StoneTriple
New member
I’ve been waiting a few days to post this, to see if I was sure. I am - so here goes;
Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull is my favorite Indiana Jones film.
There, I've said it. Now, I’ll try to explain before I’m run out of here. I love Raiders and I really like Crusade & Temple. Raiders moved me as a 19-year-old kid. I saw it more times than I can remember while it was in the theater that year and countless times in the past 28 years. Same for Crusade & Temple respectively. I know the movies and the character like the back of my hand. I used to silkscreen my own Raiders t-shirts, and I’ve probably listened to the soundtracks more than any other film score. I also read the novels in my spare time.
I’ve not made any secret of the fact that I really liked Kingdom when I first saw it. That said, I had been worried given George’s track record with “tampering” with his films and characters. I’m not a fan of his treatment of Star Wars - not even remotely, as evidenced by my being a long-time member of originaltrilogy.com. However, I was pleasantly surprised in May. Kingdom was much deeper character-wise than I had expected, Indy in particular.
All this came about last week. I bought the Blu-ray the day it came out and had already watched it twice. I liked it even more than when it was in the theaters. I decided last weekend that I would have an Indiana Jones marathon. I was going to wait until November when I’m off for a week, but I couldn’t wait any longer.
However, a funny thing happened on the way to the office.
I got out Raiders, turned everything on and went to get some green tea and settle in for the journey. When it came time to put in Raiders, I realized I really wanted to watch Kingdom instead. So I did.
The first half of the film is so much deeper and much more interesting to me than the other three films. Because of that, I realized that Kingdom was how I connect with the character of Indy now. It’s no secret that a large part of that is because he’s facing issues and life experiences that are similar to mine (minus the whole saving-the-world adventure part).
The dialogue-driven passages throughout the film are much deeper and more realistic than the shallowness of the tough guy we didn’t really know in Raiders. And by shallow, I mean he was a stranger that we were just meeting. There’s only so much you can know about a stranger. 28 years later, we know him well and when we catch up with him again, we see his character depth. I touched on those points in my original review;
http://raven.theraider.net/showpost.php?p=343155&postcount=1146
Anyway, my point with all of this is that when I was a 19-year-old kid, the Indiana Jones of Raiders fit my world. 28 years later, the Indiana Jones of Kingdom - aged and introspective - fits my world. Unlike some people on the board, I don’t feel like my childhood was tampered with - it can’t be. Instead, I feel like my adulthood was given a gift. And because that gift mirrors some of my real life experiences, it is now my favorite of the four films. Raiders, Temple, and Crusade are still three of my all-time favorite films and still hold just as special a place in my world as they always have. I’ll end up having my Indiana Jones marathon in a few weeks - if I can wait that long.
I took some time off from the board because I was tired of the hate spam. Looks like I have some catching up to do. I’ll start by trying to gather my thoughts about the first three chapters. I think that’s a very interesting idea you guys have going.
Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull is my favorite Indiana Jones film.
There, I've said it. Now, I’ll try to explain before I’m run out of here. I love Raiders and I really like Crusade & Temple. Raiders moved me as a 19-year-old kid. I saw it more times than I can remember while it was in the theater that year and countless times in the past 28 years. Same for Crusade & Temple respectively. I know the movies and the character like the back of my hand. I used to silkscreen my own Raiders t-shirts, and I’ve probably listened to the soundtracks more than any other film score. I also read the novels in my spare time.
I’ve not made any secret of the fact that I really liked Kingdom when I first saw it. That said, I had been worried given George’s track record with “tampering” with his films and characters. I’m not a fan of his treatment of Star Wars - not even remotely, as evidenced by my being a long-time member of originaltrilogy.com. However, I was pleasantly surprised in May. Kingdom was much deeper character-wise than I had expected, Indy in particular.
All this came about last week. I bought the Blu-ray the day it came out and had already watched it twice. I liked it even more than when it was in the theaters. I decided last weekend that I would have an Indiana Jones marathon. I was going to wait until November when I’m off for a week, but I couldn’t wait any longer.
However, a funny thing happened on the way to the office.
I got out Raiders, turned everything on and went to get some green tea and settle in for the journey. When it came time to put in Raiders, I realized I really wanted to watch Kingdom instead. So I did.
The first half of the film is so much deeper and much more interesting to me than the other three films. Because of that, I realized that Kingdom was how I connect with the character of Indy now. It’s no secret that a large part of that is because he’s facing issues and life experiences that are similar to mine (minus the whole saving-the-world adventure part).
The dialogue-driven passages throughout the film are much deeper and more realistic than the shallowness of the tough guy we didn’t really know in Raiders. And by shallow, I mean he was a stranger that we were just meeting. There’s only so much you can know about a stranger. 28 years later, we know him well and when we catch up with him again, we see his character depth. I touched on those points in my original review;
http://raven.theraider.net/showpost.php?p=343155&postcount=1146
Anyway, my point with all of this is that when I was a 19-year-old kid, the Indiana Jones of Raiders fit my world. 28 years later, the Indiana Jones of Kingdom - aged and introspective - fits my world. Unlike some people on the board, I don’t feel like my childhood was tampered with - it can’t be. Instead, I feel like my adulthood was given a gift. And because that gift mirrors some of my real life experiences, it is now my favorite of the four films. Raiders, Temple, and Crusade are still three of my all-time favorite films and still hold just as special a place in my world as they always have. I’ll end up having my Indiana Jones marathon in a few weeks - if I can wait that long.
I took some time off from the board because I was tired of the hate spam. Looks like I have some catching up to do. I’ll start by trying to gather my thoughts about the first three chapters. I think that’s a very interesting idea you guys have going.
