Indiana Jones versus the martians

[davywavy]

Is it just me, or does anyone else have an awful, nagging certainty that this film is going to suck as much as The Phantom Menace?

Comments

[madwitch.livejournal.com]

I refuse to even consider the possibility. Indy will be glorious, in all the ways the others were.

IT MUST BE.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Staying fairly positive about this one actually.

[raggedyman.livejournal.com]

agreed- whilst it might be a little bit 'oh look at me, I'm older now - LOL!' at points I'm expecting it to be filled with loads of what we loved about the first three. Plus no JJB to fuck the whole thing up :-)

[madwitch.livejournal.com]

And it was never high class acting and plots with no holes in that made the first three so fab, and it doesn't look like they've tried to make this one any different. It it's the kind of cheese-ridden, Saturday morning matinee goodness we had before, it'll be great.

[song-of-copper.livejournal.com]

I really want it to be good... fingers crossed.

...But just in case it's not, you should probably wear some kind of protective headgear in the cinema. [That is to say, I read your 'Ultraviolet' review - a sterling service there! I mean, sacrificing your time and sanity to brave the rigours of A Bad Film, so others don't have to... Brave and Noble! ;-)]

[astartesyriaca.livejournal.com]

The trailer looks good... and of course the biggest difference is that Speilberg actually kept making movies - and movies that were consistently great, to boot! I have hopes *fingers crossed*.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I thought the trailer pretty poor, actually, which is what's made me concerned - the special effects aren't first rate by any means.

[bringeroflight.livejournal.com]

Apparently some censorship board edited the trailer in a hurried fashion to remove some of the violence to allow them to put it out in the trailer...

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I know about that and it didn't worry me - it's the astonishginly unconvincing bluescreen work in the car chase along the cliff sequence that had me thinking "that really sucks".

[hiromasaki.livejournal.com]

There's still 3 months left until release, and that trailer had to be finished months ago.

There's a good chance the FX team isn't quite finished yet.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

One would suspect that it would make sense to put finished, or at least, not so obviously unfinished work into the trailer - unless there's nothing better to put there?
Like I say, I'm not overly hopeful. Any film written by George Lucas with a sassy teenage companion has a mountain to climb not to suck.

[hiromasaki.livejournal.com]

One would hope, but honestly it's not blatant. (For blatantly bad blue-screen, see things like Neverending Story II, where there's soft light (overcast) on the background, but harsh light on the actors...)

I'll go see it regardless, and where the FX are a bit spotty, I'll just go "Eh" and move on. So long as plot and dialogue come out okay, I'll be okay with it.

[applez.livejournal.com]

So you expect 2007-era FX? I'll just be happy if Indy manages better-than 1980s-era FX of melty Nazis, burning beating hearts, and-clearly-that's-a-model-with-a-Nazi-Action-Figure-Attached cliff-drop...but maybe that's just me. ;-)

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I disagree - CGI still can't match up to good model work, as proven by LOTR.

[applez.livejournal.com]

Loathe as I am to use him as any kind of positive example, I think Uwe Boll has demonstrated that cheese and CGI are not mutually exclusive. ;-)

[patchworkkid.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on that one. In spades. If I had my way etc. etc.

That said, the trailer left me hopeful. Also, it's entirely possible that what Spielberg is doing using bluescreen work and the like is attempting to match the FX techniques of the last 3 films so as for the fourth to feel true. I have absolutely no problem with that, or with models and action figures dropping off cliffs... none at all... provided the script isn't crap. That's really and truly all that matters. A good script will make the FX - whatever their quality - its own.

I'm all for sidekicks and wry humour and working with what they have. The point about the difference between Lucas and Spielberg being that Spielberg never stopped making films is a good one. I'm hopeful.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

provided the script isn't crap

George Lucas wrote the script. In the last 20 years he has also written Ewoks: the battle for Endor, Howard the Duck, Willow, The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith. Would you be willing to make a small wager on whether his writing abilities have improved?

[patchworkkid.livejournal.com]

Well, shit.

However, the one thing this film doesn't have in common with any of the above is that Spielberg is directing it, and Spielberg (along with Ron Howard and Martin Scorcese, I believe) was one of the directors who were shown the pre-SFX rough cut of Menace, and who then told Lucas that it needed a shitload of work. Advice which Lucas presumably ignored, or it was too late to do anything about it.

Spielberg has been in on this project from inception, and I would hope that his standards and objectivity are greater than Lucas', and I would (plaintively) hope that he has had some influence over the formation of the script. Also, once a script is in the hands of a director it's a whole other deal anyway. In directing this film, Spielberg is effectively a co-writer.

So, again, I don't want to pre-emptively bag the film. The trailer isn't terrible, and hits the right notes, so I remain optimistic.

[(Anonymous)]

That said, however, the trailer for Menace had me twice as excited as this one so...

[applez.livejournal.com]

Oh, everyone has that nagging feeling ever since the aberration came into our midsts. But the trailer nevertheless looks like INDY GOODNESS! (let it be so)

[fonnparr.livejournal.com]

The title made me cringe exactly as much as 'Attack of the Clones'