I didn’t really hate Crystal Skull (I didn’t think aliens and flying saucers should be a bridge too far if one is cool with avenging angels and such from the other movies) so I’ll consider Indy as the star as a quadrilogy, but the main point stands, everyone gets to decide which movies “count” in their own mind because ultimately entertainment is in the eye of the beholder. You always have the right to reject a new franchise entry as far as you care.
It's not the aliens in Crystal Skull that bother me. Its the zany/cartoonish levels of danger and villains. Yes there was some of this in the previous 3, but it's just too much in 4. The refrigerator to survive a nuke. The overly sentient ants reacting instantly. The Keystone Cops style villains and chases. It just went full corny. If they had dialed things back just a little bit, I wouldn't 'hate' it. The tone. We accept Mola Ram in Temple of Doom ripping out hearts because it fits with the pulpy terror motif. Indy 4 is just ZaNy CrAzY man. If that makes sense.
It also started the 'bad dad' path for Indy. I get that they are trying to mirror his relationship with his own dad (Connery) but it was too heavy handed imo. Too disfunctional. Too finger wagging. I don't know, the movie has a weird ass vibe. Harrison Ford was already way too old in that one. Rickety and awkward. He should have played more of the Connery role to whomever they were going to pass the torch to. Shia was another failing in that sense. Though I don't overly hate the guy or his acting. He just wasn't a good fit for an Indy movie.
This. There's no one thing that sank Crystal Skull. The basic premise and setting were solid, Commies replacing Nazis and aliens replacing religion totally fits with the 1950's.
LeBouf was a poor casting choice, and the action bordered on slapstick at times.
I think it also suffered from not really having a moral element like the first three. Mola Ram and the Nazis ultimately failed because were evil- the Ark, Grail, and Sankara stones took them out.
I think the aliens killed the psychic Russian chick because she absorbed too much knowledge, but the ending wasn't really clear.
Read into Lucas's original cut of the OT. It was bad. He had 3PO pulling slapstick humor on stormtroopers in the middle of the Battle of Hoth. And remember the scene in ANH where the troopers walk by and the door in Mos Eisley opened and 3PO and R2 snuck out. Remember that tension? That scene was played in reverse. George's version was the droids walking into the closet, shutting the door, and then the troopers marching right by it with a wAcKy sOuNd EfFecT. The OT was basically saved by Lucas's ex-wife, who cut and rearranged the films to take out all of his stupid shit and treat the plot and characters more seriously/realistically. If you go through the changes and play it in your head the way George intended, IT ABSOLUTELY FEELS THE SAME AS THE PREQUELS. Like its startling how the tone feels.
I think he also had a rough cut screening with Spielberg and several other directors that proposed significant changes.
That's why we have those unused scenes with Biggs on tatooine and Jabba that cropped up in the special edition. Luke also had a whole gang of friends that got cut at their suggestion.
Check this post out I made a while back, it’s exactly what you’re getting at here, a God-shaped and sized hole in people which they’re stuffing full of spider-verses and dreams of Q-anon draining the swamp
Great to see someone else share the same view of 'canon' that I hold, although it's something Doomcock has talked about too. Once a work has entered public consciousness and become loved by millions, it creates a mental image of a fictional world and people that you can't arbitrarily change - even if you're the author. It becomes part of our culture. Sorry George, Han shot first. No JKR, Hermione isn't black. Spock didn't learn everything he knows from his fabulous human sister Michael. Some things you don't get to retcon without our permission. It isn't like the US Constitution where you can amend parts of it away.
I'm not in the "Death of the Author" camp either. Obviously the intent is the intent, and we generally defer to their clarifications and revisions. But I do prefer authors and movie directors who don't ever tell us what some controversial plot point means and explicitly leave it up to the audience to decide.
Never made the connection to lack of faith in God but I see where you're coming from.
Official canon became meaningless once corporations, with no connection to the original creators, gained the rights to declare it. Official canon only made sense when it was the creator saying that one thing "happened," vs something else was just "for fun." Now it's a corporate hegemony trying to decide what stories matter for the whole world.
I'm not an anti-capitalist by any means, but I am disturbed to see pieces of culture commodified into mere products. I don't simply mean selling art; I believe that it is the purview of an artist to sell their work to make a living. Rather, I mean the monopoly rights of corporations to have total control of cultural icons. Even the language that we use commodifies our culture. The word "franchise" used to conjure thoughts of McDonald's restaurants.
I strongly believe that the cultural icons of: Superman, Batman, Luke Skywalker, James Kirk, Indiana Jones, etc, are greater than any corporate property. They have been referenced, lauded, and parodied across all artistic media. They represent the heroism and virtue that we should all aspire to in our own daily lives. Their impact is not substantially different from characters like: Dracula, Robin Hood, Cinderella, and King Arthur,. Stories are at the heart of our humanity. Every religion understands it; the modern psychotherapists, like Jung, understood it. It is unnatural for stories and characters to be for the exclusive use of one individual or group.
Copyright, like patent law, has long been seen as a necessary evil; a restriction on the free market, in exchange for fostering creativity and innovation. Now, it has become a tool to do the opposite. In fact, many of these characters are owned by entities that mean to destroy them. Copyright law is in dire need of reform, and if that cannot be accomplished; it would be better off abolished.
I didn’t really hate Crystal Skull (I didn’t think aliens and flying saucers should be a bridge too far if one is cool with avenging angels and such from the other movies) so I’ll consider Indy as the star as a quadrilogy, but the main point stands, everyone gets to decide which movies “count” in their own mind because ultimately entertainment is in the eye of the beholder. You always have the right to reject a new franchise entry as far as you care.
It's not the aliens in Crystal Skull that bother me. Its the zany/cartoonish levels of danger and villains. Yes there was some of this in the previous 3, but it's just too much in 4. The refrigerator to survive a nuke. The overly sentient ants reacting instantly. The Keystone Cops style villains and chases. It just went full corny. If they had dialed things back just a little bit, I wouldn't 'hate' it. The tone. We accept Mola Ram in Temple of Doom ripping out hearts because it fits with the pulpy terror motif. Indy 4 is just ZaNy CrAzY man. If that makes sense.
It also started the 'bad dad' path for Indy. I get that they are trying to mirror his relationship with his own dad (Connery) but it was too heavy handed imo. Too disfunctional. Too finger wagging. I don't know, the movie has a weird ass vibe. Harrison Ford was already way too old in that one. Rickety and awkward. He should have played more of the Connery role to whomever they were going to pass the torch to. Shia was another failing in that sense. Though I don't overly hate the guy or his acting. He just wasn't a good fit for an Indy movie.
This. There's no one thing that sank Crystal Skull. The basic premise and setting were solid, Commies replacing Nazis and aliens replacing religion totally fits with the 1950's.
LeBouf was a poor casting choice, and the action bordered on slapstick at times.
I think it also suffered from not really having a moral element like the first three. Mola Ram and the Nazis ultimately failed because were evil- the Ark, Grail, and Sankara stones took them out.
I think the aliens killed the psychic Russian chick because she absorbed too much knowledge, but the ending wasn't really clear.
Read into Lucas's original cut of the OT. It was bad. He had 3PO pulling slapstick humor on stormtroopers in the middle of the Battle of Hoth. And remember the scene in ANH where the troopers walk by and the door in Mos Eisley opened and 3PO and R2 snuck out. Remember that tension? That scene was played in reverse. George's version was the droids walking into the closet, shutting the door, and then the troopers marching right by it with a wAcKy sOuNd EfFecT. The OT was basically saved by Lucas's ex-wife, who cut and rearranged the films to take out all of his stupid shit and treat the plot and characters more seriously/realistically. If you go through the changes and play it in your head the way George intended, IT ABSOLUTELY FEELS THE SAME AS THE PREQUELS. Like its startling how the tone feels.
I think he also had a rough cut screening with Spielberg and several other directors that proposed significant changes.
That's why we have those unused scenes with Biggs on tatooine and Jabba that cropped up in the special edition. Luke also had a whole gang of friends that got cut at their suggestion.
Member when Shia was swinging through the trees on vines with the monkies? I sure do.
https://communities.win/c/KotakuInAction2/p/12jcci1stN/lore-canon-alternatereality-game/c
Check this post out I made a while back, it’s exactly what you’re getting at here, a God-shaped and sized hole in people which they’re stuffing full of spider-verses and dreams of Q-anon draining the swamp
Great to see someone else share the same view of 'canon' that I hold, although it's something Doomcock has talked about too. Once a work has entered public consciousness and become loved by millions, it creates a mental image of a fictional world and people that you can't arbitrarily change - even if you're the author. It becomes part of our culture. Sorry George, Han shot first. No JKR, Hermione isn't black. Spock didn't learn everything he knows from his fabulous human sister Michael. Some things you don't get to retcon without our permission. It isn't like the US Constitution where you can amend parts of it away.
I'm not in the "Death of the Author" camp either. Obviously the intent is the intent, and we generally defer to their clarifications and revisions. But I do prefer authors and movie directors who don't ever tell us what some controversial plot point means and explicitly leave it up to the audience to decide.
Never made the connection to lack of faith in God but I see where you're coming from.
Official canon became meaningless once corporations, with no connection to the original creators, gained the rights to declare it. Official canon only made sense when it was the creator saying that one thing "happened," vs something else was just "for fun." Now it's a corporate hegemony trying to decide what stories matter for the whole world.
I'm not an anti-capitalist by any means, but I am disturbed to see pieces of culture commodified into mere products. I don't simply mean selling art; I believe that it is the purview of an artist to sell their work to make a living. Rather, I mean the monopoly rights of corporations to have total control of cultural icons. Even the language that we use commodifies our culture. The word "franchise" used to conjure thoughts of McDonald's restaurants.
I strongly believe that the cultural icons of: Superman, Batman, Luke Skywalker, James Kirk, Indiana Jones, etc, are greater than any corporate property. They have been referenced, lauded, and parodied across all artistic media. They represent the heroism and virtue that we should all aspire to in our own daily lives. Their impact is not substantially different from characters like: Dracula, Robin Hood, Cinderella, and King Arthur,. Stories are at the heart of our humanity. Every religion understands it; the modern psychotherapists, like Jung, understood it. It is unnatural for stories and characters to be for the exclusive use of one individual or group.
Copyright, like patent law, has long been seen as a necessary evil; a restriction on the free market, in exchange for fostering creativity and innovation. Now, it has become a tool to do the opposite. In fact, many of these characters are owned by entities that mean to destroy them. Copyright law is in dire need of reform, and if that cannot be accomplished; it would be better off abolished.