Indiana Jones 5 Still Happening With Shia Says Shia...

[Gepard]

can't agree there; I think that color-tweaking in modern movies is a valuable and often enriching artistic tool. The thing is, the look of the piece must fit the piece itself.

Oh, I agree that it's a valuable and amazing tool. I just think that, despite its potential to enrich film making by allowing greater visual freedom, it's being used to homogenize the look of everything by creating a uniform and unreal color palette, regardless of genre or appropriateness to the film in question. Which I think is what you just said.

And I agree that that night shot you posted highlights what's wrong with KotCS's visual style -- it not only looks fake, it looks cheap. It took an outdoor location and made it feel like a small soundstage with somebody holding a light about 10 feet above and behind the actors' heads. Yawn.

 

[Harvey]

I don't agree as strongly about the lighting and color-timing being universally bad in the fourth film, but I can agree that it surely didn't do the exterior locations any justice, especially in the film's early Area 51 scenes. What should be beautiful exteriors look like the digital backdrops of the Star Wars prequels.

 

[JacksonArcher]

I wouldn't call it bad so much as tonally inconsistent with the previous films.

 

[JarodRussell]

I wish that the color palette/tint was the only real difference between Raiders' and Skull's looks, because then they could perhaps be fixed through fan editing. The problem is, contrary to what Lucas says, the whole thing is wildly overlit, from too many sources, which not only makes for far too pretty compositions, but often produces halos of light around the characters' heads and jackets, as seen in the above shot, the diner and the wedding. Heck, the darn halos even pop up at night! It's all just too painterly and glowing.

Yep. The director of photography was the same for Minority Report and War of the Worlds. Had the same bloomy/dreamy look.

UFOs in Earth's History

I find it amazing what people can see in these pictures. Just because there are discs and strange looking faces here and there.

http://www.zaubermuseum.de/totenkopf/dali_ballerina.jpg
Is that the image of an alien skull?

Or look at this UFO at the top of this picture:
http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/ellhpj/images/guernica-784569.jpg

 

[TedShatner10]

As for Skull, I have to hand it to Lucas and Spielberg: the movie's look may not fit the character or the tone of the first three flicks, but it does fit this movie. They made a bloodless,

Crystal Skull was relatively bloodless, but then again so were the first three Indy movies otherwise they'd get an R rating, but Ubik has a point about Spielberg revelling less in dark comedy violence after many years had passed and the action having less of a crunch to it, however we still get Soviets that get burned alive in a rocket test, caught in a nuclear explosion, killed in vehicle crashes, falling to their deaths, getting repeatedly punched, sucked up into alien machinery, having their brains and eyes get immolated, or get eaten alive by killer ants, but there's a little less satisfaction and the camera cuts away a few seconds earlier.

Also Spielberg has gone off the idea of using the Nazis as semi-comical cypher baddies in fantasy action-adventure, especially after the harrowing Schindler's List or more grounded Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers (where the Nazis are more realistic as antagonists, ranging from ordinary likable people to complete psychopaths).

cheery,

Like most of The Last Crusade and the lighter parts of Doom and Raiders?

screwball Norman Rockwell cartoon, from the dialogue to the story beats to the visual scheme.

And so the first three Indy movies were devoid of wit and purile slapstick then? Of course not. But when we have a competition between the Hitler saluting monkey and CGI prairie dog, the monkey of course wins. But I guess the CGI animals is, perhaps for the better, a trend against the Polictical Incorrectness of using performing wild animals for cheap gags...

JarodRussell, ancient art is abstract, but why dump me with more out of context modern artwork that's nothing about alien looking beings?

 

[JarodRussell]

JarodRussell, ancient art is abstract, but why dump me with more out of context modern artwork that's nothing about alien looking beings?

Who said the ancient artworks are supposed to be about alien looking beings, and not just dream figures and very stylized humans?

The point is that when in 1000 years someone digs up for example that Dali painting, without knowing the exact context, and being influenced by his own time, he can assume anything, for instance that Dali was painting an alien skull.

 

[TedShatner10]

Who said the ancient artworks are supposed to be about alien looking beings, and not just dream figures and very stylized humans?

And that's what modern alien abductions pretty much are, with supposed abductees feeling they're having a lucid dream and meeting stylized humans (the Greys). Strange objects seen in the sky and people meeting strange beings is a very ancient phenomena, though it's to do with how the human mind works and imagination following a basic pattern than actual aliens in any case (most likely).

And while we're at it the strange spectral beings that emerged from the Ark of the Covenant and then went to town on the Nazi villains could've been aliens as well, but aliens similar to the Pah-Wraiths and Prophets.

EDIT: The Ori and Ancients who are post-Ascended from the Stargate franchise are pretty similar to the Ark's inhabitants as well, especially the Ori.

 

[Forbin]

Nah, there were UFOs aplenty in the bible. You must not watch enough History Channel.

 

[TedShatner10]

And about The Temple of Doom: after Dr. Jones witnessing hearts being torn out chest cavities then catching on fire and glowing Hindu stones that burned people's hands, why was he sceptical about the Ark of the Covenant?

 

[Nardpuncher]

And about The Temple of Doom: after Dr. Jones witnessing hearts being torn out chest cavities then catching on fire and glowing Hindu stones that burned people's hands, why was he sceptical about the Ark of the Covenant?

Good point!
It also makes the shooting of the swordsman joke weird as in Temple of Doom he nonchalantly reaches for his pistol and it's not there.
I guess that incident made him sure to remember to always keep you pistol handy.

 

[davejames]

To be honest, even though I know Temple of Doom is technically supposed to be a prequel, I've always considered it a sequel anyway. It just seems to work a lot better that way, and it's clearly written that way.

 

[Gaith]

To be honest, even though I know Temple of Doom is technically supposed to be a prequel, I've always considered it a sequel anyway. It just seems to work a lot better that way, and it's clearly written that way.

Disagree. In Doom, he's a selfish seeker of artifacts for "fortune and glory", but by Raiders, he's mellowed out a bit and is interested in the Ark for its mysteries, not in ways he can profit from it. By Crusade, he's become an especially vocal proponent of museums. It's a clear arc, though it does seem odd that he regains his skepticism each time.

Some book published in the nineties, called the Films of Steven Spielberg or something like that, observed that the Indy movies weren't so much a trilogy as the same movie made three times, with variations.

 

[Nerdius Maximus]

There was a great PC game in the early 90s, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.

Somebody uploaded the entire thing to Youtube. I don't know how they uploaded a 2 hour vid, but whatever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W84GMIxOJrw

 

[JoeZhang]

To be honest, even though I know Temple of Doom is technically supposed to be a prequel, I've always considered it a sequel anyway. It just seems to work a lot better that way, and it's clearly written that way.

Disagree. In Doom, he's a selfish seeker of artifacts for "fortune and glory", but by Raiders, he's mellowed out a bit and is interested in the Ark for its mysteries, not in ways he can profit from it. By Crusade, he's become an especially vocal proponent of museums. It's a clear arc, though it does seem odd that he regains his skepticism each time.

Some book published in the nineties, called the Films of Steven Spielberg or something like that, observed that the Indy movies weren't so much a trilogy as the same movie made three times, with variations.

Em.. how does Raiders start?

 

[Scout101]

Doesn't he say that the golden idol belongs in a museum? I mean, only after it was stolen from him, but still...

 

[Gaith]

^ Don't believe he actually says the museum line until Crusade, but it's clear he's trying to get it for Marcus, rather than to keep or sell.

 

[JoeZhang]

^ Don't believe he actually says the museum line until Crusade, but it's clear he's trying to get it for Marcus, rather than to keep or sell.

Isn't he getting it for Marcus for cash rather than out of the goodness of his heart, some lines about how he always gets good stuff?

 

[Gaith]

Maybe, but selling to an academic institution is still a clear step above Belloq's clear intention of selling to the highest bidder, no questions asked.

 

[Captain Craig]

In fairness don't all archeologists take money from a grant, individual or institution in order to fund their work.

Indy is just doing a solo act vs a big team dig, the 'find' still goes to a museum and the archeologists still get paid from that source.

 

[Gaith]

^ Do you mean to say that not every pulp hero has the unlimited resources and exalted social status of Bruce Wayne?!