What was your favorite Indiana Jones film?
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Raiders.
George Lucas was at his absolute peak of creative power, it was inspired and free of the clichéd Spielberg-ian tricks that poisoned so many of his fantasy movies (including the films where he only served as producer). The plot was serious, the threat was overwhelming, believable and Ford was not playing himself.
George Lucas was at his absolute peak of creative power, it was inspired and free of the clichéd Spielberg-ian tricks that poisoned so many of his fantasy movies (including the films where he only served as producer). The plot was serious, the threat was overwhelming, believable and Ford was not playing himself.
Too light. Junior may be good at a lot of things, but judging weights clearly isn't one of them. That little bag of sand for a (presumably) solid gold idol? Oh, Indy. You big silly!
Raiders
Last Crusade
Temple of Doom
Crystal Skull
Last Crusade
Temple of Doom
Crystal Skull
'Raiders of the Lost Ark' is still my favorite. The other films have some great scenes and the SFX have advanced over the years, but the original is the one film that hits on every cylinder.
No matter how many times I watch it, I still never reach for the fast forward button, even in the slow spots.
No matter how many times I watch it, I still never reach for the fast forward button, even in the slow spots.
Raiders has always felt weird to me because of Indy's irrelevance to the plot.
Temple of Doom could have been good if Indy weren't saddled with the two most annoying sidekicks ever.
Last Crusade is the only movie I actually really like, and even then I sort of have to divorce the first ten minutes from the rest of the movie. That opening is so dumb and undoes his Temple of Doom characterization.
Fuck Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Temple of Doom could have been good if Indy weren't saddled with the two most annoying sidekicks ever.
Last Crusade is the only movie I actually really like, and even then I sort of have to divorce the first ten minutes from the rest of the movie. That opening is so dumb and undoes his Temple of Doom characterization.
Fuck Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Reading through the "Development" sections on all the Indy movies' Wikipedia articles is pretty weird. Lucas apparently floated having Indy discover a secret land of freaking dinosaurs in the second movie, and "battling a ghost in Scotland before finding the Fountain of Youth in Africa" for the third. And, lest anyone think Spielberg had all the right answers all the time, he apparently wanted Toht to have a robotic arm.
That sounds amazing. Why would anyone not want that?
He saves Marion. He finds the Well of Souls. He takes the Ark away from the bad guys. He saves Marion and himself and delivers the Ark to top men.
Raiders of the Lost Ark might be the better film overall, but The Last Crusade is still my favorite. I think part of that might be because it was the only one I saw in the theater and the first one I remember seeing. (Raiders came out before I was born and I was only six months old when Temple of Doom was released.)
Short Round was tolerable, but Willie killed that movie for me.
While Raiders was great I prefer Temple of Doom, I thought the action was the most fun in part because it was mixed up with (also well-done) goofiness and horror; I also generally prefer sequels that try to be very different from the first film.
KotCS and then LC are OK, some good parts but at times also dry and much less creative.
KotCS and then LC are OK, some good parts but at times also dry and much less creative.
Both of you hold your tongues. Willie and Short Round are awesome (and, yes, I'm being serious). Willie may be shrill and annoying, but that's the reason she's awesome. She keeps Indy on his toes in a way that he needed in order to make him the character we see in Raiders, Last Crusade, and, to a degree, Crystal Skull.
ToD really is the first step in the 'evolution of Indy' into the character that everybody fell in love with in Raiders, which is one of the many reasons it's my favorite movie and always has been.
ToD is a pretty good movie. Certainly on par with the other two. So much great stuff in that movie. Crusade is a great fun movie. It was my favorite for years, but as I get older, the goofiness of the humor wears thin. My favorite is Raiders, for all the reasons that have been discussed above.
Crystal Skull, I actually do like also, but a lot of it doesn't work for me. The jungle chase makes me want to vomit with rage. The groundhogs and the refrigerator don't work for me either. And I don't like Shia Lebouf, though I'm not sure if it's because of the movie, or that I just don't like the guy. And overall, there's just something about the pacing that just seems... I dunno... uneven. I like the rekindling between Indy and Marion. And I like that they went to some effort to handle the lighting as an 80's movie, but then the slick CGI stuff really contrasted against the rest of the film's look.
And regarding the oft-repeated notion that Indy doesn't affect the plot of Raiders, I posit that the ark is just the McGuffin. The real story is about Indy and Marion Ravenwood. He's really trying to win the girl the whole time. And in the end, he does win. He gets the girl, and that's the point of the story. Same thing with Crusade. The Grail is a McGuffin, the point of the story is Indy and his estranged father making amends. And they do. Even though the Grail has to be left behind, the victory is the repaired relationship between father and son.
--Alex
Crystal Skull, I actually do like also, but a lot of it doesn't work for me. The jungle chase makes me want to vomit with rage. The groundhogs and the refrigerator don't work for me either. And I don't like Shia Lebouf, though I'm not sure if it's because of the movie, or that I just don't like the guy. And overall, there's just something about the pacing that just seems... I dunno... uneven. I like the rekindling between Indy and Marion. And I like that they went to some effort to handle the lighting as an 80's movie, but then the slick CGI stuff really contrasted against the rest of the film's look.
And regarding the oft-repeated notion that Indy doesn't affect the plot of Raiders, I posit that the ark is just the McGuffin. The real story is about Indy and Marion Ravenwood. He's really trying to win the girl the whole time. And in the end, he does win. He gets the girl, and that's the point of the story. Same thing with Crusade. The Grail is a McGuffin, the point of the story is Indy and his estranged father making amends. And they do. Even though the Grail has to be left behind, the victory is the repaired relationship between father and son.
--Alex
I very much want to like the sequels more than I do, but they can't hold a candle to the brilliance of RAIDERS of the LOST ARK. It seems they just got progressively better at FX, but crappier in the story and script departments.
Among all of Crystal Skull's flaws, this was the biggest one. Shia Lebouf's character does not deserve to be the offspring of Indiana Jones. As a result, they have no one who can carry the franchise without Harrison Ford...
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