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I'm gonna fork out the bucks to see it in the theater. I'm not concerned about the missing Nazis. Hell, doesn't he get to fight the commie pinko bastards this time?

Dammit, I liked the Indy and the Temple of Doom. The women was a pill, but Short Run made up for that. I saw a TV special 2-3 years ago about the greatest heroes and villians in movie history. Indy came in at #2, behind Atticus Finch.

I fear that the Indy Jones movies may suffer from a combination of Planet of the Apes/Star Trek: The Motion Picture effect. That is:

1) First movie was awesome. (As with the original Planet of the Apes.)

2) Second movie was okay but not as great. (As with the sequel Beneath the Planet of the Apes.)

3) Third movie was better than the second one, but not as good as the first. Which may be a sign that the Indy movies, like the Star Trek movies, may be suffering from the Every Other Movie Is Good or Sucks + Convergence From Extremes Toward Mediocrity effects. That is, in the case of the ST movies, the first one sucked the hardest, the second one was the best, the third one sucked but not as bad as the first one, the fourth one was better but not as good as the second one, and the rest kinda settled in the middle, like the swings of a dying pendulum.

Based on this, I would expect the new Indy movie to be just okay -- better than the second one perhaps, but it will never be as good as the first one. It is in the "settling toward mediocrity" phase.

However, I think that all the prior movies in a series can stand or fall as enjoyable movies on their own. It is unlikely that a sequel can actually "ruin" the movie(s) that came before it.

Unless that sequel is Highlander 2. (This is what my brother tells me, anyway.)

The main antagonists are going to be the Soviets. Come on, we can get behind hating on some old school 50's Russkies in a adventure story, can't we? Not to sound like Jonah Goldberg or something....

As for non-historical artifacts, Cecil Adams sums up my feelings on the Grail here.

I don't quite get what the big deal is with Lucas being involved. Heck, he created the character. He's been involved with every Indiana Jones film. Unless they stick in a CGI Jamaican alien or something, I doubt it will be a huge issue. I mean Star Wars suffered from Lucas creating the entire universe where with the Jones films basically just making adventure stories in our already historical world.

He was the one who thought up the idea of having the Grail in the third movie. I read that Spielberg wanted to do something with a haunted castle.

The big thing I'm a bit dubious of is Shia LeBeouf. I don't have anything particularly against him but the snarky vaguely streetwise sass mouth he seems to play in all his movies doesn't seem like it would fit well in a 1950's adventure story..but we'll see.

I actually tend to think people won't like it as much as the original films because, quite frankly, no film is going to be able to live up to the general nostalgia that come with appreciation of the older films.

I am puzzled that they would try and resurrect the franchise after all this time though.

The Alien series torpedos your theory, Stevo. First movie pretty damned good. Second movie, totally different, but still pretty damned good. Subsequent movies contain mounds and mounds of suckitude.

Extremely relevant.

A new keyboard, you owes me...

I'm keeping a positive mindset about it. I actually like the fact that they're letting Indy age as Harrison Ford ages, rather than trying to pretend that all of his adventures are stuck in the same time.

Iron Man has a 93% at Rotten Tomatoes. So apparently the majority of critics like it too. To be honest, everyone I know who has seen it (with the exception of D.A.R on here) has liked it. So I don't really think liking Iron Man is some big mark of shame.

Though I haven't seen it myself yet.

Quality is, as always, orthogonal to genre and style - at least so long as the give genre and style don't create low expectations that produce crap quality from makers.

I'm reminded of something Jim Henley said about the acting in Iron Man - it reminded him of just how impressed superhero fans were back then by Nicholson broadly mugging his way through the Joker role. The last several years of superhero moves have been dominated by one factor - the people involved in making them have begun to treat them as things worth taking seriously and doing well.

Good action movies happen when the same thing happens; I suspect it has a lot to do with how much the people involved actually enjoy watching action movies.

http://anthropology.net/2007/06/01/damien-hirsts-diamond-encrusted-skull-jeweled-skulls-in-archaeology/

Star Wars parts 1 through 3 offer much evidence to support the theory that the man traded his ability to tell a good story for the ability to fuck a good story up.

Also: Superman 2 was better than the first Superman, whereas Superman 3 sucks Satan's balls.

The other thing I should have noted above is that Lucas had way more direct control over any of the Star Wars films than he did over the Indiana Jones films. I mean he produced, directed, and wrote the SW films whereas the basically only contributed the general story idea and some help as a producer. The actual screenplays and direction weren't under his control or done by him at all and he wasn't even the main producer.

So issues with SW Episodes I through III aside, Lucas isn't really just in the position to mess everything up since he's being kept away from the screenplay, directing chair, and all the other major places he could really jack up the film. The screenplay is the important one I think. Lucas dialogue is painful.

I just checked around on a couple of aggregate review sites. The early buzz seems to be "good, but not great."

ehhhh the campbell connection was played up by his estate - and for good reason on their part. it meant super duper sales. which is good because joe seemed like a nice guy and while he had is bugaboos and whatnot he probably helped advance the popular understanding of myth and religion a bit. on the other hand the "follow your bliss" bumper stickers are his fault, too.

It was in reference to Stevo's comment that sequels are never as good as the originals.

Ah, gotcha.

I was invited to go see this today, but I declined. I guess I now have to come to grips with the fact that I probably only liked the series because of a much younger, hotter Harrison Ford. Not even Cate Blanchette could get me into the theater today. She's wearing that dumb pageboy Ayn Rand haircut in the film, anyway. Bleah!

EDIT: Dang. I just found out Karen Allen (Marion) has a cameo in it. Might have to see it after all.

I thought it was better than Temple of Doom but not as good as Raiders or Last Crusade. I thought the ending was a little too absurd, but that the worst part was Blanchette's come-and-go accent. Couldn't they have found a hot Russian actress? I'm sure there are plenty.

It was a fun movie to watch, but not as much fun as Raiders or Last Crusade. Complaints:

1) Not enough bull whip. That's his signature weapon, and his tool for evading dangers. Yet it was used only sporadically.

2) The part where he meets the kid and gets the setup for the quest is fast and heavy on the exposition. It wasn't as interesting as being called to, say, save his father, and then finding out that he has to go after the grail.

3) The alien stuff was kind of over the top. The great thing about Raiders was that we never really saw the inside of the Ark, we just saw that there was something powerful and anti-nazi in there. In the Temple of Doom, the magic was subtle. In Last Crusade, the only dramatic displays of magic were when that guy drank the wrong cup and died, and when the floor cracked to prevent the Grail from leaving. They leave knowing that some things are not meant to get out. But in this movie, they show too much alien, and offer too much explanation. There should have been more mystery in the final action scene.

EDITED by grylliade to hide spoilers. If you want to read it, select the white space. :-)

GODDAMMIT THOREAU!

I haven't seen it yet.

Well, the Memorial Day weekend opening grosses are in: Crystal Skull grossed $126,917,373, just under $15m less than the record holder, last year's Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. OTOH, Pirates opened in 100 more theaters. (Looking at all time 5 day opening grosses, Crystal Skull comes in 5th behind Star Wars III, Pirates and Spider Man 2 and Spider Man 3.)

Of course, none of this means the film is any damned good (Spider Man 3 wasn't, IMO), but what interests me now is whether the movie will "have legs" and keep drawing viewers as the summer wears on.