-horning the word 'friend' in there.

 

[British Raider]

Isn’t it documented that they ran out of time to finish the FX, so a lot of them aren’t fully realised? But I’ve never been particularly put off by ropey FX (all the films have a few) as long as the story & ideas are good - and that’s where Skull does fall done a fair bit.

Did you listen to the Indiana Jones Minute podcast? I swear J W Rinzler who was doing the making of book and was on set said something to this effect, like apathy had crept in for Spielberg and Lucas. A kind of, that’ll do about it. Sad if true.

 

[FordFan]

Okay, it's not just me, then. It's just a clunky line for an ongoing conversation.

Like if he said that as Charlie was dying or they're about to part ways, cool.
But in conversation? Awkward.

Even just a "I didn't mean to doubt you, Charlie" would've been fine. The next line isn't dependent on Indy shoe-horning the word 'friend' in there.

I'm convinced Harrison had to fly somewhere, Steven was preoccupied with Kate's birthday, and Lucas was pondering who should run Lucasfilm if he sells it, all on that day. How no one called attention to it... it's why I can like KOTCS but I can't love it.

 

[Damon]

For instance, the scene where Mutt and Irina are sparring on the jeeps. Cool scene! But, the brief shot before she stabs the bag is so bad - it has this unclear, glow-y blur to it. Then when she and Mutt get close for the "You fight like a young man" moment, the camera is shaky (almost like its less frames) and the glow-y, artificial everything just looks awful.

That's exactly how I feel! I don't like how the movie looks most of the time. All these awful teal/orange filters and the glow-y blur that seems straight from an episode of Star Trek whenever they put some cream on the camera lense to make the woman look dreamy... Bah! It's weird because DoD also has a lot of filters and a certain color-scheme (yellow-ish), but there it just works for me.

 

[fedoraboy]

Did you listen to the Indiana Jones Minute podcast? I swear J W Rinzler who was doing the making of book and was on set said something to this effect, like apathy had crept in for Spielberg and Lucas. A kind of, that’ll do about it. Sad if true.

Great podcast - wish they'd get a move on and cover DoD! I'm not sure I recall him saying exactly that, but I think it's fair to say neither of the beards were bringing their A-Game. However I'm not sure that's to blame for the unfinished FX, it was because of them racing to meet a release date I believe, they just didn't have the time to finish everything. Understandable I suppose when you compare Skull's 7 months of post production with Dial's 16 months!

 

[British Raider]

Great podcast - wish they'd get a move on and cover DoD! I'm not sure I recall him saying exactly that, but I think it's fair to say neither of the beards were bringing their A-Game. However I'm not sure that's to blame for the unfinished FX, it was because of them racing to meet a release date I believe, they just didn't have the time to finish everything. Understandable I suppose when you compare Skull's 7 months of post production with Dial's 16 months!

Yes I think with Covid Spielberg was never going to shoot another Indiana Jones even if he’d not stepped down previously.

Yeah, I'm still shocked at how bad Kingdom looks, at times. Even in the same scene!

For instance, the scene where Mutt and Irina are sparring on the jeeps. Cool scene! But, the brief shot before she stabs the bag is so bad - it has this unclear, glow-y blur to it. Then when she and Mutt get close for the "You fight like a young man" moment, the camera is shaky (almost like its less frames) and the glow-y, artificial everything just looks awful.

Then we cut to the "Hey! Hey, I got the skull!" segment where Mutt's ready to throw the bag and it's such a breath of fresh air because it looks real again.

But the jump between the sword-fight sequence to where he throws the bag feels like a completely different film.

When he goes to throw the bag just looks real and so contrasting to the scene before it, it's jarring.

NOTE - the 4K recoloring really helps the film, invaluably.

There’s a few fleeting moments where we see the stunt performers on the trucks sword fighting and it is on location I think that I always try to hold my attention on amongst all the bad blue screen.

 

[emtiem]

Reminds me of Crusade being touted as a successful 'apology' for its predecessor...which no apology was needed, but.

I love TLC as much as the next person, but I do kind of wish it didn't feel as much of an attempt at a course correction as it does, going back into full Raiders territory. I feel like TOD had established that Indy doesn't need to follow that template, but to some extent every subsequent kind of has. DOD perhaps the least of all, but it's still in there.

 

[Dr.Jonesy]

I love TLC as much as the next person, but I do kind of wish it didn't feel as much of an attempt at a course correction as it does, going back into full Raiders territory. I feel like TOD had established that Indy doesn't need to follow that template, but to some extent every subsequent kind of has. DOD perhaps the least of all, but it's still in there.

Wow, you just made me realize that Dial is the least formulaic since Temple.

 

[emtiem]

Wow, you just made me realize that Dial is the least formulaic since Temple.

Although funnily enough it takes a few elements from KOTCS!

 

[fedoraboy]

I love TLC as much as the next person, but I do kind of wish it didn't feel as much of an attempt at a course correction as it does, going back into full Raiders territory. I feel like TOD had established that Indy doesn't need to follow that template, but to some extent every subsequent kind of has. DOD perhaps the least of all, but it's still in there.

Temple dug into the serial roots even moreso than Raiders. I think if the series had continued in that direction we might have got quite a few more exciting instalments - sticking with pure action adventures in the 30's and 40's. There would have been nothing wrong with this approach, it might even have given the series more longevity as a recast may have been more likely (as it settled into a sort of James Bond formula) and it's great to think how the series could have panned out so differently, while arguably staying truer to its roots.

I think the layering and character developments introduced in Crusade sort of enabled the series to become something else, to grow up in a way, allowed the character to become more three dimensional and rounded and sort of made it seem OK for us to revisit him in the 50's and 60's. You could say this started to turn the series into more soap opera than adventure serial, but if the series had continued to spin off wild adventures in the vein of Temple, without dipping into Indy's humanity quite as much, I think it's a lot harder to see how Ford could have revisited the character 40 odd years later. It's fun to imagine how Bond might have turned out if the series had followed the Indy approach, sticking with Connery, giving him a wife, kids and having him still playing the character in 2010!

 

[emtiem]

Temple dug into the serial roots even moreso than Raiders. I think if the series had continued in that direction we might have got quite a few more exciting instalments - sticking with pure action adventures in the 30's and 40's. There would have been nothing wrong with this approach, it might even have given the series more longevity as a recast may have been more likely (as it settled into a sort of James Bond formula) and it's great to think how the series could have panned out so differently, while arguably staying truer to its roots.

I think the layering and character developments introduced in Crusade sort of enabled the series to become something else, to grow up in a way, allowed the character to become more three dimensional and rounded and sort of made it seem OK for us to revisit him in the 50's and 60's. You could say this started to turn the series into more soap opera than adventure serial, but if the series had continued to spin off wild adventures in the vein of Temple, without dipping into Indy's humanity quite as much, I think it's a lot harder to see how Ford could have revisited the character 40 odd years later. It's fun to imagine how Bond might have turned out if the series had followed the Indy approach, sticking with Connery, giving him a wife, kids and having him still playing the character in 2010!

That's a great post, very insightful. I do though think that the two approaches wouldn't necessarily have been mutually exclusive: I don't think TLC had to go back to the Raiders formula quite so much in order to tell stories about the characters.

 

[fedoraboy]

That's a great post, very insightful. I do though think that the two approaches wouldn't necessarily have been mutually exclusive: I don't think TLC had to go back to the Raiders formula quite so much in order to tell stories about the characters.

Yes you’re right. I suppose what Crusade did was take the Raiders formula and deepen the story by adding the familial & emotional elements. As you say though, they could have told this more complex emotional journey while still doing something different with the broader story. I suppose that might have been seen as too much of a departure - so by giving us something that felt superficially familiar (I.e a sort of Raiders retread) they were able to ‘smuggle in’ this deeper emotional core, which was - from what I understand - the main hook for Spielberg wanting to make this film.

 

[British Raider]

Temple dug into the serial roots even moreso than Raiders. I think if the series had continued in that direction we might have got quite a few more exciting instalments - sticking with pure action adventures in the 30's and 40's. There would have been nothing wrong with this approach, it might even have given the series more longevity as a recast may have been more likely (as it settled into a sort of James Bond formula) and it's great to think how the series could have panned out so differently, while arguably staying truer to its roots.

I think the layering and character developments introduced in Crusade sort of enabled the series to become something else, to grow up in a way, allowed the character to become more three dimensional and rounded and sort of made it seem OK for us to revisit him in the 50's and 60's. You could say this started to turn the series into more soap opera than adventure serial, but if the series had continued to spin off wild adventures in the vein of Temple, without dipping into Indy's humanity quite as much, I think it's a lot harder to see how Ford could have revisited the character 40 odd years later. It's fun to imagine how Bond might have turned out if the series had followed the Indy approach, sticking with Connery, giving him a wife, kids and having him still playing the character in 2010!

interesting alternative history to think about where Spielberg stepped down from directing duties post-Temple and it didn’t veer into what I would say is closer to sitcom than soap opera Particularly KotCS which has much less elegant dialogue than Crusade. Star Wars is similar, I wonder what it would be if it had just been another Luke Skywalker adventure and not a family affair…

 

[Dr.Jonesy]

The Indiana Jones franchise is a bit weird.

In film, I'd argue that Last Crusade is the most influential, when you look at the following two films.

In Crusade, 'family' plays a huge role. Fatherhood, mainly. The branches of family/fatherhood started in Crusade are huge parts of the following two films, weaving an actual son and a goddaughter. And the drive to follow the obsessions of a father figure (Henry, Oxley, Basil) are the main plot-drivers of the three films following Temple of Doom. The themes of failed fatherhood (Henry, Indy missing Mutt's entire life, Basil neglecting his daughter for his obsessions/Indy's neglect of Helena) are the main emotional cruxes of each of the films, in a way.

Add in the comedy that became far more pronounced in Crusade and carried over a bit to Kingdom.

But in Indy literature/gaming - which arguably take far more inspiration from Raiders and Temple.

 

[British Raider]

But in Indy literature/gaming - which arguably take far more inspiration from Raiders and Temple.

That might have been due as much to the writers having to stick to guidelines, like not being allowed to do Abner. But there might be more longevity in doing more standalone adventures that don’t conflict too much with established canon.