5/22/08 (Running Indiana Jones thread)

If I were told I had a month to live, I would watch Raiders several times and Last Crusade at least twice. Fans want this movie to be made. Fans have wanted another movie eventually to be made since 1989. They didn't wait too long, as the complaint has been made; the principals had other/more mature projects to be concerned with in the last 15-20 years. And now the major players want to make it happen. It's possible to view Indy in entirely another way.

I have no problems with Ford's aging, but I do think it would be sad if effects of that were digitally altered the way Mark Ratner's people did with Anthony Hopkins in the Lecter prequel. There's just something wrong and dishonest about that, maybe even disrespectful.

 

I can't wait to see the next Indiana Jones ... and them I probably would go back to see Speed Racer, too, just because. Didn't someone here use "Racer X" and his handle years ago?

 

My main problem has nothing to do with any "development hell". It didn't have that.

(And with all due respect, dog: you're incorrect about the situation with Superman Returns. That went through so many bad permutations, including a JJ Abrams script that was absolutely horrendous, execs trying to get Superman to wear different outfits like Batman so they copuld eel action figures, etc. Check out the wikipedia entry on it; it's a good synopsis of all the stuff that came out in the years since Warner Bros. first tried to get it going again. I thought Returns was OK, but considering the disaster it could have been . . whew.)

As for Indy . . . . Your action star, Harrison Ford, is 63 years old. Many say Mucas completely lost it with the lagtest Star wars (I am not one of those people). Spielberg isn't the same filmmaker he was when he made the Indiana Jones films, having fallen into a pattern of pretty, wrap-it-all-up-with-a-big-red-bow endings.

When I was a kid, I was like many others in that I wanted to BE Indiana Jones. Two years ago a local theater played the films on friday and saturday at midnight, one each week, five bucks a pop. I was absolutely giddy watching them on the bg screen again, especially the original. y only beef with the DVDs is that Spielberg owes us an audio commentary, not just pretty words on a short documentary glossing over the fact he was very married while nailing Kate Capshaw on the Temple of Doom set.

And I would beg Mucas, Spielberg and Ford, three guys who collectively provided some of my most beloved entertainment in my youth, to stop this project. I understand the labor of love this is for them, but there is simply no backstory that hasn't been told, no gaps to fill in.

I wish they would leave it lie. And I'll be there with bells on for the midnight show.

 

Spielberg generally doesn't do commentaries. He didn't even do one for the 30th anniversary DVD for Jaws.

My guess is that these have all been produced, and they will be sold as a large compendium after his death.

Capshaw ruined the second movie for me. She just will not stop yammering. And Short Round was a very early progenitor for Jar-Jar.

 

Agreed, all the way. The whole time watching Temple of Doom - a movie I do like - I keep thinking "If this moron wasn't banging the director, they would have replaced her ass." I especially love the old on-set footage from the movie, as she shamelessly throws herself at him.

Never thought of Short Round that way, but that is dead on. I will steal that, if that's okay.

 

I was talking more in general terms than specifics. If we get into specifics, the two situations differ a good bit, especially since IJ4 had the main components in place from the very start. There was really no question who the star would be, who would be producing and who would be directing.

Superman Returns had none of those. They just wanted to do a new film and were starting from scratch. You could probably divide the making of that movie into three sections: Trying to get it off the ground, the many failed attempts to do so and the long period after Singer was in place and the details were being worked out.

That last section is pretty close to what has happened with IJ4.

 

Well, it adds up. (And God forgive me for analyzing this while I have a pile of other shit to do).

Dumbass Jar-Jar = goofy dork banished by his own people.
Short Round = orphan who becomes Indy's sidekick.
Jar-Jar = aids Amidala.
Short Round = helps rescue Willie Scott.
Jar-Jar = becomes a senator (and casts the vote that gives Palpatine supreme emergency powers)
Short Round = moves to America and assists Indy (at least in the books) in other adventures.

 

NO!

I assisted Indy in the Books! In the Find Your Fate Adventures!

(choose your own advneture ripoffs that they were)

 

Short Round went on to a much better career as a pseudo child inventor in Goonies. Much better in that role than in TOD.

 

Will Harrison use a walker?

And he's only 63? Sheeeeesh, he looks more like 73.

 

It's my ninth wedding anniversary that day. Should I take my better half to the opener? I don't think she would appreciate it.

 

This will surely suck.