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


Joe Brausam

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It made a lot of money for Paramount, though (and SS, Lucas et al.)...regrettably. And with that new thing i predict a return even more diminished. And while it fits Williams' franchise loyalty (at least to those who brought him into the spotlight), i rather would not have him waste his time with it.

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Mangold is a good director.  I think he brings an energy and enthusiam not seen since TOD.  It is going to come down to the story.  I don't want to be that guy, but I hope KK didn't meddle too much with the story/characters.  If she trusted her talent, it could very well be the 3rd best Indy (which would be high praise, if this case).  

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7 hours ago, mrbellamy said:

As far as him wasting his own time, I'm unsympathetic since he could have followed Spielberg out the door and I wouldn't have blamed him. 

 

That's exactly what he should have done.

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5 hours ago, mrbellamy said:

I mean, probably, but I still get a John Williams soundtrack next summer that he wrote at 90. At this point my whole thing with Williams is not to look a gift horse in the mouth. You're really so bored by this or embarrassed for him that you'd rather just have nothing? 

 

I have to say, in all honesty, yes. And i say this without any bitterness, it's more a broadview of popular cultural as such, where so called IP's and franchises are ridden to death because they sell, not because they are good, interesting or the creative personnel really wants to make them. 

 

I get everyone involved is getting a hefty paycheck to do this, and varying amounts of ego-stroking and, of course, marketing attention. And while i find it great that Williams now finds personal satisfaction in appearing all over the world for his final farewell tour, why he's wasting precious afternoons prepping stuff like this is really beyond my understanding.

4 hours ago, mrbellamy said:

Hardly life-changing, but I would consider myself marginally lucky as a fan to be a couple years removed now from Jerry Goldsmith doing Mulan again for Di$ney and be able to just take that kind of bullshit for granted while he's around. 

 

Ad nauseam...James Horner did some respectable stuff in the last 5 years of his life, but i don't feel denied any great masterpieces by untimely loss of his (only talking about film work, of course, which he lamented himself). Same for Jerry (whose demonic hunger for work gave us more than could be expected even of someone double his lifespan), and we shouldn't forget that the marginalization of film music in recent years plays a big factor in sentimentalizing the better days, but every thing has its time and i don't find it particularly instructive to remain so tied to it.

 

Let me put it this way, for some people, the ABBA arena in London is the best thing to happen in culture in recent years, while others just shake their head. There's a place, or should be, for both opinion spectrums.

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What Indy 5 needs and what KOTCS was desperately missing was an iconic and badass scene reminding us why we absolutely love Indiana Jones.  Indy blowing the dart back into the cemetery warrior was a shade of it, but forgettable, unfortunately.  The jungle chase could have provided it, and almost did when he hops onto the other jeep and knocks out a few guys at once.  but i'm sure most people forgot that scene.  indy 5 needs an iconic scene.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The "softening" of Indy began with Last Crusade, and KOTCS just continued that.  I think we are almost guaranteed Mangold will correct this.  Hasn't he used the word "badass" a couple of times in describing this effort?

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yeah badass is definitely a 'for the lack of a better term' description.

 

but it's ultimately a big part of the recipe of the reason why the original 3 movies are so great.

 

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Yeah they over-corrected after Temple of Doom, which is still my favorite Indy. Short of 1941, it’s the most dangerous film of Spielberg’s career.

 

I like the theory that the slave children idea came from the trauma of The Twilight Zone movie trial.

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Some kids were killed in an accident on the set of that movie. Is that what’s being referred to? This video touches on it a bit. Pretty sad.(about 4:30 they talk about it)

 

 

1 hour ago, Brando said:

Yes, I second this

 

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19 minutes ago, WampaRat said:

Some kids were killed in an accident on the set of that movie. Is that what’s being referred to? This video touches on it a bit. Pretty sad.(about 4:30 they talk about it)

 

 

 

I've heard of the story, I was just a little confused as to what he meant by the trauma of the trial

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John Williams said in the Deborah Rutter Interview June 24, 2022, That on Tuesday 28th was going to be The First Recordings for Indiana Jones 5. So John Williams had already before this interview has been composing the score to Indiana Jones 5. Around the 27:50 Williams says..By the way..

 

 

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Yea, there's multiple threads about William's work on this film over in the John Williams subforum, here in General Discussion this thread is mostly about the movie itself

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5 hours ago, blondheim said:

I read an article about this. If I find it I will link it because I loved the points he raised and I don’t want to claim credit for them.

 

The TLDR of the whole thing is that Spielberg had to deal with the fallout of the Twilight Zone incident since he was producing the movie. Apparently he had to step in and actually direct a segment to fill time after the section Landis directed had to be shortened. According to this article, he was involved in the trial and it weighed very heavily on him. That and Lucas’ divorce both happened around that time. The article theorized that the stress of having to be involved in the Landis trial, the death of the two Vietnamese children who should not have been on set that night, legally speaking, and the fallout from that is maybe what led him and Lucas (with his own dark period, this divorce) to lean into a much darker second installment all about the abuse and misuse of children.

 

I like this theory a lot and I think it might explain why it feels so different from so many other Spielberg films from that time, more dangerous is how I put it before, because he clearly took a step back after 1941 and made sure he was editorializing and making his art accessible and most of all, commercial

Very interesting, Definitely share that article if you find it, I'd love to read it. Makes me wonder if he ever spoke about the Twilight Zone incident anywhere else 

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16 hours ago, blondheim said:

I read an article about this. If I find it I will link it because I loved the points he raised and I don’t want to claim credit for them.

 

The TLDR of the whole thing is that Spielberg had to deal with the fallout of the Twilight Zone incident since he was producing the movie. Apparently he had to step in and actually direct a segment to fill time after the section Landis directed had to be shortened. According to this article, he was involved in the trial and it weighed very heavily on him. That and Lucas’ divorce both happened around that time. The article theorized that the stress of having to be involved in the Landis trial, the death of the two Vietnamese children who should not have been on set that night, legally speaking, and the fallout from that is maybe what led him and Lucas (with his own dark period, this divorce) to lean into a much darker second installment all about the abuse and misuse of children.

 

I like this theory a lot and I think it might explain why it feels so different from so many other Spielberg films from that time, more dangerous is how I put it before, because he clearly took a step back after 1941 and made sure he was editorializing and making his art accessible and most of all, commercial

 

Chronologically, that doesn't fit really fit. The accident happened July 1982 (and around that time Lucas learned that his wife was going to leave him). By that time, however, the plot for Temple of Doom was firmly in place: the story conferences and story treatment happened in April 1982. And by July, the first draft was almost finished. All the elements of the final movie were there from the beginning. 

 

The accident (and Lucas' divorce)  may have had an effect on the final result of the movie, with both Lucas and Spielberg being in a dark place, but it definitely didn't originate any story elements.

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I think this is the article in question:

 

https://them0vieblog.com/2021/08/18/making-sense-of-indiana-jones-and-the-temple-of-doom/

 

Excellent point about the timeline. I had looked before but couldn’t find information about when the story was finalized. Where did you find that information?

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25 minutes ago, oierem said:

The accident (and Lucas' divorce)  may have had an effect on the final result of the movie, with both Lucas and Spielberg being in a dark place, but it definitely didn't originate any story elements.

 

Yeah, I'm not buying it either. Were both Spielberg & Lucas in a dark place when they made Temple of Doom? Sure, and that may have shown up in the tone of the film. But I'm not sure how you get from the real life tragedy of a couple kids being killed on set (or a divorce) to making "kids as slaves" a plot point.

 

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53 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

 

Yeah, I'm not buying it either. Were both Spielberg & Lucas in a dark place when they made Temple of Doom? Sure, and that may have shown up in the tone of the film. But I'm not sure how you get from the real life tragedy of a couple kids being killed on set (or a divorce) to making "kids as slaves" a plot point.

 


I agree with the points raised that question this. I like the theory but I was never sure about its accuracy. However, to play devil’s advocate, the two kids were forced to work in conditions that were unsafe, in secret. They weren’t slaves necessarily, but they weren’t treated with the humanity they deserved either

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1 hour ago, blondheim said:


I agree with the points raised that question this. I like the theory but I was never sure about its accuracy. However, to play devil’s advocate, the two kids were forced to work in conditions that were unsafe, in secret. They weren’t slaves necessarily, but they weren’t treated with the humanity they deserved either

 

The most idiotic part is they could easily have used dummies, rather than real children, for that sequence.

 

Forcing Morrow to run through waist-deep water carrying two children, at nearly 3am with pyrotechnics exploding and a helicopter circling, was complete insanity.

 

Either way, Spielberg went through production on Doom with that incident lingering in his mind. I doubt anyone associated with the production had a positive mental state for many years, likely dealing with significant trauma of the tragedy that occurred. I'm honestly shocked the film was ever released.

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I watched the video posted above last night and of course then I watched the actual video and it was more graphic than I remembered. I thought you just barely saw the chopper crashing because of the low quality image, but no if you look very closely you can see the heads flying. So tragic and sad.

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I'm surprised the footage was even released. One of the angles is disturbingly gruesome if you go frame by frame.

 

And clearly it's from the actual film cameras as a slate is used for one of the angles. It must have been required for the court case and somehow leaked?

 

Can't help but wonder if the negatives were destroyed or still exist in a vault somewhere.

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Yeah, it’s horrifying. I have a hard time watching Landis’ films sometimes. If you read about his behavior onset before it happened, he was putting lots of people in danger and didn’t seem to care. I’m sure he regrets his behavior but in this case, sorry simply can’t cut it.

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5 hours ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

Yeah, I'm not buying it either. Were both Spielberg & Lucas in a dark place when they made Temple of Doom? Sure, and that may have shown up in the tone of the film. But I'm not sure how you get from the real life tragedy of a couple kids being killed on set (or a divorce) to making "kids as slaves" a plot point.

 

Same. I always find attempts to read biographical anecdotes into an artist's work rather strenous, and this case is no exception.

 

I actually think when it comes to Lucas, he would like us to read biographical details into his works, because he does suscribe to this idea that the artist writes about himself, and he believes this gives his pulpy films an added artistic pedigree. It serves the same function for him as all that talk about Joseph Campbell.

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6 hours ago, blondheim said:

I think this is the article in question:

 

https://them0vieblog.com/2021/08/18/making-sense-of-indiana-jones-and-the-temple-of-doom/

 

Excellent point about the timeline. I had looked before but couldn’t find information about when the story was finalized. Where did you find that information?

It's all in the Making Off book by J. Rinzler. 

And now that I look at it, I see that the story treatment is dated May 1982 btw. But the point still stands. Months before the accident and the divorce, Temple of Doom was completely plotted.

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49 minutes ago, Andy said:

It's not even that dark.

 

Its not dark in the sense that Schindler's List is dark. What it is, is macabre. Its not bad, but I don't particularly enjoy it. Its not a movie I think very fondly of, in spite of some undeniably strong things that are in it (not least of which is Williams' score).

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7 hours ago, crumbs said:

 

And clearly it's from the actual film cameras as a slate is used for one of the angles. It must have been required for the court case and somehow leaked?

This to me is the only plausible explanation. Part of me thinks yes, it never should've been leaked, and the curious/lost media part of me finds it intriguing. Intriguing that it somehow escaped and found its way to the internet and it allows people to see how exactly it happened. Still, absolutely horrendous and tragic.

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