Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (James Mangold, June 30 2023)

[Naïve Old Fart 9,493]

Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3.

[Amer 2,080]

Dont let that man fly any planes in the meantime..please!

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

I didn't know he could fly a plane...

[Holko 9,498]

Fly? Yes. Land? No.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

He wasn't... brought here. His plane crashed.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Damn, I thought that was closer.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,493]

Geez, Louise, is anybody truly looking forward to this pensionable shit?

KOTCS was bad enough. Kill it, now.

[Kasey Kockroach 2,343]

People wouldn't be posting in this thread for 40 pages if they weren't intrigued to at least some degree.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,493]

As JWfan's exec., it is my duty...to point out alternatives.

[Kasey Kockroach 2,343]

We can watch King Solomon's Mines! Or the opening to The Rugrats Movie!

[Nick1Ø66 4,687]

I didn't think the problem with the unwatchable KOTCS was Ford's age, but rather what they had him doing via the terrible script and bad supporting characters across the board.

 

This could work, maybe, if they do it right....i.e. an Indy movie that relies more on Indy the archeologist, professor and acquirer of rare antiquities, and less the action hero.  Obviously, you can have some of that, but not so much as to strain credulity.  Indy will clearly need a new sidekick to handle a good deal of the action...perhaps one of his students (and they'll probably make it a woman, some kind of prodigy).

 

And it goes without saying, no to Marion, and certainly no to Mutt. Yes to Sallah.  

 

I'm not hopeful. Koepp can't write and Spielberg doesn't know how to direct movies like this anymore. And I've resigned myself that at a minimum the film won't look anything like an Indy film thanks to Kaminsky's awful, gauzy, over stylized cinematography.  And who knows if it will sound like an Indy film because there's no guarantee Williams will be doing it.   As it is, I consider the Indy films a trilogy, and he rode off into the sunset after Last Crusade and that was it.

[crumbs 14,297]

An April shoot should mean filming wrap around July/August, first cut around September. I'd expect Williams to finish IX around October, given the late filming  schedule of that film (relative to TLJ).

 

So hopefully no scheduling conflicts there, unless he's just exhausted after finishing IX...

[Naïve Old Fart 9,493]

@Nick1066. IJ5. Your last post. Nail on head.

July, 2020. Be anywhere but a in cinema.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

5 hours ago, kaseykockroach said:

People wouldn't be posting in this thread for 40 pages if they weren't intrigued to at least some degree.

 

I've posted a lot in the TLJ threads and I still haven't seen it.

[Kasey Kockroach 2,343]

You traitorous scoundrel you! 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

What bravery.

[Cerebral Cortex 3,357]

5 hours ago, Nick1066 said:

As it is, I consider the Indy films a trilogy, and he rode off into the sunset after Last Crusade and that was it.

 

And then he found an old saxophone. 

 

[Cerebral Cortex 3,357]

Spielberg confirms fifth film will take place in the sixties. 

[Pieter Boelen 740]

On 12/04/2018 at 8:40 AM, Cerebral Cortex said:

Spielberg confirms fifth film will take place in the sixties. 

He also says the movie he hasn't yet made will be really good!

I want to believe him, but even me at my most positive would think that is a bit premature...

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

The Spielberg we loved, gone he is. Consumed by old age and marriage.

[crumbs 14,297]

He said Indy 4 had the best script since Raiders, as well. Hopefully he understands the weight of "righting the wrong" with this one. He'd know the fan reaction to KOTCS was scathing and surely he understands the reasons why.

 

I hope he goes ahead with his original plan for KOTCS (before Lucas talked him out of it) and using old-fashioned techniques rather than CGI for the visual effects.

[Incanus 5,713]

20 minutes ago, crumbs said:

He said Indy 4 had the best script since Raiders, as well. Hopefully he understands the weight of "righting the wrong" with this one. He'd know the fan reaction to KOTCS was scathing and surely he understands the reasons why.

 

I hope he goes ahead with his original plan for KOTCS (before Lucas talked him out of it) and using old-fashioned techniques rather than CGI for the visual effects.

I think Lucas' major (unfortunate) contribution to Indy IV was the original premise of inter-dimensional beings (=aliens) as the mystery behind the crystal skulls which he kept coming back to and Spielberg finally relented but he wasn't excited about the idea. It is very clear from the documentaries that he filmed most of the movie with practical stunts and on built physical sets but the major detractor outside the silly Doom Town sequence and nuking of the fridge is the final third especially with the jungle chase wasn't just practical or safe enough to be shot entirely on location which necessitated the heavy CGI (and monkeys) injected into the shots.  

[crumbs 14,297]

But so much of the jungle chase was shot legitimately, albeit in the cushy safety of Hawaii, before Lucas and ILM cartooned it to hell and back. What started as just covering up tire tracks from the camera track ended up coating the entire screen with relentless CGI foliage. The result is a blurry, cartoony mess. The sword fight atop the cars is surely the worst offender (yes, even worse than swinging with monkeys in the vines). It's even replete with a godawful fake lens flare smeared all over the frame, as if to hide the godawful CGI all over the shot.

 

 

What the actual fuck was Spielberg thinking when he signed off on that? If nothing else, Spielberg has always had an astute eye for poor CGI but he just didn't seem to care with KOTCS.

 

You're right though, watching this documentary on how much was done practically really is an indictment on... something! I'm not sure if it's the colour gradist, Kaminski asking for bloom/smoke, an ILM compositor on steroids, or Spielberg himself, but all this work just looks like a mess of over-processed digital rubbish in the final cut. The jungle-specific stuff starts at 11:00 and it's just depressing how much better everything looked BEFORE they smeared digital plants all over the frame. Ironically, they cite the reason for this as, "selling it to the audience that they're driving through a jungle, not on a road." Fail much? All they did was make it look like a Pixar movie and draw attention to the fakeness of the imagery, when it was shot in a real jungle!

 

 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,493]

@crumbs you've hit the nail on the head.

"What...was Spielberg thinking...?"

After rewatching it, I've concluded that its Lucas' film, in all but name.

[Jurassic Shark 12,024]

This is one of those movies which would be better on VHS.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Waddya like, 80?

[crumbs 14,297]

1 minute ago, Jurassic Shark said:

This is one of those movies which would be better on VHS.

 

It's schlocky B-movie crap. I guess they succeeded at what they were attempting then?

[Naïve Old Fart 9,493]

1 minute ago, Jurassic Shark said:

This is one of those movies which would be better on VHS.

This is one of those movies which would be better languishing a Paramount vault, with the powers that be vowing that it would never see the light of day.

[Jurassic Shark 12,024]

2 minutes ago, Margo Channing said:

Waddya like, 80?

 

No, but I hope to be one day.

[Incanus 5,713]

4 hours ago, crumbs said:

But so much of the jungle chase was shot legitimately, albeit in the cushy safety of Hawaii, before Lucas and ILM cartooned it to hell and back. What started as just covering up tire tracks from the camera track ended up coating the entire screen with relentless CGI foliage. The result is a blurry, cartoony mess. The sword fight atop the cars is surely the worst offender (yes, even worse than swinging with monkeys in the vines). It's even replete with a godawful fake lens flare smeared all over the frame, as if to hide the godawful CGI all over the shot.

 

 

What the actual fuck was Spielberg thinking when he signed off on that? If nothing else, Spielberg has always had an astute eye for poor CGI but he just didn't seem to care with KOTCS.

 

You're right though, watching this documentary on how much was done practically really is an indictment on... something! I'm not sure if it's the colour gradist, Kaminski asking for bloom/smoke, an ILM compositor on steroids, or Spielberg himself, but all this work just looks like a mess of over-processed digital rubbish in the final cut. The jungle-specific stuff starts at 11:00 and it's just depressing how much better everything looked BEFORE they smeared digital plants all over the frame. Ironically, they cite the reason for this as, "selling it to the audience that they're driving through a jungle, not on a road." Fail much? All they did was make it look like a Pixar movie and draw attention to the fakeness of the imagery, when it was shot in a real jungle!

 

 

When the director himself says at the start of the KotCS documentary on the DVD that he really didn't want to make this movie and George Lucas basically pestered him into doing it, it doesn't have a good ring to it.  

[The Illustrious Jerry 3,356]

4 hours ago, Margo Channing said:

Waddya like, 80?

Ha! 

[Quintus 5,399]

Spielberg put his name on it, he was the big name director with the clout to make anything he wants, he's where the buck stopped with the movie. Spielberg is to blame for The Kingdom of the Crystal Shite, nobody else.

[Kasey Kockroach 2,343]

The Boogens is a better movie on VHS than KOTCS. 

[Nick1Ø66 4,687]

23 hours ago, crumbs said:

You're right though, watching this documentary on how much was done practically really is an indictment on... something...it's just depressing how much better everything looked BEFORE they smeared digital plants all over the frame. Fail much? All they did was make it look like a Pixar movie and draw attention to the fakeness of the imagery

 

Pretty much sums up what went wrong with The Hobbit as well.

 

17 hours ago, Quintus said:

Spielberg put his name on it, he was the big name director with the clout to make anything he wants, he's where the buck stopped with the movie. Spielberg is to blame for The Kingdom of the Crystal Shite, nobody else.

 

Pretty much sums up what went wrong with The Hobbit as well.

 

18 hours ago, Incanus said:

When the director himself says at the start of the KotCS documentary on the DVD that he really didn't want to make this movie and George Lucas basically pestered him into doing it, it doesn't have a good ring to it.  

 

Pretty much sums up what went wrong with The Hobbit as well.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

I wonder who the killer will be in Indy 5?

[Kasey Kockroach 2,343]

Spoiler

Pamela Voorhees. 

 

[Jurassic Shark 12,024]

4 minutes ago, Margo Channing said:

I wonder who the killer will be in Indy 5?

 

You mean who will kill the film, or maybe the whole franchise?

[Kasey Kockroach 2,343]

You fool! It's already dead!

[Bayesian 1,359]

I feel like I’m sticking my neck out for no real good by saying this, but I enjoyed a lot of the inventiveness or neat touches  in KOTCS—Area 51, the nuclear test town, the graveyard, the man-eating ants, the way the jungle blade sliced through the jeep... yes, the alien stuff at the end was out of place and the jungle chase CGI was too obvious. But to write off the whole movie is a bit much. Especially after a decade of lather-rinse-repeat superhero shit we’ve been force-fed by MCU, I’d much sooner have Indy 5 than Avengers 6 or 7 for summer movie fun.

[Kasey Kockroach 2,343]

The ants were cool. It quenched a bit of my hunger for this sort of thing.

 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

12 minutes ago, kaseykockroach said:

  Hide contents

Pamela Voorhees. 

 

 

Ehhhh very good. You did a lot better than Drew Barrymore before I gutted her.

[mstrox 6,643]

12 minutes ago, Iron_Giant said:

I feel like I’m sticking my neck out for no real good by saying this, but I enjoyed a lot of the inventiveness or neat touches  in KOTCS—Area 51, the nuclear test town, the graveyard, the man-eating ants, the way the jungle blade sliced through the jeep... yes, the alien stuff at the end was out of place and the jungle chase CGI was too obvious. But to write off the whole movie is a bit much. Especially after a decade of lather-rinse-repeat superhero shit we’ve been force-fed by MCU, I’d much sooner have Indy 5 than Avengers 6 or 7 for summer movie fun.

 

I'm with you to some extent.  My overall response to KOTCS was disappointment, but that's mainly to do with my love for the "trilogy" and how expectations that high are bound to fall.  I found a lot of stuff to still enjoy in it.  The entire first sequence (up to and INCLUDING the nuke/fridge moment, sorry all) was the kind of thing I wanted out of an Indy movie set in that time period, to be honest.  I enjoyed the Indy/Mutt and Marian stuff.  I still haven't given it a second watch, but on the Prequel Disappointment Scale, to me it was not the disaster that the SW prequels were, but probably more on par with the mediocrity of The Hobbit movies.

[Jurassic Shark 12,024]

2 minutes ago, mstrox said:

The entire first sequence (up to and INCLUDING the nuke/fridge moment, sorry all) was the kind of thing I wanted out of an Indy movie set in that time period, to be honest. 

 

And you're definitely not joking?

[Bayesian 1,359]

What I’m looking forward to most of all with Indy 5 (apart from the score) is the fun of an adventure where things happen in a way that’s plausible in the real world. When Iron Man gets slammed into the ground, Stark doesn’t black out or break any bones. Nothing in his suit ever really breaks. When office buildings come crashing down, the camera is always just following five or six random people (always featuring the Attractive White Female) scrambling to safety; every time the next installment comes out, the heroes’ tech is bigger and better looking, but what for? Nothing is ever at stake and nothing ever seems to change by the time you’re done watching it 165 minutes later. At least indy 4 showed you something new, or at least strung together a series of setpieces that added up to something unique. And, if spielberg gets it right, we’ll get to appreciate how despairingly rare that is a couple summers from now.

[Kasey Kockroach 2,343]

I can't wait to hear Giacchino's new theme!

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

This will be a Zimmer project.

[Kasey Kockroach 2,343]

We could ask Powell, but apparently he's a pacifist. 

[Quintus 5,399]

Nuke Town is the best part of the movie, it's legitimately good and... bizarre.

[Bayesian 1,359]

6 minutes ago, mstrox said:

 The entire first sequence (up to and INCLUDING the nuke/fridge moment, sorry all) was the kind of thing I wanted out of an Indy movie set in that time period, to be honest.

4 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

And you're definitely not joking?

 

 

I’m with mstrox on this one. The flying fridge was clever and it was inventive. It was FUN to watch, not least because it was rooted somewhat in the realm of plausibility. And when the fridge finally came to a stop, it was banged-up and dirty. And when indy came tumbling out, he actually looked like he took a painful ride in a fridge, FFS. You could actually believe it happened.