Probably what killed it for me most was that it was archaeology that wasn't even remotely interesting. Most people have heard of the Ark and the Grail (and the stones in Temple of Doom were just macguffins), but the whole crystal and aliens thing was something I could not connect with at all.

Quote from: brettmb;261930Probably what killed it for me most was that it was archaeology that wasn't even remotely interesting. Most people have heard of the Ark and the Grail (and the stones in Temple of Doom were just macguffins), but the whole crystal and aliens thing was something I could not connect with at all.

Well, there's a pretty limited set of legendary artifacts that most people have heard of, and the first three films pretty much covered them.

I've always been a big fan of the Nazca lines and Chariots of the Gods, so it did click for me personally. The archaeology was complete bunk, of course, but it always has been. I laughed when Indy cut open Orellana's little cocooned and completely destroyed it. Classic.

Quote from: ticopelp;261941I've always been a big fan of the Nazca lines and Chariots of the Gods, so it did click for me personally.

It would have been great if the story revolved around the lines, but it was just a missed opportunity for a real story.

Quote from: brettmb;261947It would have been great if the story revolved around the lines, but it was just a missed opportunity for a real story.

IMO the vast bulk of the archaeology in all three films is just a short-cut to the action pieces.

Quote from: ticopelp;261960IMO the vast bulk of the archaeology in all three films is just a short-cut to the action pieces.

True, but they clearly had something that this lacked.

Quote from: brettmb;261962True, but they clearly had something that this lacked.

What something do you think that is? I'm just curious.

Considering the recent religion poll on the site, I am having a hard time understanding why some are having a harder time believing in aliens than in the Ark of the Covenant.

Quote from: brettmb;261905The gist was that Lucas wanted to do a 50's Flying Saucer B-Movie starring Indiana Jones. Spielberg was against it, because he's sick of aliens and UFOs. Lucas removed the flying saucer as a threat. Spielberg didn't want any aliens, so Lucas convinced him that they were extra-dimensional rather than extra-terrestrial -- basically, they were aliens, but weren't.  And there was more aurguing like this... Spielberg likely just got tired of arguing about the stupid ideas and agreed. So basically, Spielberg saved it from being a REALLY bad movie, but not enough to make it a good movie.

Thanks!

Seanchai

Quote from: CavScout;261966Considering the recent religion poll on the site, I am having a hard time understanding why some are having a harder time believing in aliens than in the Ark of the Covenant.

The only thing I can think of is that it's far more "secular" than the more overtly supernatural themes of the previous three.

My big complaint is that Indiana seems like a supporting character in this film rather than the star.  I won't lie, I had a good time watching it in the theaters but it was a poor movie and a terrible way to end the franchise IMO.

The sausage example earlier in the thread doesn't sit well with me either.  I would not count all 4 films as equal quality sausage.  Indiana Jones 4 is more like eating a Slim Jim after having a good steak.

Quote from: CavScout;261966Considering the recent religion poll on the site, I am having a hard time understanding why some are having a harder time believing in aliens than in the Ark of the Covenant.

I would guess it's because aliens are way more cliche then the Ark of the Covenant.

Quote from: Idinsinuation;261972I would guess it's because aliens are way more cliche then the Ark of the Covenant.

That's probably it. The Ark was pretty unique for a story and while the Grail, wasn't so unique, I thought the story was well done. Besides alien stories being very common anymore, there was a loss of wonder because of the previous movies. "Can he defeat the latest threat from beyond our understanding of reality?" If Lucas concentrated on telling a good story without the supernatural element, it just may have worked out better. Who knows? Of course, if he got a real writer to do the screenplay or listed to Spielberg, we also could have had better results.

To clarify my opinion about the movie. I think it was an OK movie with a fair amount of good scenes. It just wasn't of the same caliber as the previous movies, which means that it fails at what it set out to do.

For what it's worth, I thought it sucked.  The first half was merely low quality, but in particular the script went from dumb to simply ludicious during the final third of the movie.  

The killer for me was that Indiana had absolutely no motivation during the final third of the movie.  Earlier he had some thin excuse of saving his friend or stopping the communists.  However, after the ants, he was going after the aliens solely because he was mind-controlled by them into doing so, and the whole trip turned out to be pointless and stupid.  There was the vague outline of a plot and story during the first part of the film, but even that thin excuse was dropped in favor of going ahead just because the director said so.  

I'm not sure whether people have pointed out yet the stupidity of having natives built into your walls for hundreds of years just so they can sneak up on the heroes.  That rather broke me.

I also hated the fact that the 2nd half of the movie featured Indiana following a crazed old man around rather than leading the way.  That just felt wrong.  This clarifies what I meant by him having a supporting role in this one.

It wasn't that the aliens were more or less believeable than the religious artefacts, it's just that they didn't fit in with the themes of the previous movies.

I mean, imagine if in the X-Files movie they'd gone into a big old spaceship and found the Holy Grail. You'd say, "what the fuck?"

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

It's just a matter of a consistent storyline, a consistent line of myth in the thing.