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Early Review Calls New Indiana Jones Film Dreadful
bowman9991 writes "Hope this one isn't true! An early negative review calls the upcoming "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" movie predictable, lacking in tension, and a fan's worst nightmare. SFFMedia believes this new Indiana Jones movie could create a similar reaction a lot of people experienced after watching the first of the last three Star Wars movies, 'The Phantom Menace': you wait for years and years, the anticipation building, and then it's so awful it taints your view of the original movies. Of course George Lucas was involved with Star Wars too." The SFFMedia piece refers to this review on Ain't it Cool News. The trailer I saw (before Iron Man) actually looked great to me, so I'm taking this with a grain of salt.
Weren't they all? Well, at least I haven't been counting down the days to see the next IJ movie. they certainly weren't that good.
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
So, torrent plz so I can see for myself?
The opening scene is a total heart attack. Indy barely escapes a huge stone ball despite being slowed by his walker. He pulls his colostomy bag out of the way just in time. It was a real heart pounding experience. But that was easily fixed with an emergency room visit and some clot-busting drugs.
The trailer I saw (before Iron Man) actually looked great to me, so I'm taking this with a grain of salt.
Unfortunately, trailers have little to do with movies anymore. Trailer designers and technicians have made an art out of what they do: making the most boring movies look exciting and fun. Honestly, they're good at what they do! By just changing transition graphics, music score, sound clips, and some of the shots, they can make an action movie look like a: comedy, drama, or documentary.
This one guy rants about the movie, but there have been several other positive reviews. Just now media is picking up on this one aintitcool review and running with it. The original poster, ShogunMaster, just wanted a lot of attention and he got it.
It's an odd phenomenon we're seeing: One original poor review, then it gets written *about* in several other places, now all of a sudden people think there are lots of bad reviews. Huh?
--- witty signature
Anyone?
Also - early review syndrome strikes again.
Critics are morons. Every movie I've ever done to see and checked Yahoo Movies for, the critic and users ratings have been opposite. IMDB is the same way if you consider the ratings before it actually comes out. Epic movie had an 8.6 by opening day! And a 2.3 a week later. Yahoo critics rated Epic movie like a B- or something and users gave it a D-. And they had the balls to give other movies I and other really liked really low ratings. They watch too many movies and they're douchebags so people should really stop listening to critics.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Well, this fits two patterns with the previous movies:
(1) Odd numbers good, even numbers bad
(2) PG good, PG-13 bad
So I suppose now the question is -- how does Crystal Skull compare with the Temple of Doom?
Tweet, tweet.
Any new media can never compare to the beloved originals. Stuff from the past grows mythical in its goodness inside our aging minds, and the current stuff doesn't have a chance.
..the reviewer is the master of any Shoguns either. So I'm not too worried.
i remember seeing the episode 1 teaser preview for the first time and thought OMG yes! this is gonna be sweet. as we all know hindsight is 20/20.
do you like darth vader?
oh god yes! i love darth vader!
well in the first one you get to see him as a little kid.
is he evil like damien?
no he's just a little kid then he leaves his mom and gets sad.
do you like bobba fett?
hell yeah i like bobba fett.
well in the second movie you get to see him as a little kid.
is he like a badass bounty hunter in training?
no, his died dies and he gets sad.
Business decisions do not good art make....
If it makes money, the studio will do it. This movie will make money. If you want this nonsense to stop, we need to get people to stop going to see them. I pretty much flat out refuse to see anything with less than a 50% on the tomato meter (in the theater, I'll probably watch it when it comes on TNT).
As a man who finds himself occasionally yelling out "INDY!!" in imitation of John Rhys-Davies, all I have to say is...
NOOOOOOOOOO!!!
The reason these films are so bad is because people hype them up in their minds for years. Granted, The Phantom Menace was pretty poor, but it's largely to do with the excessive expectations of people and their over-hyped ideals.
Who listens to critics, anyway?
ilovegeorgebush
So far this has been the pattern:
:P
1st film: Groundbreaking
2nd film: Great
3rd film: Ok
4th film: WTF was everyone thinking?
So help me if one character utters something like "Me-sa gonna get the skull, Indy?", I'm going to have kill myself right there in the theater. Maybe I'll humanley spare some fellow movie patrons by taking them out first.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Movies about aliens just ain't that popular anymore...
I must be the only one who didn't think the first prequel star-wars movie was awful. I thought it was well put together and entertaining. I suppose those who did were expecting something genre defining and ground-breaking. You can't do that twice. The same goes for the Indiana movies.
The *TRAILER* looked good, so you're going to ignore the opinion of someone who's actually seen it in hopes that a piece of marketing will be a better reflection of what it is? What? "Yeah, the marketing was good, so it gets my $8-$10 for a ticket." On a site that focuses on technical detail, that should ring alarm bells. Who would respect an engineer who went and bought equipment based entirely on marketing hype without reading the specs? That sort of attitude encourages engineering companies to sell shitty products. Why would the same approach bring about a different result applied to the entertainment industry? Grumble..
The original three are "dreadful" by critics' standards. They're ALL predictable. Predictable is what made them funny, imho. They're supposed to be SERIALS, for Pete's sake.
The second one is dreadful by MY standards.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Don't buy the media echo-chamber effect, especially when the thing being echoed is a fanboy "review" off AICN. Almost everyone who reads /. already knows if they are going to see the new Indy Jones movie or not (I am), so why bother?
But then again, my favourite Matrix movie was the second one, so what do I know... For what it's worth, Ebert agrees with me.
"The deep-fried Mars bar is a symptom of a wider crisis." -- Nutritionist Ann Ralph, on the Scottish diet
...then I'm sure we can look forward to a multitude of Special Editions with various tweaks. Guns will be digitally replaced with walkie talkies, walkie talkies will be replaced with guns, and eventually Shia LaBeouf will be digitally replaced with an character that's more universally loved and admired, such as Jar Jar Binks.
not to mention that the guy is a theater executive and has a vested financial interest in de-hyping this movie before it opens. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/movies/10indy.html?bl&ex=1210564800&en=3ce1b1dc8e8ec160&ei=5087%0A
just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand!
media hype:
OMFG there's a negative review of indy 4!
reality:
negative
neutral
neutral
positive
the nyt has the real story: studios are required by law to show movies to exhibitors before they buy films (which is how the party pooper reviewer shogunmaster got to see it), which in today's internet age means that studios (especially control-freak spielberg on this specific issue) are losing the ability to control pre-release media buzz
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
temple of doom was too over the top but Raiders of the Lost Ark was a damn good movie. the grail one wasn't terrible either.
Since they're are recognizing his age and not ignoring it, it will have a slightly different dynamic.
Plus, this was ONE review, others have been positive.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Until I see how many bunnies are given by Playboy I'll consider this a lopsided review ;-)
Well no shit.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
I hate the kind of review that tries to imply "if I [the reviewer] had made this movie, I could have fixed X,Y, and Z." I mean, if s/he's so smart and all, why isn't s/he making movies? I think Harrison Ford brings lots to any movie he makes. It'll take more than one silly 2nd-hand anonymous review to convince me he phoned this one in. For all we know, some other studio planning to release on the same weekend could be playing dirty tricks!
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
I had this strange idea that this was one of the greatest movies of all time. Unfortunately, I completely ruined my memory of it by watching it again 15+ years after the original viewing. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085811/
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
is the "in" thing to do at the moment. Why give something 9 or 10 out of 10 when you can go against the grain, give it a 4 and triple the amount of traffic (and therefore ad hits) to your site?
That said, if it turns out to be The Phantom Menace* of the Indy movies, I think I'll cry.
*On a second watch, I actually think Attack Of The Clones was worse
Summation 2
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I stopped listening to movie critics a long time ago. I prefer to make up my own mind. And if I have ny doubt whatsoever about a film, I'll just wait for it to come out on DVD and see it for free (basically) by exchanging it at Blockbuster for one of the ones I get in the mail from my eclectic-but-steady movie list (takes time to go through 350 movies...)
The twitter monologues. Click on my homepage and be amazed.
The third Indy movie was complete awesomeness. The third SW movie was actually great (I refuse to acknowledge the existence of Ewoks. Sue me). The second GodFather movie was apparently better than the first (never seen either one, speaking from hearsay).
I'd say there isn't much of a pattern, unless you're looking for one.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
In the special edition Indy will whip first.
Seriously though, anyone with high expectations of this movie hasn't seen a movie made by George Lucas in the past 20 years. It'll make a ton of cash, regardless -- that's the really tragic thing.
For all the money spent on this movie you could fast-track the careers of at least one thousand, really talented, new filmmakers.
Of course it does, because if an early review didn't generate controversy, it wouldn't get as much press and instead people would want to avoid the spoilers.
Not for me. I'm going to enjoy it.
I saw temple of doom, hoping it would be as good, if not better, than raiders. It didn't even come close. But it didn't "suck", it wasn't heartbreaking, it just wasn't as good as Raiders. How exactly could it have been? Raiders, and Star Wars (yes, just Star Wars. that was what was on the theater marquee when I sat through it 6 times on the weekend it came out), are Masterpieces; expecting a sequel to even be a tenth as good would be silly.
Taken by itself, if Raiders or Star Wars had never been made, what do you think the worlds reaction to Temple of Doom would have been? or the Phantom Menace? they surely are not in the same league as the prior 2, but they are still great movies.
So, I'll watch Indy at the theater on May 22nd, my Birthday, and I really, really, really doubt it will be as good as Raiders. or even Last Crusade. if it's as good as Temple of Doom, I'll consider myself lucky.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
When I grew up watching Indiana Jones, I was into the adventure, the action, and RIPPING A GUYS HEART OUT OF HIS CHEST! Then I saw the previews for this new one and it looks like a disney ride. It looks like a Scooby Doo episode! Its as if they took the adult-material and trimmed it down to "slappy's ghost house surprise" or something. I am afraid to spend $9 on a movie ticket with the current implications of the movie. I think I will have to wait for a trusted friend to tell me what they think. I just can't convince myself to do it with the chance that I'd have to walk out pissed.
It's Ain't it Cool News. It inspired Kevin Smith's MoviePoopShoot.com for Jay and Silent Bob for a reason.
There was also an episode of The A-Team towards the end of its run about a crystal skull. It, too, was widely regarded as the worst episode ever, a fan's nightmare, and such.
The lesson: if it says "crystal skull" anywhere, avoid it like the plague.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
No, a bad review is good news - for me. It seems that I absolutely HATE most movies that the reviewers love, and LOVE the ones reviewers hate.
I mean, how did the original Star Wars movie fare? Not well. How about Dirty Harry? Again, they hated it. The Terminator? Of course, if the movie turns out to make tons of money they somehow start giving it good reviews... funny, that.
If the reviewers gave this new movie kudos, I'd wait until a human being told me it was good before wasting my hard earned money on it. So hooray for the critics and their bad but predictable reviews! I'll probably be in line on opening day, thanks to the critics.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Okay, it's probably going to suck.
George Lucas has given up creativity in order to wring every possible cent out of his franchises. Star Wars had begun to take a beating due to poor product quality and overexposure so he is switching horses.
The new Indy flick will probably make a mega-shit-ton of money. I will probably watch it (on DVD), I am just hoping that if I tell myself it is going to suck, then when I see it I might be able to walk away from it and say "It was better than my expectations".
(/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
does anyone pretend that the critics matter?
Anyone who takes any critic's word for it deserves what he gets.
As for me, I can't really nail down my decision criteria for what movies I want to see, but I can assure you that the words "critic review" don't enter into it in the slightest.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Douchebag.
To the mods: That whole bit is by Patton Oswalt, not the anonymous coward.
I back this poster, as cowardice as he/she is...Spielberg has hardly ever made a film that was just completely awful...A.I. was kind of weird, but it was pretty good. Anyhow, I can't think of a single Spielberg film I didn't get some enjoyment from, so I doubt Indiana Jones 4 will be any different
There is no standard in the universe by which the Phantom Menace can be judged a 'great movie'.
No movie can live up to what your brain remembers as one of the best movies ever made. If you go into the movie expecting it to be no less than the best of the first movie, then guess what, you will say it sucked. If you have realistic expectations though and are hoping it to be a decent movie without destroying the franchise then you at least are giving the movie a fair chance. It takes a lot of guts to revisit old and successful franchises such as Star Wars and Indiana Jones because you can't satisfy peoples nostalgia, even if the movie is one of the best ever made.
Nothing can match the feeling of seeing the movie with friends and family who may be gone now, or remembering a time in your life when things were better, we tend to forget the bad and remember the good, anything current simply can't compete with your memories all else being equal.
This movie is 20 years too late.
I would have gladly seen it in 1988.
Now, I'll wait for it to come on cable.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
If I go in expecting the 4th Indiana Jones movie to suck, then at least I won't feel disappointed.
they are only made to make a lot of money and for that it only has to be (mildly) appealing to the masses.
All those 'fans' will see it anyhow and chances are 90% of them will hate it regardless how 'good' others think it is.
Big Money means:
- the movie is made so a 6 year old can watch it with his parents, nothing too brutal & funny scenes for kids (remember jar jar binks?)
- nothing complicated, keep good and evil clearly separated, you have to know whos evil when you see them, otherwise the kids get confused
- don't take any chances, avoid anything controversial, use the known formula (happy ending, nobody likable gets killed)
- it doesn't have to be good as long as it has a well known name (sequel sequel sequel & why Bush got elected after all)
- a mediocre movie made for the masses makes more money then a excellent movie for insiders
So with that in mind, i expect it to be watchable but nothing special.I'd like to hear what /.ers think about the Speed Racer movie now - there were lots of people complaining how awful and confusing it looked from the trailers, but I quite liked it when I saw the actual movie. The plot was fairly standard, though what can you expect from a film based on a children's wacky racing cartoon from the 70s, really. The action and racing was good even for someone interested in cars like me, and it even had a few twists despite me reading about Racer X here on /. Previously I didn't know anything about Speed Racer, I thought it was something new! They could have had a little more Christina Ricci, but overall it was very entertaining :)
which is totally what she said
I don't get it, are you saying that 65-year olds don't make for good action heroes? Why, that's preposterous! Oh wait, no it's not, it makes total sense. Meesa smell the Lucas-4th-movie curse!
stuff |
I always enjoy his reviews, even if I don't agree with them.
The Filthy Archives
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
All of the original movies were dreadful - at least when your past a certain age.
The way I see it, the original movies were for a younger audience, this new movie is simply a nostalgia cash-in - basically, they finally convinced Harrison Ford to do another, which is the key to raking in huge wads of cash from aging nostalgia ridden geeks.
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
Am I surprised that this fourth film, decades after the last, is no good? Of course not - 'twas ever thus.
I still haven't got over my disappointment at the utter pile of poo that was the second Highlander film, when the original was (and still is) one of my favourite films.
Creative people lose the original vision, the original enthusiasm, over time. It's difficult to do anything else. It doesn't make me happy, but it happens.
Dunx
Converting caffeine into code since 1982
"a theater executive and has a vested financial interest in de-hyping this movie"
Because people buying tickets to watch the movie loses the theater executives money?
Are we talking about the movie industry or video games?
Ain't it Cool News? Please.... these are the same people who raved about Daredevil. Personally, if the people at Ain't it Cool News hate it I'm sure I'm going to love it.
I can remember leaving that movie at around 2 in the morning and talking about it with friends. We wanted it to be good so badly that none of us wanted to admit that it sucked.
Looking back, the only good storyline in any of those movies was the Obi wan/Boba Fett's dad one.
I have absolutely no expectation that the new IJ would be anything other than another steaming pile of shit. I am going to dl a screener of it, watch the first 20 minutes, and then decide if I want to pony up $10 to go to the theater to see the rest.
"Do not waaaaaaaaant!" ?
You seem to be submitting your opinion as fact so I'll do the same. I thought Temple of Doom was a horrible, horrible piece of crap. Like too many Spielberg projects from the '80s, it tried was too hard to be funny, with the girl playing a slapstick character that didn't work at all in the context of the movie.
Spielberg in recent interviews repeatedly refers to these movies as "comedies," which I think is the root of the problem. Raiders was not a comedy, although it had some comedic elements (but they were occasional).
Your main argument seems to be that these movies didn't suck, but only paled in comparison to the vastly superior first installments. To rebut this (and strengthen my own point), I point to Empire Strikes Back. It is often considered BETTER than Star Wars, and is almost completely lacking in the unfunny "humor" that killed Temple, Last Crusade, and most of the Amazing Stories installments.
Sure there is:
1). The "midichlorian" standard.
2). The "Marklar" standard.
General, you are listening to a machine! Do the world a favor and don't act like one.
Really, it is.
...rom a story co-written by executive producer George Lucas..... Screenwriters Jeb Stuart, Jeffrey Boam, M. Night Shyamalan, Frank Darabont and Jeff Nathanson wrote drafts, before David Koepp's script satisfied all three men.
The wikipedia reference spells it out.
-The film was in development hell since the 1989 release of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, because Spielberg and Ford initially disagreed over Lucas's choice of the skull as the plot device.
You've got an actor with creative input into the movie plot. Very rarely does that ever work. Yes, the actors have input, it is most successful when it's improv within the filming of the movie.
-
Multiple treatments of the same premise, few of which actually materialize. This suggests the amount of vetting, oversized-personalities, and plain old stupidity was committee-style approval hell.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Indeed, I could almost guarantee that without the original Star Wars pedigree, Phantom Menace would never have been greenlit in the first place and would *certainly* not have been released in its existing form. It would have been reworked, re-shot and probably still eventually shelved, then dumped straight to DVD assuming it was greenlit in the first place.
Can you see the pitch now?
Lucas: "It's a film about trade disputes and tax reform... in space!"
Studio: "Next!"
It means theaters owners haggle with the distribution companies. If an movie expected to do incredibly well is downplayed, they might be able to get the copies of the films for the projectors for a slight discount.
heh. CAPTCHA was "procure"
This is why a lot of decent to good movies get bad reviews. Because the theater groups are trying to force the studios to lower their demand in price.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Yes, there is.
Just compare it with Troy.
(Disclaimer: I saw Troy shortly after reading Simmons' Ilium.)
Ignore this signature. By order.
I had the same experience. Went to a midnight showing, was pretty pumped, trailers looked good. And less than halfway through I was thinking, "What a pile of shet this is". On the way out I gave a tepid "It was ok" to someone waiting in the next line who asked if it was good. I didn't want to take a dump on their anticipation in case they had some perverse personality and would like it.
There was a pall in the theater you could sense. Everyone knew it was crap, but there was still light applause at the end. Why? Because we hoped we hadn't seen what we'd just seen. And because for some reason the franchise got credit for having been good once.
That doesn't make it Episode 1 into anything other than it was, however. A big, stupid, pointless special effects debacle.
JarJar would have said... "theesa movie suuuuucks ballce!"
I heard that the brother's W were making a Speed Racer movie quite some time ago... honestly it puzzled me how anyone could make a movie worth watching with Speed Racer as the source material.
I had also heard that they were using an experimental new HD camera tech that allowed all object in frame to be in focus at all times unlike traditional cameras that have a set focal distance. So this aspect really intrigued me.
Basically I didn't know what to think and I was increadibly impressed by what I saw in the trailer. I didn't get any idea of what the plot was about (but all of 30 seconds on imdb fixed that.) Visually it looks stunning and after V for Vendetta I have faith in the creators to make it something worth watching...
Now if I could only find someone else who's interested in going to the theater to see it with me...
Collector's Edition
What gives anybody the right to talk about anything they're not getting paid to do themselves? Ripping on Ain't It Cool reviews is like setting a quadruple amputee on fire - there's nothing remotely challenging or impressive about it, and it tends to stink up the room. If you're such an expert film critic*, why are you posting on /. instead of writing movie reviews for some reputable** film related website? All things considered it seems a fair, um, criticism.
*Not that that applies to the majority of reviewers on Ain't It Cool
**Not that that applies to Ain't It Cool
Oppressing an entire population is never cheap.
--Jeckler (/. Beta IS GARBAGE!)
i loved it
I thought the second one was really good until I saw the third one.
That scene with the Architect was brilliant, it really made the movie for me. Then the third one happened and you find out that that everything in the second was totally irrelevant.
It blows my mind why anyone would want to take a okay movie (the only one I'd call "good" was the first one) and plunge it into irrelevancy with a steaming shit-pile of a sequel. (I'm still referring to the second and third movies there, btw.)
Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
... I found it funny that they mentioned the Lost City of Gold as it accidentally referenced the old Allen Quartermaine days (a crappy knockoff of Indy Movies incase you missed them)At any rate, take AICN stuff as you would with any critic. For those that have never visited the site, read only the first paragraph or two and then skip to the last paragraph or two of Harry's reviews. In between, he's going to expound about a recent mundane task he did which has no bearing on the review, such as his numerous trips to take his grandma to the vet or whatever. STFU, Harry, and get on the with the review. Sheesh.
-fragbait
No, because low expectations reduce the prices the theaters have to pay for it. It's Indianna Jones, people will see it anyway.
That Indiana Jones 4 might be terrible or the constant discussion that the Phantom Menace is fantastic cinema.
In 2007, as Harper's points out, most of the top 10 movies were not only sequels, but sequels where "version > 2". Since Hollywood management does fads, we have to expect a run of more such sequels. Hence Indy #4.
As I've remarked before, Hollywood has a major idea shortage. History has been mined out. Comic book resources have been drained; the big franchises are done, and productions are digging deep into obscure comics for material. Hollywood is now down to recycling 1960s TV shows. Are there any up and coming directors with new ideas? Who's the next Spielberg?
Incidentally, the trailer for "Clone Wars" looks like a video game ad for a bad video game, one with a low poly and keyframe budget.
Entertainment may be a depletable resource. When everything ever made is easily available, anything new has to be better than anything done before. Everybody has already seen the best of everything. This makes it hard to excel. Consider music. Nobody has done a major new symphony for decades. Rock music peaked decades ago. House music is stuck. Rap doesn't shock anybody any more. No wonder the RIAA is in trouble.
Film got a "midlife kicker" - computer graphics. At last, you could film anything you could imagine. After about a decade, most of the backlog of things directors always wanted to do, but couldn't afford, have been done. Big shots of alien or historical cities, nonhuman actors, and massive war scenes, have all been competently put on the big screen. Viewers are no longer impressed.
Desperate hacks, like playing with color saturation, have been tried. There's the under-saturated look ("Sky Captain") and the over-saturated look ("Speed Racer"). There's the high-contrast black and white look ("Sin City"). There's the high-contrast black and white look with a bit of color ("The Shadow"). OK, been there, done that.
Finally, there's the trick the movie industry tried the last time things got really desperate, back in the 1950s - stereoscopic 3D. It didn't work last time.
I share the same feelings. It will not be Raiders or StarWars, but I will enjoy it. Moreover, I will go on May 22th and it is also my birthday. Did I post the previous post? A dupe post by myself? ;)
I read this on AICN earlier this week. If you read the reviews coming in (there are now at least 3) the first seemed to slam the movie. It was supposed to be an executive who saw the movie, and just wasn't impressed. Personally, I felt he was just trying to review it to sway the tide. The next two reviews that came in were both fairly positive. The second said that it was basically "just like the first two, just add 20 years to the characters." The third said "seems hollow, but still true to the Indiana Jones universe."
Basically, I feel that the first review was some guy either pissed off at the studios, pissed at GL or SS, OR, knew that a crapload of people who have been hanging on the edge of their seats for any word of this movie would hear HIS first, and for whatever reason he decided to hate on it.
Personally, I'm going to see it. I am too young to remember the others in the theater, though I have seen every one multiple times, and it just seems like the theater experience is the REASON to see a blockbuster like this.
---my 10 cents
Ever hear "if it bleeds, it leads"? Same difference. Bad news gets press, good news gets pushed aside.
First the "Star Wars" prequels suck, then "Star Trek" falls apart in its 10th installment, now "Indiana Jones" might be bad?
Why, it's enough to make you want to see something new!
Spielberg had some religious experience and declared that Nazis would nolonger appear in any of his movies as baddies (probably not as goodies, either ... just a guess). So the Ruskies became the bad guys ... and a really bad artistic decision was made for non-artistic reasons.
I guess if we're especially unlucky, we can expect the original movies to be 'reworked' ala ET (and the guns/walkie talkies) or Lucas's Greedo shoots first fiasco (Greedo Fiasco is a good name for a band): Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Director's Cut - where Indy tries to prevent the Ark of the Covenant getting into the hands of the Taliban.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
For me it doesn't matter if the movie is bad. I am an Indian Jones fan, and I'm going to see it. I am not so fanatic that I will call it good when it isn't, but I will still pay to see it.
I'm a Star Wars fan too, yes Fantom Menace sucked, but that really doesn't matter. It's like collecting. I see it because it is part of the set and without it the set isn't complete.
I'm a Star Trek fan too and lord knows there have been some stinkers in that franchise. But the same applies, I'm going to see every Star Trek Movie that is shown on the big screen, and I'm going to watch every episode of every series I can.
The only exception to this for me was/is Highlander. The first movie was the only movie. To tweak a phrase, "THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN ONLY ONE!"
Yes I'm a computer geek, currently single, but I moved out of my parents' house at 19 (over 15 years ago) and make lots of money being a computer geek.
"It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything." -Homer Simpson
It's worth noting that Star Wars: Episode I got great reviews from Aint It Cool News. So if they are panning Crystal Skull it may actually be a great movie!
When the videogame "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis" came out, I was hoping SO SO SO MUCH that they adapted this to a movie.
The script was PERFECT. But who am I, a mere fan, to criticize the all-mighty movie producers, huh?
Anyway let's hope Crystal Skull pleases me at least as half as much as the Last Crusade, which was my favorite.
I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that at some point, Indiana Jones is going to have to find a Crystal Skull. I bet it's probably in some far away kingdom, too.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Is anybody even shocked any more when George Lucas chugs down his favourite diuretic and lets rip on the fan base that made him a millionaire? The man, however talented he may have been 30 years ago, is an utter cretin. We should've boycotted the mongloid when he was doing the Star Wars prequels. The fact people paid to see them only encouraged him.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Harrison Ford should be starring in depends commercials, not action movies. If he had put his enormous ego aside and played Grandad to a younger Indiana, this might have had a chance.
If you look at movies like Back to the Future, they did a very convincing job of making Christopher Lloyd appear as different ages.
Say what? They made several tongue-in-cheek references on how Doc ("thank god I've still got my hair") and Strickland ("didn't that guy ever have hair") looked exactly the same. Especially in the 2nd movie where Doc shows Marty that he had plastic surgery...except he looks exactly the same.
Raiders, and Star Wars (yes, just Star Wars. that was what was on the theater marquee when I sat through it 6 times on the weekend it came out), are Masterpieces; expecting a sequel to even be a tenth as good would be silly.
The sequal to Star Wars was better than the original. Also note, it was not directed by George Lucas.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I mean, how did the original Star Wars movie fare? Not well. How about Dirty Harry? Again, they hated it.
Who hated these movies? Neither film was recognized as the classic that they'd eventually become - most future classics aren't at the time they're released - but I don't recall many scathingly bad reviews and I can't find many at the moment either. Star Wars was considered an exciting popcorn movie - ineffectual, but fun. Dirty Harry was criticized a bit for its politics but was still called an effective thriller.
Here are Rottentomatoes' "top critics" pages on both of these films, you can read some of the original reviews there (ignore the dates, most of these were written on the movies' release):
Dirty Harry
Star Wars
I mean, I dunno what your standards are, but an 88% positive rating from the top critics in the land seems pretty good to me for a film that was never intended to be anything but a light-hearted space romp.
I think you need to re-evaluate what you think of movie critics. Your stance is similar to one that I think a lot of people take, and it's based on this false premise that critics like bad movies and hate good ones. I would bet that 90% of the time, critics like the same movies you do. Where I think this idea that critics are somehow out of touch with the public comes from is the fact that they do not buy into hype. If a summer blockbuster has a $100 million marketing budget, a lot of people are going to be excited about that. Some of those people will even try to convince themselves that they liked the final product, so as not to feel they've wasted all this time and energy on anticipation. (This is the same phenomenon that's been observed in studies whereby the longer someone stands in line, the longer they're willing to keep standing in line, so as not to have wasted their time standing in line.)
Critics are trained specifically to ignore hype and judge a film purely on its merits. That means *good* blockbuster films, like the original Star Wars, do get good reviews. It also means *bad* blockbuster films, like, say, Wild Wild West, get bad reviews - even if they make hundreds of millions of dollars in box office and garner their share of fans at the time of their release. We all know that film's crap now, but the critics were ahead of the public in figuring it out. That's their job.
I'd also argue that not all classic films are really great films by any objective or even most subjective measures - go watch Dirty Harry again and tell me what's good about it. I'll tell you what's good about it: Clint Eastwood and the character that he creates. That's why the film endures today. Without him and without that character, the film would be just another cookie-cutter thriller. But critics don't review characters; they review films.
Anyway, enough of my rant. You should listen to critics if they don't like the latest Indiana Jones film, because they're looking past how cool it is to have Indiana Jones back on screen and instead reviewing the film. And they've generally got pretty much the same tastes as everybody else.
Studio: "Next!"
Doesn't Lucas bankroll his own stuff? It was going to get made irrespective of what the whole of fandom thought. Phantom Menace was the movie Lucas wanted to make, and he made it because he was paying for it. The End.
Make love, not reality television.
I remember thinking the movie was likely not that good when I heard that it was set in the 1950's and that the Soviets had become the villains along with some Nazi hold-overs in South America. Indy needs to fight the Nazis. That's the point. The Nazis make the movies good because they're his enemy.
I don't see that at all - Indy's "enemy", if you must put a definition to it, is someone seeking to use a powerful artifact for evil.
Well the Russians fit the bill quite well. Around that time they were doing some horrific things to their own people. Shipping people off to siberia, or forced labor camps mining uranium, etc. They also had similar fascinations with mysticism that Hitler had so they even keep that element alive.
The Russians of that time to me seem to be a fine stand-in for Nazis which just would not be practical for the time frame of this movie, at least not as such a major force.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you consider Temple of Doom to be the first movie, Indiana Jones is playing more of the mercenary lifestyle, digging up treasure for a Shanghai mobster. After the events of Temple occurs Raiders and Crusade - both of which are similar in style and formula (globetrotting adventure).
After Indy's experience in India and becoming a believer of Hinduism, he goes back to the states and alternates between teaching and rescuing artifacts for the museum (which happens in Raiders, which proves Judaism, and Crusade, which proves Christianity).
It doesn't make Temple a better movie, but for me, it made it fit better in the grand scheme.
Spielberg.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Or the longer a country fights a war (and the more people die) the longer they must continue to fight that war so that the dead will not have "died in vain".
My Answer: YOU'RE ALL TOO OLD!!!! Sorry guys, but I'm a medical student in pediatrics, and I can tell youI see kids everyday, and every boy (and a lot of girls too, let's not discriminate) LOOOOOOVES Star Wars. And guess what? They LOOOOVE Jar Jar too. They get Jar Jar bookbags, folder, binders, etc. Star Wars is cool to them. And you know what? Being born in 1979, I notice a huge difference between the people who were 5 when ROTJ came out and the people who were 25. The difference? My friends and I love the Ewoks. Kids love the Ewoks. Star Wars is a movie made FOR KIDS! Or... at least, people with the imagination of a kid. I read some of these complaints, and some are valid (even if I disagree). Don't like Hayden? Fine (I did). Don't like Jar Jar? OK, big deal. But holy moly... you people are complaining about "Landing a Star Cruiser on a landing strip! Lame!" You people are just way too old (in your mind I guess) to enjoy these movies. Not to say not liking them is illogical or stupid, but most of the complaints here to me are disproven by those points being exactly what kids love about them.
The best diplomat I know is a fully activated phaser bank.
-- Scotty.
Gotta say, from the TV ad, this is not the Indy we first saw...
Harrison Ford's a great actor, but in the poster he simply looks weary and bored.
The word "enough" doesn't seem to be in George Lucas' vocabulary and may not be in Spielberg's either.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Trailers always look good. You can't judge jack squat using them.
"'The Phantom Menace' was awful" - says who ? im not a star wars fanatic, im way too picky with everything when it comes to realism, storyline, acceptability, and even i dont think that it was 'awful'.
why should my opinion matter ? well, exactly the same reason the poster of the article thought his/hers was.
dont embed such sweeping statements into your summaries when posting articles please, people.
Read radical news here
I so thoroughly disagreed with one local newspaper critic that I actually found his reviews useful: if he hated it, I was in line the next day; if he loved it, I avoided it like the plague.
OK, I'm exaggerating a little. Nevertheless, if you learn something about a critic's tastes, the reviews can be useful even if those tastes don't match your own. Aside from that quibble, I agree with you. I find random reviews on the web to be all-but useless, since I usually know little about the reviewer.
Unfortunately, it was also a movie nobody else wanted him to have made, after they saw it.
Funny, that fact alone makes me come to the completely opposite conclusion.
perl -e "eval pack(q{H*},join q{},qw{70 72696e74207061636b28717b482a7d2c717b343 637323635363534323533343430617d293b})"
http://youtube.com/watch?v=HIMEYe5WLJ8
there's the bit.
The great Sci-Fi and Action movies of the late 70s and early 80s are an era gone by. Those of us who remember the first offerings of Star Wars, ET, and Raiders were completely dazzled by a new breed of cinema. Lucas, Spielberg, and the like were young up-and-comers who were shaking up the industry.
Now, those guys ARE the establishment. They are offering pretty much the same production values they originally brought to us but we, as the audience, are, dare I say, bored with their filmmaking. If not bored, we have very high expectations because of the impression the original movies left on us.
It's kind of like going back to a place you haven't been to since you were a kid and it's much smaller and less interesting than you had it in your mind.
This isn't to say that these guys are terrible filmmakers or that their craft is not up to par. I'm saying that the hype created by the media in ourselves only makes one feel disappointed when the movie is just that--another movie.
I think the industry itself is in a pretty bad place right now. Movies are made that really shouldn't have been made so the overall quality from the corporate movie studios is just abysmal.
Story is king. Unfortunately, visual effects and spectacle have become the story supported by the script. They keep trying to make blockbusters instead of focusing on the craft of filmmaking. The indie films are doing so well because they have to have good scripts--there's no budget for Michael Bay/Brett Ratner/Roland Emerich epically expensive multi-million dollar set pieces.
Unfortunately, like all corporations, the studios are most interested in delivering profits to shareholders. The just don't understand that if you "build it, they will come"--a good movie with good special and visual effects that serve the story will do well. They just want to make gimmicky pieces that will turn into money makers.
So, don't be surprised if Raiders is disappointing. It's just a cog in the wheel of the dark machine that is Hollywood.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Please be quiet and keep your opinions to yourself, Mr. D. Maul. You're just bitter that you're movie got a crappy review.
Besides, anyone who claims that a sequel is so bad it taints the originals is an utter moron, and probably isn't worth listening to anyway. It is quite impossible for a movie to be that bad.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I went to the theatre expecting to hate it (a bunch of my friends were going to see it and I thought, it'll probably be stupid but with this crowd that'll probably still be fun), but I actually really enjoyed it. I started off the movie thinking it was all pretty ridiculous, and somehow maybe twenty minutes into the movie I went straight past ridiculousness overload into just accepting it for what it was and enjoying it.
It's probably as good of a movie as could have been made out of the source material.
Also, one of the people in our group either started crying during the final race or had an eyegasm from the preposterous, yet somehow enjoyable, visuals. I've decided I don't want to know which or why.
It greatly amuses me how sheeple must obey what they're told, and think what they're told to think.
/.?! It ain't news, and I'm not sure it's all that nerdish either.
Just because some crank somewhere deems a film to be dreadful doesn't make it so.
If it winds up in the discount bin at Walmart the week after it hit the theaters, *then* it is a dreadful film.
Translation: WTF is this article doing in
okies, rant over.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
//www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dirty_harry/?critic=creamcrop#mo Dirty Harry
You notice that these reviews for a thirty year old movie are from this century? "Ignore the dates" indeed! Siskel and Ebert both savagaed it when it was new, as did most critics who even mentioned it at all. In fact, I seldom liked cop movies, but one of the two things that got me to the theater for that one was the negative reviews.
this false premise that critics like bad movies and hate good ones.
No, on the premise that critics' tastes are not the same as my tastes.
I would bet that 90% of the time, critics like the same movies you do
And I would bet that they often critically savage a movie they really like. One of my art instructors was fond of saying "I don't know what I like, but I know what art is."
Without him and without that character, the film would be just another cookie-cutter thriller.
That film IS the cookie cutter, not a cookie the cutter cut.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
And, IMHO, in a lot of ways the Star-Wars prequels had good trailers too, it was the stilted acting and thin plot that disappointed in the end.
Or one who can simply describe the movie and let me decide if I think I'll enjoy it. More often the critic gets caught up in debating what the movie is vs. what it should have been - blah wasn't realistic, etc...
Sometimes you simply have to accept the movie as it is and decide if you like the story and characters as they are without regard to any expectations. Suspend your disbelief and dive it.
For example: "Iron Man" wasn't believable on many levels and several critics disliked Paltrow's performance as weak, but I really enjoyed the movie and liked her as Pepper Potts none-the-less.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Do you realize if you worked a minimum wage job the same number of hours you've spent bitching about phantom menace you could have MORE than made up for the $8 you lost watching that movie?
Bitsmack.com
Would he have been able to bankroll it without the original Star Wars pedigree?
Taken by itself, if Raiders or Star Wars had never been made, what do you think the worlds reaction to Temple of Doom would have been? or the Phantom Menace?
Um, without Star Wars, the reaction to Phantom Menace would have been a lambasting in the press, poor box office sales, and it quickly being forgotten among the huge pile of mediocre CGI drivel that has been produced at break neck speed in the last decade? It would have been to pop sci-fi what Eragon was for fantasy. Which is to say, not much.
Seriously, without the connection to Star Wars I wouldn't have given a rats ass about Phantom Menace at all. The only reason I could stand that annoying little prat Anakin was because I knew that someday he would grow up to be Darth Vader, and I was seeing how it happened. The only reason I could stand all the pointless and ham-fisted politics was knowing that it was all part of a plan to create The Empire. Hell would Obi-Wan have even been an interesting character if it didn't evoke memories of Sir Alec Guinness' performance in Star Wars?
No, PM isn't a victim of nostalgia. It leaned on nostalgia to make the audience care about the characters when otherwise they wouldn't have.
Temple of Doom without Raiders? B-grade comedy/action flick nobody remembers at best.
The enemies of Democracy are
Generally the deals that theaters make with the studios is that they get 0% of the ticket sales the first week or two, they make all their money on concessions. After the opening weeks the theaters get an ever increasing portion of the tickets sales. A negative review could dampen the opening gross, but if it IS good then the word of mouth will get people into the theaters a week or two after opening, when the theaters will actually make some money on ticket sales.
Q.
Yousa people gonna try...to write and direct a good film? No, Mr. Lucas, you'll just keep cashing in on the original fandom and rush out more crap films so you can afford to keep stuffing your face with more fois gras. So much for the American vision. Are there any real artists left in this country?
Sounds like George is still trying to make Jar Jar a superstar.
Temple of Doom is a terrible movie. They show it edited on the TV networks for Sunday night for a reason.
People who think a list of good movies would include the Phantom Menace are themselves a menace!
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Studio: "Next!" Okay - I thought that the prequels sucked too. But you've touched on one of the things that sorta bugs me about some of the reviews I've seen.
Phantom Menace isn't about a trade dispute. The trade dispute is a MacGuffin. It's not even that big of a MacGuffin - compare it with, say, The Maltese Falcon from the movie of the same name, which dominates the whole plot.
What the prequels are about (at least partially) are the way in which one man was able to blow a completely unimportant issue (the trade dispute) on some jerkwater nobody really cared about (Naboo) into a way to anoint himself Emperor and consolidate power. And put like that, it's probably the only thing about the prequels that I genuinely liked.
In fact, if I hadn't seen them, and you told me "that's what the prequels are about", I'd probably be excited about them. Feh. Makes the fact that they stunk all the worse.
Same here: it's my daughter's bday on the 22nd, and we just so happen to be in Disneyland that day, so we're seeing it there.
Happy b-day, btw
My debut novel AMITY now available: http://jeremydbrooks.c
We all knew Wild Wild West was crap then as well. We just thought it would *also* be a fun piece of crap. And it sort of was. If you don't think too hard, and were drunk.
But keep in mind that these same critics thought "Pan's Labyrinth" and "Fountain" were good films. Blessedly, the critics have finally come around on "Fountain" but critics are why I went to see both of those films and they were sadly disappointing.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I'm waiting for the second Buckaroo Banzai movie. Come on, people, get to it. It would probably be very helpful for Jeff Goldblum's career.
Maybe the AC is Patton Oswald! After all, he could be a closet /. fan.
Simple. People get successful and it goes to their heads. When they start out, they have to break their backs, to fight, to compromise, to take criticism... and then they get successful, and they take away the wrong less from that. Instead of crediting hard work, compromise, and criticism, they say, "I'm just brilliant, and everyone who ever criticized me doesn't get that, and if people would let me do whatever I wanted, my work would be even better".
They forget that quality doesn't come from being brilliant so much as hard work, taking criticism, and compromising with people who may know more than you about certain issues, and working with others. Because they are successful and powerful, they have the power to ignore or silence your critics, instead of listening to legitimate criticism. They can take shortcuts, instead of doing hard work, and people will let them get away with it. They can surround yourself with sycophants, yes-men, and hangers-on who just tell them how wonderful you are, instead of telling them the truth. They can get away with half-assed work. It takes discipline and humility to survive being a success and to still produce good work.
You haven't seen many movies lately, have you? I suspect it would have gone more like this:
Lucas: It's a film about trade disputes and tax reform... in space!
Studio: Ooh! Can we put in an alien with a really annoying voice to make it funny?
Lucas: Uh... I guess so.
Studio: Great! I think we've found ourselves the next Last Action Hero!
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I disagree. I mean, come on, Indy got Hilter to sign his book last time. What's next? The trope would be overused (and given Spielberg's history, the Nazis are overused).
Slight correction there... Last Crusade was both the earliest prequel (remember River Phoenix) and the latest sequel.
The Admin and the Engineer
To quote characters in another Lucas movie "I've got a bad feeling about this".
Or, perhaps a better one would be: "Like a million voices cried out in horror and were silenced."
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
A critic is obliged to give an opinion and perhaps a rating to a movie, his position is of judge, to nick pick the bads and to praise the goods. That is the job description for bunnies sakes, not pointing out the flaws of a movie would be a critic's dereliction of duty.
If you want a description, then look for reviews. Normally the websites of the movies will give you enough information, and even the IMDB and similar sites have a plot outline that does not go into judging the merits of a movie.
Don't blame the critics about your personal confusion about their function, the name of the profession should be a major give away about what one can expect, but some folks have a twisted version of the Universe in which critics should not criticize, which is frankly baffling...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Actually, the 3 new star wars movies helped me to more clearly identify what I liked about the older movies. After watching the older movies again it's even MORE clear to me why the new movies sucked. I watch at least one of the three Indiana Jones movies every year (not always intentionally) and every time, I enjoy them. The first thing that JUMPS out at me when I see the new Indiana Jones trailer is that, just like Star Wars, it doesn't "look" the same. Either someone ran some dumb post processing color unbalancing on it or a lot of it was shot against a green screen or something. In the original films the environments look "normal" like real life. They might not have actually gone to India, Egypt, or South America but it sure looked like they did. I don't get that same vibe from the new trailer. Consider the part of the trailer where they're being chanced down a stone staircase by tribal warriors. Now think back to the first movie where he was being chased through the jungle by tribal warriors. Ok, now think about Mel Gibson's Apocalypto where the prisoners were being marched through the city and when they guy was being chaced by tribal warriors. One of these things is not like the other.
Just use the tiny lens off a camera phone. Instantly near-infinite depth of field. :-D
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Surely you would also be against a food critic that gives a bad rating to your local McDonalds.
You are in your right to go and watch rubbish and enjoy it, the job of the critic is to point out why something is rubbish, irrespective of how much a crowd is pleased by it.
That blockbuster movies are not normally high art is not the fault of the critic, it is the fault of the movie producers and the majority of the movie goer public, who are always happy to watch "popcorn-munchers" without ever attempting to watch anything else.
If the majority of the public wants banal low brow art most of the time, movie critics (the fucking experts in the field) should not pat the public in the back for their lack of good taste.
Any expertise carries an obvious degree of snobbery (we could say that techies and nerds are snob when it comes to technology) but that does not mean that you let the fools start running the asylum...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
We, the ignorant public, know better.
....
Next thing you are going to say is that global warming is a scam and that humankind has never landed in the Moon
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... when start talking about franchises.
We all know that the aim of a franchise is to make as much money as you can following a well understood formula, normally delivering predictable, mediocre goods or services.
The name franchise could not be more aptly applied to the serials we are force fed each summer nowadays.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
So you are fine with a movie that for 1/3 of the screen time is just a big advertisement for a bad video game ?
Your kind of pickiness is, uhm, baffling.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I'm sorry but i have a hard time respecting Rotten Tomatoes for the simple reason it rated Dragon wars above Wild Wild West, your epitomy of bad moviedom. I'd watch WWW again if there was nothing else to watch, you'd have to threaten me with actual physical violence to watch D-wars again
Another agreement on Matrix Reloaded. Really, the worst part about it was that it had so much potential that was completely flushed in the third movie. Loved the Architect, loved the concept of rogue programs running inside the Matrix, thought the French guy had potential to be really interesting. Great buildup to Smith waking up in the real world. And then we follow it up with a bad war movie that throws it all away.
Redundancy is good And also good.
Yeah, you'd think after having a couple of Indiana Jones movies with them in that he'd pick some different bad guys for Schindler's List.
Hey, I liked Pan's Labyrinth :)
The Fountain, though... ugh. You know a movie sucks when you're hoping it'll suddenly and without warning turn into a space thriller with giant space-sharks and alien zombies halfway through, killing all the existing characters in less than a minute's time and introducing Bruce Campbell as the swashbuckling space-pirate lead.
a blowjob from Padme ?
Read radical news here
So theaters make money by people *not* going to theater? It's a wonder they all didn't retire after Gigli.
Bravo and ouch, the Phantom Menace actually wins that round.
Though the delta between Highland 1 and 2 is smaller than between Star Wars and Phantom Menace.
Phantom gets extra points for crapping on a major part of my childhood, but it's still a better movie than Highlander 2. On the other hand, if you rewatch Highland 1, you might notice it's a pretty dumb film (Though it does have it moments).
I think everyone I talked to (who cares) firmly supports Empire as the best Star Wars movie. This is my view as well.
...wtf?
Then Georgie, skunk head, Lucas had a great idea for the 3rd movie. A bunch of teddy/care bears take out a legion of the The Empire's best Storm Troopers?
(When I was a kid this didn't bother... I feel dirty when I think of that.)
Now if I watch Return of the Jedi I skip most of the Endor battle, stopping only for the Ewoke deaths, and the Space Battle. (Still one of the best space battles of all time.)
Spielburg has had his share of excellent movies as well as his substandard movies. Many of 'meh'-quality movies had a screenplay penned by David Koepp, who also wrote this newest Indiana Jones movie.
Empire had a lot of well-written humor though, mostly in the interactions of the droids with everyone else and Luke and Yoda.
It was, however, humor used appropriately, not excessively.
Don Asmussen did a send up pretty much exactly as you described. Mondo is no longer hosting it so I mirrored it on YouTube with credit to the author his previous host.
.swf file (farmed from an equally ancient link from the wayback archive cache circa 2003) using SnapzXpro - then convert it to Divx to avoid sound synch BS from YouTube and upload the whole 20 meg mess. Fuck RickRolls.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ8a-1z2cQE
I had to convert the ancient
Enjoy.
I think most of the people who went into Pan's Labyrinth with the right expectations were not disappointed with it. It IS a very good film and is the reason I'm excited about a non-Jackson-directed Hobbit.
One of Pan's Labyrinth's biggest problems is that it was sold as something it was not. Looking at the commercials only you would get the impression that it was another fantasy movie, possibly a kid's fantasy movie (since it starred a young girl). The fantasy elements were only a small part of the overall story though, which was certainly not aimed at kids. Very different from what it was marketed as in the States, but that's hardly the movie's fault.
That's pretty much what I was hoping for in the Village. The problem was that the movie was steering you into that direction before it took a retarded 180 degree turn.
"Too bad the Hovitos don't know you the way I do, Belloq" - That's right, Indy and Belloq used to be fellow travelers, then after the events of Temple, they developed a "difference of opinion". Belloq is Indy five years before.
This also ties in the Crusade teaser, in a broader sense. See Indy the idealist in full force, living the first experience that will turn him cynical. Then back to Raiders, look at the way Marion receives him, with a sucker punch to the mouth - Indiana the cynical bastard we see at the beginning of Temple getting a taste of his just desserts.
As for personal taste, I found the action in Temple to be more than passable, while I found myself grimacing during several points in Crusade, a wholly unsatisfactory experience, as compared to the monumental achievement that was Raiders.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
I have to admit that A.I. is one of the few movies I've ever actually fallen asleep during. I don't really remember whether I was really tired or whether I found it boring at the time, but my pillow (read: girlfriend) tells me I missed the best parts at the end. Oh well.
Comparing that review to his review of The Matrix, it seems to me more like that by the time he watched the second movie, the things that bothered him with the first one like the lack of an answer to all the intriguing questions presented and settling everything through a kung-fu and gun battle cliche that's effectively just a video game fight, simply stopped bothering him and he went along for the ride. Doesn't mean he actually likes the movie more, and he never says he does. He chides The Matrix by comparing it to similar films like Dark City that go all the way and provide a transformative ending, saying that he wants a "Third Act", something which Reloaded certainly doesn't provide.
But hey, let's find out what he really thinks in his review of Matrix Revolutions. Therein he says: The first "Matrix" was the best because it really did toy with the conflict between illusion and reality -- between the world we think we inhabit, and its underlying nature. The problem of "Matrix Reloaded" and "Matrix Revolutions" is that they are action pictures that are forced to exist in a world that undercuts the reality of the action. So there we go. Ebert, like most of us, found The Matrix to be the best and most intriguing film, with Reloaded a fun action romp whose philosophical "speeches provide not meaning, but the effect of meaning", and with Revolutions a pretty CGI fest but ultimately disappointing.
I knew he had better taste than that.
The enemies of Democracy are
Spielberg has said in an interview (I don't have a link to the original interview, which was several years ago, but there is an interview in Entertainment Weekly from April that says the same thing) that he purposely did not want to include the Nazis in the new movie. After his experience making Schindler's List, and all the emotional baggage the film brought along for him, he simply could not portray the Nazis as campy cartoonish bad guys anymore. During the making of that movie, he interviewed a lot of holocaust survivors and faced his own demons about the war, the holocaust, and the systematic extermination of an entire culture.
Once you've stared real evil in the face, I suspect that a caricature just doesn't seem appealing anymore.
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
There was no Highlander 2....
Keep repeating that.
What was so good about ESB?
I grew up on Star Wars and am thus too old to remember the initial infatuation; and didn't have the knowledge of films to be able to pick out superiority. I've gone back and watched them again, but they're both just a long emotionless ride for me. Don't see what was so great about #5.
I, for one, will keep my kids from watching Star Wars until they're old enough to REALLY appreciate it.
I agree that there should have been Nazis, but I see no problem with it being set in the 50s -- after all, it's not like there was any lack of escaped high-ranking Nazis bumming around in South America after the war, pining for the good old days.
And if those Nazis learnt of an ancient artifact that they could use to resurrect the Reich, well... it would make a much better movie than anything involving the Soviets (much as I love those guys in spy movies).
When I watch the new Indianna J trailers I see a lot of bad CGI effects that discourage me. And it's the bad kind of bad CGI, where everything looks just slightly off. Even Jurassic Park in the '90s was more realistic than what I see being promoted.
Short Round was annoying, but nowhere near as irritating as a moronic woman who was screaming and being mocked by the other characters every 10 minutes.
Raiders was an awesome movie and it was one of the few action movies ever to have had a really strong supporting female character who could actually stand up for herself on her own merits, often challenging the main character. When Lucas and the studios tried to capitalise on the first movie's popularity, the Marion character was dropped and much of the really good stuff that made Raiders' was thrown out the window in favour of stupid 1980's movie cliches that were popular at the time. (Notably the annoying kid, and the annoying lady who can't look after herself and needs rescuing by more intelligent, stronger and more competent male characters, including the 10 year old annoying kid at times.)
It looks as if they've re-cast Karen Allen as Marion in the new film (even third on the IMDB list), so I'm hoping there might be something more than a cameo and that it's actually done well. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
I'm going to read some more reviews before I make a decision.
I'd be mildly interested to know what your criteria for a good movie is.
meh
Wash your mouth out. I paid to see that movie and that is $12 and 2 hours I am a never getting back.
meh
I don't doubt that you are right, but this seems to me to be a terribly antiquated and broken model. If movie-makers REALLY wanted to do it right, they'd offer new releases via on-demand digital TV. Why would any of us bother to go to the theater when we can make our own popcorn and view the movie from the comfort of our own homes? With the ability to pause for pee-breaks, no less? The big-screen experience is far overrated, given the affordability of home surround-sound systems and big-screen HD-TVs.
OTOH, I can't make cherry Icees at home...
What could possibly hurt the security of the American people more than giving our own government the ability to hide its
...and George Lucas didn't write it. Or direct it...
which is totally what she said
Its copyright infringement.
*rimshot*
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
I was going to write something about how the phrase is "my 2 cents," but then I remembered that there are 10 kinds of people in this world...
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If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Oh, I knew what it was. I just thought it was overbearingly cliche. Granted, I would have accepted stunning visuals as a mitigating factor, but they weren't in any way stunning. In fact, they, too were horribly cliche.
I mean, we get it. War sucks, especially if there's Nazis. And Francisco Franco was a very bad guy. (or.. he was a good guy? It's even hard to tell who's resisting whom in the movie) But Pan's Labyrinth was no "Guernica."
*spoiler alert*
Not to mention that the fantasy bits didn't meld at all into the greater story: it was, apparently, a dying girl's final hallucination. But it was also the *cause* of hear death. So.. it was real? But then.. how can it be a metaphor?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
You don't need a critic you usually agree with. It could be a critic you usually disagree with. So you just watch what that critic hates :).
:).
I'd say all you really need from reviewers is a list of movies that reviewer likes, a list of those he hates and which movies he thinks "this" movie is like and whether he hates it or likes it.
That way, no spoiler, but you still know whether you want to watch it or not, as long as that reviewer is consistent, and has good correlation with your preferences (whether negative or positive).
Of course reviewers won't get paid very much for doing stuff like this
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I'll defend Spielberg on a point here. From DVD interviews, of the three, Temple was Spielberg's least favorite and Lucas's most favorite. That says it all. It's amusing watching Spielberg in those interviews as he keeps tiptoes around calling Lucas's opinion and style a pile of crap (which he clearly wants to say).
And it's partly because of the crappiness of the newer Star Wars movies (RotS wasn't awful, but it wasn't on par with the originals) that I will be taking great pleasure in shaking the hand of David Prowse next month at Disney's Star Wars Weekends. He is, was, and will always be the REAL Darth Vader. (along with James Earl Jones and Sebastian Shaw, of course) I was somewhat disgusted when I learned that he'd asked Lucas to wear the Vader suit for the end of RotS, but was turned down in favor of Hayden (Whiny Vader) Christiansen.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
And it was a shame they stunk too - Ian McDiarmid put in a fantastic performance in all three films, and for me was the real star of the prequels.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Lucas wrote the story, though others wrote the screenplay.
It blows my mind why anyone would want to take a okay movie (the only one I'd call "good" was the first one) and plunge it into irrelevancy with a steaming shit-pile of a sequel.
A check with lots of zeros, of course.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
OTOH, I can't make cherry Icees at home...
Sure you can, it'll just cost you $15 grand or so to do it, not including consumables.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
There is just one.... Uwe Boll can tell you who the distinguished gentleman / arteest is.
I'll believe in corporations having personhood when Texas executes one... - advocate_one
twistedsymphony wrote as part of a post:
Actually, a movie version of Speed Racer has been in work for a very long time, long before "The Matrix" was released. When I first heard about a movie version, Johnny Depp was one of the actors being considered for the role of Speed. If I remember correctly, it was soon after he was on the series "21 Jump Street."
Those big movies of yesteryear (the first Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Star Trek etc) were all products of inspiration. People put their heart in them, and the result was tremendous.
Nowadays, it's all about profit. And the outcome is bad, because it lacks any sort of love put into it.
I haven't seen a really good film for a long time now. Even Lord Of The Rings was very mediocre (especially since I've read the books before seeing the movies).
I fear that the next Star Trek movie will be just as bad as Indy 4 will be...
You got me there until poor box office sales: in fact, kids *loved* Phantom Menance and *that* sold movie (race was just worth that). Ohh, your childhood memories are ruined. How pitty. Your problem :)
It was entertaining if you didn't took it too seriously. Obviously, for fans who have imagined their own version of Star Wars that was huge problem.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
I really hope you're right and the review is crap, but the trouble is that the review matches up to the trailer and what has happened surrounding the filming of the movie. ShogunMaster describes some convoluted bullshit plot regarding aliens and Roswell, and what do I see on the trailer? A container with Roswell on it. Shit.
In addition, they have also cancelled the release party at Cannes and John Hurt has basically come out and said that the film is a vehicle for George Lucas to make another billion in merchandise and expand his ego still further (no change there). This film is going to blow bricks made out of solid, constipated shit and as a someone who has enjoyed IJ films immensely from about eight years old, this is going to scar me for life.
You got me there until poor box office sales: in fact, kids *loved* Phantom Menance and *that* sold movie (race was just worth that). Ohh, your childhood memories are ruined. How pitty. Your problem :)
You're right, it would have at least made money. Compared to the box office sales it got being a Star Wars prequel? No, not even close, and you know it. The name Star Wars was the reason so many parents took their kids. Otherwise, pick your mediocre for-kids CGI summer movie whose name you can't even remember, and PM would have done no better.
But if you "got me", then you understand that I'm not saying my childhood memories are ruined. No, indeed, those memories are the only thing that elevated this movie above complete crap, but they also put the difference in quality into sharp relief.
It was entertaining if you didn't took it too seriously.
So is 90% of CGI schlock. But not very entertaining; most of that movie is boring, and would be doubly so without Star Wars backing up those scenes. The pod race and light saber battle are the only things in that movie that are worth watching.
Obviously, for fans who have imagined their own version of Star Wars that was huge problem.
And for fans with low standards it was no problem, but they're unwilling to admit that had this not been Star Wars, they wouldn't be defending it because they wouldn't have cared about this movie at all because it was not a good movie.
The enemies of Democracy are
Troll, Eh? You wish. Or didn't you see the Star Wars 'prequels"?
Fiat Homos et Pereat Theos
I went, with my kids. If there is anything wrong it is a little long for kids. My oldest son had to "go pee so badly" but he just would not leave the theater because the movies was "so awesome." For me any film that makes me feel like I am 8 years old again is a good one. This morning my youngest son called me at work and basically his whole conversation was about the movie and how he was playing with little cars, one of which his older brother painted to look like the #5 car. With all the bvroom-brvooms over the phone I realized what a great movie that was. It is a family movie like no other before.
Ouch. I know someone that just picked up a commercial grade margarita machine for $300. I'm wondering if you could use something like that for Icees.. Oh, blue-raspberry FTW!
Yeah, but you're not taking into account the Lucas Factor. As long as Spielberg reigned him in (ie kept him on a steady IV drip of valium the whole time) I think there's hope.
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You're forgetting all of the Indiana Jones Chronicles. Indy was a do-gooding jerk throughout his life, meeting famous people and affecting events through a series of highly improbable globe hopping adventures.
*SPOILER ALERT*
I totally agree. I liked the ideas presented in the second movie, and the ending raised so many interesting possibilities. Was the 'real world' where they really were? Or were they in another section of the Matrix? Or better yet was the 'real world' really just another matrix? Was it like an onion, with layer after layer of matrices? Maybe that's how the machines dealt with that small percentage of humans who rebelled against the Matrix world -- put them in the matrix outside of that matrix but let them think they were fighting against that system when they were just another part of it. Those were the really cool concepts that I and others were thinking when we came out of Matrix Reloaded. Then we saw the third movie and saw what the Brothers W came up with wasn't -nearly- as interesting as what the fans came up with. "Oh, all that stuff? Forget about it. Neo has powers in the real world now." Fucking cop-out. Plus, a fight with CG Neo versus a bunch of CG Smiths is just not very interesting.
Oh yeah, and Trinity, you know, the character that Neo spends pretty much the entire second movie sacrificing so much to save, even willing to choose her over Zion (that's another thing, the Architect gives him a choice and he makes his decision.. a decision that ended up having no consequence)? Yeah, she ends up dying anyway. Pretty pointlessly too. I hate it when later movies just crap over the themes of earlier ones. For me it's why the Alien franchise ended after Aliens. There was no Alien 3 or Alien 4. "You know the little girl you risked everything to save? She dies off-screen in the first five minutes in the next movie."
so far, that is... http://eattheblinds.blogspot.com/
I loved both of those films. Guess I must be a critic.
Nah, he's just allowing for inflation.
US 10c is only worth US 2c from 5 years ago.
no not exactly, you did understand what I said. Theaters make more money if the movie isnt thought to be good all that good, and people go to see it anyway. A bomb is a bomb for eveyone, those are the ones that barely make it a week. They are looking for films that have legs to stay in the theaters for a bit, but are not super blockbusters that will cost the theaters gobs of money just to show. This is also the reason why your small town theaters are getting beat up. Only the bigger players can even afford to show your Star Wars and your LotR's for long stretches of time unless the movie players make a deal to "rerelease" the film a few weeks down the line.
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Shia Lebouf was the only good thing about the Transformers. Well, him and Peter Cullen.
No, that makes it grate
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I just got back from the Indiana Jones 4 movie. I must say I am SEVERELY disappointed. If you are fond of the original trilogy on a level more than just enjoying a good action flick, I guarantee you will also be devastated by this movie. They have strayed so far from the amazing mix of realism, fantasy and excitement. Now it is pure fantasy (maybe some excitement) but no ground in realism WHAT SO EVER. I find it almost such a lack of reality that they must have deliberately intended to give that impression. Its not cute, its not funny, its not Indiana Jones. To me, there is still only a trilogy. Everyone will still go see it, especially the fans. I just feel so terrible about it. I am sure many of you fans out there will agree... unfortunately