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


Joe Brausam

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10 minutes ago, crumbs said:

hopefully, Spielberg will learn from his mistakes after 4.

 

I hate to come off negative, but there's nothing to be hopeful towards.

 

The concept of an Indiana Jones film of any kind, set after The Last Crusade, is inherently flawed.

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I disgaree. You could apply the same rationale to attempting a sequel after Raiders. So long as the characters are well drawn, the locations are sufficiently exotic, and the stakes are high enough, you could make endless Raiders movies.

 

The only reason we're in the situation we're in is because Spielberg stopped making them after TLC and built up an inordinate amount of expectation. If they'd just made a 4th Indy in the mid-90s (between SL and TLW), nobody would care about the film's shortcomings. They'd just say, "well, that wasn't great, hopefully the next will be better," and forget about it for a few years. Just like TOD didn't kill the series, despite the amount of disappointment people probably had back in the 80s when they saw it (and it's been correctly re-evaluated since, anyway).

 

It seems they're correcting some mistakes by basing production in London. A stone's throw from legitimate overseas locations in Africa or Europe, which the soundstage and backlot dominated KOCS was begging for.

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Nope.

 

The Last Crusade isn't a culmination, but it is very clearly an end.

 

Riding off into the sunset is the most final trope in all of cinema (especially for films so trope-heavy as Indiana Jones), and it was pitch perfect for The Last Crusade.

 

There should never have been an Indiana Jones 4 and there shouldn't be a 5.

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It's an end to one film - The Last Crusade. Just as Temple of Doom ends its own narrative, and Raiders ends its.

 

The films are all self-contained adventures. While TLC would be a fitting closure to any trilogy of films, that doesn't change the fact that said trilogy is just 3 disconnected films that don't rely on any other film in the trilogy to exist. They stand alone.

 

The only reason Spielberg stopped was because he was probably sick of making them, and he clearly changed as a filmmaker 4 years later when he did Schindler's List.

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36 minutes ago, crumbs said:

It's an end to one film - The Last Crusade. Just as Temple of Doom ends its own narrative, and Raiders ends its.

  

The films are all self-contained adventures. While TLC would be a fitting closure to any trilogy of films, that doesn't change the fact that said trilogy is just 3 disconnected films

 

Like I said, its not a culmination, because the films are episodic, yes. But The Last Crusade was still very clearly intended as the last say on Indiana Jones.

 

Its not just the sunset (which Spielberg had explicitly intended to serve as a curtain-closer on the series), its also the fact that the film opens with Indy's youth (i.e. going back to the very beginning); the casting of Sir Sean as his father as a meta perspective on the series as a whole; the similarities to Raiders that form a book-end to the trilogy: everything is pointing towards it being the concluding film and, as a concluding film, it was perfect.

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28 minutes ago, The Original said:

The bumbling nazis should come back. Dr Jones has to stop a secret cloning genetics program taking place in Brazil...


Not sure about the chances of that ... wasn't part of Spielberg's motivation for doing Schindler's List that he thought he'd portrayed them too 'lightly' in the Indy flicks, Last Crusade in particular?  

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Yeah.

 

Especially as a Jewish person, the scene in Berlin is borderline uncomfortable to watch. But they're soon done with, so no biggie.

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35 minutes ago, The Original said:

The bumbling nazis should come back. Dr Jones has to stop a secret cloning genetics program taking place in Brazil...

 

...and they could call the film Attack of the Clones.

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Quote

There's a reason that I invented the shot of Harrison riding a horse into the sunset. Because I thought that brought the curtain down on the trilogy, and then we were all gonna move on...

- Steven Spielberg

 

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1 minute ago, Chen G. said:

Yeah.

 

Especially as a Jewish person, the scene in Berlin is borderline uncomfortable to watch. But they're soon done with, so no biggie.

 

The nazis are portrayed as greedy and stupid. It's also a film with a strong comedic element - it's not a documentary. I'd say the nazis don't come well out of this film at all.

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12 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

it's not even a trilogy. It's 3 movies.

 

I know. I've already said it twice in this thread alone, and I'll say it again: Its episodic, not cyclical. But that doesn't make it inherently endless.

 

Whether it was intended or not, The Last Crusade was and is a great place to end.

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2 hours ago, crumbs said:

But FFS, just hurry up and shoot the damn film before Williams hands it off to Powell.

 

If I was sure Powell would score every film Williams can't/won't , I'd sign up now ! 

 

_________

 

 

As for who to replace Ford…

 

Matthew Goode ? 

 

 

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4 hours ago, Chen G. said:

 

There should never have been an Indiana Jones 4 and there shouldn't be a 5.

I don't think it should mean that there can't be more films, but I do think the chances of it being a good film are lessened.

 

 

I don't doubt there was artistry, camaraderie and goodwill when making KotCS but clearly it wasn't a film from the heart. It felt like a last hurrah before everyone retired - hell, hadn't Williams 'retired' at that point?

 

Going forward they need to frame 5 as a good close to the whole series, put Indy to bed, have him hang up the whip after one last adventure. Have Adam Driver portray his son and ki- 

 

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10 minutes ago, Arpy said:

I don't doubt there was artistry, camaraderie and goodwill when making KotCS

 

I don't doubt that either. Its not that bad a film, on its own merit.

 

But the very concept of a fourth and fifth Indiana Jones films is obscene.

 

At this point its just more for the sake of more.

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5 minutes ago, Arpy said:

hell, hadn't Williams 'retired' at that point?

 

Williams hadn't retired. Spielberg and Lucas just hadn't been doing any films.

Just now, Chen G. said:

 But the concept of a fourth Indiana Jones films is obscene.

 

Only in the sides of your head.

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Technically, it didn't matter which Chris Harrison Ford was referring to.  The Chris's are all interchangeable.  Here is proof:

 

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9 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

Hemsworth would probably come closest to being able to play Indiana Jones, because he does have a genuine machismo. 

 

But still. I'm not sure i need a Ford-less Indy film

 

But it's the wrong kind of machismo.  You need a world weariness machismo.  Hemsworth is too clean for that.

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It's built in to the very concepts of both Indiana Jones and Marvel to keep going until the money dries up.  Serials and comics are cut from the same cloth.  That doesn't mean they have to keep using Indy the character of course.

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7 minutes ago, karelm said:

 

But it's the wrong kind of machismo.  You need a world weariness machismo.  Hemsworth is too clean for that.

 

Fat Indy?

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11 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

It's built in to the very concepts of both Indiana Jones and Marvel to keep going until the money dries up. 

 

And isn't that something people should criticising?

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17 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

And isn't that something people should criticising?

 

Just sounds to me like you want them to be something other than what they are.

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3 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

 

Just sounds to me like you want them to be something other than what they are.

Other than a factory line of clinical and creatively bankrupt films? Hell yeah!

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Exactly. In any other series, a similar strategy would get instant backlash.

 

31 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

Indiana Jones is basically the Lucas/Spielberg version of the Bond films. There's 2 dozen of those.

 

True. But Bond has developed this aesthetic whereby they overhaul the lead every couple of films and effectivelly start over. I don't think the same would fly for any other series, including Indiana Jones.

 

Three films were quite enough.

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