View Poll Results: What did you think of Indy 4?

Voters
54. You may not vote on this poll
  • Loved it! Awesome!

    2 3.70%
  • I had fun. It wasn't great but lived up to my expectations

    17 31.48%
  • It was ok, not great but not a disaster either

    16 29.63%
  • I was disappointed. It wasn't as good as most of the originals

    8 14.81%
  • Horrible! I am angry they revisited the series. This was a waste of time and money

    5 9.26%
  • I won't be seeing it but just want to vote that Karen Allen and Harrison Ford look really old

    6 11.11%
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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
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    Hot'Lanta... home of the Falcons!

    Indy Jones 4: A Poll

    Seems to be many differeing opinions and this film is "important" to many of us because we care so much about the character an the franchise. So...

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Boston, MA

    My Thoughts (Spoilers)

    Overall, I was slightly disappointed...but I too went in with pretty low expectations.

    Let me say, that I think Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the top 10 movies ever made. Along with Star Wars, it helped show me the power of movies, and in terms of action it redefined what a thriller really was. It also blended in great writing and action with genuine humor (the scene where Indy pulls out his gun and shoots the guy with the sword is one of best moments on film...ever).

    The second one I found horribly disappointing. It was much more dark. The special effects seemed forced and looked fake. The storyline was not believable. Yet it was still fun.

    The third one I enjoyed a great deal. Connery added a tremendous element to it, as was the focus on what made Indiana tick.

    This one I would put miles behind the first, pretty far behind the third, and slightly better than the 2nd.

    What I liked - the action, and especially the nuclear detonation scene. I thought the ants were pretty cool. Some of the fight scenes (while hard to truly believe) were at least done well. I thought his son did a decent job filling a really tough role. The humor was well done (especially the snake, and Indy when he found out that Mutt was his son).

    What I didn't like - the bad special effects (at the very end with the saucer, it looked 100% like they were in front of a blue screen), the return of Kate - that just didn't work for me.

    What I hated - the storyline. So completey dumb. Aliens? Are you kidding me? With all the history of great artifacts, they had to make one up? The unbelievable escapes - people shooting machine guns at close range and hitting nothing. Going over waterfalls with large rocks at the bottom. Really, really dumb. And most of all, the writing. "They occupy the space between spaces." "Knowledge was their gold. Their gold was knowledge." Literally, the entire theater I was in was laughing at that.

    Again, overall it was fun. I wouldn't want to see it again in its entirety, and I won't. Meanwhile, I can't wait to show my kids Raiders of the Lost Ark soon and remember what a wonderful movie that was.

  3. #3
    I agree with basically everything Udaman said. As I was watching the movie, I kept thinking, "They waited 20 years for this storyline?" Spielberg and Lucas kept saying they hadn't made another movie because they were waiting for the right plot, but this was just ridiculous. The inclusion of aliens was a HUGE mistake in my opinion. And they should not have included Marian, or whatever her name is.

    That said, it was still entertaining, and the beginning - set during the Red Scare - was done well, and the action sequences were great, even if entirely unbelievable (like the car flying over the cliff? Please... Of all the ridiculous stunts in all 4 movies, IJ4 would probably have 8 of the top 10).

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
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    Mad props to Breen for his vote for "they look really old."

    --Jason "I had to include an option for poll voters who are not seeing the movie" Evans

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by JasonEvans View Post
    Mad props to Breen for his vote for "they look really old."

    --Jason "I had to include an option for poll voters who are not seeing the movie" Evans
    Yay me. I'm the curmudgeonist.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
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    Watching carolina Go To HELL!
    Quote Originally Posted by Udaman View Post
    the scene where Indy pulls out his gun and shoots the guy with the sword is one of best moments on film...ever
    That scene was an ad lib by Harrison Ford. Everyone liked it so much they left it in the film.

    I haven't seen the film yet, so I can't vote. But I'm looking forward to it, although it might be awhile. I'm also looking forward to renting National Treasure 2, now that it is out on DVD.
    Ozzie, your paradigm of optimism!

    Go To Hell carolina, Go To Hell!
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  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by OZZIE4DUKE View Post
    That scene was an ad lib by Harrison Ford. Everyone liked it so much they left it in the film.
    Is that true? If so, Harrison has 2 of the greatest ad libs in film history. In 'Empire,' Lucas' script called for Han Solo to respond 'I love you, too' to Leia's very first 'I love you.' Harrison overruled the script and responded with the immortal 'I know.'

    So maybe we've found the root of Lucas' latter-day sucking -- he's gotten so big that his actors no longer overrule his horrible script decisions.

  8. #8
    It's true. Ford was exhausted and suffering from dysentery at the time and didn't want to do another take of the complete fight scene.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Montclair, NJ

    Agreed

    Quote Originally Posted by Udaman View Post
    Overall, I was slightly disappointed...but I too went in with pretty low expectations.

    Let me say, that I think Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the top 10 movies ever made. Along with Star Wars, it helped show me the power of movies, and in terms of action it redefined what a thriller really was. It also blended in great writing and action with genuine humor (the scene where Indy pulls out his gun and shoots the guy with the sword is one of best moments on film...ever).

    The second one I found horribly disappointing. It was much more dark. The special effects seemed forced and looked fake. The storyline was not believable. Yet it was still fun.

    The third one I enjoyed a great deal. Connery added a tremendous element to it, as was the focus on what made Indiana tick.

    This one I would put miles behind the first, pretty far behind the third, and slightly better than the 2nd.

    What I liked - the action, and especially the nuclear detonation scene. I thought the ants were pretty cool. Some of the fight scenes (while hard to truly believe) were at least done well. I thought his son did a decent job filling a really tough role. The humor was well done (especially the snake, and Indy when he found out that Mutt was his son).

    What I didn't like - the bad special effects (at the very end with the saucer, it looked 100% like they were in front of a blue screen), the return of Kate - that just didn't work for me.

    What I hated - the storyline. So completey dumb. Aliens? Are you kidding me? With all the history of great artifacts, they had to make one up? The unbelievable escapes - people shooting machine guns at close range and hitting nothing. Going over waterfalls with large rocks at the bottom. Really, really dumb. And most of all, the writing. "They occupy the space between spaces." "Knowledge was their gold. Their gold was knowledge." Literally, the entire theater I was in was laughing at that.

    Again, overall it was fun. I wouldn't want to see it again in its entirety, and I won't. Meanwhile, I can't wait to show my kids Raiders of the Lost Ark soon and remember what a wonderful movie that was.
    I think your assessment is spot on. I was really disappointed with the Aliens story line. I really enjoyed the history/biblical based stuff. I was ok with bringing Kate back, but her character was not even close to her character in Lost Ark. She was a bad I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this. in the Lost Ark. I mean, they should have at least had a tribute to her extreme alcohol tolerance. In this one, she was just a mom...
    (Not that moms aren't special, because they ARE!)

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Boston, MA

    Ad Libs

    Yes, it is true that Harrison Ford ad libed the "I know" line in The Empire Strikes Back.

    He also came up with the idea for shooting the bad guy in Raiders...but it wasn't really an ad lib.

    They had worked out a long drawn out fight scene between him and the guy with the sword. It had been a long tough day of shooting, and as they were starting to go through the staging part of the scene, Harrison asked Spielberg - "Can't I just shoot the guy? "

    Spielberg was intrigued and they shot the scene with the idea that if early screenings didn't like it, they would go back and shoot the planned fight. The rest...is history.

    He also ad libed the line "It ain't the years honey, it's the mileage."

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Forest Hills, NY
    Quote Originally Posted by Udaman View Post
    Yes, it is true that Harrison Ford ad libed the "I know" line in The Empire Strikes Back.

    He also came up with the idea for shooting the bad guy in Raiders...but it wasn't really an ad lib.

    They had worked out a long drawn out fight scene between him and the guy with the sword. It had been a long tough day of shooting, and as they were starting to go through the staging part of the scene, Harrison asked Spielberg - "Can't I just shoot the guy? "

    Spielberg was intrigued and they shot the scene with the idea that if early screenings didn't like it, they would go back and shoot the planned fight. The rest...is history.

    He also ad libed the line "It ain't the years honey, it's the mileage."

    Hate to admit that I actually watched it, but I took a day off last week [pre-Memorial Day] and Ford was on The View. He told the story above about the fight. He also said he felt sorry for the the other actor who had practiced for weeks to get the fight scene right.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by duke74 View Post
    Hate to admit that I actually watched it, but I took a day off last week [pre-Memorial Day] and Ford was on The View. He told the story above about the fight. He also said he felt sorry for the the other actor who had practiced for weeks to get the fight scene right.
    At least the other guy got to show off his skill wielding the blade! Part of what made that scene so classic was the overly long build-up to the confrontation with the bad dude trying to intimidate Indy, only to have IJ shoot him and walk away.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington DC

    Ugh. (Spoiler Warning)

    Put me in the "Horrible" category. I'm a fan of the first 3, and really wanted to like this movie, enough to give the benefit of the doubt to some of the less-than-beleivable escape scenes and some of the overall campiness (except the monkeys, HATED that), but this film was a major disapointment.

    I actually liked the first 1/3 of the film that set the stage for the quest, but the second 1/3 where they follow the clues of the "treasure hunt" (usually a strength of the series) was rushed and weak - "this is a complex code in a 3,000 year old language, so give me 2.4 seconds and I can read it fluently", and "instead of unlocking an intricate puzzle to find the lost city, we'll just follow the babling old man who is possesed by the skull." In Raiders and Last Crusade, we got to see how Indy found artifacts that people had been looking for for thousands of years, but in this one we really don't know how they found this lost city where so many others had supposedly failed. And don't get me started on the last 1/3, the big payoff. You could see coming it a mile away, and the only suspense was whether it was really going to be as bad as it seemed, and unfortunately it was.

    Seriously, Aliens? Was Lucas watching Stargate when he thought of this? At this point, Indy has seen evidence of old testament biblical power when the Ark melted the Nazi's faces, seen a high priest pull someone's heart through their chest, met a 500 year old Knight of the Crusade given eternal life through the holy grail, and now seen evidence of aliens? Doesn't some of this have to be mutually exclusive?

    I seem to be in the minority here, and people actually clapped in the theater I was in when the film ended so maybe I'm being too harsh, but no one I saw it with would defend it, and my recommendation is to save your ten bucks.

  14. #14
    Just a thought, there appears to be a natural skew in your rankings to the negative...

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
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    Los Angeles
    Quote Originally Posted by YmoBeThere View Post
    Just a thought, there appears to be a natural skew in your rankings to the negative...
    Yet no option along the lines of "I've read so many bad things about it on DBR that I don't want to see it"

    I've also heard a ton of bad things around here about it. No interest in paying for it for that reason.

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Watching carolina Go To HELL!

    Thumbs up

    Quote Originally Posted by OZZIE4DUKE View Post

    I haven't seen the film yet, so I can't vote. But I'm looking forward to it, although it might be awhile.
    I saw it tonight and I loved it! Yes, I'm the one vote. After reading all the gloom and doom above, I had pretty low expectations, but I smiled the entire movie! I enjoyed, maybe appreciated is a better word, all the references to the earlier movies. It was fun for 2 hours. What more could I ask for? And Indy finally got the girl at the end!
    Ozzie, your paradigm of optimism!

    Go To Hell carolina, Go To Hell!
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  17. #17
    We took the kids and saw it last weekend and loved it! I didn't find the alien storyline anymore unbelievable than the Biblical stories in the prior films, but that's just me. My seven year old thought Indy looked old, but not after she realized he had a grown child. The fight scenes were fun. The atomic testing sequence was wonderful. We loved the nod to the first movie in the warehouse. Overall, way better than film 2 (like ripping the heart out of someone's chest isn't dark?), not as good as film 1 -but right up there with film 3.

  18. #18
    Anyone else think "Close Enounters" or "ET?" My daughter actually said the movie would have been better if when the 13 Aliens all lined up into one, if the Alien actually leaned forward and said "ET phone home," before the space craft took off.

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Los Angeles

    George Lucas is the problem

    Special effects, special effects, new technology, new technology, yada, yada, yada.

    The storyline...well, what was the ultimate goal? All other Indy films had a very clear goal. Get the Holy Grail, etc. This film was muddled -- who cares.

    Yet, it still could have worked if they had stuck to the true intrigue of the former flix -- REAL life folk fighting the 'forces of evil' and snakes, etc. Oh, sigh. Tired of the use of digital or whatever.

    Still really enjoyed (most of) the film. But frustrated that it could have been much, much better.

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    New Orleans
    Quote Originally Posted by mkirsh View Post

    Seriously, Aliens? Was Lucas watching Stargate when he thought of this?
    His idea was to root the movie in the early post-WWII time period, when notions about aliens from space were a big part of the popular culture -- from Roswell to the B movies at the double feature. The Indy series was always supposed to be an homage to the cartoonscape of George's youth.

    The historical sensibilities of the series are my favorite part, and I wish this aspect would be explored more at the expense of "action." I agree with dukemomla that Lucas has gotten much too preoccupied with technology and special effects. I really liked the Young Indy series, because each episode was a mini history lesson.

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