Re: New Films in Production, v.2
Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2022 8:46 pm
Matt wrote: Sat Dec 03, 2022 8:38 pm Oh my god, what if IndySpoiler
goes back in time and kills Baby Hitler?
Spoiler
That would be boring. He should kill Baby Putin
https://www.criterionforum.org/forum/
Matt wrote: Sat Dec 03, 2022 8:38 pm Oh my god, what if IndySpoiler
goes back in time and kills Baby Hitler?
Where he inevitably..Matt wrote: Sat Dec 03, 2022 8:38 pm Oh my god, what if IndySpoiler
goes back in time and kills Baby Hitler?
I've heard a slightly different take on this, wherein:colinr0380 wrote: Sat Dec 03, 2022 7:32 pm Apparently there have been rumours that after Kingdom of the Crystal Skull tackled aliens, this one is going to touch on another perhaps divisive pulpy sci-fi (rather than pulpy religious mythology) theme of:with some commenters already being upset by the idea that the film may be (major potential spoiler if it turns out to be true)Spoiler
time travel, with 1960s Indy returning to World War Two - as if it was some kind of inescapable nexus for him - presumably using the titular Dial of DestinySpoiler
potentially resetting the timeline for the younger generation to take on the mantle by doing a Force Awakens-style sacrifice
This whole aspect of the story is absurd and convoluted, if true. Why not just have Jonescaptveg wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 5:18 pm I've heard a slightly different take on this, wherein:
Spoiler
the Dial of Destiny allows some Nazi's into the 1960s. Perhaps it's both - Indy goes back to WW2, then inadvertently allows some key Nazi villains (Mikkelsen in particular) to infiltrate his present day late 60s.
You can tell in Kingdom (still Spielberg’s worst film by a significant margin) that the severe injury he sustained during Temple of Doom makes it hard for him to perform certain physical tasks. Hell, Ford got injured AGAIN while filming this one
I revisited all the films recently. Raiders is still the perfect adventure movie, Temple of Doom is still among the most fun B-movies - a deeply-flawed film I could never defend against its haters, but one that’s ultimately a blast given all the eye-rolling regressive elements compared to what came before. The relentless rollercoaster of setpieces making up its second half (including the most thrilling use of a rollercoaster) is pure uncut entertainment shot into the vein. Last Crusade starts off okay but just becomes boring and sustains that droning state, petering out for like ninety minutes (I hate the abstract, reductive adjective of “boring” in discourse, but it’s true here - and somewhat appropriate as an indicator of surprise since Spielberg’s style is economical and stimulating; not always good but rarely uninvolving).
Hot Take: 3:10 to Yuma is one of the greatest remakes ever (partially due to the spread in quality, the original being a rather lame ‘classic’), and one of the rare great revisionist westerns of the millennium. I think he has the potential to craft strong action scenes and potentially bring some grit to the table.Mr Sausage wrote: Sun Apr 09, 2023 1:52 am But I feel I know what to expect with Mangold. He's made one genuinely excellent movie, Logan, but has spent the rest of his career making watchable films somewhere between decent and forgettable, more often the latter.
As a kid I loved the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles for its globe-hopping views of 20th-century history. But I think in retrospect what was also disappointing was how little the events of the series seemed to be creating the figure who was to come in the film narrative. Indy's idealism in those teenaged episodes didn't really go to explaining the more compromised figure we see in Raiders––not that this transition needed to be more psychologically believable, per se, but that, for the viewer, the introduction of those themes needed to have already been there. The flashback in the beginning of Last Crusade does more to justify the figure we see later, with the idea of a sort of teen righteousness frustrated by his inability to triumph over less noble men––and maybe River Phoenix just presents a more credible "angry young man" than Sean Patrick Flannery––outraged at not being able to keep his hands on an object out of history.Mr Sausage wrote: Sun Apr 09, 2023 12:26 pm And his personal relationships seem fraught and unsettling (of the 'seducing your mentor's teenage daughter' variety). Those suggested previous adventures do not seem squeaky clean, wholesome stories.
I loved YIndy, too. But - and maybe it's my rose-tinted memories - your description there of the "variety of adventures" EXACTLY describes the Chronicles - Egypt with Carter, inspired by Lawrence, fighting with Villa, cycling around Hollywood, battling Richthofen, etc., etc. - as a worldwide, anything-and-everything series of adventures as diverse (more?) than Maltese.feihong wrote: Sun Apr 09, 2023 11:48 pm As a kid I loved the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles for its globe-hopping views of 20th-century history...
...more than anything, the variety of adventures Pratt put Corto through is so varied, compared to Indy's. Corto hunts treasure on the constantly changing borders of the collapsing Ottoman empire in one story, is a pirate trying to save children from other pirates in the South Seas during WWI, serves as a defacto detective, investigating murder in Argentina in the 20s, digs into occult mysteries in Venice, gets wrapped up in the struggle between the reds and the whites in Siberia in 1919, and falls into a hallucination of one of Herman Hesse's more obscure novels in Switzerland in 1924. Corto is subtly re-cast in all these adventures, serving in a nominally different role––but he's never a truly different person...
The reason I didn't see a more cynical Indy formed in those adventures is because there wasn't any consistent character development in the show, and Indy's response to the space he was in wasn't a focal point in the adventures. The show relies upon your dimming memories to supply the juice, but we do not see Indy having flashbacks to the Somme, for instance, when he's playing jazz with Sidney Bechet later on. And there is no attempt to plot out formative experiences in a way that the audience could follow, leading up to a sense of the character Indy would develop into. In other words, you have to do all the work to make that transformation happen––the transformation is not an element of the story as it's actually being told. To make the contrast pretty clear, nothing I ever saw in Young Indiana Jones Chronicles––and I watched most of it––would identify for me the Indiana Jones who later has an affair with a self-described "child" of his archaeology professor, who would go on to become the kind of dissolute grave robber he appears to be in the beginning of Raiders (what makes Indy the more worthy thief of the Hovitos idol in the beginning of the film than Belloq––because instead of fooling them, he just goes up and takes it? The Hovitos clearly don't want the idol stolen, either way). Nothing in Young Indiana Jones Chronicles invites me to track that development in my head, because there are no narrative signposts which actually mark the journey.ntnon wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 2:42 am I loved YIndy, too. But - and maybe it's my rose-tinted memories - your description there of the "variety of adventures" EXACTLY describes the Chronicles - Egypt with Carter, inspired by Lawrence, fighting with Villa, cycling around Hollywood, battling Richthofen, etc., etc. - as a worldwide, anything-and-everything series of adventures as diverse (more?) than Maltese.
I'm also befuddled - but, again, relying on dimming memories - that you didn't see the hardened and cynical Jones formed in the forges of Ireland, Mexico and the trenches of WWI (et al.).
I think I recall (limited) flashbacks and briefly-referenced memories, but you're obviously right - the focus was on the novel happening, the current intrigue and the touchstones of history. Because YIndy was a comic strip, jetting from storyline to storyline all over the world with limited changes to anything but the setting - however (again, relying on memory) he DID grow as a person, and there were seeds of the character he grew into sown and nurtured throughout the series.feihong wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 4:31 amThe reason I didn't see a more cynical Indy formed in those adventures is because there wasn't any consistent character development in the show, and Indy's response to the space he was in wasn't a focal point in the adventures. The show relies upon your dimming memories to supply the juice, but we do not see Indy having flashbacks to the Somme, for instance, when he's playing jazz with Sidney Bechet later on.ntnon wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 2:42 am I loved YIndy, too... I'm also befuddled - but, again, relying on dimming memories - that you didn't see the hardened and cynical Jones formed in the forges of Ireland, Mexico and the trenches of WWI (et al.).
Forgive me, but a) that was definitely not the point of the series. The series was "adventures of Young Indy" and history lesson, not pointedly laying out gis character developing, and b) ..wasn't that an element being praised above? The whole 'starting in the middle of the story' and not spelling everything out? Teasing, not leading; hints not hitting you over the head. As much as the River Phoenix YIndy was enjoyable, it was a very rote 'here's the hat, here's the whip, fear of snakes, doesn't like his given name and... driven by putting things in a museum' one-two-three of How He Became Indiana in ten minutes-odd. That's not how people develop.feihong wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 4:31 amAnd there is no attempt to plot out formative experiences in a way that the audience could follow, leading up to a sense of the character Indy would develop into. In other words, you have to do all the work to make that transformation happen––the transformation is not an element of the story as it's actually being told.
Clearly I need to rewatch the films too, because that's really not how I recall viewing any part of that1. Maybe I'm forever-coloured by the Phoenix flashback, but he's no grave robber: he's a respected academic and an archaelogist driven by (sharing) history. He's recovering the idol so that it may be seen by the world, and while the idol is clearly sacred or important, my reading was never that they were there to stop it being stolen, but that Belocq had promised them something (maybe the idol, maybe not) to help him - they were there as backup, not to independantly guard the temple.feihong wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 4:31 amTo make the contrast pretty clear, nothing I ever saw in Young Indiana Jones Chronicles––and I watched most of it––would identify for me the Indiana Jones who later has an affair with a self-described "child" of his archaeology professor, who would go on to become the kind of dissolute grave robber he appears to be in the beginning of Raiders (what makes Indy the more worthy thief of the Hovitos idol in the beginning of the film than Belloq––because instead of fooling them, he just goes up and takes it? The Hovitos clearly don't want the idol stolen, either way). Nothing in Young Indiana Jones Chronicles invites me to track that development in my head, because there are no narrative signposts which actually mark the journey.
That's one of the plus points of Crusade - Sir Sean is more prone to sitting down than being active and thus contrasts well with gis younger, fitter, son who can do more heroics. But even then, there's more machine gun than fisticuffs and fewer(?) stunts than before.feihong wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 4:31 amAs for the variety of adventures, yes, the child Indy and the teen Indy of the Chronicles show do get into a broad spectrum of adventures––but the movie Indy, who was the object of that thesis, does not. The movie adventures are rather similar to one another––and my point is that, as Harrison Ford gets older, Indy is less convincing knocking a guy out without breaking his hand, landing on speeding trucks without breaking his hip or his ankle...sure, the fights are implausible in the first place, but just like Roger Moore in James Bond, when the guy doing the fighting looks less and less credible doing the stunts, when he looks slower and softer and more fragile (all understandable parts of aging), the unreality of the stunts becomes the focus, and not the outrageous excitement of the stunts themselves.
Skull clearly tried to move away from Action Indy by bringing in the younger model, but.. someone (correctly) realised that that was an even worse idea, and the compromise (married to the terrible plot, poor casting and abominable script) made the film - to me, and to many - basically unwatchable. I don't understand why the trend (above) seems to be rehabilitation and promotion over Crusade.. perhaps I missed something the previous two times I watched it.feihong wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 4:31 amAn Indiana Jones who could do more thinking and less fighting could still be intriguing and entertaining––but the makers of the films never developed Indy into a character who could do more than what we saw in the first couple of feature films. But then Crystal Skull suggests Indy was a spy for OSS in WWII. Here's a direction things could have gone in.
I agree that the filmmakers behind Young Indy Chronicles made a creative choice to emphasize the historical adventure elements and a commercial choice to downplay the serial nature of the series (witness how in its initial broadcast the episodes were shown brutally out-of-sequence), but––and this is threading a needle pretty finely, I know, so I'll try my best to articulate it––part and parcel of that was a decision made––consciously or unconsciously––to decouple the Indiana Jones character from whatever ongoing evolution was left of him. That consistency had already been diluted considerably by the films coming after Raiders, I feel, but all I'm arguing is that there was a way to do this that would have maintained the consistency of the character from Raiders, and I'm saying that the character from Raiders is more intriguing than the later incarnations. Ultimately, I'm claiming that the Indy in Raiders would have sustained a long-scale development more than thentnon wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 1:40 amForgive me, but a) that was definitely not the point of the series. The series was "adventures of Young Indy" and history lesson, not pointedly laying out gis character developing, and b) ..wasn't that an element being praised above? The whole 'starting in the middle of the story' and not spelling everything out? Teasing, not leading; hints not hitting you over the head. As much as the River Phoenix YIndy was enjoyable, it was a very rote 'here's the hat, here's the whip, fear of snakes, doesn't like his given name and... driven by putting things in a museum' one-two-three of How He Became Indiana in ten minutes-odd. That's not how people develop.feihong wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 4:31 amAnd there is no attempt to plot out formative experiences in a way that the audience could follow, leading up to a sense of the character Indy would develop into. In other words, you have to do all the work to make that transformation happen––the transformation is not an element of the story as it's actually being told.
It's very possible to see Raiders of the Lost Ark and to read Indiana Jones not as a hero, per se, but just as an at least occasionally nasty guy who shepherds us from one adventure to the next, all of whose efforts lead to very little. He is visually and aurally coded as threatening––maybe even the bad guy––from the first minute he appears. What softens that image at first is that everyone else we meet in the first scene––aside from the Hovitos themselves––are pretty bad guys, too. What separates them from Indy is almost only their trickery. Alfred Molina ditches Indy without his whip, the other guy just tries to shoot him in the back, and Belloq simply outsmarts him, turning the Hovitos on him. But the way I read the situation, it's very clear that Indy has rolled up to take the idol of the indigenous people––not taking it from the remains of an extinct society, but appropriating it from one that is––whether fooled by Belloq or not––still intent on protecting this idol against theft (at least theft by the unworthy––Belloq presents himself as having earned the right to command its' fate before the tribe). He is literally stealing this tribe's golden relic, intending to abscond with it to another country, and then he means to personally profit by selling it to a museum. That's not for the benefit of the world, that's theft of an indigenous tribe's cultural history, and the tribe has every right to determine the fate of the relic for themselves. It's pretty clear from that opening scene Indy has not asked the Hovitos for the idol. And throughout the movie Indy is challenged to value the girl, Marion, over the ark––and he repeatedly fails to make good when pressed to choose the girl. But in the end, all he ends up with is the girl––and he seems disappointed. But more than that, there's the sense that Indy need never have gone on his adventure in the first place; had Jones stayed home, the nazis would have bought or stolen the headpiece to the staff from Marion, found the ark, opened it, and the ark would have melted their faces just the same. The way I read it, the ultimate ineffectiveness of Indy is, in a way, payment for his really out-of-whack priorities. He leaves Marion prisoner so he can get the ark. He can't bring himself to complete his ransom of the ark for Marion. In the end, the ark takes matters out of the confused Dr. Jones' hands and settles accounts, the government takes things out of Dr. Jones' hands twice over, and he is left with Marion––who he repeatedly valued less than the ark––almost as a form of punishment for his own hubris.ntnon wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 1:40 amClearly I need to rewatch the films too, because that's really not how I recall viewing any part of that1. Maybe I'm forever-coloured by the Phoenix flashback, but he's no grave robber: he's a respected academic and an archaelogist driven by (sharing) history. He's recovering the idol so that it may be seen by the world, and while the idol is clearly sacred or important, my reading was never that they were there to stop it being stolen, but that Belocq had promised them something (maybe the idol, maybe not) to help him - they were there as backup, not to independantly guard the temple.feihong wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 4:31 amTo make the contrast pretty clear, nothing I ever saw in Young Indiana Jones Chronicles––and I watched most of it––would identify for me the Indiana Jones who later has an affair with a self-described "child" of his archaeology professor, who would go on to become the kind of dissolute grave robber he appears to be in the beginning of Raiders (what makes Indy the more worthy thief of the Hovitos idol in the beginning of the film than Belloq––because instead of fooling them, he just goes up and takes it? The Hovitos clearly don't want the idol stolen, either way). Nothing in Young Indiana Jones Chronicles invites me to track that development in my head, because there are no narrative signposts which actually mark the journey.
I don't think I necessarily agree that Skull marginalized Indy's action role by bringing in his son. I admit this feels like some film executive's desperate hope for further franchising, but the film, as I saw it, continues to demand action as the defining value of Indys presence. Maybe LaBeouf was meant to shoulder a few scenes more than Harrison Ford, but the film still turns on how Indy fights his way out of desperate situations and bad odds. He's guiding his son to do the same thing he's doing, which makes the film feel very redundant––and the casting of Shia LaBeouf wasn't a wonderful choice here, to my mind (in fact, bringing in Indy's sort-of "family" wasn't a good idea as it was presented in the movie). But movies live or die not on some empirical quality of their ideas, but on the accompanying tone or valence the idea is given as it integrates into the existing drama of the piece. To me, the mistake the later movies have made is to treat the character of Indiana Jones as a series of visceral moviegoing experiences rather than as a thematic idea of a character––so Indiana Jones is a cracking loud punch, the snap of a whip, Ford's reluctant grumble, the quest for the fabled artifact, the characters we've seen before, the insane action, uncommon vehicles, the sourpuss wisecracks. Later addendums seem to include some member of Indy's family tree, a betrayal by a trusted ally, nazis (or, in Crystal Skull, Soviets that essentially stand in for nazis mostly interchangeably), necessary costume pieces, etc. By comparison, Corto Maltese has far more literary and thematic consistency. Regardless of his age or his role in the story, Corto is a solid literary idea, with philosophical beliefs and formative experiences that drive him, with characters which motivate him in specific ways, with both an undergirding philosophy and with a thematic purpose which remains undiluted as the series continues. Indiana Jones does not have this consistency, and I think this is in large part why people respond so differently to the different movies. He is a series of commercial tropes, periodically reanimated to lurching life in order to generate another big profit; Corto is a way of giving us different, playful experiments arranged around the same core kernel of an idea. Because of that different construction, Corto is a vital, relevant character in each volume (even in The Early Years, where he appears about 8 pages from the end of the story). But I think the makers of Indiana Jones struggle to have that same sense of center––which I think is an apt comparison, because it seems so self-evident that Corto's adventures are a huge inspiration for at least Lucas' thinking about the character of Indiana Jones. I think a lot could have been made out of many of the ideas in Crystal Skull, had they been able to be presented with the gritty, sardonic feel of Raiders––but the goofiness of Crystal Skull constantly sabotages its best concepts. It never seems over-the-top, as its best set pieces could certainly have seemed, with a different tone undergirding them. Instead, the overwhelming goofiness keeps coloring the content of each worthwhile creative concept––as does the anti-romantic calculation of commercial profit that creeps into the later Indy movies, frequently souring the creative angles. The making of Crystal Skull was the ideal time for the Philip Kaufman of the late 70s or early 80s to step through a door, via the Dial of Destiny, and ultimately take over directing an Indy picture (one feels like Steven Spielberg might have been ready to cede control––from interviews he seemed not to believe that the ideas George was putting out were going to work)––I feel like Kaufman's ability to mix goofy humor and serious pathos in films like The Wanderers and even The Right Stuff would have been a better fit for Crystal Skull––and his take on the aliens might have been more interesting and original. At the end of the day, I just don't quite buy Harrison Ford as the action star when he's 80, regardless of what he can do. I would have liked a movie that positioned the character of Indiana Jones to take advantage of the more plausible and potentially compelling material Harrison Ford can create as an late septuagenarian/octogenarian––while taking the literary character of Indiana Jones in a direction worth developing. I really doubt that's what's going on in the new movie; but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.ntnon wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 1:40 amSkull clearly tried to move away from Action Indy by bringing in the younger model, but.. someone (correctly) realised that that was an even worse idea, and the compromise (married to the terrible plot, poor casting and abominable script) made the film - to me, and to many - basically unwatchable. I don't understand why the trend (above) seems to be rehabilitation and promotion over Crusade.. perhaps I missed something the previous two times I watched it.feihong wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 4:31 amAn Indiana Jones who could do more thinking and less fighting could still be intriguing and entertaining––but the makers of the films never developed Indy into a character who could do more than what we saw in the first couple of feature films. But then Crystal Skull suggests Indy was a spy for OSS in WWII. Here's a direction things could have gone in.
It was incredibly disheartening but perhaps not surprising to learn that Lawrence Kasdan had been brought in to punch up her scenes. I mentioned this in the Spielberg thread, but I just cannot stand Janusz Kamiński‘s photography in this. It’s so overblown and looks even muddier in tandem with the CG, which is incredibly poor in spots. I’d read that he and Spielberg rewatched the original 3 on multiple occasions to nail Douglas Slocombe’s aesthetic, but they completely failedJohn Cope wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 8:22 am But really that Marion stuff was enough; it's unforgivable and frankly depressing.
I've only ever seen it as the later stitched-together film-length endeavour, but my understanding of the in-universe(ish) logic of the shuffling - as opposed to the realities of shooting with children and perhaps needing to alternate YIndies for time reasons - was to juxtapose (perhaps exactly!) the kind of character building that seems absent.. mayhap a reshuffle might reveal it more? I have read (and dimmer-than-usual recall) that setting alternate adventures together throws light on both the inevitability of his past-and-future interactions with people, places and especially Things as well as how he internalises and uses his experiences to form his character.feihong wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 6:12 amI agree that the filmmakers behind Young Indy Chronicles made a creative choice to emphasize the historical adventure elements and a commercial choice to downplay the serial nature of the series (witness how in its initial broadcast the episodes were shown brutally out-of-sequence)...ntnon wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 1:40 am Forgive me, but a) that was definitely not the point of the series. The series was "adventures of Young Indy" and history lesson...
First, I need to know if the screenplay is purchasable. I know I have the novel(isation) somewhere, but again.. I don't see quite as ambiguous or morally conflicted character as you do. And I (think that I) do recall young Henry Jr. encountering the shades of grey of a complex world and having to process how he fits within it, should react to it and must strive to change and fix it. I'm thinking especially of the Chronicle where he winds up infiltrating and commenting on a slave market sale, and the one where he encounters the Russian royalty and wrestles with the concept of 'us and them' in both different scenarios.feihong wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 6:12 am[Indy's character's] consistency had already been diluted considerably by the films coming after Raiders, I feel, but all I'm arguing is that there was a way to do this that would have maintained the consistency of the character from Raiders, and I'm saying that the character from Raiders is more intriguing than the later incarnations. Ultimately, I'm claiming that the Indy in Raiders would have sustained a long-scale development more than the
Indy in Last Crusade or either one on the TV show, and that developing that significantly darker and more ambiguous character (not only often not a very nice guy, but one whose moral decisions we're frequently meant to question {in the screenplay, at least––the tone of the film demands looking past a lot of the subtle elements of the script as quickly as possible}, and who isn't the ultimate hero of his own story––as is frequently noted, Jones could have not shown up to Raiders, and the outcome would have been none the worse for it) could have led to a richer palette of differing kinds of Indiana Jones movies which could have been made as Harrison Ford got older––including, perhaps, pictures where Harrison Ford didn't need to get injured doing his own stunts. I know that television of the time wasn't geared to present an Indiana Jones growing towards the person he would become as a narrative element, but... [if they had begun with] an Indiana Jones already at least encountering the compromises he will face as an adult archaeologist––at least seeing these compromises playing out, and processing them––and you have a character more plausibly geared to slip into the figure Harrison Ford embodies in the first movie.
Right. And in a facile way, THAT is the core of the character on display repeatedly: "it belongs in a museum!"feihong wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 6:12 am This is the way in which the River Phoenix character in Last Crusade more aptly mimics the Indy of the earlier movies––the film sets him up as an angry, idealistic young man witnessing what he believes is a crime. The crime he witnesses––committed, not coincidentally, by a guy who is essentially the double of the older man Indy will become in Raiders––not coincidentally mirrors Indy's quest for the Hovitos' idol in Raiders––and the young Indy is outraged by it. Then all the fanservice happens, blah blah blah, snakes, bullwhip, etc.––in an era before widespread, Disney-fied fanservice, this sequence actually seemed quite funny––and, key to the end of the sequence, the older man--the dissolute grave-robber who foils Indy's attempt to put the cross in a museum, rather than capitalize on it for personal gain...
Well, directly after the flashback, of course, the man in the fedora is Indy deliberately undoing the 'wrong' of the theft of the Cross so that it can finally be available to the world - not (just) a parallel and comparison, but an inversion and correction. As well.feihong wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 6:12 amSome years later, the man in the fedora will be Indy himself, driving a very similar set of unreliable goons into the jungle to "liberate" a precious artifact for personal gain.
Running on fumes, and repeating the same barely-founded counter, but... I think we DO.feihong wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 6:12 amI'm talking about signposting a character from a work of fiction's literary destiny––much the same thing as paying off the setup of a particular element of a scene or character. If a figure in a fiction turns traitor on the heroes, even by surprise, the turn works a much more gratifying transition if there is something in the writing that seeds that transition before it happens––and if the traitor turns with literally no explanation, then the author usually looks as if they are hastily backfilling a decision they made late in the game... If Indy grows up to be a conflicted character––driven on the one hand by his boyhood dream of discovering important artifacts (a mirror of his father's adult dream of finding the grail), and on the other by the lure of compromise in making it happen (represented by the man who gives Indy his fedora), well, then it would be nice to see that seeded in the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles––if we are meant to think of those adventures as part of Indy's own grand narrative.
I can see that, but I still tend to disagree. He may be a flawed hero and clearly operating on the fringes of the law, but he's Pulp Hero and Superhero through-and-through - i.e. He Is Right. He is Batman. He is Doc Savage. He's doing The Right Thing for the Right Reasons, and while there are (very) brief moments where he vaccilates between doing something that could compromise that integrity, he always makes The Right Choice and always saves Marion.feihong wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 6:12 amThe Indy of Raiders is compellingly torn between being a decent guy and getting the job done, between being an outlaw––which he is frequently expected to be––and being the one guy after this object with anything resembling a conscience, between sacrificing the people he maybe cares about in the name of archeological discovery, and giving up the knowledge of history for people he only sort of cares about (how much Indy cares about Marion is a frequent, open question throughout Raiders). Those choices Indy makes are at the center of the film's themes.
(I've warmed up to Temple, but my recollection for years was that it was the definite low point between the excellent Raiders and even better Crusade. Temple is very simplistic in its Good (Indy) vs Evil (Mola Ram) where Raiders and Crusade managed to allow for shades of grey.. well, slightly lighter black even when the villains were literal Nazis and their agents.)feihong wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 6:12 amThese later pictures make a confusing hash of these ideas. The Indy of Temple of Doom isn't confronted with these questions so directly (more of that film is a rollercoaster ride than collection of moral conundrums), and the Indy of Last Crusade is cast as largely a nice guy, perhaps less tempted than his former self, simply because he has his dad to scold him constantly––effectively keeping him far shy of moral compromise throughout (you could make the claim that Indys dad dominating Last Crusade deprives Indy of more personal character evolution).
Least said the better.feihong wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 6:12 amThe guy in Crystal Skull has made no progress on these questions.
So I also went looking for my Hugo Pratt books, discovered them missing and now feel compelled to track down out-of-print and escalating-in-price books to read, re-read and cross-compare with Henry Jones. Thank you for that!feihong wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 6:12 amCorto Maltese is instructive here, because Corto faces moral choices at every stage of his character evolution...
I can't agree with the thesis there - but again, will consider all this next time I watch them - the temple is overgrown and abandoned. It may yet be a sacred site, and certainly he's walking the archaeologist tightrope of desecration vs. education, but I don't think it's for "personal profit" (reimbursement of travel costs, sure, but you imply a finder's fee or ransom that bothers me) and the idol has clearly been unseen and untouched within living memory. Quite what Belloq has said (read: lied) to the Hovitos may be debatable, and perhaps some of Indy's hero-ness is due to the comparison between on-screen characters, but just as much as his Han Solo/leading man charm. He's disheveled after days in a jungle, not coded as a threat to me.feihong wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 6:12 amIt's very possible to see Raiders of the Lost Ark and to read Indiana Jones not as a hero, per se, but just as an at least occasionally nasty guy who shepherds us from one adventure to the next, all of whose efforts lead to very little. He is visually and aurally coded as threatening––maybe even the bad guy––from the first minute he appears. What softens that image at first is that everyone else we meet in the first scene––aside from the Hovitos themselves––are pretty bad guys, too. What separates them from Indy is almost only their trickery. Alfred Molina ditches Indy without his whip, the other guy just tries to shoot him in the back, and Belloq simply outsmarts him, turning the Hovitos on him. But the way I read the situation, it's very clear that Indy has rolled up to take the idol of the indigenous people––not taking it from the remains of an extinct society, but appropriating it from one that is––whether fooled by Belloq or not––still intent on protecting this idol against theft (at least theft by the unworthy––Belloq presents himself as having earned the right to command its' fate before the tribe). He is literally stealing this tribe's golden relic, intending to abscond with it to another country, and then he means to personally profit by selling it to a museum. That's not for the benefit of the world, that's theft of an indigenous tribe's cultural history, and the tribe has every right to determine the fate of the relic for themselves. It's pretty clear from that opening scene Indy has not asked the Hovitos for the idol.ntnon wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 1:40 am ...he's no grave robber: he's a respected academic and an archaelogist driven by (sharing) history. He's recovering the idol so that it may be seen by the world, and while the idol is clearly sacred or important, my reading was never that they were there to stop it being stolen, but that Belocq had promised them something (maybe the idol, maybe not) to help him - they were there as backup, not to independantly guard the temple.
Vehement disagreement. He's after the Ark a) for it's historical/religious significance, b) because of it's importance to his mentor, Abner Ravenwood and c) to stop Hitler harnessing the Wrath of God and winning the war. And I don't think those three elements can be separated - or even ranked - in his mind. So the Ark's recovery is CRITICAL. And yet, he can't help but be torn because of Marion - there may be ambiguity and history, but it's blindingly obvious in my mind that if it must be a straight choice, she is more important. But, that's the bigger picture quandary all fictional heroes face - what matters more - THE WHOLE WORLD or Your Person? We all know the answer. We all know that the personal element creates tension. And we all know that the real answer to "A or B?" is the Batman Conpromise - "C: Both." And that's what he does. Marion must remain prisoner for the plan to work (and she knows it, too), and at the finale, his being deprived of the glory and reality of putting the Ark on display undercuts that "C" victory. The 'right' answer (The Girl) has a pall thrown over it because it isn't The Girl AND-.feihong wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 6:12 amAnd throughout the movie Indy is challenged to value the girl, Marion, over the ark––and he repeatedly fails to make good when pressed to choose the girl. But in the end, all he ends up with is the girl––and he seems disappointed... [punished?] for his really out-of-whack priorities. He leaves Marion prisoner so he can get the ark. He can't bring himself to complete his ransom of the ark for Marion. In the end, the ark takes matters out of the confused Dr. Jones' hands and settles accounts, the government takes things out of Dr. Jones' hands twice over, and he is left with Marion––who he repeatedly valued less than the ark––almost as a form of punishment for his own hubris.
Again, the least said the better.. but, as mentioned briefly, I found it hamstrung by the (wrongheaded) decision to Further The Franchise, as per Superman Returns. It reeks of studio insert and meddling - and also of retroactive cold feet over same. I didn't intend to say it DID marginalise the Indy action, I meant to say (I believe) it was INTENDED that way - bring in a surrogate and place the continuing franchise on his shoulders! Son of Indy! And then they say what they had wrought and backpeddled, but it was too late. Maybe.feihong wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 6:12 amI don't think I necessarily agree that Skull marginalized Indy's action role by bringing in his son. I admit this feels like some film executive's desperate hope for further franchising, but the film, as I saw it, continues to demand action as the defining value of Indys presence. Maybe LaBeouf was meant to shoulder a few scenes more than Harrison Ford, but the film still turns on how Indy fights his way out of desperate situations and bad odds. He's guiding his son to do the same thing he's doing, which makes the film feel very redundant––and the casting of Shia LaBeouf wasn't a wonderful choice here, to my mind (in fact, bringing in Indy's sort-of "family" wasn't a good idea as it was presented in the movie). But movies live or die not on some empirical quality of their ideas, but on the accompanying tone or valence the idea is given as it integrates into the existing drama of the piece. To me, the mistake the later movies have made is to treat the character of Indiana Jones as a series of visceral moviegoing experiences rather than as a thematic idea of a character––so Indiana Jones is a cracking loud punch, the snap of a whip, Ford's reluctant grumble, the quest for the fabled artifact, the characters we've seen before, the insane action, uncommon vehicles, the sourpuss wisecracks. Later addendums seem to include some member of Indy's family tree, a betrayal by a trusted ally, nazis (or, in Crystal Skull, Soviets that essentially stand in for nazis mostly interchangeably), necessary costume pieces, etc.
This is really at the heart of the wider issue of Belated Sequels - the Rockys and Terminators and Star Treks and Star Warses et al. - where the audience expectations (and Studio Suits' Opinions of Expected Expectations) are that we want more of the same. And that's just not feasible without changing something - so some bring in surrogates and are disappointing, while others don't and are unbelievable. Or, occasionally, both.feihong wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 6:12 amAt the end of the day, I just don't quite buy Harrison Ford as the action star when he's 80, regardless of what he can do. I would have liked a movie that positioned the character of Indiana Jones to take advantage of the more plausible and potentially compelling material Harrison Ford can create as an late septuagenarian/octogenarian––while taking the literary character of Indiana Jones in a direction worth developing. I really doubt that's what's going on in the new movie; but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.