Movie Club: Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull

WELCOME EVERYBODY TO THE LATEST DISCUSSION THREAD OF THE NEW MOVIE CLUB, DESIGNED TO RUN PARALLEL WITH R.O.C.K.S. A big thanks to everyone that are joining us through all of this. The next few weeks we're going to do another acclaimed series of films from the 80s, the Indiana Jones films. We're concluding this week with the 2007 comeback Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull.

For anyone wondering about a Stan Lee tribute, we shall be covering that next week, I just wanted to finish this series first.

Remember any ideas for films to discuss are most welcome, and should be made on the Movie Club Introduction thread (the sticky one), and anyone is welcome to add their thoughts about movies already discussed on their respective threads.

Just a friendly reminder to everyone that, whilst fans are obviously welcome to passionately discuss and give their views on these movies, please remember to keep things on a friendly footing and respect your fellow posters.
Also, please do not post where or how to find the full movie online. And do not post asking others to PM it to you. You are however allowed to watch the movie in whatever manner you want.

Ah, the infamous KOTCS. A lot of people consider this to be the worst IJ movie. I don't entirely disagree, but I'd rather say that it is not the best IJ movie. It is nowhere near as good as the previous three movies but I don't think it was complete trash, which a lot of critics deemed it to be. I enjoyed it. It was fun. It had the feel, the cast and all the elements of the previous Indiana Jones films. And it wasn't a shameless rehash of the first film like a certain "Star Wars" movie. ([USER=5058]@Mark M[/USER] you know what I am talking about! ;)). I'll tackle the various elements of the movie one at a time.

Firstly, it was great to see Ford back in one of this most iconic roles. He's a little bit older, a little wiser, a little less daring, but still just as much fascinated by ancient relics as ever. I really like the line that Stanford tells Indie: "We seem to have reached the age where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away". Indie lost Marcus and his father ,but he doesn't know that life is going to give him two very unique characters. Which brings us to Marion Ravenwood. It was nice to see Karen Allen back in arguably her most famous role. She doesn't have that much to do in the movie, but she's still a pleasant addition. Spalko was a very good villain, IMHO. I feel Blanchett could have dialed back her acting a bit and made Spalko a little bit less caricaturish. But Ii was good to have a woman baddie for a change and also that she was a Russian. We certainly had enough Nazis in two of the previous movies.

The alien plot. This was probably the biggest gripe that fans had with the movie. They felt that extra-terrestrials did not fit into the IJ universe. I personally don't have any problem with the alien angle. I don't think it's that much out of Indie's realm. And also, it would have been kinda repetitious to have Indie go after yet another religious relic. My only complain was that the whole alien affair shouldn't have been so obvious. No need to show the actual aliens, their powers, their spaceship, the portal etc. That I felt was a bit too much. A much better option would have been to just feature the alien skull and keep everything else ambiguous, kinda like the Sankara Stones.

Shia LaBeouf. His casting was another big cause of complain among viewers. Here, I agree. I like the idea of introducing Indy and Marion's son, but feel that LaBeouf was the wrong casting choice. The reason being that LaBeouf (like a number of big Hollywood stars) can only play LaBeouf. He cannot embody any of his characters. He always plays pretty much every one of his characters in exactly the same way. Of course, he wasn't cast because of his acting skills but rather because Spielberg had become kinda obsessed with him. That relationship however, ended rather sourly after LaBeouf publicly criticized KOTCS and Spielberg's choices. After that his career went downhill fast. Man, you don't bite the hand that feeds you!

So in conclusion I'd say I found KOTCS to be a fun movie. Nothing spectacular but not a bad way to pass the time when there's nothing good on TV. :)

This is my third time watching Kingdom of the Crystal Skull completely.

My opinions on it are pretty much the same as [USER=25043]@Wilycub[/USER].

I actually didn't have a problem with the alien storyline not think it too out of place in the mythos. However I did have a bit of a problem with the aliens being interdimensional travellers. Alien travels is one thing but when you get into different dimensions and time travel I do have a problem with it. However thankfully it didn't have any real ramification to the story and I just kind of ignore the interdimensional part and just think of them as alien travellers.

One thing I really like about the move is that it is pretty much non-stop from start to finish. There is no overly slow scenes like in TOD which really doesnt get going until the second half.

The portraits of Henry Jones and Marcus were a nice touch. A pity Sallah wasn't in it in some way.

Harrison really hasn't lost a step as Indy and overall I think the movie did a great justice to the Indiana character. Indiana has fared a lot better than Han Solo. ;)

It was great having Karen Allen returning to play Marion.

Cate Blanchett was also very good as the villain and like the other movies meets a rather horrific end.

I remember a lot of criticism of Shia's casting at the time...and I can't really say I am a big fan of any of his other work but overall after re-watching it, he isn't too bad in the part. But I still think his casting was a real let down compared to the vast number of other actors similar to Indy they could have cast.

One of my only real complaints with the film overall is some of the action sequences were way over the top and relied on too much CGI.

Overall I still really enjoyed this movie. It is still the weakest Indiana Jones movie compared tot he other three but it is still a fun movie.

This Indiana sequel really has fared a lot better than the Star Wars sequels. This was a proper continuation of the characters with a new original story very different than the previous movies. Unlike SW as The Force Awakens which was basically just a plot point remake of A New Hope. As bad as TFA was (and it really was bad, with poor acting...but at least it did introduce some story elements to expand upon) it still isn't as bad as The Last Jedi, which is just a complete abomination in the franchise.
As far as I am concerned Disney have completely destroyed Star Wars with their sequels.
Sadly Disney now own Indiana due to the Lucasfilm deal. After seeing what they have done to Star Wars I really hope they dont bother doing Indiana 5...unless of course George and Steven are in charge of the project.

I should also mention that just like the previous movies KOTCS also had a rather ambitious yet unsuccessful toyline. Hasbro really went all out making loads of figures, vehicles and playsets from across all the movies. Yet their just didn't really seem to be a big market for them.
As much as I love the movies I didn't even buy any. Even when they were greatly reduced. My attention was more on collecting various other toylines that interested me more, both vintage and modern. What can I say...as much as the movies are good...in plastic form the characters just really didn't have the appeal of Transformers, Star Wars, He-Man, Marvel, DC, Thundercats, TMNT, WWF/WWE and G.I. Joe etc.

As far as toys go I think I really have worked out the big problem with the Indiana Jones toylines. Kenner and Hasbro especially made far too many toys.
Indiana movies have the same dynamic as James Bond movies.
If they had made a Bond toyline for one movie they would only really make Bond, the villain/s, Bond Girl and Maybe M and Q.

With Indiana aside from the titular hero, the main villain and a couple other characters, there just really isn't that much interest or demand or real need for the other characters.
ROTLA only needed 7x characters.
TOD only needed 5x.
TLC only 5.x..7x characters being generous.
As for KOTCS only 6x.
While some vehicles and playsets are nice additions Kenner's really served no purpose and were only really of use for Indiana. Hasbro's Temple playset at least had some usefulness for other toylines like G.I. Joe etc.
As for the horses and military vehicles I really dont think any of them were that essential and the horse is the only one with any real additional use with other toys. Although I must admit a motorbike and side car from the last crusade would be pretty cool.

Hopefully if a new collector based Indiana toyline comes along they will not be over ambitious and just stick the main characters. Less is more. Do a few right instead of a load wrong. For all the versions of Indy Hasbro made I believe they only actually made 2x that were pretty good toys of the character.

"Mark M, post: 126325, member: 5058" said:

One of my only real complaints with the film overall is some of the action sequences were way over the top and relied on too much CGI.

I completely forgot to say something about that, but I'm glad you did Mark because my feelings on the matter are exactly the same! :biggrin Some of the action sequences were rather childish (swinging with monkeys??!?!). And the CGI too was rather unimpressive.

Another small gripe I had with the movie was the use of artificial lighting in outdoor scenes. In the original three Indy movies, almost all the outside scenes were shot using natural sunlight, and even if there were other light sources, they weren't too conspicuous. But in KOTCS the artificial light is quite obvious to me and just doesn't look right. Even outdoor shots look like they were shot in a studio or sound stage.

I only saw this film for the first time at the weekend. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect, but fully braced for whatever.

Firstly, yes, all the classic ingredients of an Indiana Jones movie are all there. Namely action, mystic artefacts with great power, a gang of villains who also want to get their hands on them for the wrong reasons . . . yes, this is Indy all right.

The period setting makes sense. Obviously Harrison Ford was almost two decades older than he was in the last film which was set in 1938, so they aged Indy by the same amount of time that Ford had aged, making the film timeframe 1957. Fair enough. This means that with a significantly older Indy, they would have to allow for that in the film. This probably goes a long way to why the character Mutt was created - so they could have a character who could do all the action stuff without putting his back out!

Mutt, I understand, is one of the controversial points about the film, but the character made sense, even if the big reveal about him was predictable from the moment we knew who his mother was! Shia LaBoeuf did a good enough job in the role. Wilycub, you say that he only ever plays himself in movies, well, I'll admit I've only seen him in this and Transformers (only the first one at that), but it's worth remembering that critics have been accusing actors of playing themselves for as long as films have been around - and indeed probably before then too with the theatre. Think about it - you say Shia LeBoeuf always plays Shia LaBoeuf, I've heard it said Hugh Grant always plays Hugh Grant, but also I've noticed Will Smith always plays Will Smith, Sean Connery always plays Sean Connery, and if you go back a few decades Marilyn Monroe always played Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart always played Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn always played Errol Flynn . . . and sometimes you do write for the actors. Scripts get adjusted all the time in films, and lines get changed to fit better with the actor delivering them.

There were some nice touches to the "absent friends" - I counted three tributes to the late Denholm Elliott, who played Marcus Brody in ROTLA and IJATLC:

The portrait in the corridor.
The statue on the grounds - which helped to stop some villains when it got hit! Way to go Marcus!
A mention by Indy in his speech about getting older.

That speech also referenced his father, and with the picture of him on the desk as well, you'd be forgiven for thinking Sean Connery had died too! Actually this gets me thinking about something in Last Crusade which I'll bring up in that thread in a minute.

Karen Allen's return as Marion was also good, she's still the same Marion and has a good chemistry with Harrison Ford.

Cate Blanchett as the main villain, yes, it's nice to have a woman as the main villain for a change, rather than the double-crossing femme fatale who is the trusted no2 to the main villain. My only real problem with Blanchett here is that they did her up to look like Mystic Meg!

It made sense for the villains here to be Russian agents given the time setting of the film. The ones set in the 30s had Nazis as the bad guys, this one in the 50s has communists.

Ray Winstone as Mac - you knew very early on that he was not going to be alive at the end of this film! That was very cleverly done, and could easily have worked out wrongly but they worked it out very well indeed.

John Hurt too as Ox is spot-on. Perfect for the part. Both he and Winstone appeared on Jonathan Ross to promote the film when it came out, albeit in different weeks, and both made a big point about their not being allowed to give anything away.

The absence of John Rhys Davies, apparently he was offered a small part of a guest at the wedding, but he wanted a bigger part. Not sure how that would have worked though.

The climax involving aliens, again, I can see how people would have an issue with it but it does work in context so why not I say.

One other sequence that I have to bring up - when Indy and Marion are stuck in the quicksand - sorry, not quicksand - Indy picks her up on that and gets all pedantic about it, time and place dude! You're sinking to possibly your death, does it really make any difference what the technical term is to you or the people trying to rescue you? Actually I could picture that same scene working in an episode of Due South between Fraser and Ray. Also the use of the snake as a makeshift rope - Indy can't let himself think he's touching a snake even to save his own life!?! This could have been a great way to finally conquer his phobia, they did miss a trick here but it's a very minor quibble. Come to think of it it's a bit like a scene in the GI Joe episode "Cobrathon" - where Lifeline is stuck in a piranha tank and one of his colleagues holds out a rifle for him to grab, but Lifeline is such a pacifist that he won't even touch a weapon to save himself from a grizzly death, they had to get him out another way!

And the final scene, Indy and Marion finally tying the knot, is apt, and the tease with the hat made us think when Mutt picked it up that he might be getting his spinoff franchise until Indy grabbed it off him and put it back on his own head where it belongs! This actually really ties up the whole franchise very neatly, and another movie now would be a very dodgy idea indeed.

Speaking of Cate Blanchett's Spalko. It seems Lucasfilm were quite fond of her character as she is clearly the inspiration for Governor Arihnda Pryce in the Star Wars Rebels cartoon.

"LiamABC, post: 126333, member: 25438" said:

Mutt, I understand, is one of the controversial points about the film, but the character made sense, even if the big reveal about him was predictable from the moment we knew who his mother was! Shia LaBoeuf did a good enough job in the role. Wilycub, you say that he only ever plays himself in movies, well, I'll admit I've only seen him in this and Transformers (only the first one at that), but it's worth remembering that critics have been accusing actors of playing themselves for as long as films have been around - and indeed probably before then too with the theatre. Think about it - you say Shia LeBoeuf always plays Shia LaBoeuf, I've heard it said Hugh Grant always plays Hugh Grant, but also I've noticed Will Smith always plays Will Smith, Sean Connery always plays Sean Connery, and if you go back a few decades Marilyn Monroe always played Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart always played Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn always played Errol Flynn . . . and sometimes you do write for the actors. Scripts get adjusted all the time in films, and lines get changed to fit better with the actor delivering them.

Well it doesn't mean that either the critics or I am wrong. ;) Yes, the actors you mentioned, especially Will Smith, do play pretty much themselves in their movies. I don't think that's a false accusation but rather an accurate observance. They do that. Doesn't meant that it is always necessarily a bad thing but also doesn't mean that it is necessarily always a good thing. I guess it depends on the actor in question, their particular movie role, their previous movie roles, their star power and the audience's expectations.

So like for a mega star like Connery, he became super popular with his James Bond portrayal. People loved him for that. He may have been playing Connery, but a lot of people weren't too familiar with his earlier films so whatever performance he gave as Bond cemented the character's traits in people's minds. Yes, in the movies that he did after that, it was often times more noticeable that he was playing Connery, but people probably liked that. People probably expected that. And people probably wanted that. Same thing with Hugh Grant.

But Mutt Williams was a new, and (possibly) a rather important character in the IJ universe. He needed to be portrayed by an actor who people weren't already familiar with (kind of like with any new James Bond actor). Someone who could make the character their own and memorable. Not someone who would give a repeat performance of another already well known character that they've already played. If KOTCS had been Shia's first major screen role, then it would have been fine if he played himself because people wouldn't have been familiar with him. But because he already played himself in Disturbia and Transformers and Charlie's Angels and I, Robot and Constantine, his Mutt felt like just another run-of-the-mill LaBeouf performance. Same problem with Jesse Eisenberg being cast as Lex Luthor.

That's the difference between casting LaBeouf as Indy's son and Connery as Indy's father. Everybody knew that Connery will play himself and they were looking forward to it and everybody knew that LaBeouf will play himself and were hoping that they would be proven wrong.

"LiamABC, post: 126333, member: 25438" said:

And the final scene, Indy and Marion finally tying the knot, is apt, and the tease with the hat made us think when Mutt picked it up that he might be getting his spinoff franchise until Indy grabbed it off him and put it back on his own head where it belongs! This actually really ties up the whole franchise very neatly, and another movie now would be a very dodgy idea indeed.

I remember reading an interview before the release of KOTCS where Spielberg (still obsessed with LaBeouf) said that Mutt taking over Indy's mantle was the only way the IJ series should go and George Lucas (who it seems was never a big fan of LaBeouf) vehemently rejected Spielberg's idea saying that the series is about the adventures of Indiana Jones and NOT about the adventures of Mutt Williams. :biggrin

I too am also not very keen on there being yet another IJ movie. Ford is too old to be doing the same things he did decades ago. What more are they going to bring to his character other than to kill him off, but not before he hand picks someone to fill his shoes.

"Wilycub, post: 126339, member: 25043" said:

I remember reading an interview before the release of KOTCS where Spielberg (still obsessed with LaBeouf) said that Mutt taking over Indy's mantle was the only way the IJ series should go and George Lucas (who it seems was never a big fan of LaBeouf) vehemently rejected Spielberg's idea saying that the series is about the adventures of Indiana Jones and NOT about the adventures of Mutt Williams. :biggrin

I too am also not very keen on there being yet another IJ movie. Ford is too old to be doing the same things he did decades ago. What more are they going to bring to his character other than to kill him off, but not before he hand picks someone to fill his shoes.

I completely agree with George. :D
Even if Mutt was recast with any Hollywood A lister it would still pretty much be the same reaction from the fans.
It is the adventures of Indiana Jones not his father, mother, wife, son, brother, sister, cousin, dog etc. He is the character people have invested in the last 30+ years.
No one can fill his shoes....so there really isn't any point in passing the mantle on.

They really need to leave the franchise alone. KOTCS was pretty much a perfect ending for the character and family and should really be left at that.

Although I suppose since 2008's movie was set in 1957...if an Indiana was made around 2020 or the next few years then I suppose that would mean the next movie would be set around the end of the 1960's/early 70's.
So technically the logical enemies he could be involved with would be something involving the Vietnam war.
Maybe with the right director and writer Indiana 5 could be interesting but like I said personally I would prefer them to just leave it with KOTCS.

Just look at the end of Return of the Jedi. Great ending...then look at what Disney did. It just isn't the same anymore knowing what they did to the characters in the awful sequels.

Not to mention Only Fools & Horses, coming to such a perfect end in 1996, only to be resurrected for three more pointless specials in 2001.

"Mark M, post: 126340, member: 5058" said:

I completely agree with George. :D
Even if Mutt was recast with any Hollywood A lister it would still pretty much be the same reaction from the fans.
It is the adventures of Indiana Jones not his father, mother, wife, son, brother, sister, cousin, dog etc. He is the character people have invested in the last 30+ years.
No one can fill his shoes....so there really isn't any point in passing the mantle on.

They really need to leave the franchise alone. KOTCS was pretty much a perfect ending for the character and family and should really be left at that.

Although I suppose since 2008's movie was set in 1957...if an Indiana was made around 2020 or the next few years then I suppose that would mean the next movie would be set around the end of the 1960's/early 70's.
So technically the logical enemies he could be involved with would be something involving the Vietnam war.
Maybe with the right director and writer Indiana 5 could be interesting but like I said personally I would prefer them to just leave it with KOTCS.

Just look at the end of Return of the Jedi. Great ending...then look at what Disney did. It just isn't the same anymore knowing what they did to the characters in the awful sequels.

Absolutely! Film studios and filmmakers have to know when to stop milking a franchise. But I guess when money is involved, they just won't stop. Star Wars, Rocky, Rambo, Fast and Furious, Die Hard all are still being continued despite being way past their expiration date. That is the sad state of Hollywood these days. A severe lack of new ideas. So they are heavily into remakes and keeping franchises alive with below par installments.

Sometimes audiences don't know when to stop asking for more. Something ends in the right spot and people still say "I wish there were more" - then they get more and that more turns out to be a bad idea. Even the longest running film/TV franchises have their off-days. Star Trek, Doctor Who, James Bond - all have the odd bad movie/episode, but they have all managed to keep going because they have their own ways of relaunching themselves. The current series of Star Trek is the sixth, the current regeneration of the Doctor is the thirteenth - and each new version of those series is a completely different animal to the ones that have gone before. And that's it. You can't keep having more and more of the exact same thing without the well running dry.

"LiamABC, post: 126345, member: 25438" said:

Not to mention Only Fools & Horses, coming to such a perfect end in 1996, only to be resurrected for three more pointless specials in 2001.

OFAH ending in 1996 would have been perfect if Rodney and Cassandra's daughter had been born then. That was pretty much the only redeeming quality of the 2001 specials which were awful.

Cassandra's miscarriage in the 1996 specials made for good drama. Good drama is permissible in comedy if it works and it worked well here.

"LiamABC, post: 126369, member: 25438" said:

Cassandra's miscarriage in the 1996 specials made for good drama. Good drama is permissible in comedy if it works and it worked well here.

Drama maybe but it definitely didn't make for good comedy...or an interesting episode.
My biggest issue with storyline is the timing. If they had done it during a series or in a previous special a year or two before....I don't want to say better as I still wouldn't like the storyline...but they really shouldn't have done it in what was supposed to be the final trilogy. It was a pretty bad ending to leave Rodney and Cassandra's characters on.
I was never too keen on Cassandra's character...especially after the wedding. That could actually have been a good point to end the series. In the last series and various specials Rodney and Cassandra's storylines and scenes really dragged on and were quite boring for the most part.

"Wilycub, post: 126348, member: 25043" said:

Absolutely! Film studios and filmmakers have to know when to stop milking a franchise. But I guess when money is involved, they just won't stop. Star Wars, Rocky, Rambo, Fast and Furious, Die Hard all are still being continued despite being way past their expiration date. That is the sad state of Hollywood these days. A severe lack of new ideas. So they are heavily into remakes and keeping franchises alive with below par installments.

Speaking of well past the expiration date I have seen some photos of the upcoming Rambo 5. I really didn't like 4. I would say they should have just ended it with 4 but who knows maybe the 5th would be better? Maybe it could have an interesting or fun plot like the first three movies.

"LiamABC, post: 126352, member: 25438" said:

Sometimes audiences don't know when to stop asking for more. Something ends in the right spot and people still say "I wish there were more" - then they get more and that more turns out to be a bad idea. Even the longest running film/TV franchises have their off-days. Star Trek, Doctor Who, James Bond - all have the odd bad movie/episode, but they have all managed to keep going because they have their own ways of relaunching themselves. The current series of Star Trek is the sixth, the current regeneration of the Doctor is the thirteenth - and each new version of those series is a completely different animal to the ones that have gone before. And that's it. You can't keep having more and more of the exact same thing without the well running dry.

I wish Star Wars had done something similar to Star Trek and Doctor Who and done something completely different with the sequels instead of basically relying on the nostalgia and star power or the original cast making basically cameo appearances. The sequels/spin offs could have been set well in the future and done something completely different rather than spoiling the ending of the original films.