Indy IV Links!
I had other articles planned, but dammit, I’d rather be talking about Indy IV. So, if you’re as excited as I am, here is a list of links to tide you over as you count the minutes ‘til the opening:
Extensive lists of updated film reviews may be found here and here.
Eric Kohn actually live-blogged the Cannes screening (full of spoilers).
FILMdetail on the creation of Indiana Jones.
Christopher Campbell’s Lost Art of the Serial.
Ali Arakin’s Indiana Jones blog-a-thon.
Jonathan Lapper posts some concept art for Raiders of the Lost Ark.
David Thomson on Harrison Ford's career.
Lucas talks Indy V, God help us all.
Kim Voynar on the Cannes press conference.
Peter Rainer on Spielberg and Paul Brownfield on Karen Allen.
Peter Howell talks with Allen and with Harrison Ford.
Here’s my own article, The Long, Sordid Road to Indy IV.
And finally, below are three vids that capture fairly well the excitement and boredom of being on a film set. Hope you enjoy them.
-MM
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2 comments:
I wasn't going to re-post this -- but well, I just want to make it utterly clear how much I reject this movie. And the almost-certain bad word-of-mouth will make it almost impossible for Indy to develop "legs." Anyway, here's my post...
"This news doesn’t come as a huge surprise. I figured they would screw the pooch on this one. Though, it wasn’t exactly hard to predict. I mean, you have Lucas running around telling us not to expect too much from the sequel. Then on top of that, Koepp is expressing zero confidence in his fanboy material. By the way, what kinda shit is that? How does he get work?
Anyway, I agree with you that he better cover his ass. After all, his fanboy approach will easily be the Hundred Million Dollar Mistake. And what constitutes a fanboy script? Well...
...bringing Marion back...
...having Indy swinging from the rafters like he’s fucking Tarzan...
...giving Indy a kid...
...bringing us back to the infamous warehouse...
...and having no original ideas or MacGuffin.
Yep.
They just switched hemispheres and bad guys. That’s it. Instead of European myths, they give us a Mayan (sp?) one. Instead of the Nazis looking for the supernatural artifact, they make it the Russians.
Man, I really wish they would have left the Indy franchise alone. Also, if they knew it was gonna suck big time, why make the movie? That’s what I don’t get. Do they not care? I care! And I’m not even a fanboy. I just want to see an entertaining movie.
But all this brings me to a question that’s been lingering in my head for awhile --
When did Spielberg and Lucas lose their balls?
Seriously, can somebody help me out here? Do they just fall off at a certain age? Damn. Spielberg hasn’t made a good movie since Saving Private Ryan (1998). Ah, and Lucas, can you make a film that has nothing to do with a galaxy far, far away? Don’t you think that that movie has run its course? It’s time to move on! And what happened to the magic these two had? These genius fuckers invented the blockbuster, and the Crystal Skulls is the best they can come up with? I think the problem is that they are too fucking rich. Yeah, that has to be it. If they were struggling, I think we’d be seeing a totally different movie this summer. A movie with balls! But no, we get the lazy fanboy version that’ll give us a sense of closure.
And this --
"The concept, action, characters, and storyline, which was created in collaboration with Spielberg and built upon years of treatments by other pros, will undoubtedly be superior to anything an amateur’s going to write or conceive."
-- is utter horseshit.
Everybody can do better than this. In fact, I’m going to bang out a story right now. Here we go...
Indy and Brody’s twenty-year-old daughter Maggie are taking a sailing trip to Singapore to spread Brody’s ashes. Indy’s taking care of her now that she’s lost both parents.
And while on the Celebes Sea, in dead of night, the R'ni attack. Indy and Maggie are quickly subdued. Next moment, Indy is awakened by a voice -- that of the leader. Indy is reminded he owes a debt to the R'ni. They hand him map fragments and snatch away Maggie. And in order to pay his debt and get Maggie out of hock, Indy has to go down to an off-the-map island and retrieve a fissionable mineral. This mineral will fuel an ancient machine that’ll lead Earth to its salvation. And if Indy doesn’t return within three days, Maggie will be enslaved to the R'ni services. So off Indy goes to --
Australia
When he arrives he asks a dock worker where he can find the owner of the only seaplane. The dock worker points to a repair shop. Indy arrives and goes to confront the owner -- a ne'er-do-well named Rachel, who is finishing up an argument with the mechanic over money. Just prior to leaving, Rachel grabs a set of keys, and ignores Indy as he asks for help -- but Indy persists.
And as they leave the building, a group of corrupt officers enter unbeknownst to Indy -- but maybe not to Rachel. Indy follows her into a Jeep. She tries to kick him out. No dice. The officers have spotted her. She takes off. Indy realizes. There’s a huge car chase. The officers wreck the jeep.
The officers pull Rachel out and leave one of their own behind. The officer draws his gun on Indy, and Indy flips him over hard on the ground. And with his face on the ground, the officer tells Indy where they took her. Indy grabs his gun and steals his car.
Indy is in the apartment building. The short of it is that a massive shootout erupts during which Indy is injured. They flee. However, two officers survived and chase the two of them on foot through the crowded streets to the docks -- where Indy and Rachel start the seaplane and fly off. And on the --
Seaplane
The two have a very friendly chat as Rachel tends to his wounds and Indy deciphers the map fragments. At the end of the conversation Indy identifies the precise location of the island. Next day Indy and Rachel reach --
The Island
A walkway leads them to an intact town. But bones are all over the place. The inhabitants appear to have simply lost the will to live and killed themselves by drinking the Kool-Aid. Rachel finds a journal from a body.
She gives Indy the journal that reveals a bunch of enslaved miners rose against their R'ni masters. The miners that survived, however, had nowhere to go and just committed suicide -- then Indy and Rachel go to where the miners made their stand, Sector 21, which is a dam.
Exploring the dam with Rachel -- and in the process passing a wall picture (a mining facility that’s situated over a quarter-of-a-meteor that’s imbedded in the ocean floor) dubbed Sector 8 -- Indy finds a mini-sub/mine-car (dubbed "The Cannonball" for the way it looks). The two of them then reactivate the dam.
The Cannonball rides along a tram-and-rails system and takes the two to Sector 8, deep within the ocean, where they find lots of fissionable minerals.
But the fissionable minerals carry a price -- a curse from the miners that mined the meteor: each one who owns the mineral will share ill fate through the elements and all things that fall.
Indy takes a chunk of mineral and puts it into his backpack. All is fine until the two of them go to leave with the fissionable mineral, setting off a mammoth quake inside the facility. Water starts flooding in. They then proceed to have an eventful escape from drowning and the island.
Seaplane
Back aboard in relative safety, Rachel punches Indy for endangering her, then declares her intention to leave him when she stops to refuel.
Okay, great. I think that’s far enough. So, what do you guys think? Not bad for off-the-cuff, huh?
Okay, so maybe I went a bit overboard with the whole "I’m better than Spielberg and Lucas" thing. But the main points come across, I think. This movie should’ve never been made. Actually, I’m just going to pretend Crystal Skulls was never made. Oh, hell. I’ll probably see it. But as George Lucas said, "One bad decision can undo a thousand good ones." Next time he should check himself.
-- David Alan
May 14, 2008"
Hehehe...
I thought this comment was hilarious! I'm surprised it didn't generate more controversy in the other article.
-MM
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