"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skulls" on DVD and Blu-ray will allow fans to process the movie for what it is now that South Park helped heal the wounds of disillusionment from its overall substandard quality.
The following are 10 specific ways in which Steven Spielberg and George Lucas in a crusade to make a quick buck raided and defiled a sacred temple of a movie franchise that should have remained locked away in the memories of 1980s moviegoers.
1. Indy should have hung up his bullwhip because the nearly 20 years that it took to bring this adventure to theaters was enough to make it seem too far apart from the rest of the movies, and the dramatic jump from Indy meeting and adventuring with his father to doing the same with his son was too much to digest. This latest adventure would have worked if it occurred after two more movies in the 1990s, but Harrison Ford understandably did not like crystal skulls.
2. Indy should not have told fans what he did the last 19 summers. He should have simply beat up or fled from the bad guys in "Kingdom of The Crystal Skulls" the way Jennifer Love Hewitt did in the two slasher movies in which she starred.
Filmmakers find creative ways to reveal background information, but Spielberg and Lucas relied solely on exposition to tell moviegoers Indy served as a pre-CIA spy after "Last Crusade," got into several tight spots with a partner named Mac, and that his father and Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott) have since died. They essentially subscribed to the anime storytelling technique of providing answers to questions no one asked and that have no place in what is meant to be realistic movie dialogue.
3. Indy should not have sought out aliens, or rather the quartz skulls of aliens. Part of what made the archaeologist's past adventures so exciting was the sparing magic realism that was never fully exploited, but provided them with that extra specialness.
Moviegoers already knew Indy would ultimately find legendary artifacts such as The Lost Ark or The Holy Grail, but what was most appealing were challenging obstacles he would have to encounter and overcome by the skin of his teeth, not the MacGuffin. Roswell Grays - if that was not enough, it turns out they were from another dimension - were simply too big of a shark for fans to jump, let alone for a relatable not-so-super protagonist.
This is a much bigger shark that was presented than when a much younger Indy, known then as Belgium Captain Henri Defence, ended up being the one to finally stake Dracula in "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles." If Steven Spielberg and George Lucas insist on remaining loyal to the show's canon, every frivolous part of it will be mentioned and seriously judged.
4. Indy should not have sought out aliens from South America if it was impossible to film at the actual location, not in front of a green screen.
Not only do the "Kingdom of The Kingdom Crystal Skulls" special effects make the look of the movie inconsistent with its predecessors, but they also provide the same overwhelming sense of vertigo and subsequent discomfort reminiscent of watching George Lucas' new Star Wars trilogy. How moviegoers kept from vomiting when the Temple of The Crystal Skulls was broken apart and flew around in pieces in a fast, circular motion is anyone's guess.
Too much CGI simply makes movies look fake and cheesy. A computer-generated jungle populated by cannibal fire ants simply looks like a computer-generated jungle populated by cannibal fire ants.
5. Indy should have went after a more personal MacGuffin for once. Every artifact Indy found but ultimately did not bring home in his first three movie adventures were at the bequest of someone else such as the U.S. government, an Indian village, or his father.
If Spielberg and Lucas wanted to do something original, they should have had Indy go after an artifact he always wanted to find such as some mystical bobble from the lost city of Atlantis, The Hand of Midas, Shangri-la, the location of a relocated Library of Alexandria, or something other than a crystal skull that looks like he could have purchased it at a Universal Citywalk store.
6. Indy should not have entered The Cold War because he is too universal of a character for which to provide an overwhelming sense of patriotism against The Soviet Union. Rest assured that Russians did not rush out to see "Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls."
Yes, he fought against the Germans in World War I and took them on again when they became Nazis in World War II, but they were arguably the most evil force in history, so patriotism might have had little do with his military service. A lack of creativity in finding antagonists that would not upset profits outside of the Western world was apparently impossible or too hard to do.
How Indy's patriotism further detracts from the true essence of the character is that he spent most of his life in other parts of the world to have developed a great love for America and expresses cynicism toward the government that takes away from him The Lost Ark. He is a man of the people who believes artifacts belong to their rightful owners or museums, not as a potential weaponry for the military or as personal collection pieces for the wealthy.
7. Indy should not have entered that refrigerator for obvious reasons. Maybe Spielberg and Lucas will cut the scene in several possible special edition collections.
Steve Carell's Michael Scott from The Office would say this is a stark contrast from the protagonist in "Lost Ark," who was a normal guy that was barely able to fight off Nazis, but who in "Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls" could bullwhip away an assault rifle, survive a jet engine-powered ride through the desert and several waterfall drops, not to mention surviving a nuclear blast. Talk about an active senior citizen.
8. Indy should not have gotten hitched because his nuptials detract from the bull whipping, thrill-seeking macho essence of the character.
"Kingdom of The Crystal Skulls" robbed male fans of the fun prospect that Indy might one day include them in one of his adventures and robbed female fans of the dream that they might ground him in an adventure known as Holy Matrimony. Indy's son, Mutt Williams (Shia LeBeouf) was already born out of wedlock, which fits into the playboy aspect of the character's personality, so the marriage was simply unnecessary.
Him marrying Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) seems like nothing more than an explanation as to how he fathered the children mentioned in "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles."
9. Indy should have let his bullwhip do the talking, not George Lucas. His signature choppy dialogue could be detected in the less-than-one-minute scene in which Indy rediscovers his love for and successfully woos Marion Ravenwood.
Nowhere in this movie was there any indication through dialogue of how the character's personality has changed in the last 19 years other than that he misses his dead loved ones and hates Communists. The entire screenplay depended on nothing more than nostalgia and running gags from previous films such as Indy's fear of snakes and use of the word "Junior."
10. Indy should not have recalled his youth on ABC because a lot of people likely did not know he once met Pancho Villa in "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" and could care less whether the show's canon dictates that he eventually has to conceive children.
Moviegoers were interested in knowing about Indy's exploits, not his entire life story, especially not his improbable encounters with almost every influential person that was alive during the early 20th century, and an infamous not-so-alive character as well.
What can be seen from another viewing of "Kingdom of The Crystal Skulls" is that it is a very late, uninspired continuation of Indiana Jones' adventures, the plot and dialogue of which portray a familiar, but contrary version of the original character, abuse the degree of creativity and reality to which fans of the franchise became accustomed, and necessitates a visual style that makes the movie appear alien from its predecessors.
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