StoneTriple said: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.
WELL WRITTEN.
I AGREE
RAIDERS IS MY FAVORITE BECAUSE IT WAS THE FIRST.