RedLetterMedia take a swipe at Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull...

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Comments

  • Mark AMark A Posts: 7,687
    Forum Member
    I love the fact that you end every post with

    Regards

    Mark

    It makes me laugh every time! :D
    Glad to be of service.

    Regards

    Mark
  • stvn758stvn758 Posts: 19,656
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    Can't believe it's on TV already, time really does fly when you get to forty. :(

    2008, seems like it was just in the cinema a month or two ago, still rubbish though.
  • bob_fossilbob_fossil Posts: 797
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    Thanks for the heads-up OP. I really enjoy the RLM reviews.

    Off to watch now :)
    I love the fact that you end every post with

    Regards
    Mark

    It makes me laugh every time! :D

    lol me too. It's like an OAP using a forum for the first time, still in the mind-set that they're writing a letter, and not partaking in a flowing discussion.

    Mark, you should write your address and an appropriate salutation at the top of each post too; make it look even more formal ;):D
  • AlrightmateAlrightmate Posts: 73,120
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    Mark A wrote: »
    Most of the bile comes from the fact that most folks enjoy whinging, not from any great intellectual depths, they simply like to whinge. It's an enjoyable pastime in and of itself.

    Regards

    Mark


    I don't think that. Although I enjoyed the film and watched it again earlier on this evening I think all the critics who've slated it have made fair points and I understand them.

    It doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to come to the same conclusion as the critics but I believe that they have made good fair points.

    The other day I watched a documentary about epic films on BBC4. I think it might have been Matthew Sweet as the host. It covered all the big epic films from the 50s, 60's, touched on the silent epics made by Cecil B DeMille and DW Gritthiths, and came up to date with more modern epics.

    It was suggested that the epics made several decades ago made the time the golden age of the epic due to the fact that much of what you see on film you know is going to be physically real. They actually built enormous sets that were made out of physical materials, the crowds were real people, the stunts were real.
    So the theory is that it's going to be a lot easier to get audiences to suspend their disbelief and be drawn into the world of pretend.

    The film Gladiator was probably perceived as a great film because the CGI was being worked to make what you see on screen as real as possible and the intention was for CGI to be invisible so that you wouldn't know it had been used at all.

    So although right now in theory you can tell a cracking rollocking story, as soon as something happens on the screen in front of you that you just know has to be CGI as there can be no other way it could have been done, this I think is going to have a good chance of making a cinema-goer jolt out of their suspension of disbelief if it's just too outlandishly unrealistic but the world it is set in is supposed to be our real world.

    The James Bond film Die Another Day got similar criticisms about its implausibly stupid set pieces from the film franchise's fans. And they love Bond. They are usually willing to suspend their disbelief ...to a point.

    So with this Indiana Jones film it may be a case of just too many implausible set pieces which for some people pushed it just over the edge into the realm of ridiculousness.
    The possums, the fridge, the sword fighting on the cars in the forest, the monkeys swinging in the jungle with Shia LaBeouf like he was Tarzan and they were helping him, the alien theme in intself....all these things add up.

    Perhaps with many people one or maybe two of these things would have been fine in an occasional isolated scene, but when you perceive all of these elements as a whole maybe it simply crossed the line at some point and a bit of restraint was needed on the part of the film makers.

    I enjoyed the film, as I have said in a previous post. But I do have to be honest and say that most of the criticisms of the film in this thread appear sound as far as I'm concerned. I agree that some things in the film are just stupid, and if the swinging monkeys put somebody right off the film I can't say fairer than that.
  • AlrightmateAlrightmate Posts: 73,120
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    Plausible yes, but rather empty in a story and character context. It didn't mean anything beyond just an excuse to show some bad special effects. In Raiders, his motivation was finding his mentor and then dealing with his lost love. In Temple of Doom, he was trying to save kidnapped children, and in The Last Crusade his real motive was actually to find his dad, not the Grail specifically. The Marion/Indy's Kid concept had potential, but it was ruined by most of the reasons RLM outlined.

    I think you're right.
    Although there were many action set pieces I'd agree with you that there wasn't a strong motivational narrative to drive the story and carry you along in a way that made you will Indy on to achieve some sort of goal or objective.

    That crystal skull, it was hinted at and implied that it could be used in some bad way by the Russians, but I think we probably needed to be more convinced that this was a lethal weapon. As her mind reading trick on Indiana Jones early in the film didn't work on him, it kind of undermined the threat I suppose.
    So even if Indiana couldn't do whatever he was trying to do to stop the skull falling into the wrong hands you could be forgiven for thinking that it might be all right in the end anyway even if he failed.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 5
    Forum Member
    It's better than Temple, that film was absolute dog shit from beginning to end.

    Agreed. I don't get how some people can say they liked it with a straight face. Were they that young when it came out?
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