Quote from: Kyle Aaron;262032We can have aliens or we can have ancient Earth religions, unless from the very beginning you connect the two - as they did in Stargate.

From the very beginning of the movie, or the series?

Quote from: ticopelp;262038From the very beginning of the movie, or the series?

Both, really. I mean, in the movie it was, "here's this ancient artefact that does something but we don't know what, it was in Egypt but doesn't use heiroglyphs and things, so..." but the audience had a clue since the title of the movie was "Stargate".

Audiences will tolerate mixing up your scifi and fantasy and history if you do it right from the beginning. But if you go strictly one of the three and then chuck in another one, you have a much harder time getting the audience to swallow it.

Well, the opening scenes of Crystal Skull take place at Area 51, I think it'd be pretty hard to establish where you're going much earlier than that.

As for establishing the presence of aliens in the franchise, maybe you'll get lucky and Lucas will CGI some aliens into a special edition of Temple of Doom.

As for me, the alien part didn't bother me as much as I thought it did.  The fact that the movie contained aliens, that is.

When I originally heard about the movie, I thought for sure it would be the fact the movie included aliens and the "Mutt" character that would cause me to dislike the movie.  But to my surprise, Shia was arguably one of the best aspects of the movie and the alien/spaceship aspect didn't really make an impact one way or another.

Now, there were things peripheral to the aliens that annoyed me - like ripping off a fucking McGuyver TV movie from the 90's with the cheesy "their knowledge was the treasure" crap.

And I will call anyone a liar to their face who says you can watch the movie with no outside knowledge whatsoever and make any sense at all at what happens in the third act of the movie.  The aliens, their history, and particularly their motivations are nearly completely unexplained to such a degree that when you read an interview or listen to a commentary later, you go "oh, so that's what the fuck that was all about..."

Quote from: jgants;262102And I will call anyone a liar to their face who says you can watch the movie with no outside knowledge whatsoever and make any sense at all at what happens in the third act of the movie.  The aliens, their history, and particularly their motivations are nearly completely unexplained to such a degree that when you read an interview or listen to a commentary later, you go "oh, so that's what the fuck that was all about..."

It's not that complicated.

I just watched it and as has been said, it was o.k. but it was no Indie of my youth. I think that was actually what they were shooting for. Linda actually fell asleep in the middle of it. Like has been said, yeah, O.k. movie just not as smooth or collected as I would have hoped...and yes, as a historian the whole Mayan thing kind of bugged me.

Bill

Quote from: ticopelp;262111It's not that complicated.

It's not complicated in a "I need a flowchart to follow it" way.  It's just vague in a "there's no real explanation" way.

To put it another way - when you watch the first three films, they tell you exactly how and why each artifact ended up where it did, why everyone wants to find (or prevent others from finding) the artifact, why the traps work, why the bad guys end up dead, etc.

I did not get the same feelings by the end of this movie.  It wasn't really explained why the alien split itself up in 13 skeletons, where the aliens came from, how the conquistidor managed to get the skull, why no one took the skull when he died, the trap-like stuff at the end appears to have no logical purpose (particularly since the artifact in question was supposed to be returned there), there's no reason why mumble man would have gone all the way to the temple only to turn around again and go all the way back (instead of waiting there until he figured it out), who knows why the alien needed a space ship to go to another dimension, your guess is as good as mine why the aliens killed the bad guys, etc.

Oh... the aliens weren't PLANNING to kill the badguys or anything.... I believe it was supposed to be that 'hubris' thing that keeps showing up. Seeking knowledge is all well and good, but you have to know when to stop. Remember: Cate Blanchet's character asked to know... Everything.

That's one of the few things that really made sense at the end.  They did it in Ark, and did something similar with the grail (it wasn't seeking knowledge exactly, but it was hubris and presumption).

Hell, even Temple had it now that I think of it, when Mola Ram tried to keep the stones even when they were burning him while he's hanging over an alligator pit.

Quote from: jgants;262200To put it another way - when you watch the first three films, they tell you exactly how and why each artifact ended up where it did, why everyone wants to find (or prevent others from finding) the artifact, why the traps work, why the bad guys end up dead, etc.

Dude, have you ever actually seen Raiders of the Lost Ark?

The "Don't enter the light." trap...because apparently ancient builders had access to photosensitive triggers?

The Giant Rolling Boulder that has no ability to reset itself and was never set off in the thousands of years the temple lay there?

A room that has been buried for centuries, but is completely full of live snakes with no source of food?

I've seen the movie at least 30 times, and I'm pretty fucking sure none of those traps get explained.  And most of them need it.

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I was disappointed by Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  but no more so than I was disappointed by The Last Crusade.  Indiana Jones is just more interesting when he doesn't have a family, and a history, and he's just a Heroic Archeaologist.  Giving him all of these facets of a regular life just demythologizes (I made that word up!) him, and he tends to become the butt of the joke.

There were some good moments, even GREAT moments -- when he falls backwards into the Commie truck and says "I thought it was closer." that's classic Indy.

But a lot of the movie was Too Much CGI -- the ants, the swinging on vines, the nuclear explosion, the prairie dogs -- and too much stupidity -- the nuclear explosion again.  Too often it challenged any sense of reality.

Ultimately I was disappointed because KCS seemed to take more cues from The Mummy and National Treasure than from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Quote from: Jackalope;262440Ultimately I was disappointed because KCS seemed to take more cues from The Mummy and National Treasure than from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I think you just nailed it. The original movies feel more like classic pulp, while this one feels like crappy modern action movies, such as The Mummy.

I thought it was fairly entertaining, but nothing to get too excited about. Out of the four movies I'd place it at a distant, but easy second place. It certainly had no more plot holes than any of the others, that's for sure. And unlike the second and thrid movies (which I've seen all too recently) the whole thing didn't feel like it was shot on a sound stage.
Furthermore, I think, that it's cool that indy is Fonzi's dad. I'd always wondered where he'd acquired his shark jumping skills.

Quote from: Aos;262445I thought it was fairly entertaining, but nothing to get too excited about. Out of the four movies I'd place it at a distant, but easy second place. It certainly had no more plot holes than any of the others, that's for sure. And unlike the second and thrid movies (which I've seen all too recently) the whole thing didn't feel like it was shot on a sound stage.
Furthermore, I think, that it's cool that indy is Fonzi's dad. I'd always wondered where he'd acquired his shark jumping skills.

Better than Temple of Doom?  Really?  Eh, to each their own.  I love the first two films a lot more than 3 and 4.

Quote from: Idinsinuation;262451Better than Temple of Doom?  Really?  Eh, to each their own.  I love the first two films a lot more than 3 and 4.

Temple of Doom is easily my favorite.

I will never, ever, EVER get tired of watching Mola Ramm pull that dude's heart out of his chest and showing it to him.  That is so fucking awesome.

That whole movie is just made of awesome.  Everything about it rocks.  It's pitch perfect.