Indiana Jones 5 officially announced

"Born July 1, 1899 in Princeton, New Jersey", the New movie is set in 1969 making Indy 70 years old. Ford was born in 1942 making him 80 years old. Irony is in 1969 Indy can turn the TV on and watch a young Harrison Ford on television.


Crystal Skull was brought up. It really was a terrible film all around. Some bad acting, terrible baddies, lame side kick, horrendous plot... It just doesn't fit in the Indy filmography as a whole. That being said I'm going out on a limb, after all the bad mouthing I've said about this film, Indy 5, that it will likely look and feel more like an Indy movie, but, be brought down by obvious agenda reasons.



I'll also mention the paycheck Ford is getting and how that much money is the carrot dangling. The flip side is projects like these are a couple years investment. It's literally selling time off of life. It's another reason why I don't care for many movies anymore. Why make garbage in the time involved. Make something worthy of the time.
 
Indiana Jones 5’s Opening Sequence De-Ages Harrison Ford To Original Trilogy Indy – Exclusive

Mads certainly looks very “Toht-like” in his Indy 5 role as “Voller”.

https://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/indiana-jones-5-nazis-1969-exclusives

90AD2260-F647-477F-A109-97715B7BB7B2.jpeg
 
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HMSwolfe said:
Over the years I’ve really come to truly lament Crystal Skull, because exactly 1/3 of the film is actually really good. The second act doesn’t have pretty much anything silly, or inappropriate to Indy’s age, or bad effects, or poor script. It’s the opening sequence and the entire third act that drag that film down, which is really why the film is remembered so poorly. It’s like a reverse Rogue One. Everyone loves Rogue One because the third act is fun and memorable, but the rest of the movie is pretty boring in comparison. Crystal Skull would have been praised if it had stuck the landing the second act sets up, but it belly-flopped hard instead, leaving an extremely sour taste in many people’s mouths.
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I'm almost in complete agreement except I'm diametrically the other direction: I think the first third of Crystal Skull is actually pretty good, and it's the rest of the movie that loses steam. I like the romp in the Area 51 warehouse and even up until the infamous "fridge" sequence. I'm one of those people that bought it (even if I didn't necessarily agree with it). Indy in the Nuclear Age, fine. Unfortunately, communists just aren't as interesting or a clearly defined threat as Nazis were, nor was the McGuffin anything of real interest--something I brought up in another post that immediately post-Raiders suffered from. Trans-dimensional aliens are just as silly as face-melting angels, but certainly not as fun or in-line with the semi-religious aspects that the previous Raiders films have.

I agree the second act does a good job of setting up the main plot, the problem for me is that it also starts a cascading issue that follows for the rest of the film: It starts bringing in too many characters. By the end of the movie, they all have to come together and resolve their threads and Indy has something like six people with him just doing nothing except be happy that they're in a movie. From the second act onward, it's just finding stuff for them to do without much import on the story of Indy and what he needs to do. It winds up being more like "Indy & Friends" instead of it being his movie, and that makes it feel like a series of anti-climaxes which is its greatest sin. The previous movies have Indy encountering people who help him as he works his way to the McGuffin, Crystal Skull has him acquiring them and hanging out with him.

Someone brought up the idea of following the Bantu-Wind captain or Jock, and I ask, why? Like, who cares? These were tertiary characters meant to serve a function for Indy. Just because they were graced by knowing Indy we need to explore them? That's absurd and utterly contrived. A series about a smuggler, anti-hero type sailing the seas and encountering and sabotaging Nazi plans is a fun premise, but at that point, what does that have to do with Indy? Make it its own thing and have nothing to do with Indy, except being Indy-like. People would be more receptive to that, something that is as fun as Indiana Jones, I think, rather than "The Slightly-Similar-But-Not Adventures of a Young Marcus Brody." This is the issue of over-staying one's welcome, when you're grasping for straws in the reeds after you long cleared the fields of its best flowers.
 
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Someone brought up the idea of following the Bantu-Wind captain or Jock, and I ask, why? Like, who cares? These were tertiary characters meant to serve a function for Indy. Just because they were graced by knowing Indy we need to explore them? That's absurd and utterly contrived. A series about a smuggler, anti-hero type sailing the seas and encountering and sabotaging Nazi plans is a fun premise, but at that point, what does that have to do with Indy? Make it its own thing and have nothing to do with Indy, except being Indy-like. People would be more receptive to that, something that is as fun as Indiana Jones, I think, rather than "The Slightly-Similar-But-Not Adventures of a Young Marcus Brody." This is the issue of over-staying one's welcome, when you're grasping for straws in the reeds after you long-cleared the fields of its best flowers.
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Bingo.

Sometimes you just have to recognize when your run is done. Indy, I think...is done. At least with Ford's involvement it ought to be. And that's ok. Things have an end. That's just part of life.

And unlike, say, Star Wars, Indy's world isn't really a "setting" per se. Star Wars is vibrant and large enough and different enough as a setting that it doesn't need the OT characters to resonate. Indy, on the other hand, does. Even the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles still had, well, Young Indiana Jones in it. Granted, it was a very different show from the films (albeit one I enjoyed), but it still had that connection back to Indy. But if you try to do a story about, say, other peripheral characters? Nah. I doubt your audience comes along. Or if they do, it's not because of the Indy connection. It's because they like the overall vibe of the stories.

I do think there's a place for Indy-style adventure stories set between, say, 1880 and 1949, and I do think it'd be fun to encounter similar adventurer types in that setting. But Indy's run is done and should've been done a long time ago. I mean, Harrison Ford was 66 when he did KOTCS and even that, I think, strains believability. But an 80-year-old Indy? Even if we're saying "Uh...he's actually 10 years younger than that..." that's just nonsense.

It's going to be as goofy as the final Roger Moore Bond film where everyone just looked old and tired. There are still things to be enjoyed about that, but man oh man is it hard to watch Roger Moore running around like Sexy Secret Agent Grandpa.
 
But an 80-year-old Indy? Even if we're saying "Uh...he's actually 10 years younger than that..." that's just nonsense.
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I still agree with your POV in the broad sense. That's why called the Harrison/Indy age disparity issue a "minor quibble" rather than a "franchise-saver." (But, that said, I think they made a mistake by not spelling out that Indy was in his 50s during 'Crystal Skull' when the difference might have carried a little bit more weight.)

The Indy franchise is done whether they continue it or not. Changing stars & doing more 'sequels' now . . . it's like jumping through creative hoops to keep 'Mad Max Fury Road' in full tight continuity with the old Mel Gibson movies. Sure, they could do it. But the extra effort & creative compromises would not bring much payoff. It would still feel like a totally different continuity to the viewer.
 
ALLEY said:
Indiana Jones 5’s Opening Sequence De-Ages Harrison Ford To Original Trilogy Indy – Exclusive

Mads certainly looks very “Toht-like” in his Indy 5 role as “Voller”.

https://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/indiana-jones-5-nazis-1969-exclusives

View attachment 1640896
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OK, I get it now. I predict the "McGuffin" won't be very collectible because it's the Nazi "Bell" (Die Glocke) as described on Ancient Aliens. The time frame is correct as well. See Kecksburg UFO incident - Wikipedia and Die Glocke (conspiracy theory) - Wikipedia

Supposedly this "Wonder Weapon" was made toward the end of World War II and supposedly was exploring anti-gravity technology, possibly from a downed spacecraft that crashed before the start of WWII in Germany. One theory is that this "bell" is a time travel device, not just moving through space, but time. The scientist in charge of it (Hans Kammler) and the Bell itself disappeared while the rest of the scientists were supposedly executed. Then in 1965 a similar looking object crashed in Kecksburg Pennsylvania. One conspiracy theory is that Kammler escaped in The Bell and time traveled to 1965 (whether purposely or not) and crashed in Kecksburg. The US government then grabbed the technology. Another theory claims Kammler traded it and the technology to the US government for his freedom.

So, the time setting is right (Kecksburg crash 4 years before the movie time), one of the theories that it's a time travel device seems to fit in with the notions of the plot of the movie involving a Nazi who wants to go back and win WWII using time travel (This Dr. Voller fellow) and we all know the US harbored many Nazi scientists and gave them freedom from trial and execution in trade for them working for "us" instead including the SS Nazi in charge of the entire rocket program (theirs and ours), Wernher Von Braun.

So how far of a stretch is it to think they took the legend of the Glocke wonder weapon (gee the last movie used the Ancient Aliens covered Crystal Skull topic) and concocted a way to have Indy 5 take place in both 1969 and the 1930s or 40s with a Nazi Scientist that was really still loyal to the Nazi movement and steals the finished Bell design we grabbed to time travel back and try to give the working tech and newer tech we have by 1969 (including perhaps the atomic bomb before we finished it) to the Nazis?

That certainly sounds like a recipe for a failed movie to me, right up there with the Crystal Skull..... You see we accept religious crazy plots as believable, but alien tech is verboten and to be laughed at, rightly or not.
 
The first 3 'Indy' movies each centered around a major world religion. Jewish, Hindu (adjacent), and Christianity. The next logical choice would have been Islam. But that is a radioactive subject even now, never mind when they were brewing up the movie just a few years after 9/11.

The 'ancient aliens' thing has many traits of a religion. Explaining human history, providing 'gods' to believe in, suggesting that the gods may return & improve our plight in the future, etc. Combine that with the 1950s setting, and George Lucas's alien urges, and there you have it.

I'm not saying it was the ideal theme for the 4th Indy movie. But I understand how they got there.
 
Solo4114 said:
It's going to be as goofy as the final Roger Moore Bond film where everyone just looked old and tired. There are still things to be enjoyed about that, but man oh man is it hard to watch Roger Moore running around like Sexy Secret Agent Grandpa.
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Nah, A View to a Kill: Sinjin Smythe, Duran Duran , bottle blond Christopher Walken, Grace Jones, that killer-sabotaged -sliding-door, ladder truck chase( with projected background closeups) AND the piece de resistance: machine gun skiing that turns into snowboarding onto an iceberg submarine……the best bond ever!!

Now I know he is the cheesiest, but the Roger Moore Bond movies are a guilty pleasure for me because they were my introduction to the character.

Sorry about that, carry on with Indy

p.s. I agree he is too old and it all ended with Last Crusade.
 
Malibu139 said:
Nah, A View to a Kill: Sinjin Smythe, Duran Duran , bottle blond Christopher Walken, Grace Jones, that killer-sabotaged -sliding-door, ladder truck chase( with projected background closeups) AND the piece de resistance: machine gun skiing that turns into snowboarding onto an iceberg submarine……the best bond ever!!

Now I know he is the cheesiest, but the Roger Moore Bond movies are a guilty pleasure for me because they were my introduction to the character.

Sorry about that, carry on with Indy

p.s. I agree he is too old and it all ended with Last Crusade.
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I mean, yes, for glorious cheese factor, it's great. And there are some genuinely good parts of that film, as there are with all Bond films (yes, even Moonraker). But it just felt....tired.

My first theatrical Bond was The Living Daylights, which I still dearly love to this day.

Thing is, Indy isn't like Bond. They've had the same actor for forever, and they didn't just keep the franchise rolling the whole way thru. Because Last Crusade was never intended to have a sequel. Like...at all. It's so very clearly done at the end of that film that future sequels just feel...I dunno...half-hearted. I get that these guys have fun making these films, and I don't begrudge them that, but they can't make me watch 'em.
 
eh, it’s about the studio train wreck for me now, I won’t watch it, this isn’t Indy to me anymore. Raiders was pure. I will always have my summer in 1981.
One benefit to being older is that movie magic era not seen since I enjoyed with wild eyed wonder back then. That’s Indy to me. Walking out of the shadows after whipping the gun away, Music swelling all dark and ominous.
Total bad azz adventurer. That feeling is still with me. They can’t CGI that back.
 
No matter what happens i just hope they don't have a young adventurer spending the whole movie trying to find Indy, secluded on some Island in the middle of the Netherlands, only for them to meet for the first time and the movie ends with Indy throwing his whip and Fedora over his back shoulder into the sea as a way to subvert expectations for the lifelong fans that have been with him from the beginning.(any snark is completely coincidental and may not be representative to any or all of the fans existing here in this forum :))
 
PoopaPapaPalps said:
I think the first third of Crystal Skull is actually pretty good, and it's the rest of the movie that loses steam. I like the romp in the Area 51 warehouse and even up until the infamous "fridge" sequence. I'm one of those people that bought it (even if I didn't necessarily agree with it). Indy in the Nuclear Age, fine.

(...)

I agree the second act does a good job of setting up the main plot, the problem for me is that it also starts a cascading issue that follows for the rest of the film: It starts bringing in too many characters. By the end of the movie, they all have to come together and resolve their threads and Indy has something like six people with him just doing nothing except be happy that they're in a movie. From the second act onward, it's just finding stuff for them to do without much import on the story of Indy and what he needs to do.
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Gonna quote this for a moment just because it is kinda on point.

The first act of Crystal Skull works and some parts of the second one too. People talk endlessly about whether they like aliens as a plot device in Indiana Jones or not, monkeys, CG effects, fridges and a whole lot of stuff that's mostly inconsequential to the actual inner workings of a film. All that is pretty superficial and nearly every single person here would've swallowed it whole had the script been better structured and executed, because most crucially, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull knows what it wants to say. Unfortunately it's not very articulate as a film. It actually advances Indy as a character and shows him in a new context, not only in a future time but also out of touch with his place in the world and in dire need to settle down. The first twenty minutes of the movie are all about selling this idea of the world having moved on ahead of him. He's introduced in a humiliating way, taken by the bad guys and betrayed by some close friend. The whole doom town bit and his confusion when facing the 1950s ideal of a suburban family, framed within the ticking clock of a nuclear bomb about to explode—that is, death catching up to him—is one of the smartest sequences in the whole series. Heck, the skull itself as an artifact that doesn't need to be retrieved but returned to where it belongs mirrors all this subtext very well too as a concept.

The problem is that the script loses this thread fairly quickly and the movie becomes a convoluted mess.

But it's all there, and it's actually more clever than people give it credit for while they busy themselves discussing whether they liked Cate Blanchett's haircut or sci-fi elements in their adventure movies. To me, the main thing everyone should be wondering about Indy 5 is whether it will have that core or not. Because if it doesn't, it won't matter how hard it tries to echo scenes everyone loves from Raiders of the Lost Ark—it won't work. It will feel kinda fun while watching it and then it will leave you feeling empty, dry and cheated. Just like the Star Wars sequels.
 
Gonna quote this for a moment just because it is kinda on point.

The first act of Crystal Skull works and some parts of the second one too. People talk endlessly about whether they like aliens as a plot device in Indiana Jones or not, monkeys, CG effects, fridges and a whole lot of stuff that's mostly inconsequential to the actual inner workings of a film. All that is pretty superficial and nearly every single person here would've swallowed it whole had the script been better structured and executed, because most crucially, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull knows what it wants to say. Unfortunately it's not very articulate as a film. It actually advances Indy as a character and shows him in a new context, not only in a future time but also out of touch with his place in the world and in dire need to settle down. The first twenty minutes of the movie are all about selling this idea of the world having moved on ahead of him. He's introduced in a humiliating way, taken by the bad guys and betrayed by some close friend. The whole doom town bit and his confusion when facing the 1950s ideal of a suburban family, framed within the ticking clock of a nuclear bomb about to explode—that is, death catching up to him—is one of the smartest sequences in the whole series. Heck, the skull itself as an artifact that doesn't need to be retrieved but returned to where it belongs mirrors all this subtext very well too as a concept.

The problem is that the script loses this thread fairly quickly and the movie becomes a convoluted mess.

But it's all there, and it's actually more clever than people give it credit for while they busy themselves discussing whether they liked Cate Blanchett's haircut or sci-fi elements in their adventure movies. To me, the main thing everyone should be wondering about Indy 5 is whether it will have that core or not. Because if it doesn't, it won't matter how hard it tries to echo scenes everyone loves from Raiders of the Lost Ark—it won't work. It will feel kinda fun while watching it and then it will leave you feeling empty, dry and cheated. Just like the Star Wars sequels.
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This.

The problem with 'Crystal' was not that stupid fridge stunt. It was that the movie wasn't put together well enough to get away with the fridge stunt.
 
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