The Indiana Jones Disenchantment Thread!

[Mr. Hooper 1,850]

Get yourself a stiff drink and pull up a chair... You're among friends here.

 

 

 

[Jurassic Shark 12,156]

I didn't like that the film ended so quickly.

 

Also, I think Sallah should have had a more substantial role.

[A. A. Ron 1,745]

Remember how they tossed around the idea of a Connery cameo at the beginning of Crystal Skull, but then decided against it because they knew the audience would be disappointed that he wasn't tagging along for the whole adventure? That's exactly the mistake they made with Sallah in Dial of Destiny.

[Jurassic Shark 12,156]

Didn't Connery decline because the role was too insubstantial?

[Mr. Hooper 1,850]

Yeah, Sallah was a tease, and a wasted opportunity. John Rhys-Davies lights up the screen with his jovial presence and rich voice. But that would've taken the focus off Helena. An example of Disney not giving the fans what they want, but telling us what we should want.

 

2 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Didn't Connery decline because the role was too insubstantial?

 

I think you're right about that.

[A. A. Ron 1,745]

Could be. I thought one of the filmmakers -- Spielberg, Lucas or Marshall maybe -- framed it as a conscious choice they had made during an interview at the time.

[Jurassic Shark 12,156]

I think I read somewhere that the role wasn't substantial enough to coax Connery out of retirement. 

 

Which is too bad. Really a lost opportunity. 

[Andy 4,173]

LOL this thread. 
 

There was no reason to kill Mutt.  
 

Seemed cruel and fan servicey.  That was unnecessary for Indy’s depression.
 

It did hang over the whole movie a little. Despite, you know, the internet, I’m sure Mutt was a favorite character for some kids growing up with KOTCS. 

 

It was also unfixable with the ending.  Indy and Marion are back together, but the loss of a child is unspeakable grief. 

[Jurassic Shark 12,156]

 

.

1 minute ago, Andy said:

LOL this thread. 
 

There was no reason to kill Mutt.  
 

Seemed cruel and fan servicey.

 

At least they gave the fans what they wanted.

[Andy 4,173]

Yep. But which fans?

[Jurassic Shark 12,156]

5 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

An example of Disney not giving the fans what they want

 

Just now, Andy said:

Yep. But which fans?

 

There's many of us.

 

It has less to do with the character and more with the actor.

[Edmilson 7,517]

2 minutes ago, Andy said:

It was also unfixable with the ending.  Indy and Marion are back together, but the loss of a child is unspeakable grief. 

Indeed. It was utterly cruel with poor Indy, just as making their son evil was cruel to poor Leia and Han (and even more so to Luke, since it was his fault that Ben became Kylo).

 

3 minutes ago, Andy said:

Seemed cruel and fan servicey

Or maybe this is a way of Disney, Lucasfilm and the filmmakers giving the middle finger to Shia? He spoke harshly against KOTCS and recently was accused of sexual assault. 

[A. A. Ron 1,745]

11 minutes ago, Andy said:

LOL this thread. 
 

There was no reason to kill Mutt.  
 

Seemed cruel and fan servicey.

 

While I agree that it's not a great story beat, I still found it hilarious.

[Mr. Hooper 1,850]

2 minutes ago, Andy said:

It was also unfixable with the ending.  Indy and Marion are back together, but the loss of a child is unspeakable grief. 

Yeah, Mutt was killed off to drive a wedge between Indy and Marion. But then they get back together in the end, and poor Mutt's still dead! So what the hell was the point of that. A real downer.

 

5 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

It has less to do with the character and more with the actor.

I'm not sure I agree with movies being used to enact some kind of social justice or revenge on an actor. 

[Jurassic Shark 12,156]

5 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

I'm not sure I agree with movies being used to enact some kind of social justice or revenge on an actor. 

 

I wouldn't call it revenge, but eliminating an employee who wasn't a team player. 

 

5 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

eah, Mutt was killed off to drive a wedge between Indy and Marion. But then they get back together in the end, and poor Mutt's still dead! So what the hell was the point of that. A real downer.

 

It was also to contribute to Indy's depression at the start of the film.

[Mr. Hooper 1,850]

1 minute ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

I wouldn't call it revenge, but eliminating an employee who's not a team player. 

They could have simply recast the role. The controversy surrounding LaBeouf would've easily justified it.

[Jurassic Shark 12,156]

Then they could just as well introduce a new character. Which they did.

[Edmilson 7,517]

I don't think Mutt "needed" to be killed in order to give Indy a depression. Just say that he got his own family and moved to somewhere distant (perhaps Hollywood, where he would try to make a career as Tarzan based on his own personal experiences? ) and he and Indy didn't talk to each other in a long time. 

 

Killing him is... just too cruel. No pain is greater to a father than losing a son, especially if he only lived with that son for approx. 10 years and even more so if, as the film implies, Mutt left to war estranged from his father.

 

But I guess the militants on Twitter and culture war combatants wouldn't forgive Disney if they didn't punish Shia.

[Mr. Hooper 1,850]

6 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

It was also to contribute to Indy's depression at the start of the film.

It would've been enough to have him depressed about facing old age and irrelevance. Destroying his family was overkill and unnecessarily harsh.

[Andy 4,173]

There are plenty of ways to not have Mutt in the film but exist offscreen. 
 

We are letting the behind the scenes behavior dictate the story?  No, that’s just wrong. 
 

This was also a middle finger to George who I suppose wrote the character, and ill-fitting for a character who like it or not bears the name of Henry Jones III. 

[Jurassic Shark 12,156]

2 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

It would've been enough to have him depressed about facing old age and irrelevance. Destroying his family was overkill and unnecessarily harsh.

 

Not for a film with this budget. Then you need extra emotion. 

[Mr. Hooper 1,850]

4 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

Not for a film with this budget. Then you need extra emotion. 

Okay, that just makes no sense.

 

6 minutes ago, Andy said:

This was also a middle finger to George who I suppose wrote the character, and ill-fitting for a character who like it or not bears the name of Henry Jones III. 

Eliminating Mutt also means he can't be the next Indy, leaving the path wide open for Helena to take over, which was clearly the intent.

[Jurassic Shark 12,156]

Bigger, grander. Things need to be turned up to 11. Or that's what they think.

[Edmilson 7,517]

Actually, thinking about it, killing Mutt may not have been due to Shia's offscreen antics but more to Mangold himself.

 

Just look at Logan: a dark and gritty movie that, set in the future of the Fox X-Men universe (or whatever that was), gave those characters a depressing future. Wolverine is just a grumpy old guy who can't wait to finally lose his cure powers and die, Professor X is demented and is responsible for destroying the X-Men, mutants are forgotten and on the brink of extinction, the world is shit, etc.

 

Maybe that's just Mangold's thing: he likes to take his characters from the lowest point in their lives (Logan, Indy) and then make the relutant partners of a plucky female (X-23, Helena) on an adventure that will make them... slightly less depressed or something. And just as Logan died in the end of his movie, Indy almost "died" in the end of his, but that was changed to something more... crowdpleasing? 

[HunterTech 994]

I doubt Mutt was ever going to have a role the moment Shia spoke out against KotCS (and thus pissed off Spielberg in particular), but then apparently he was simply never mentioned in the early Koepp solo drafts (once again making me wonder for what he still kept his credit for).

 

Given that, I do end up wondering if this was supposed to be a repeat of that plot point in Logan, where the two remaining X-Men mourn the loss of those that died in Xavier's fatal mind power outbursts. Thing is: the equivalent scene in that movie, where they specifically allude to Jean in particular being the one Wolverine is mourning, was cut, leaving me to wonder what the function here was supposed to be if they figured they could lose it in that movie without issues.

 

Ah darn, I was beaten to this observation!

[Andy 4,173]

I really really enjoyed the film. 
 

That said, I found Shaunette Renee Wilson’s character endlessly more compelling and watchable than Bridges, who was good but not immediately likable.  I really wish they had somehow made Mason his sidekick. Her wardrobe and demeanor were badass and she seemed more 1969 than any other character. 

[Bayesian 1,366]

6 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

Yeah, Mutt was killed off to drive a wedge between Indy and Marion. But then they get back together in the end, and poor Mutt's still dead! So what the hell was the point of that. A real downer.

One thing that having that death in the movie did was amplify the motivation for Indy wanting to remain with Archimedes. Unfortunately, the motivation was entirely depressing — an archaeologist whose marriage had failed due to the loss of their son, whose goddaughter was a thieving reprobate with no appreciation for the very field he spent his whole life in, and whose career had just ended in the most downbeat manner possible (the man didn’t even earn emeritus prof status after everything he’d done??)… given all that, do you blame him for wanting to live out the rest of his life in an archaeological playground like historical Syracuse? (And then Helena steals even that from him.)

 

This culmination was actually very touching and well done, and I remember choking up a bit when I watched it in the theater. Problem is, these story beats are completely wrong for an Indiana Jones movie. You’re not supposed to feel bad for him. Is a 10-yr-old kid supposed to appreciate the subtleties of a character arc like that?

 

[Mr. Hooper 1,850]

5 hours ago, Andy said:

Bridges, who was good but not immediately likable.

It was the opposite for me. I liked her in their first scene together at the bar, when she was misrepresenting herself. lol

 

Then we got to see who she really was, which was basically obnoxious and selfish. And I guess she grew a conscience somewhere along the way, and made up for what she put Indy through by reuniting him with Marion.

[HunterTech 994]

Helena: the most confusing character because I don't know what the actual arc ended up being. I can audibly hear Mangold randomly throwing in ideas every few minutes for threads they could elaborate on, but don't.

 

So I'm left with someone whose core flaws are really the only thing they enunciate without much of a proper journey to accompany them, a near complete opposite trajectory from where Rey from the ST ended up going.

[Alex 2,835]

I thought Boyd Holbrook offered very little to be honest

[Mr. Hooper 1,850]

Just now, Alex said:

I thought Boyd Holkbrook offered very little to be honest

He was a rather forgettable henchman.

[Edmilson 7,517]

He played the exact same part that he did in Logan. Really.

 

Just another thing that makes me think Mangold wanted to do Logan again, but with Indy. Or maybe that's exactly what Disney execs asked of him.

[HunterTech 994]

Except he was more gleeful/charismatically evil in Logan, especially since at least he's fairly upfront about what his goals in the film are (plus actually gets to be the lead antagonist for a good while). In DoD, he really just feels like a trigger happy hired hand and nothing more. Does he have any thoughts about his boss, his beliefs, and the gig as a whole?

[Jurassic Shark 12,156]

Who cares? As you say, he's just a hired hand.

[Nick1Ø66 4,740]

11 minutes ago, HunterTech said:

Does he have any thoughts about his boss, his beliefs, and the gig as a whole?

 

I don't think introspection is something most villains are looking for in their henchmen. 

[TolkienSS 409]

There's nothing to be disenchanted about with Indiana Jones. It's three awesome movies and a bonus one.

 

The pathetic 2023 Indy parody is lowbrow Disney dreck, and too irrelevant to be in the same category. At most it'll be shown in future classes on the ideologization of modern entertainment, with a sticker "for educational purposes only".

[HunterTech 994]

19 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

 

I don't think introspection is something most villains are looking for in their henchmen. 

 

Well I don't know what people want out of the actor then, besides I suppose displaying more traits of the sorts of disposable villains the previous films would've had.

 

Is he better or worse than the goons from KotCS? The ants were a memorable death, I suppose.

[Mr. Hooper 1,850]

24 minutes ago, HunterTech said:

Well I don't know what people want out of the actor then, besides I suppose displaying more traits of the sorts of disposable villains the previous films would've had.

He really has no discernible character trait that I can remember, and is like a stock henchman from the old Incredible Hulk TV show. But his boss is so bland himself that I guess they couldn't make him too flashy.

 

54 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Who cares? As you say, he's just a hired hand.

We expect more from our big-budget movies! 

[Bellosh 3,446]

Disenchantment threads, I hate these topics

 

[Mr. Hooper 1,850]

1 hour ago, Bellosh said:

Disenchantment threads, I hate these topics

Well, I just started it as a joking response to the discord on another thread. I won't mind if it sinks down the topics list and disappears.

[ThePenitentMan1 754]

Mark my words, Indy 5 was actually brilliant, and people will realize that when Indy 6 (which has already been filmed and scored!) picks up the plot threads begun in Indy 5!

 

_/s

[JTN 2,146]

21 hours ago, Bayesian said:

One thing that having that death in the movie did was amplify the motivation for Indy wanting to remain with Archimedes. Unfortunately, the motivation was entirely depressing — an archaeologist whose marriage had failed due to the loss of their son, whose goddaughter was a thieving reprobate with no appreciation for the very field he spent his whole life in, and whose career had just ended in the most downbeat manner possible (the man didn’t even earn emeritus prof status after everything he’d done??)… given all that, do you blame him for wanting to live out the rest of his life in an archaeological playground like historical Syracuse? (And then Helena steals even that from him.)

 

This culmination was actually very touching and well done, and I remember choking up a bit when I watched it in the theater. Problem is, these story beats are completely wrong for an Indiana Jones movie. You’re not supposed to feel bad for him. Is a 10-yr-old kid supposed to appreciate the subtleties of a character arc like that?

 

Given how Indiana Jones was turned into such a depressing, pathetic loser at his old age, he could’ve just killed himself, drinking himself to death or hanging himself with his whip. I mean seriously, guys, what a moronic depiction of a classic character who is known for being one of the most optimistic, strong and lighthearted heroes in film history? Shame on Disney for having made this pos.

The one thing DoD managed to achieve was to make people find new appreciation for KotCS. Maybe that was Spielberg’s intention all along. If so, he succeeded admirably. Because even KotCS is a much better IJ film than DoD. 
I thought I couldn’t possibly find more appreciation for the first three films, but it turns out I can. This garbage Disney film has made me value them even more and feel blessed to own them on physical format and to be able to watch and enjoy them any time I want, and pretend that DoD (and even KotCS) never happened, and my greatest fictional hero riding off into the sunset with his Dad and friends is how one of the greatest cinematic adventures ends.

[GerateWohl 4,424]

10 hours ago, Bayesian said:

One thing that having that death in the movie did was amplify the motivation for Indy wanting to remain with Archimedes. Unfortunately, the motivation was entirely depressing — an archaeologist whose marriage had failed due to the loss of their son, whose goddaughter was a thieving reprobate with no appreciation for the very field he spent his whole life in, and whose career had just ended in the most downbeat manner possible (the man didn’t even earn emeritus prof status after everything he’d done??)… given all that, do you blame him for wanting to live out the rest of his life in an archaeological playground like historical Syracuse? (And then Helena steals even that from hi

In a way Ford repriesed the same part as in The Force Awakens, the old desperated former adventurer, whose marriage broke up over the loss of his son. If the Star Wars movie would have focussed more on that frustrated old man, TFA would have suffered the same way. Luckily TFA was carried more by Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Adam Driver, so grumpy old Han was just a side character who just had to die to stop depressing the audience.

[Groovygoth666 701]

I think Mike and Rich from RLM summed it up perfectly a few years ago - 

 

 

As far as Mutt goes, I thought there was good chemistry between Harrison and Shia, I enjoyed their back and forths as unknowing father and son. I don't buy for a second that Mutt would sign up to fight in Vietnam just to spite Indy though. He seemingly had a problem with authority so joining the military doesn't fit his character. But hitting the open road on his motorbike and just not coming back feels more in tune with how he'd react to whatever fight they had. Indy can still feel a failure, even acknowledge his troubled relationship with his dad. 

 

But if Mutt HAD to die to get Indy where they wanted him, it should of been in the opening. Start the film with Indy and Mutt on an adventure that's not connected to the main story, recast if Shia's not interested/problematic, have him killed at the end of the prologue but treat it seriously, make it have weight that way people get to have some fun and nostalgia for the first three films where the opening was a one off adventure, but having it end there sets the audience up to fully understand where Indy is when the main story starts.

[Jurassic Shark 12,156]

Dude, we can't have two prologues. 

[Groovygoth666 701]

Not with that attitude 

[JTN 2,146]

14 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Dude, we can't have two prologues. 

You just can’t

help it, can you.

[Jurassic Shark 12,156]

[ThePenitentMan1 754]

But I already bought the ring!

[JTN 2,146]

42 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Dude, you literally created your own Indiana Jones thread because you couldn’t take criticism, yet you keep arguing with people in this thread. How hypocritical is that? :-) Just stop, please.