MetaChat - I have some very serious questions (spoilers)

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26 May 2008

I have some very serious questions (spoilers) about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. (spoilers, of course)→[More:]

Granted, my memory of the movie isn't perfect. But:

1. Okay. So in the opening sequence, Indy finds the alien skeleton in Area 51 by throwing gunpowder in the air--the gunpowder is magnetic (buh?) and leads the Soviets to the skeleton. At this point we don't know that the alien skeletons are made of quartz. We only find this out later when Indy and Mutt visit the tomb (where Oxley went to get the Crystal Skull? And then put it back? After he was driven mad by it? Zah?) Gold pieces are drawn to it, and that's how Indy finds it.

Then Indy picks up the skull and says, "Quartz isn't magnetic!" And Mutt says, "Neither is gold!" And then Indy says, "There must be something special about this skull!" But is there "something special" about the gold piece, too? If things that aren't magnetic are drawn to the crystal skull as if they are magnetic, why didn't the skull stick to Indy's hand?

2. Also, what was the point of the Soviets forcing Indy to look into the Crystal Skull to learn from it, and thereby interpret Oxley? Did Oxley ever say anything, even once, that needed Indy's magic telepathy to make sense of? The best he did was to say, "Hey look, there are three waterfalls coming," when the gang would have figured that out in five minutes anyway. And he had a couple of no-shit insights, like that the Crystal Skull would open a door, the same door that had a picture painted on it of an alien whose head was shaped like a Crystal Skull.

3. Also, if Cate Blanchett wouldn't even look into one of the Crystal Skulls and made Indy do it instead, and she saw with her own eyes that it had driven Oxley crazy, why was she all fired up to deal with thirteen of them at once? Did she think that would turn out any better? Didn't she know that thirteen is an unlucky number?

4. I am willing to accept that Indy can see a mushroom cloud close-up and be in perfect health after taking a vigorous shower, because he drank from the Holy Grail in Last Crusade and is now immortal. Except that his father (who also drank from the Grail) is dead in Crystal Skull, so no, that doesn't work either.

Finally: it's worth seeing at a matinee price, Cate Blanchett should be in every movie, and it was nice to see Karen Allen again, but it's my least favorite of the four Indy movies.

post by: Prospero at: 20:19 | 25 comments

I have some very serious questions about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

i, on the other hand, do not.

posted by quonsar 26 May | 20:46

I just got back from seeing it. I think the fundamental narrative problem is that when you rely on OMG ALIENS!!! as the central organizing factor, it's too easy to throw any consistency out the window. So yeah, is the skull ""regularly" magnetic, or some kind of not-of-this-world magnetic? And is the magnetism so strong that it can suck up bullets from across the room even while packed densely in a crate, or can the magnetism be turned on and off merely by covering it with a little burlap?

There's no real explanation; it's just what works from scene to scene, which is fundamentally unsatisfying.

posted by scody 26 May | 21:08

Your observations are all astute and I have no answers for them.
We went last night and I also was a bit disappointed. The print was totally scratched and surprisingly they handed every one a free pass on the way out of the theatre, which I've never ever seen happen before. But my son felt like he was going to barf so my wife and him missed the last 15 minutes or so after they dashed to the washroom.

I felt like there was a too much talking about stuff instead of showing it. It felt like they were struggling to catch us up on 20 years of back story by tossing out these lines like "you left me 2 days before the wedding," "don't you know he's a highly decorated war hero" etc.
And he kept giving these long monologues about various legends, which I think he only did once or twice in the previous films, to set things up. Also the ending with the wedding and the hat was totally stupid. I'll be mad if they do a "Henry the 3rd" Jones movie with what's-his-face.

posted by chococat 26 May | 21:20

I thought it completely, totally and absolutely sucked. Also, Harrison Ford is either an alien himself or he's had like five facelifts, because that taut skinned grayish face is just unnerving as hell. Therefore, I shall answer your questions.

1. The skull is only magnetic sometimes. That's because it's alien.

2. Because they are evil.

3. She is evil but otnay ootay ightbray, if you catch my drift. That's one of those well known Russkie Commie Pinko problems.

4. It actually totally creeped me out to see a picture of Sean Connery and have them all go all weepy eyed alas poor original James Bond, he is dead and fled this earth when, to the best of my knowledge, Mr. Connery, although old, is in fine health and living it up in Scotland somewhere. I mean, why the big kerfuffle? Oh and 4a) anyone can live through ground zero of a nuclear explosion as long as they're locked in a 1950s refrigerator. This is well known. AAAIIEEEE!!!

posted by mygothlaundry 26 May | 21:25

I will suspend my disbelief with the best of them.

BUT. . .why in the name of Spielberg did all the main characters emerge from numerous travails including near
annihilation by alien energy, a chase through the jungle, a run from ants, 3 (count'em) waterfalls, etc etc etc ad naseum, and STILL have their clothing clean and freshly pressed, nary a smudge or a tear.

That, my friends, is what lost me.

posted by danf 26 May | 21:27

How did Indy live hanging onto the outside of a submarine for days and days in the first movie? How did he and Capshaw survive dropping out of an airplane in a life raft? (and why didn't the baddies just shoot them?) Why does he wear glasses in class but doesn't need them anywhere else? How come no one can hit the side of a barn with a machine gun?

I don't think that you are supposed to think too hard about these movies. Just have fun with the stunts and the performances. I had fun seeing this one, it was probably the second weakest after Temple but it was great seeing Ford and Allen together again, Blanchett was fun and LeBeouf was surprisingly non-Hayden Christensen like.

posted by octothorpe 26 May | 21:30

Plus, I enjoyed it, but I also expected Cate Blanchett to say "Beeg tdoubel fur moose and squierrel," at any moment and I was mildly disappointed that she didn't.

posted by danf 26 May | 21:30

Yeah, I'm with Scody here. The minute the gunpowder was flying hundreds of yards to the box but the army guy could pull his gun right off it, I knew that the movie wasn't going to be the most accurate.

The aliens seemed like a really cheap bit to me. The magnetism was never explained, and it pissed me off that it could attract things through a lead case in the warehouse but wouldn't stick to the car or anything when there was some burlap around it.
Also, if you know someone is unstable and crazy, would you trust them with the precious skull that you are killing each other over? They kept tossing Oxley the skull, and I was like "what? that guy can't even say his name, why would you give him something important?"
I tried to justify it in my head by saying that he had a special connection to the skull since he'd looked in its eyes and that he could control a little of its power, but really that doesn't hang together.
Also, those ants were going everywhere, and they totally weren't looking in the skull's eyes and didn't have any metal (gold or iron or whatever passes these days) to repel them from the skull, so I don't know why they scattered.
The skull was a total convenience.

You know what else really annoyed me? That the skull didn't even look like quartz or any sort of stone. And I don't think it's just because I studied geology that I saw it for what it really was: a hollow lucite mold with crumpled saran wrap inside.

Alright, I'm done now.

posted by rmless2 26 May | 21:35

4a) anyone can live through ground zero of a nuclear explosion as long as they're locked in a 1950s refrigerator.

It was lined with lead. .it said so on the label. All fridges in the 50's were lined with lead. . .which explains a lot about us boomers, I guess. . .

Of course he would have been baked to well done in there, but I am still most troubled about the clothing issue.

Any why Karen Allen sucks whenever she's in a movie without aliens or other supernatural forces.

posted by danf 26 May | 21:35

Also, fuck the tedious aliens-as-subplot when the much more potentially interesting CIA-run-amok subplot is introduced and then abandoned? I mean: "WE ARE WATCHING YOU, MR. JONES. BUT NOT IF YOU DASH OFF TO PERU WITH A PLASTIC SKULL UNDER YOUR ARM, IN WHICH CASE WE WILL BE RIGHT OFF THE CASE."

posted by scody 26 May | 21:35

I wanted to follow the kids in the roadster.

posted by chococat 26 May | 21:38

The aliens seemed like a really cheap bit to me. The magnetism was never explained, and it pissed me off that it could attract things through a lead case in the warehouse but wouldn't stick to the car or anything when there was some burlap around it.

Well, the thing in the army base wasn't a crystal skull, it was an alien body. So who knows, maybe actual aliens are more magnetic than their skeletons. In fact, I don't recall a point at which the crystal skull was magnetic -- just the alien body. Correct me if I'm wrong.

But as for fact-checking the flick, there's really no point. All of the Indy films have been wildly inconsistent and riddled with WTF moments. The Indiana Jones series is meant to mimic classic film serials from back in the '30s and '40s -- just like Flash Gordon and Star Wars. They're meant to be enjoyed, not pondered or pored over.

(Though all that said, I was a bit annoyed by the completely throwaway FBI subplot. Seemed like an excuse to have a second car for Indy and the kid to dodge.)

posted by me3dia 26 May | 22:22

I actually liked it. Saw it tonight. The thing is, it's the fiftes, so the alien stuff makes sense. Plus, it was short, thank goodness. Stock characters, see Cate as Natasha. Plus, comedy = ending with a wedding at the end.

posted by rainbaby 26 May | 22:34

I put the word "spoilers" in the heading so that comments from here on the "recent comments" page will be obscured. carry on.

posted by taz 27 May | 01:17

Virtually any time you have advanced aliens, that's code for "deus ex machina". They can do whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want. Including a type of magnetism that doesn't adhere to the inverse-square law. That makes it easier to write a movie by committee. "Ok, in my scene it's pulling the bad guys' guns out of their hands." "But in my scene, they're standing right next to it and nothing's happening." "Eh, that's fine. But Steve's got it attracting gold coins in his scene. Gold's not magnetic!" "Ok, we'll put in a line about it being a special kind of magnetism."

Cate Blanchett can't say "Jones" without a British accent. I think it's part of being British. She says "Jewnz" rather (or is it raahthaa?) than "Choanss". And she totally failed at sexy.

And Oxley was bad enough, but Indy should have just shot "stock British traitor character" in the leg and let him fend for himself. At least they didn't rely on him to greedily set off a trap by grabbing some counterweighted gold.

I dunno, I enjoyed the film (though I was critiquing it all the way through) when I was there, but in retrospect I am liking it less and less every time I talk about it. I guess I'm less forgiving when not on a date.

posted by Eideteker 27 May | 08:12

It wasn't actually the plot idiocies and surviving the falls in a Duck and all that that bothered me so much as the sort of leaden weight of it all. The first three movies are light; they're played for laughs and you get the sense that everyone is having a good time. This movie just didn't do it for me and the only feeling I got from it was that everyone was there purely for the money. I wish it had been more over the top, if anything, with Cate Blanchett gone fully Natasha Eeeeevil and Indy hamming it up (hard, with a face that won't move, I know) and also, my god, couldn't they find a cuter boy with more verve to play The Kid? Everything just plodded along and even the action scenes were predictable and seemed to drag on and on forever.

Maybe I'm just getting old and crotchety but you know, I really like bad action movies and yet this movie was neither bad nor good enough for me. I genuinely love all the originals, including the total zaniness of the monkey brains in the second one - but this one, sigh, no, it just didn't do it for me.

posted by mygothlaundry 27 May | 09:32

I did like a few things. I liked some of the references to the earlier films, like the glimpse of the Ark in the warehouse, and the subtle music cues like the Ark music when you glimpse it, or the "Marion" love theme when you first see her or the slight undertone of the Indy "hero" theme when you first see him put his hat on in silhouette. Those were well done.
More random thoughts:
My 8 year old laughed when Mutt said, "So what are you, like 80?" But she doesn't like it when people "come out of nowhere" (the small bad guys coming out of the walls.)
And what was the significance of Markus' head falling into the KGB dude's lap?

posted by chococat 27 May | 09:48

My favorite scene in the movie was actually the short one in which Indy is just about the only living person left in the mocked-up town that's about to be detonated by the A-bomb--a doomed Utopia full of mannequins. I wish the filmmakers had done more with that, other than settling for the business with the refrigerator.

posted by Prospero 27 May | 12:01

I do admit I killed a fair number of brain cells over the weekend, so was in a perfect place not to think about stuff while I was wathcing the movie.

posted by rainbaby 27 May | 12:07

I was able to stand everything (the plastic/saranwrappy alien skull aside) until we see Mutt with the monkeys (really? REALLY?).

Actually, that's something else that bothered me. I don't remember Temple of Doom all that well, but it seems to me that in both Raiders and Last Crusade, when people do the whole melty/catch on fire thing, it's because they've transgressed some obvious rule that has been explained somewhere (bible says you shouldn't try to look at God, the knight tells them how the whole cup thing works and duder chooses....poorly, etc). But I can't figure out why the alien makes Cate's head explode. Okay, so she asks to know everything, and it's too much for her, but right before she catches on fire or whatever, the alien goes all glare-y, right? What's the deal? I guess it doesn't seem like an unreasonable request to me...

posted by dismas 27 May | 12:40

Eh. I thought it was adequate as a pretext for eating popcorn and drinking soda. I enjoyed the stunts. It was intensely silly. Any "meh" feelings I have I chalk up to being 35 now rather than 11. When I catch myself thinking "But why...", I remind myself that this is explicitly a summer pulp pastiche.

posted by everichon 27 May | 13:59

My take on this:

I was very disturbed by the knowledge is evil undercurrent to this movie. Stay with me here: we're supposed to cheer the fact that Mudd dropped out of school to do what he wants (even though later, Indy gets angry about it), then, when Indy is offered "THE ULTIMATE TRUTH" by the aliens, he hits the door. Wait. What? Did he KNOW that the aliens would make his head disintegrate?

More problems with this movie:
* A few dozen US soldiers are killed by Soviet spies, but they decided to go ahead and conduct the nuclear test anyway.
* Two little native men(?) try to kill Indy and Mudd at the graveyard (located conveniently on the top of a bluff...where else would you put one?), so Indy kills them. And then, suddenly, they are forgotten.
* The hundreds of natives who live...in the walls of the forbidden city? Wait. What? What the fuck? Who wrote this crap? You can't just make a whole society appear out of nowhere. You can't. It's lazy. Shows no respect for your audience.
* That fucking scene where they hold up the crystal skull and YOU CAN SEE BY IT'S SHADOW THAT IT MATCHES! How dumb do they think the audience is?
* The quicksand scene seems like it was shot months after the rest of the movie and spliced in with Scotch tape. It's a cheap excuse to include a snake bit. Then, everyone seems surprised when the Soviets recapture them...Well, assholes, it's because you only ran forty feet from the camp.

This movie stunk. It cheapens the series.

posted by ColdChef 27 May | 13:59

Oh, and Karen Allen looked fucking bonkers. I thought at any moment she was going to start laughing hysterically or weeping.

posted by ColdChef 27 May | 14:01

Oh good, somebody else who hated it. Excellent. Yeah, the little weird creepy guys in the graveyard. Who were they? Where did they come from? Where did they go? WTF was that all about? And they were actually kind of scary, best effect in the whole damn movie, so why just have them on screen for like a minute and then never mention them again? Annoying at the very least.

posted by mygothlaundry 27 May | 14:24

My favorite scene in the movie was actually the short one in which Indy is just about the only living person left in the mocked-up town that's about to be detonated by the A-bomb--a doomed Utopia full of mannequins. I wish the filmmakers had done more with that, other than settling for the business with the refrigerator.

Yes! Along with the CIA/McCarthyism bits tossed out at the beginning, made me think that there really was a much better (read: smarter, better written) popcorn movie in there somewhere. I feel like what I assume were Spielberg's storytelling impulses (which seemed most evident in the kind of scenes that reveled in the uneasy Americana of the period) got overruled by Lucas's storytelling impulses (OMG MAGNETIC CRYSTAL SKULL JUNGLE FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT RACE GO FAST FASTER FASTER ALIENS OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).

posted by scody 27 May | 17:04

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