Indiana Jones is the absolute definiton of an adventure movie to me. It has some scifi/fantasy elements but many movies do without being considered as part of those genres. A lot of action/adventure movies ask you to stretch reality or accept something silly or supernatural, but those things are only there to drive the main action adventure feel of the movie, they aren't the focus of the movie like they would be in scifi/fantasy.
It's more action oriented than the typical sci-fi/fantasy film but given that the MacGuffin of every single movie is either a magical or alien object I don't see how you can argue they're anything but sci-fi/fantasy films.
That's high fantasy, sure, but you don't need all of those elements for something to be fantasy. Generally, I'd say the Indy films are adventure movies, but with strong fantasy elements. Temple of Doom, especially, strays fairly strongly into fantasy, I think, with the weird heart removal ceremony and everything.
Yes but magical items and curses and hauntings were very common in action/adventure stories of the early/mid 20th century, which is what "Raiders" etc. were trying to emulate and are not widely considered fantasy. I think that most consumers think of the fantasy genre as Tolkien and similar stuff, with settings that owe a lot to mythology, folklore and ancient or medieval history, while the science fiction genre involves futuristic settings or highly advanced technologies. I don't think there could ever be objective boundaries between genres, though; too much room for overlap and personal interpretation. --Justin
It's sheer fantasy/science fiction, what with the demons/angels emerging out of gilded wooden boxes, killing Nazis, and the controversial Alien Greys making an appearance in Indy IV, etc. They're kinda like the first two and fourth PotC movies in tone, effectively mixing exaggerated/stereotyped history with fantasy action adventure.
Action/adventure with some fantasy elements, though you could argue that KOTCS was verging into sci-fi territory.
Wrong forum, thread moved to Sci-Fi and Fantasy... Kidding. But our two forums have always had a blurred line between them because of debates like this - genre isn't hard and fast enough to classify many things in solely one genre. Bond would normally not be described as sci-fi, but then, he has a car that goes invisible and a device the size of a pen for breathing underwater - surely elements which on their own are inherently science fiction? Star Wars is definitely science fiction, but surely it's also an action adventure?
That's the thing I've never gotten when Bond threads pop up in TV&M; not only does he have gadgets, he even flew into space once and fought bad guys aboard a freaking giant orbiting doom station. It's sci-fi, people!
As for the poll, I voted "other," because it's all of the listed options in various measures. I guess I'd call it an action-adventure core with bits and pieces of other genres attached where appropriate.