Once again Dr. Lucas, there is no positive childhood nostalgia that we can have that you cannot take away....
P.S. If you Haven't seen Indiana Jones and the thing with skull yoke and yer man from Transformers and Even Stevens....stop now, spoilers ahead....
where to fucking start *sigh* I wasn't expecting much and knew it wouldn't be mind blowing, and we've all been prey to Lucas's bullshit before:' I meant Hayden to be a cardboard actor because that was a homage 1920s serials' etc. But I couldn't believe the new Indy. To do a full proper rant would exhaust you and me so I will restrict myself to bullet points:
Opening Sequence: Do you know what I hate, those boring films where there is no proper opening sequence like when its night and a camera shot from a helicopter flys over a bay onto skyscrapers while the title come up in silver letters, isn't that the most boring opening of a film ever? and if you substitute jeeps and desert for that you get the opening sequence to Skull-Fuck (as I will hereby refer to Indy 4 as).
P.S. The Paramount mountain/prairie dog hill doesn't jump-cut it (pardon the editing joke) Lucas and Spielbergo may have almost invented studio logo/narrative tomfoolery but with all the stuff that's gone on since, surely there was something funnier, maybe the mountain could cut to Dr. Jone's cock as he wanked off to a picture of shortround...go on Lucas get the grindhouse market, you seem to have no sense about current tastes anyway.
No CGI: so Fucko Lucas and El Speilbergo go on about how it will be real stunts with no cgi, apart from all the unnecessary cgi prairie dogs, ants and testicle attacking cacti and some cgi backdrops that make it look like outtakes from Casablanca or something that Rodriguez would wipe his arse on, hey Lucas maybe you could cgi some dwarfs in there for the laugh?
Indy's Study... fuck me, the first thing I saw of Skull-Fuck was that they had meticulously created his study to reflect the various periods of Indy's life. Photos within movies are one my bugbears. So we have obvious on set photos and press shots of Sean Connery and Denholm Elliot and these are meant to be pics of Indys Da? when they aren't at all in the style of photos from the 1940s? I know I'm alone on this but these films cost hundreds of millions should there be no logic? the grain, the pose the clarity these are obviously photos from the 1980s-1990s.
Mutt Williams...what sort of fucking name is that.
Aliens?...whatever...Skull-Fuck seems to fall into this worrying trend in movies (cf Spider-Man 3, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, X-Men III: The Last Stand, Superman Returns) of a complete lack of wonder and inquistiveness in the world and universe around oneself as a self aware human being. Aliens? whatever? interdimensional beings? feck that I'll just look the other way and sit on a stone and pull a bemused Harrison Ford face, because I'm buying a toy and rattling my bones against yer one out of Ally McBeal and basically I don't care about anything this sense that in the tent scene with Cate Blancett that you are about a foot away from an actual alien and you basically don't give a flying fuck makes my gut sink, this is horrible, no one cares about anything...except of course crystal skulls and money.
The 19 fucking 50s....right, I understand the whole B-Movie stuff and bringing Indy into the 1950s and him getting older. But that's just it I get it, you don't need to keep hitting me over the head with the fact...that...it's....the....fucking....1950s...I get it I don't need a cafe called 'The Atomic Cafe', KGB agents, an atomic bomb, a test suburban town (I thought this was Ang Lee's Hulk for a minute) the janitor from Scrubs and Jim from Neighbours, (has Alan Dale got serious blackmailable dirt on every casting agent in Hollywood? he is in everything....rack off)
Hey what country we in anyway...who cares?....whatever about the racism of the original series, and they had it in spades, (cf the obvious Americans 'browned-up' to be Indian in Temple of Doom) there was at least a sense of what country they were in, they talked to locals even if they were Alexi Sayle or the guy who isn't Brian Blessed from Sliders and Lord of the Rings they had fixers there was villagers etc, this film seemed to be scared in a PC way (note the token implant of one black women student in Indy's class) of the very imperialist reason d'etre of the trilogy's success...every foreign person is evil, rips out hearts, eats monkey brains and sheeps eyes etc., this all comes from George 'Jar Jar....Me so Sorleee Binks' Lucas so in this film we have the same 1930s attitude of 'Living dead' natives but without even the courtesy of some sort of 'noble savage' explanation who are these guys? should there no be some sort of hand shake between the main living dead guy and Indy in a sort of 'for sure you are the best warrior' style exchange....
What?! no drinking competion...best thing about Karen Allen in Raiders was her hardass drinking, and here they turn her into a swooning idiot....oh Indy be a dad to Mutt won't you?...please....oh please...marry me Indy...etc. etc. ad nausem. Plus poor Cate Blancett...she only wanted knowledge, but of course ladies who want knowledge in the Lucasverse...what happens to them, they either get their home planets or brains exploded....
in the meantime here's Indy fucking about in Ireland and being at the GPO and shit...