Good to know I'm not the only one that was put off by that. Not only the graveyard set looked like a set but it looked like a CHEAP set. The same with the jungle and quicksand sets, the same with the crystal skull temple sets. Combine that with the BAD CGI (the gopher, the jungle, the monkeys, the ants, the flooded valley floor) and it makes you think... It's like they wanted everything to look bad and cheap on purpose! How did Steven Spielberg (of Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan) even direct that?
As much as I appreciate what Raiders was all about, there are just certain little bits that detract me from the overall film. The fact that the Nazies are pushing so hard to find the Ark with apparently no idea what they will do when they find it. It's an interesting adventure, but the camaraderie of Last Crusade wins me over. KotCS was ok. The double/triple crossing was annoying, and the villains all felt rather weak to me.
There are those that have said that it is Indy's experiences with Short Round that changed his ideals, and made it so that in the future he never endangered a child in the same way again. Much the same way that knowing Short Round mellowed him, so that he was much less callous afterward.
It depends on the context. Do I despise the old live-action Batman show and its Robin? No, because everything there is goofy. The problem with Temple isn't just that Indy makes a sidekick out of a kid, thus inevitably endangering his life per se - it might work in a tamed-down kids' Indiana Jones cartoon, if not a full-fledged companion movie to Raiders. The problem is he does so in a movie with so much terror and graphic beating-heart removal. I actually like a lot of Temple's horror, but I hate it being mixed with kiddie pandering on par with lil' TPM Anakin. Indy's cynicism and material ambition, along with the horror elements, is the best thing about the movie. Indeed, it makes his decision to keep a kid around worse, because even in the heightened action-adventure reality of his world, a kid sidekick is, or at least should be, a serious liability. Imagine if Indy had a fellow adult partner in the movie instead, someone just as "fortune and glory"-hungry as himself. Someone Indy could grow apart from and become better than, even as they worked the same quest together. If you don't think that's light years more promising than the Short Round we got, just imagine swapping out Short Round for Newt in Aliens. "Dr. Ripley! Dr. Ripley! You cheat! I no play cards with you! And Bishop... hold on to your potatoes!" The problem isn't the fridge; the problem is the fridge's magic flying through the air and bone-breaking tumbling, all without the door opening and an Indy falling out. Do you also not have a problem with nu-Khan beaming from Earth to Qo'Nos? After all, beaming is just information, and Trek has repeatedly shown delay-free video chats across many light years, so what's to complain about, right? Also, note that the face-melting and rapid decaying are 1) hugely supernatural and deeply thematic in nature, and 2) used at the end of their movies as a climactic flourish. Neither of those apply to the flying fridge or the magical raft which absorbs all impacts, keeps its humans from falling out, and never hits a rock or tree. Well, with Raiders, the point was to do that and make a good movie. Notice how Raiders was the only entry in the series nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. It was to avoid having to re-use Nazis/deal with the WW2 geopolitics, and to follow the James Bond example of a new woman each adventure without pissing the audience off by breaking him and Marion up. It's one of the handful of good decisions the movie made. As for the considerable objective differences between the first three movies' visuals and those of Skull, I once blogged about them here (inspired by a JacksonArcher post on this very board).
I love the fridge scene because it's so clever and over the top. The raft scene bugs me, though, just because it looks so wrong-- there's a visceral awkwardness to it, while the fridge scene is just more exaggerated reality.
Maybe they did, in the way that a 1950s sci-fi b-movie looks cheap. Or maybe that's just an after-the-fact justification.
I liked the first three films, and the first part of Crystal Skull, including the fridge. It was great to learn something about Indy's WW2 service, and where the warehouse full of government-supressed wonders and technologies is located (not in the basement of the Pentagon, like it was in The X-Files).
Besides Harrison Ford's age, the time period is also very crucial. I had no problem with Indy in the 50's (in fact I think it was the best part of Crystal Skull) but that's the limit for a "film serial". I really can't imagine Indy in a pulp style adventure set in the 70's... Indiana Jones and the Hippies?
I'm hoping for something trippy and avant garde. Maybe something along the lines of Jodorowsky's work.
I thought temple was bit like a big episode. Temple is the "Star trek Insurrection" of the franchise Indiana spends 90% of the movie in a temple(DUH!) I was hoping for more globe trotting instead of "save the villiage". I enjoy "Crusade" more. The action sequences are amazing like the Venice and tank chase
I'm always for more globe trotting I want Indy in East/South-East Asia. Now that I think of it, Indy in 'Nam, I don't know?
Perhaps if Indy spends 90% of "Indiana Jones 5" in the jungle and/or in a temple as well, no one will mind the '60s/'70s era setting. (Just don't make it a cheap fake set like the ones in Crystal Skull.)
It's just that the haters are loud about it. Then you've got those guys who felt they were clever with NuketheFridge.com showing that they really know nothing of other ludicrous feats in an Indy movie. If the Internet was hopping in '84 I guess it would've been RaftParachute.com I could deal with Mutt. He was ShortRound aged up. Only horribly annoying during the first act. I'd welcome the character back, different actor preferably, and the years would/could change the character for the better. He indeed did, didn't they cut her, along with the aged one eyed Indy out of the DVD release of that series? I know they edited out old Indy but the daughter was only in one episode, right? I have the DVDs and know Old Indy is edited out. Indy is 10yrs younger than Ford from what I recall when this age matter has come up before. The adventure could start in the mid/late 60s(or stay there) then jump to early 70s. I don't buy that the character can't work, it'll just use a different genre template of the era it's set to pay homage. Political films aren't the only source. Nor are Sci-Fi. Horror comes to mind and in archaeology there is plenty of opportunities for fright!!