Kevin Roegele
Do you mind if I don't?
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- May 2, 2000
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It's quite illuminating to watch a film series one after another. Not easy to find the time, but when you do it reveals a lot about the series and the way they change and evolve.
To start with, the Indiana Jones films, which I have just finished gorging myself on.
The Temple of Doom (1984)
The second to be made but the first chronologically is the one I started with. Lucas didn't start doing prequels with Star Wars! This is dark, angry Spielberg that surfaced again in the very similar The Lost World; half the film is set-up, the rest is pure action and spectacle, full of shadows and grim violence. Literally, half way through Temple the story is completely ignored and it's just one long action climax, a relentless series of set piece action scenes. It can be wearying, but if you are in the mood, there is little you'll find anywhere to top it. This was, I believe, following a trend Lucas invented the year before in Return of the Jedi - instead of just having your action climax at the end of the film, why not make the entire last third of the film the action climax. Temple starts even before that-!
In fact, Temple is so clearly a string of action scenes by the end that Spielberg doesn't even bother cutting it properly - he leaves out anything that might slow the pace, such as the introduction of a huge thugee. We just go straight to the fight. This is the the Spielberg that gets the most criticism, famously in the term, 'it's just a rollercoaster ride, not a story".
This does have a negative effect on the characters, as they have almost nothing to do in the second half of the film except fight, run and scream (and gaze with widened eyes off camera as something really bad comes towards them). Yet both Short Round and Willie, despite her tendency to be annoying, are good comic foils for Indy. This classic Spielberg impromptu family set-up works much better than in the later films, where Indy is travelling round with a whole bunch of people.
As for the other characters in Temple - aside from Lao Che, memorable in his few minutes, they are entirely forgettable. Even the villains, nasty as they are, have no real characteristics besides what they look like. They are an evil cult, that's all you get.
Temple is, in many places, a nasty and aggresive movie, and the level of violence far greater than anywhere else in the series. It's also typical Goonie era Spielberg with the gross-out insects and monkey brains and such.
Temple is a more-is-more sequel, an attempt to ramp up everything from Raiders (except the plot). Whether it's superior to Crusade or not, it's really the last proper Indy film, the last to be commited 100% to recreating the thrills of cliffhanger serials.
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Such a classic, and so pure and simple in it's objectives. Raiders knows exactly what it is doing and where it is heading that it just sweeps past and is finished before you know it. In it's refusal to concentrate on Indy as much as the later films, it shows the wider picture, the quest for the ark, with all the characters persuing it. The star is the film itself, the style, the heart-in-mouth cliffhanger style, the endless fights and stunts and snakes and explosions. Ford is at his best, Marion is his best romantic intrest, the villains are truly worthy of Indy, and the action is full of invention and ever-increasing tension. Really, as close to perfect as movies like this can come. It all ends with a scene worthy of any horror movie, a true climax - the opening of the ark is worth waiting the whole movie for.
The Last Crusade (1989)
Lucas didn't start showing us what our heroes were like when they were younger with Star Wars either. It begins by showing, in a very short space of time, how Indy gained his intrest in historical items, his fear of snakes, his scar, his whip and his hat. All in the space of about ten minutes. It's a fun sequence but forcing all that stuff in is a bit much.
Essentially Last Crusade has one huge plus - Sean Connery and his interplay with Ford - and one huge negative - Spielberg's lazy direction. The relentless action of the previous films is gone now. There are action scenes, but not only are they less in number, but they are far less in quality. Apart from the great centre piece tank chase, none of the action scenes have the same energy or mounting tension as in the previous films. Previously, the action was full of invention and one-thing-after-another. By Crusade, it's generally by-the-numbers. Take the opening fight onboard a rain-lashed ship - so pedestrian I could believe the second unit director, or his 90-year old grandma, directed it. Also, the criticism of violence over Temple clearly had an effect as Crusade is a lot more comical and toned-down in it's violence.
It's clear Spielberg was a different director by the time he made Crusade. He can do this stuff on autopilot, what he was really intrested in was the relationship between father and son. As such, Indy is a far mellower and more moral character than the guy we began with in Raiders (and why the hell does he wear a tie?).
Having said that, whenever Connery is on the screen it's gold. Who would have thought he would have such perfect comic timing? The villains are forgettable but an effective mystical atmosphere is created in the finale.
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
What to say about this? It's astonishing to watch this so soon after Raiders.
Simply, Raiders looks like a classic, exotic, sweat and blood romantic adventure and Kingdom, in many places, looks like a TV spin-off on a sound stage. The scene where Indy meets Marion is so limp and lame and pathetic you can't believe this is being made with, and by, the same people. The magic between the two as they walked off at the end of Raiders is completely absent.
Ford is too old. Lucas and Spielberg said Indy was never about age. But it was, originally, about relentless action and stunts and suspense, and a guy who could fight five guys, get thrown off a truck, do some stunts, fight some more, and then ram a car off a road. Indy is too old for that, Ford is too old, and if you can't do that there is no point in the movie.
Karen Allen, bless her, should not have been bought back. You're watching someone who is delighted to be at an Indy reunion, not Marion Ravenwood from the first movie. Shia is passable, and benefits from some deft economic characterisation. John Hurt and Ray Winston are wasted.
As mentioned earlier, Indy works best with one or at most two companions, not four-! It's not exciting watching Indy swing over a ravine if then four other people have to do it as well. And the fact that an old man, a fat oldish man, a oldish woman and a kid survive Indy's adventures throughout the film, despite not being Indiana Jones themselves, it hardly comes across as deadly or even dangerous. Most of the stuff they go through just involves running down stairs, running away from Mayans, running away from Russians, running away from exploding temples, sitting in a jeep while it goes over a cliff, sitting in a jeep while it goes over a waterfall....and so on. It's a pedestrian adventure that most of the characters survive without doing much.
Action movies with old people DO NOT WORK. Did Spielberg not see A View to a Kill?
The best thing about the movie is John William's wonderful music, as ever, and Kate Blanchett as Spalko, who is underused to an almost Darth Maul degree.
As for the aliens thing at the climax...by the time this movie gets to the climax, I have given up caring. The Crystal Skull is almost Phantom Menace bad.
Conclusions
If you want a revelation, watch Indy in the opening scene of Raiders, and then in any scene in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Is Indy even the same character? He began as a grizzled, grave robbing bad ass, almost an anti-hero. By Kingdom, he is just a decent, somewhat beleagured old man. If you take away the character of Indy, and you take away the action, what do you have left?
I actually think Spielberg was really done with Indy by the end of Temple of Doom - or atleast the style of the Indy films. There is so much cliffhanger action crammed into Temple there is really no way to take it any further. After that, the action in the series is significantly toned down and reduced, and the films focuses more on character interactions than action adventure. The first two films are about recreating the matinee serial adventure vibe, the second two are more modern action-adventure comedies.
This is a wonderful trilogy, with characters that have become pop culture and scenes of spectacle and suspense so thrilling that everyone remembers them twenty years later. The Crystal Skull is a painful reminder that all good things come to an end; that directors often lose something in their later years; and that, as Indy learns, some old legends are best left untouched.
To start with, the Indiana Jones films, which I have just finished gorging myself on.
The Temple of Doom (1984)
The second to be made but the first chronologically is the one I started with. Lucas didn't start doing prequels with Star Wars! This is dark, angry Spielberg that surfaced again in the very similar The Lost World; half the film is set-up, the rest is pure action and spectacle, full of shadows and grim violence. Literally, half way through Temple the story is completely ignored and it's just one long action climax, a relentless series of set piece action scenes. It can be wearying, but if you are in the mood, there is little you'll find anywhere to top it. This was, I believe, following a trend Lucas invented the year before in Return of the Jedi - instead of just having your action climax at the end of the film, why not make the entire last third of the film the action climax. Temple starts even before that-!
In fact, Temple is so clearly a string of action scenes by the end that Spielberg doesn't even bother cutting it properly - he leaves out anything that might slow the pace, such as the introduction of a huge thugee. We just go straight to the fight. This is the the Spielberg that gets the most criticism, famously in the term, 'it's just a rollercoaster ride, not a story".
This does have a negative effect on the characters, as they have almost nothing to do in the second half of the film except fight, run and scream (and gaze with widened eyes off camera as something really bad comes towards them). Yet both Short Round and Willie, despite her tendency to be annoying, are good comic foils for Indy. This classic Spielberg impromptu family set-up works much better than in the later films, where Indy is travelling round with a whole bunch of people.
As for the other characters in Temple - aside from Lao Che, memorable in his few minutes, they are entirely forgettable. Even the villains, nasty as they are, have no real characteristics besides what they look like. They are an evil cult, that's all you get.
Temple is, in many places, a nasty and aggresive movie, and the level of violence far greater than anywhere else in the series. It's also typical Goonie era Spielberg with the gross-out insects and monkey brains and such.
Temple is a more-is-more sequel, an attempt to ramp up everything from Raiders (except the plot). Whether it's superior to Crusade or not, it's really the last proper Indy film, the last to be commited 100% to recreating the thrills of cliffhanger serials.
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Such a classic, and so pure and simple in it's objectives. Raiders knows exactly what it is doing and where it is heading that it just sweeps past and is finished before you know it. In it's refusal to concentrate on Indy as much as the later films, it shows the wider picture, the quest for the ark, with all the characters persuing it. The star is the film itself, the style, the heart-in-mouth cliffhanger style, the endless fights and stunts and snakes and explosions. Ford is at his best, Marion is his best romantic intrest, the villains are truly worthy of Indy, and the action is full of invention and ever-increasing tension. Really, as close to perfect as movies like this can come. It all ends with a scene worthy of any horror movie, a true climax - the opening of the ark is worth waiting the whole movie for.
The Last Crusade (1989)
Lucas didn't start showing us what our heroes were like when they were younger with Star Wars either. It begins by showing, in a very short space of time, how Indy gained his intrest in historical items, his fear of snakes, his scar, his whip and his hat. All in the space of about ten minutes. It's a fun sequence but forcing all that stuff in is a bit much.
Essentially Last Crusade has one huge plus - Sean Connery and his interplay with Ford - and one huge negative - Spielberg's lazy direction. The relentless action of the previous films is gone now. There are action scenes, but not only are they less in number, but they are far less in quality. Apart from the great centre piece tank chase, none of the action scenes have the same energy or mounting tension as in the previous films. Previously, the action was full of invention and one-thing-after-another. By Crusade, it's generally by-the-numbers. Take the opening fight onboard a rain-lashed ship - so pedestrian I could believe the second unit director, or his 90-year old grandma, directed it. Also, the criticism of violence over Temple clearly had an effect as Crusade is a lot more comical and toned-down in it's violence.
It's clear Spielberg was a different director by the time he made Crusade. He can do this stuff on autopilot, what he was really intrested in was the relationship between father and son. As such, Indy is a far mellower and more moral character than the guy we began with in Raiders (and why the hell does he wear a tie?).
Having said that, whenever Connery is on the screen it's gold. Who would have thought he would have such perfect comic timing? The villains are forgettable but an effective mystical atmosphere is created in the finale.
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
What to say about this? It's astonishing to watch this so soon after Raiders.
Simply, Raiders looks like a classic, exotic, sweat and blood romantic adventure and Kingdom, in many places, looks like a TV spin-off on a sound stage. The scene where Indy meets Marion is so limp and lame and pathetic you can't believe this is being made with, and by, the same people. The magic between the two as they walked off at the end of Raiders is completely absent.
Ford is too old. Lucas and Spielberg said Indy was never about age. But it was, originally, about relentless action and stunts and suspense, and a guy who could fight five guys, get thrown off a truck, do some stunts, fight some more, and then ram a car off a road. Indy is too old for that, Ford is too old, and if you can't do that there is no point in the movie.
Karen Allen, bless her, should not have been bought back. You're watching someone who is delighted to be at an Indy reunion, not Marion Ravenwood from the first movie. Shia is passable, and benefits from some deft economic characterisation. John Hurt and Ray Winston are wasted.
As mentioned earlier, Indy works best with one or at most two companions, not four-! It's not exciting watching Indy swing over a ravine if then four other people have to do it as well. And the fact that an old man, a fat oldish man, a oldish woman and a kid survive Indy's adventures throughout the film, despite not being Indiana Jones themselves, it hardly comes across as deadly or even dangerous. Most of the stuff they go through just involves running down stairs, running away from Mayans, running away from Russians, running away from exploding temples, sitting in a jeep while it goes over a cliff, sitting in a jeep while it goes over a waterfall....and so on. It's a pedestrian adventure that most of the characters survive without doing much.
Action movies with old people DO NOT WORK. Did Spielberg not see A View to a Kill?
The best thing about the movie is John William's wonderful music, as ever, and Kate Blanchett as Spalko, who is underused to an almost Darth Maul degree.
As for the aliens thing at the climax...by the time this movie gets to the climax, I have given up caring. The Crystal Skull is almost Phantom Menace bad.
Conclusions
If you want a revelation, watch Indy in the opening scene of Raiders, and then in any scene in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Is Indy even the same character? He began as a grizzled, grave robbing bad ass, almost an anti-hero. By Kingdom, he is just a decent, somewhat beleagured old man. If you take away the character of Indy, and you take away the action, what do you have left?
I actually think Spielberg was really done with Indy by the end of Temple of Doom - or atleast the style of the Indy films. There is so much cliffhanger action crammed into Temple there is really no way to take it any further. After that, the action in the series is significantly toned down and reduced, and the films focuses more on character interactions than action adventure. The first two films are about recreating the matinee serial adventure vibe, the second two are more modern action-adventure comedies.
This is a wonderful trilogy, with characters that have become pop culture and scenes of spectacle and suspense so thrilling that everyone remembers them twenty years later. The Crystal Skull is a painful reminder that all good things come to an end; that directors often lose something in their later years; and that, as Indy learns, some old legends are best left untouched.
Last edited:
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I don't think Star Wars will be either, or Back to the Future.
