Indiana Jones 4 was fine, a nostalgic trip down memory lane. Only two things in the movie bothered me:
1. The Fridge Scene. I know everyone's complained about it already, but that was just some ridiculous bullsh*t.
2. The aliens could have been handled with better care.

Personally I think the aliens were a bit too much, even for Indy to deal with.

It's just too bad because I think some filmmakers might have took comments like these to heart.

Yes, because the literal wrath of God and the ability to rip the still beating hearts out of people was a lot more realistic... :rolleyes:

It doesn't annoy me that much but I wish they went with something more akin to the original 'Stargate'.

I tried a Stargate thread in 1997 and it was deleted promptly. I think that pretty much wrecked my entire feelings about adventure and sci-fi film genres. After that they were never the same for me.

Exactly. There was nothing wrong with the alien aspect of the movie. Think about the storyline of the first and second Indy. Do they really have the ability to be soooooo true?
As far as the "Stargate" thought process, c'mon now! Why steal a storyline or thought process from another movie, even if not the whole thing.
While the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull may not have been the best work in the Indy Franchise, I do have to say that I liked it better than the Temple of Doom, but it will never touch the greatness of Raiders or The Last Crusade.

:bullwhip:

IMO, the problem with the series is that it becomes increasingly difficult to top the action of the previous movies. We've already run the gamut of bugs, snakes, Nazi's, sword-fighting while traveling in vehicles at high speed, horrible death, nuclear explosion, aliens, direct action by God, etc. Bay has reached a similar saturation point with robots destroying cities and other robots, but he has reached it faster because his characters aren't as interesting. If Spielberg does film a 5th, one would wonder what is left? Time travel? A black hole? World peace?

I was hoping it would be better, but I think 'Crystal Skull' was on par with 'Temple of Doom'.

Which is still pretty darn good.

Loads of options in regards to religious relics and myths. Atlantis was made into a videogame and looked pretty cool. The action only has to be applicable to the setting, it doesn't need to be bigger and better than what went before.

One of the things that I liked about the original Raiders (putting the Nazi plot aside for the moment) is that it had a very Edgar Rice Burroughs feel to it, especially the beginning of the film. If there's another Indy film, I'd like it to have more of that feel and perhaps be a little bit more grounded in reality, perhaps the discovery of a lost civilization (although one without superpowers). Although it didn't do well commercially, I liked the Indiana Jones Chronicles TV show because of young Indy's interactions with famous people in history. Perhaps the next film, if Harrison Ford is still the primary character, can have an older Indy helping out a "committee" of famous names with some great mystery. One of the problems though is that the world had far fewer undiscovered places in 1960 (when the next film would probably have to take place) than in the 1930s (when the first three films took place) or the 1950s (when the fourth film took place).

Your idea about time travel might make sense, because if Indy went back in time, he could interact with tribes or civilizations that didn't have a WalMart yet.

Although I like (quality) films about aliens and Spielberg has obviously made several of them, the aliens in Crystal Skull didn't work for me at all. It all seemed very forced. If you read the plotlines of "Crystal Skull", the plot seems reasonable and fun. But the execution was a rehash of what we've seen before and the lines themselves weren't that well written IMO. So I didn't find Crystal Skull to be that much of an enjoyable experience.

Wasn't there some rumor that in some movie, someone was going to discover C3PO and R2D2 buried on earth? I'd love to see that, as long as the plot leading up to it made sense.

Wasnt that a star trek:tng ep where they found Lore buried in SF.

I think that was going to be a Planet of the Apes style twist to the original Star Wars movies. I'm not sure how far along the idea actually got though....

I enjoyed Indy 4 quite a bit...I place it 4th on my list right after temple but it's still allot better then most of the other action films out there in my opinion

The one thing that bothered me and my friends (this ruined the film for my friends) was the obvious push to have Mutt take over the series in the second half of the film. I also thought there were too many characters who had to share screen time and therefore got lost in the mix. The Main Villain suffered the most from this and was not all that intimidating after all was said and done.

The common sentiment amongst my group of friends was "we waited all this time for Indy to come back and we got a Shia Lebeouf movie"

They're still holding out hope that the 5th film will get back to Indy as the central figure. I'd like to see this as well even though I enjoyed Indy 4.

I also don't relate to people thinking the fridge scene or the aliens were far fetched and unbelievable. The rest of the movies had just as many silly over the top unrealistic things going on and we all enjoyed them.

Indy falls from a high speed plane with a raft and lands unharmed?

Indy falls off a cliff on a tank and lives?

Mine carts are hopping across huge gaps and landing perfectly on tracks on the other side?

Arks with angels that come out and melt your face are more believable then aliens?

And so on and so forth.

Awesome! I look forward to this release. :)

It was Data's 500 year old head. Time's Arrow parts I & II.

I speculated time travel while the fourth movie was in pre-production. But my story was that he found an ancient time travel device and acidentally gone back to late 30s and fight the Nazis again for the device. Him to get back to 1957 while the Nazis, you know for their evil plot.

I agree, and there were many elements that were appealing in "Raiders" that were not present to same degree in the other films; adventure, humor, kookiness, the academic background presented that added a sense of legitimacy and reality to the story, interesting places all over the world, excellent pacing, and the fact that Jones exhibited human tendencies - fears, phobias, and aches and pains. These were all mixed in the right proportions. Also, the situational element - it was World War II and the survival of the free world was at stake, ancient Egypt is among the most interesting of ancient civilizations, Nazi's are the ultimate bad guys, and there are few objects as intriguing as the Ark. One more thing - the element of mystery - was present throughout the film to the very end, when the mysterious Ark was transported to the equally mysterious storage facility. Then, add the mix of likeable characters and villians. It was very difficult for ANY movie, let alone a sequel, to combine all of these elements to the same degree as Raiders.

The second movie was an immediate let-down, the third was OK (thanks in part to the addition of a new character - Indy's dad) but still suffered when compared with Raiders, and the fourth movie, well, you can tell by the forum comments that it is not universally considered to be a success. With that in mind, what could be the plotline of a fifth Indiana Jones movie? It is hard to think of a religious object of interest in the same league as the Ark, and of course, there are some religions that might not be accepting of having their sacred objects involved in the plot of a movie. Although there are some possibilities such as Druids/Stonehenge, the religious artifact theme has been addressed and would probably be better left alone. As for bad guys, we are now talking about the 1950's and have already considered cold war opponents, so what organization or country would be worth pursuing? A "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (or at least deeply underground) scenario to encounter artifacts/people of past civilizations (or dinosaurs?) might be considered, but again we are faced with the same problem of fresh concepts and originality. If the element of mystery is to be kept, I can only think that a present-day scientific mystery would still be the most likely alternative - something to do with quantum physics (the idea that reality is based on principles of probability), dark matter and energy, parallel universes, time, relativity, near-death experience, etc. But what are the chances that the general movie-going public would be interested in this?

It would almost take something on that level - outrageous plot elements - for a fifth film to succeed. Or, it might send the series to its grave. IMO, it would seem appropriate, as it would bring Lucas and Ford full circle. I would go see it, and I'm fairly confident I would enjoy it. :)

I don't know about anyone else, but I personally consider the Trey Parker and Matt Stone (South Park) "Deliverance" take on "Crystal Skull" to be the 5th installment of the series, and I don't think the Indiana Jones films could end any better than that :lolcry: :rofl: :rotfl:. And while I was horrified at how poor "Crystal Skull" was, I must admit that without it, none of us would've had the opportunity to see, what I consider to be one of the funniest things I've ever seen :lolcry:. I showed that particular South Park episode to far more people than I ever showed any of the other Indiana Jones films, and honest to goodness, I got more enjoyment out of it than I did watching all of the previous Indiana Jones films over the course of my life! I literally laughed so hard, that my face and ribs hurt for days :lolcry:...

I have a few days off coming up, so I will try to watch that. Thanks for the heads-up!