Is it just me or is this silly opinion banter getting worse in these big threads? Seriously some of it must be trolling as half the time a mention of George Lucas and star wars, CGI, muffed transfers, etc etc...

Here is my opinion on the level of opinions poorly shown as if fact... Actually, Jedd Bartlet says a speech quote that fits here better than any president the real world has spawned.

"and we can do better, and we must do better, and we will do better, and we will start this moment today! They weren't born wanting to do this."

-President Josiah Bartlet, on curbing trolls with education.

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On topic:

I somewhat agree that for me, KOTCS was good at the start. The first 25 mins hooked the weak fan in us all probably. Even the whole tracking down of the skull and all that still felt like Indy for me.

What didn't was the fact that it felt like Temple of Doom more than Raiders. Which I never really tolerated TOD as a kid and I could pass that by unless I have watched both Raiders and Last Crusade in successive days. Then the completest attitude would creep in and I'd go TOD then KOTCS (after the better 2 movies).

I really feel that TOD is as removed as KOTCS both in believability and subject matter. Both hardly even fit within the "pocket" that the other Indy movies have given us which is my favourite (I guess meaning I need to see Indy battling nazi elements in some fashion!). It makes sense that Steven S. would infuse the power of the nazi with such inspecific evil and be the perfect enemy for Indiana Jones by proxy of all the other evil the nazi draws in.

1. Raiders 10/10
2. Last Crusade 9/10
3. TOD 7/10
4. KOTCS 7/10

Really back on topic. I'm so excited for seeing how awesome these all look and sound! Hoping an announcement for this comes out by november that it will be out early 2012. Before titanic 3D and star wars theatrical re-releases. Just because I want this thing to have it's moment in the spotlight away from other catalog.

1/2/3 all 10 out of 10 for me

wonderful movies :rock:

someone told me there was a 4th film, but i dont believe him.....

Don't really want to read through 48 pages to find this- is it going to be released as a 3-movie trilogy set or are they going to lump Crystal Skull in and force you to buy that too?

dont think any of us know yet

Quote from the documentary "The People vs George Lucas" >>>

It's hardly George Lucas though is it? The brightness will have been changed to improve it, not because he "felt like it".

Any concrete news on when these films are getting released on Blu-ray?

I just understood why Temple of Doom is often the lowest rated movie from the Indiana Jones original trilogy.... It's a prequel to Raiders of the Lost Arc! :rolleyes:

Right, the films take place at various times:

Raiders of the Lost - 1936
The Temple of Doom - 1935
The Last Crusade - 1938
The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - 1957

I don't think that being a prequel has anything to do with ToD being subpar. According to one of the interviews on the DVD bonus features, Lucas/Spielberg only made it a prequel so that people wouldn't wonder where Marion was, why weren't the Nazis wanting revenge, etc.

I'll buy into that explanation since they've always stated that Indiana Jones was supposed to be in the same vein as old-timey serials and thus keeping plot threads spanning multiple films was depreciated. It's not like they were trying to use ToD to shoehorn an incogruent backstory into Raiders (which was exactly what was done with the SW prequels...)

The reason ToD failed was because it was too dark thematically, the "heroine" was a useless bimbo (the role, not the actress) who suffered in comparison with Marion Ravenwood, and in the end the movie just wasn't nearly as fun as Raiders.

Last Crusade didn't get the lead female role right either with Elsa, but she was certainly less annoying than ToD's Willie. The addition of Sean Connery as Henry Jones, Sr. made up for it in my opinion. It wasn't as good as Raiders (which was a terribly high bar to clear) but it was much better and certainly more fun than ToD.

Everything that could I could say about Crystal Skull has already been said, and said better than I could.

In short: Raiders 10/10, Temple of Doom 6/10, Last Crusade 8.5/10, Crystal Skull 7.5/10

ToD is sub-par, for me, because it just feels kinda cheap. I just don't get that epic, globe-trotting feel at all in ToD. The bulk of the movie is clearly filmed on stages, rather than at real locations, and it just feels like a 'small' adventure: a locally misappropriated stone artifact vs. a trans-continental hunt for the Ark of the Covenant or Holy Grail.

Thanks for the nice tid bit of info. I didn't know they were so close, for the first 3.

No problem. I'm probably the biggest Indiana Jones nut here.

The restoration for Raiders is playing at my local theater on Monday - tickets are $5. I'm definitely going - can't possibly miss it!

It's not a "restoration". That word gets thrown around a lot too much lately.

Ben-Hur. The Ten Commandments. Lawrence of Arabia. Spartacus. Films literally falling apart with pieces missing, fading, on the verge of being lost forever. Those were restorations.

Raiders of the Lost Ark was never in this condition.

A film doesn't have to be falling apart to be considered a restoration - there are various degrees of restoration. Once they go back and do work to the original negative, I think that qualifies as one.

I agree though, sometimes the word gets thrown around too much - but blame it on studios. How many times do they call Blu-rays "restorations" when they merely add DNR and EE to a master......Universal especially.

Absolutely agree with this.

With Raiders, it's probably been touched up at a higher resolution - which is tampering, and therefore restoring to an original condition that it was earlier at. So it's a restoration if you ask me (assuming my info on what's gone on with that is correct).

Oh god, is this really true? I always said that Crystal Skull makes the most sense if you put it in between Temple of Doom and Last Crusade.

That actually makes no sense at all :D

Exactly. :)

That's the chronology according to Spielberg and Lucas.