[spoiler, of course]
… is the idea that going into academic administration is supposed to provide a happy dénouement for Indy.
[spoiler, of course]
… is the idea that going into academic administration is supposed to provide a happy dénouement for Indy.
The Edge of the American West 
49 comments
May 30, 2008 at 7:24 am
silbey
*snorts coffee through his nose* I had exactly the same reaction: “wow, associate dean…there’s an achievement.”
May 30, 2008 at 8:00 am
eric
And of course I wondered why they couldn’t explain exactly why Indy and his dean got reinstated. It would have been easy—a letter, or something, left behind by Mac indicates he’s been on the payroll of Special Agent Janitor; Indy confronts Special Agent Janitor and asks if he wants to be linked to a Soviet mole; hey-presto.
May 30, 2008 at 8:06 am
silbey
It was, I’m afraid (and I fear offending Roger Ebert with this), a disappointing movie. All the emotional tension was resolved way too early.
Marion: It’s me, Marion!
Indy: My God!
Marion: You abandoned me! And he’s your son!
Indy: My God!
Marion: I love you!
Indy: I love you!
(smooching)
Natasha Blanchett: Vell, all dat ees left is vor me to die…
(an hour later)…Aaaaghh!
May 30, 2008 at 8:10 am
eric
I really liked it up through the malt-shop brawl. Then it got a bit shaky. I mean, they had a whole bit with Indy exploring a tomb and there wasn’t a single booby trap! or deadly infestation of animals! What kind of archaeological dig is that supposed to be, now?
And you know, a crystal skull would probably be kinda heavy. They were waving it around pretty freely.
That said, I agree with whoever it was who rated it above Temple of Doom but below Last Crusade—which is to say, it comes in about where I expected. There was certainly lots of it I liked.
May 30, 2008 at 8:13 am
asl
Blogger April Winchell had the ultimate spoiler on this film. May someone behind her talk on their cell on her next trip to the theater.
May 30, 2008 at 8:18 am
silbey
Yeah, it started off well (though Special Agent Janitor was a bit disconcerting) and then, ahem, dropped off a cliff.
Also, I didn’t feel like space aliens worked as well for the Big Scary Thing.
May 30, 2008 at 8:20 am
eric
I was okay with the Big Scary Thing being aliens—they certainly worked hard to prep you for that, from the opening scene right through the otherwise improbable casting of John Hurt.
May 30, 2008 at 8:26 am
silbey
They set the aliens up fine (oh look! it’s a weirdly shaped skull!) but it didn’t work for me. I like me some Nazis and Biblical stuff.
May 30, 2008 at 8:50 am
eric
Anti-semite.
May 30, 2008 at 8:57 am
silbey
Exoxenophilist.
May 30, 2008 at 9:03 am
eric
I look forward to Indiana Jones and the Contentious Tenure Case.
May 30, 2008 at 9:03 am
eric
Indiana Jones and the Difficult Budget Cuts.
May 30, 2008 at 9:04 am
eric
Indiana Jones and the Insufficient Number of Parking Spaces.
May 30, 2008 at 9:07 am
silbey
Indiana Jones and the General Education Requirement
May 30, 2008 at 9:08 am
silbey
We’re kind of sad.
May 30, 2008 at 9:10 am
eric
Ack. We’re voting on that particular reform next week. Where is Dr. Jones when we need him?
“To fulfill the General Education requirement, a course must offer the following minimum—” <crack> “—Jones!!!”
May 30, 2008 at 9:11 am
silbey
Heh.
May 30, 2008 at 9:12 am
eric
You know, envisioning a college run by Indiana Jones is actually a lot funnier than one that denies him tenure.
May 30, 2008 at 9:13 am
Cala
Indiana Jones and the Time To Degree
May 30, 2008 at 9:14 am
eric
“Listen, we’ve simply got to get these graduate students out the door quicker!”
“Will anything explode, fall on my head, or impale me if we don’t?”
May 30, 2008 at 9:15 am
eric
See, the man knows how to set priorities.
May 30, 2008 at 9:29 am
silbey
You know, envisioning a college run by Indiana Jones is actually a lot funnier than one that denies him tenure.
Excellent.
May 30, 2008 at 9:36 am
eric
I have to confess, imagining Associate Dean Jones with his bullwhip at academic meetings is a bit like an academic version of the Frantics’ “Boot to the Head.”
May 30, 2008 at 9:42 am
eric
Blogger April Winchell had the ultimate spoiler on this film
asl, your comment got held up in the spam queue for some reason, sorry about that. But, which one of those is supposed to be the ultimate spoiler? That Marion doesn’t look so good?
May 30, 2008 at 11:06 am
bw
I really tried to enjoy it. One strategy, about the time of the malt shop brawl, was to refer to the film, in my head, as Indiana Jones and the Last Hurrah, by which I meant that Lucas and Spielberg seemed to cram every favorite hobby horse from their careers into this one, from American Graffiti to Close Encounters. I was just waiting for the shark from Jaws to come out so Indy could officially, er, jump it. Or he could have passed that job on to Shia/Fonzie.
No offense intended to anyone in the age bracket of the film’s director, producers, or star — after all, Lumet’s twenty years older and put out a hell of a mean-ass film last year — but this Indy installment does strike me as a film that could not have been made by the same people 30 years ago. The ending alone — the deanship *and* the marriage to the old flame from the first movie?!? — betrays a desire on their part for neat wrap-ups, just about the opposite of what you get from the final scene of the original Raiders, which is about ironic disappointment.
May 30, 2008 at 11:40 am
Cala
A friend has a theory that great directors should not be allowed to have children, because once they do, they set about ruining their movies.
May 30, 2008 at 11:54 am
eric
The ending alone — the deanship *and* the marriage to the old flame from the first movie?!?
I’m hoping there was something left on the cutting-room floor. Or maybe there was another ending, and this one got better audience reviews.
May 30, 2008 at 3:47 pm
bitchphd
I liked it, damn you people. It’s a popcorn movie, for chrissake.
May 30, 2008 at 7:45 pm
andrew
Raiders of the Lost Archive would have some of the most exciting note-taking scenes in movie history, especially if set in the pre-photcopy request era.
May 30, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Cala
It was okay. Not as bad as Temple of Doom, and some fun sequences, but I really, really didn’t like the main skull macguffin because they’ve done that better on Stargate. And too much Indestructible Indy.
Shia LeBoeufs’s hair did really not want to stay in that style.
Best little part was the fake-out with the passing on of the hat.
May 30, 2008 at 11:00 pm
learnlotsbetty
Because I wanted to love it so much, I got out of it feeling I liked it, but that didn’t last. I’m with Liss at Shakesville on it.
May 31, 2008 at 5:41 am
silbey
It’s a popcorn movie, for chrissake.
There are still standards to be met.
May 31, 2008 at 6:42 am
ari
There are still standards to be met.
Yes, the popcorn should be fresh. And covered in real butter. Also, the actors should be attractive. Oh, and the air-conditioning had better work in the theater. Plus, I prefer it when the floor by my feet isn’t sticky. But that’s not a deal-breaker.
May 31, 2008 at 9:50 am
eric
I’m with Liss at Shakesville on it.
But Indy villains always get it for wanting forbidden knowledge.
May 31, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Cala
I’m just annoyed it was aliens. In part because I figure they were aliens mostly because there wasn’t a way to give fake Incan/Mayan/whatever gods magical powers without annoying a conservative audience, and second because there seems to be no reason for the aliens to fry Natasha Blanchett at the end. Like, God used to zap people for touching the ark, let alone looking inside, and I liked the twist on the grail legend; immortal, but stuck in a cave for 700 years for choosing… wisely. But this was a melty eyeball face that came out of nowhere. Why would skeletons of aliens care if someone downloaded their database?
Couldn’t they have done something cool, like have the city’s treasure actually turn out to be knowledge instead of putting it in a tagline? Lots of searching for gold, only to find a library? The sort of ‘oh, carpenter’s cup’ bit.
June 1, 2008 at 7:38 am
Giblets
I figure they were aliens mostly because there wasn’t a way to give fake Incan/Mayan/whatever gods magical powers without annoying a conservative audience
Foolish Cala! Crystal alien skulls were a pure laser beam of holy inspiration shot into George Lucas’s brain by the Movie Muse, and none could defy his vision!
When Ford and Spielberg both rejected the idea [of crystal skulls], Lucas dug in. He hired screenwriter after screenwriter to make his MacGuffin the linchpin of a new Indy story. “So this went on for 15 years,” he says. “And finally we got to a point where everybody said, ‘Look, we’re not doing that movie.’ And I said, ‘Well, look, I can’t think of another MacGuffin. This is it. This works. I know this works.’”
Look there! He knows that it works. And it totally did! “Oh but Giblets I didn’t like it” you say because you are weak and lack the vision to comprehend Jar Jar Binks and anti-communist monkey marauders. Well it turns out George Lucas knew that, too!
Whatever, Lucas is convinced he won’t please everyone. “I know the critics are going to hate it,” he says. “They already hate it. So there’s nothing we can do about that. They hate the idea that we’re making another one. They’ve already made up their minds.” At least the legions of Indy geeks will be pleased, right? “The fans are all upset,” Lucas says. “They’re always going to be upset. ‘Why did he do it like this? And why didn’t he do it like this?’ They write their own movie, and then, if you don’t do their movie, they get upset about it. So you just have to stand by for the bricks and the custard pies, because they’re going to come flying your way.”
And to think you doubted him.
June 1, 2008 at 7:55 am
silbey
When both Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg reject something, that would cause a sensible person to think twice. Ye Gods.
June 1, 2008 at 9:39 am
eric
I would be happier with this declensionist narrative if it were not the case that Last Crusade, which features Lucas’s characteristic father problematic, is nevertheless better than Temple of Doom.
June 1, 2008 at 11:15 am
silbey
*tweet* Illegal use of scholarly terminology in a discussion of a summer movie without the appropriate cultural studies degree. Please see Mr. Berube on the way out for the correct debriefing.
June 1, 2008 at 4:21 pm
eric
I figured I could get away with it. It wasn’t so long ago someone offered me a PhD in English lit by blog comment.
June 1, 2008 at 4:27 pm
andrew
The mistake here is to think that it’s a bad movie by Lucas that requires explanation.
June 1, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Cala
I can be honorary historian?
But I have to say, Last Crusade is my favorite. The Internets seem to disagree, but if they were ever right about anything, why, I’d have no need to comment.
June 1, 2008 at 4:42 pm
eric
The mistake here is to think that it’s a bad movie by Lucas that requires explanation.
Why are Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars good movies?
June 1, 2008 at 4:43 pm
eric
Last Crusade is my favorite
I’m actually close to this opinion; I do think Raiders edges it, but I think Last Crusade is actually the least derivative and most surprising of the films.
June 1, 2008 at 4:48 pm
andrew
I’ve seen Last Crusade more recently than Raiders but I think I’ve always liked it more. Maybe I never really got why simply closing your eyes gets you out of the Ark’s way. Or why the others couldn’t see the end coming (get it? unintentional pun, but it’s terrible enough for me to keep).
I’ve actually
gone over to the dark sidecome to the conclusion that none of the Star Wars movies are particularly good, but the nonconcluding unsatisfying Empire Strikes Back might be the best. As a whole standalone movie, I’d say Star Wars is the best.I think this comment confirms that I’m pickier than Eric.
June 1, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Cala
Lucas can do good movies if he resists the temptation to explain every last detail and let fans wank the background. Thus, Star Wars was great because of what it didn’t explain: the Force, Vader, Jedis, the Empire,etc.
I think Crystal Skull could have been great, but what it would have needed was a heavier hand on the knowledge=treasure metaphor and a lighter hand on the CGI. Have the alien skull thing be a giant fakeout or something, or leave it unexplained. And enough with Secret Agent Indy. The hell?
I enjoyed Raiders. I just have a huge soft spot for Last Crusade.
June 15, 2008 at 10:13 pm
andrew
I saw this earlier today. It was pretty bad. But leaving that aside, I couldn’t help thinking a lot of it had a 1990s X-Files aesthetic. (There are plenty of earth-native post-Cold War enemies for filmmakers to imagine now, for instance.) And now I look at Giblets’ link and see that it was indeed conceived around that time.
I approve of their decision not to subtitle the Russian, or have the Russians speak in English to each other.
June 15, 2008 at 10:16 pm
urbino
Communist.
June 15, 2008 at 11:03 pm
andrew
Capitalist shark.