Indiana Jones 5 officially announced

[HMSwolfe]

Perhaps. This part gave me pause though:

"Long gone are the halcyon days when the students of Marshall College would hang on his every word and blush over his rugged good looks. "In our lecture, all the women aren't going to be writing 'I love you' on their eyelids," Mangold said. "They're going be blowing bubbles and looking out the window."

Under normal circumstances I'd see that as a new, interesting take, or challenge for a character. In the current climate, it feels more like a need to tell the audience "Your old heroes are not that special any longer, and they never were. But hey look, we have some new PROPER heroes to sell you!"

Recently, while searching around for Indy stuff, I happened upon trash-site Screenrant. Seems their entire coverage of the Indy franchise is based around explaining how "problematic" and "toxic" it is, as well as why it "must change" and the problems "be addressed".



I think it's a matter of respecting the old heroes, letting them somehow show that "they still have it" and also let the up-and-coming heroes earn their status. Instead, we're expected to automatically like them from the get-go.

The antics of Han & Chewie in TFA was fantastic fun. They could have made a whole standalone film about them "stealing back the Falcon" or something. Ford had great chemistry with both Ridley and Boyega. All three new main characters had great potential, but they were so incredibly mishandled it still makes my head spin. Tie that to the need to denigrate the old cast instead of honoring them. Then factor in the vapid shallowness of Abrams, and the "I need to subvert and screw with fans" Johnson... well... disaster ensues.

Yeah, I wonder why a twenty year-old coed wouldn’t be writing “love you” on her eyelids for a man older than her own grandfather…

 

[JOATRASH FX]

Yeah, I wonder why a twenty year-old coed wouldn’t be writing “love you” on her eyelids for a man older than her own grandfather…

Well, obviously that wasn't the point and you know it. For some reason, they feel the need to make that into a statement, as if it wasn't obvious to anyone with half a brain that a character's situation isn't a never-ending status quo.

Why make a point of showing the audience that the hero they love isn't that cool or heroic any longer? Why make a classic, pulp hero like Indy into a joke, an embarrassment and intimate that his past deeds are invalid? Why not let Indy be a powerful wise mentor instead?

 

[batguy]

Imagine luke meeting Yoda for the first time in ESB, and the Dagobah portion of the movie starts of with a whole series of incidents designed to take Yoda down a peg. Show that he's too old for the job, he's no longer revered by others like he used to be, etc.

 

[CessnaDriver]

^^^
THIS!! We cannot go home and, as humans, we're walking backward toward the future (never to see it). Having only the past as a marker for our decisions and our time sliced into presents, we are trapped in the nostalgia of our youth! To feel the same as we fell in love with someone, or a movie, or something else is always trying for the impossible!

You can never go home again,
But you can shop there.

 

[edge10]

^^^
THIS!! We cannot go home and, as humans, we're walking backward toward the future (never to see it). Having only the past as a marker for our decisions and our time sliced into presents, we are trapped in the nostalgia of our youth! To feel the same as we fell in love with someone, or a movie, or something else is always trying for the impossible!

 

[jts1031]

You can never go home again,
But you can shop there.

Totally underrated movie.

 

[Solo4114]

Perhaps. This part gave me pause though:

"Long gone are the halcyon days when the students of Marshall College would hang on his every word and blush over his rugged good looks. "In our lecture, all the women aren't going to be writing 'I love you' on their eyelids," Mangold said. "They're going be blowing bubbles and looking out the window."

Under normal circumstances I'd see that as a new, interesting take, or challenge for a character. In the current climate, it feels more like a need to tell the audience "Your old heroes are not that special any longer, and they never were. But hey look, we have some new PROPER heroes to sell you!"

Recently, while searching around for Indy stuff, I happened upon trash-site Screenrant. Seems their entire coverage of the Indy franchise is based around explaining how "problematic" and "toxic" it is, as well as why it "must change" and the problems "be addressed".

I mean...ok? And? Screenrant has some stuff that's mildly interesting, but the vast, vast bulk of it is just clickbait of this or that sort. In this case, it's clickbait about certain issues in the Indiana Jones franchise, because they know that people who get really pissed about that will click on it and then be really pissed. I don't really pay them much mind because, like I said, they're a clickbait machine and they'll print whatever draws eyeballs the best.

I mean, yeah, you can look from a more critical perspective at Indy (and really at the Republic serials that inspired it), and there are indeed problematic aspects of it when viewed through the lens of contemporary culture. Lots of colonialism, some inherent racism, "orientalism" (in the sense that the part of the world with half of the population is somehow "exotic"), etc., etc. It's also set in a timeframe where those attitudes would be historically accurate, if not necessarily what everyone wants to watch anymore.

Think of it this way. There's stuff in Indiana Jones that to modern eyes is akin to the stuff from the Westerns from the 1930s-1960s where the "Injuns" were the bad guys, the cowboys were the good guys, and the films were chock full of nonsense tropes about Native Americans (and historical inaccuracies about the cowboys, too, for that matter). Then you get revisionist westerns because views of this stuff change. It's just how things go, and entertainment develops and changes over time to meet the demands of culture (which is also developing and changing all the time).

But like, so what? I mean, so what that some writer for screenrant points that out. "This guy over here said Indiana Jones is awful and should be burned to the ground!" Big deal. Guy's got an opinion. Guy posted said opinion. That's what we do here, too. >shrug< I don't see it as an attack on me, the films, or...well, anything. It's just someone's opinion.

I think it's a matter of respecting the old heroes, letting them somehow show that "they still have it" and also let the up-and-coming heroes earn their status. Instead, we're expected to automatically like them from the get-go.

The antics of Han & Chewie in TFA was fantastic fun. They could have made a whole standalone film about them "stealing back the Falcon" or something. Ford had great chemistry with both Ridley and Boyega. All three new main characters had great potential, but they were so incredibly mishandled it still makes my head spin. Tie that to the need to denigrate the old cast instead of honoring them. Then factor in the vapid shallowness of Abrams, and the "I need to subvert and screw with fans" Johnson... well... disaster ensues.

Eh, I don't think it's like that exactly. But I think a lot of this also ties back into the issue of trying to recapture that nostalgia of yore. IF you're gonna go back to that well, especially when it's been a few decades, you have to acknowledge that...time marches on. Just as it will for us all one day. When it comes to the heroes of the OT, I don't think they were "disrespected" exactly, as much as it was that their "happily ever after" ending from ROTJ was undone. Which it necessarily had to be if you were going to do a new trilogy with them in it.

One of the things I really loved about TLJ was how it handled Rey's interactions with Luke and her own struggles with her own position as a hero. It's a film that is deeply invested in Rey's choices in the light of what happens around her. When Rey goes to find Luke, she's doing so to say "Save us, Luke! Save us from the evil like you did before!" But...Luke's an old man now. Time has moved on. He's moved on. Moreover, what Rey is trying to do there is to avoid having to choose herself to save the galaxy. She's turning to the older generation to do it. When she goes into the cave to find out who her parents were, she's doing it to try to avoid having to choose her own fate -- she wants it provided for her by virtue of her birth (juxtaposed against Kylo Ren who resents what he sees as the mandated path for him to follow, who wants to be free of the past to chart his own way). Ultimately, the thing that ends up making Rey a hero is not her fantastical powers, but the fact that she chooses to use them for good and to help people, even though she believes herself to be a nobody. Even if she doubts Kylo Ren's statement that she's a nobody, it doesn't matter; she chooses her path.

I don't see that stuff as "disrespecting" the heroes of old. I see it as showing the passage of time. And I think if you're gonna take a group of septuagenarian actors and bring them back to be heroes...you have to account for that. You can't ignore it.

I think for a lot of fans and viewers, this is...deeply uncomfortable. We don't want our heroes to get older. We don't want them to be unhappy, or to have had their lives fall apart after the grand adventure. We don't want to see them less physically able, overweight, wrinkled, etc. But the only solution for that....is to end their stories altogether when they are younger. This is why fairy tales end with "And they all lived happily ever after." Because to turn the page beyond that point, to confront what "ever after" really means...is to confront much harder realities of the world. That the victories of the past give way to the conflicts of the present, that the heroes of the past wither and fade with age or disease and eventually die, and really that nothing lasts forever.

Hollywood...is of two minds on this. They know audiences want to live in that space of enjoying their favorite films with their favorite characters forever. But they also...need to keep making new stories. They keep trying to do this by bringing back the old heroes, and we as audiences keep being forced to grapple with the fact that our old heroes are necessarily diminished by the passage of time (to say nothing of whatever narrative elements a sequel introduces).

I don't tend to see any disrespect intended when a story shows the old heroes as, well, old, less physically capable, and that their victories were not permanent. I don't think it's disrespect behind something like "He's no longer getting 'I love yous' written on eyelids. Now the audience finds him boring." I think the film needs to deal with that stuff because, if it doesn't, it becomes a lot harder to believe. It ends up feeling...well...kinda awkward at least, like A View to a Kill where Roger Moore is still supposed to be an action hero and sex symbol, and girls are supposed to be swooning for Grandpa Bond.

 

[NeoRutty]

I mean...ok? And? Screenrant has some stuff that's mildly interesting, but the vast, vast bulk of it is just clickbait of this or that sort. In this case, it's clickbait about certain issues in the Indiana Jones franchise, because they know that people who get really pissed about that will click on it and then be really pissed. I don't really pay them much mind because, like I said, they're a clickbait machine and they'll print whatever draws eyeballs the best.

I mean, yeah, you can look from a more critical perspective at Indy (and really at the Republic serials that inspired it), and there are indeed problematic aspects of it when viewed through the lens of contemporary culture. Lots of colonialism, some inherent racism, "orientalism" (in the sense that the part of the world with half of the population is somehow "exotic"), etc., etc. It's also set in a timeframe where those attitudes would be historically accurate, if not necessarily what everyone wants to watch anymore.

Think of it this way. There's stuff in Indiana Jones that to modern eyes is akin to the stuff from the Westerns from the 1930s-1960s where the "Injuns" were the bad guys, the cowboys were the good guys, and the films were chock full of nonsense tropes about Native Americans (and historical inaccuracies about the cowboys, too, for that matter). Then you get revisionist westerns because views of this stuff change. It's just how things go, and entertainment develops and changes over time to meet the demands of culture (which is also developing and changing all the time).

But like, so what? I mean, so what that some writer for screenrant points that out. "This guy over here said Indiana Jones is awful and should be burned to the ground!" Big deal. Guy's got an opinion. Guy posted said opinion. That's what we do here, too. >shrug< I don't see it as an attack on me, the films, or...well, anything. It's just someone's opinion.


Eh, I don't think it's like that exactly. But I think a lot of this also ties back into the issue of trying to recapture that nostalgia of yore. IF you're gonna go back to that well, especially when it's been a few decades, you have to acknowledge that...time marches on. Just as it will for us all one day. When it comes to the heroes of the OT, I don't think they were "disrespected" exactly, as much as it was that their "happily ever after" ending from ROTJ was undone. Which it necessarily had to be if you were going to do a new trilogy with them in it.

One of the things I really loved about TLJ was how it handled Rey's interactions with Luke and her own struggles with her own position as a hero. It's a film that is deeply invested in Rey's choices in the light of what happens around her. When Rey goes to find Luke, she's doing so to say "Save us, Luke! Save us from the evil like you did before!" But...Luke's an old man now. Time has moved on. He's moved on. Moreover, what Rey is trying to do there is to avoid having to choose herself to save the galaxy. She's turning to the older generation to do it. When she goes into the cave to find out who her parents were, she's doing it to try to avoid having to choose her own fate -- she wants it provided for her by virtue of her birth (juxtaposed against Kylo Ren who resents what he sees as the mandated path for him to follow, who wants to be free of the past to chart his own way). Ultimately, the thing that ends up making Rey a hero is not her fantastical powers, but the fact that she chooses to use them for good and to help people, even though she believes herself to be a nobody. Even if she doubts Kylo Ren's statement that she's a nobody, it doesn't matter; she chooses her path.

I don't see that stuff as "disrespecting" the heroes of old. I see it as showing the passage of time. And I think if you're gonna take a group of septuagenarian actors and bring them back to be heroes...you have to account for that. You can't ignore it.

I think for a lot of fans and viewers, this is...deeply uncomfortable. We don't want our heroes to get older. We don't want them to be unhappy, or to have had their lives fall apart after the grand adventure. We don't want to see them less physically able, overweight, wrinkled, etc. But the only solution for that....is to end their stories altogether when they are younger. This is why fairy tales end with "And they all lived happily ever after." Because to turn the page beyond that point, to confront what "ever after" really means...is to confront much harder realities of the world. That the victories of the past give way to the conflicts of the present, that the heroes of the past wither and fade with age or disease and eventually die, and really that nothing lasts forever.

Hollywood...is of two minds on this. They know audiences want to live in that space of enjoying their favorite films with their favorite characters forever. But they also...need to keep making new stories. They keep trying to do this by bringing back the old heroes, and we as audiences keep being forced to grapple with the fact that our old heroes are necessarily diminished by the passage of time (to say nothing of whatever narrative elements a sequel introduces).

I don't tend to see any disrespect intended when a story shows the old heroes as, well, old, less physically capable, and that their victories were not permanent. I don't think it's disrespect behind something like "He's no longer getting 'I love yous' written on eyelids. Now the audience finds him boring." I think the film needs to deal with that stuff because, if it doesn't, it becomes a lot harder to believe. It ends up feeling...well...kinda awkward at least, like A View to a Kill where Roger Moore is still supposed to be an action hero and sex symbol, and girls are supposed to be swooning for Grandpa Bond.

 

[ScourgiousJinx]

That was a well done trailer visually but my god could they come up with more cliche dialogue/apparent plot? This is going to be a hot mess of fan service. If I see this film I'm almost positive I'm going to hate myself for it.

I want this movie to be great. I really do. It's looking like its only going to appeal to those who will like it no matter what they do with it and just want to see Indy ride into the sunset one more time.

 

[Master Boda]

I understand what you're saying regarding the predictability of many modern franchise movies; just not sure your final statement follows from that. As far as I'm aware (though anyone by all means correct me if I'm wrong), Mangold has denied a grand total of two plot rumors thus far:

1. another character donning the hat / assuming Indy's role (especially Waller-Bridge)
2. Indy getting "erased" through a contrivance

He's not denying the possibility of time travel. He's not denying that certain actors may have cameo roles. He's said nothing about whether any character lives or dies, and he's said nothing about the MacGuffin. He's left plenty of room for many elements of the rumors to end up being true. I'd love to follow the bread crumbs... but personally, I don't see very many laid out.

Follow the bread crumbs might not be the best term I could have used.He works for Disney, I will leave it at that.

 

[CB2001]

You know, I get the idea of wanting to defend a project you're working on. But the problem is that with Mangold acknowledging the "fan trolls who live in their basements" (which, frankly, using that stereotype doesn't help his case), he basically shot himself in the foot in trying to squash the rumors in posting to Twitter. By acknowledging them, it validates the rumors for the fans who have heard them and that the "false rumors" are possibly true. If he had just remained silent and let the film prove that they were false rumors (if indeed what he said is true), it would have been better to allow for the film to prove those rumors false than to just jump to name calling on Twitter. And, of course, he ended up deleting the reply, probably under orders from LucasFilms.

 

[Master Boda]

Why make a point of showing the audience that the hero they love isn't that cool or heroic any longer? Why make a classic, pulp hero like Indy into a joke, an embarrassment and intimate that his past deeds are invalid? Why not let Indy be a powerful wise mentor instead?

Maybe because they are part of this weird “culture cult” and we can’t have white dudes as heroic since they are really toxic after all.A little man with a big eraser ...

 

[Master Boda]

It's looking like its only going to appeal to those who will like it no matter what they do with it and just want to see Indy ride into the sunset one more time.

That’s what they are banking on.

 

[SickleClaw]

You know, I get the idea of wanting to defend a project you're working on. But the problem is that with Mangold acknowledging the "fan trolls who live in their basements" (which, frankly, using that stereotype doesn't help his case), he basically shot himself in the foot in trying to squash the rumors in posting to Twitter. By acknowledging them, it validates the rumors for the fans who have heard them and that the "false rumors" are possibly true. If he had just remained silent and let the film prove that they were false rumors (if indeed what he said is true), it would have been better to allow for the film to prove those rumors false than to just jump to name calling on Twitter. And, of course, he ended up deleting the reply, probably under orders from LucasFilms.

Got it. So if he doesn't say anything abotu the rumors, he is hiding, but if he acknowledges them and shoots them down, he is attacking the fans. Got it. So if the movie disproves the rumors under the merits, the next thing out of these youtubers is going to be that Disney forced the ending to be changed. But if you would rather listen to youtubers instead of the Director...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1600193211481432065

John Campea claims to know a source close to production of Indy 5 and their words were ""It's all a lie! We can't look for anyone responsible for any leaks because there's no leak to look for!"

 

[Tommy]

Got it. So if he doesn't say anything abotu the rumors, he is hiding, but if he acknowledges them and shoots them down, he is attacking the fans. Got it. So if the movie disproves the rumors under the merits, the next thing out of these youtubers is going to be that Disney forced the ending to be changed.

I think CB2001 was just opining that on balance, Mangold staying silent or using more diplomatic phrasing in his tweets might have been the more tactful move, regardless of the denied rumors' validity. I sort of agree.

But yeah, it's a classic catch-22; no matter what, it can and will be claimed that whatever rumors Mangold shot down were right all along. And on the off-chance it happens that Mangold actually lied, we'll hear a deluge of "I knew it" statements from people who were only ever speculating.

 

[CB2001]

I think CB2001 was just opining that on balance, Mangold staying silent or using more diplomatic phrasing in his tweets might have been the more tactful move, regardless of the denied rumors' validity. I sort of agree.

But yeah, it's a classic catch-22; no matter what, it can and will be claimed that whatever rumors Mangold shot down were right all along. And on the off-chance it happens that Mangold actually lied, we'll hear a deluge of "I knew it" statements from people who were only ever speculating.

Exactly. I mean, by singling out the YouTubers, he basically shot himself in the foot. As a result, now people are comparing him to J.J. Abrams when he tried to cover the fact that Khan was in his second Star Trek film because he was pressing so hard that it wasn't true and using the the basement dweller stereotype also added napalm to the flame that's already burning. And yes, it's a Catch-22, but letting the film speak for itself would be more the damning for some that the YouTubers were incorrect, thus bruising their creditability while the small amount of users may believe they changed it at the last minute (I mean, why do reshoots unless you were trying to fix the film in some way?). But what is worse: opening your mouth and basically solidifying the rumors as truth or keeping silent and let people think they changed it?

Got it. So if he doesn't say anything abotu the rumors, he is hiding, but if he acknowledges them and shoots them down, he is attacking the fans. Got it. So if the movie disproves the rumors under the merits, the next thing out of these youtubers is going to be that Disney forced the ending to be changed. But if you would rather listen to youtubers instead of the Director...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1600193211481432065

John Campea claims to know a source close to production of Indy 5 and their words were ""It's all a lie! We can't look for anyone responsible for any leaks because there's no leak to look for!"

No offense, but do you honestly think an official source would report on an internal mole hunt to find out who leaked that information? I mean, if I were a company and found out someone was leaking things, if I have any potential news outlets contacting my company, it would be a bad thing to reveal there was an internal leak. Makes the image of the company look weak. I'm not saying Campea isn‘t telling the truth, nor am I saying that the source they quoted was lying, but when it comes to big companies like Disney, they've already had a lot of negative news about themselves and announcing a mole hunt would only hurt their stance and validate previous rumors about said leaks too. Again, it's the Catch-22 as pointed out above. Honestly, if they're trying to figure out any leaks, they should do what was done in the Miami Vice movie: leak certain bits of information that can be narrowed down to certain departments or people who are involved with the production.

 

[Halliwax]

Don't feel bad. I'm 56 and just figured out that the "BEATles" was a play on words for a musical beat.
Thought it was just a funky spelling thing. LOL

Well… I just learned something new! Lol

 

[joberg]

I dunno... in some instances I think it's possible, though a difficult journey. Top Gun did, and it worked. So did Ghostbusters Afterlife (to a lesser extent).

At the same time (and not that I'm in any way advocating being a d-bag), I have often wondered if some of those battles (where he clearly wasn't being very nice or sensitive to others, like in the Aliens doc) were not part of the reason that he had such success and managed to execute some spectacular ideas.

There's a point in the Aliens making-of where a stage hand is supposed to pull a facehugger towards the camera, but he's being completely inept about it, so Cameron loses patience and kinda dismisses for being an idiot. (Understandable, because that particular sequence of shots is a masterclass in filmmaking, and might be harder to explain to a crew instead of just doing it yourself.)

Design-by-committee almost never works with creative products like movies, TV, video games. They just get watered down and lose their edge. Here in Sweden, it's almost a mortal sin to openly express (honest) criticism of a result. You're not allowed to say "this is not good enough" because it will pretty much always be seen as a deep, personal attack. Instead, you're expected to sugar-coat it like "I wonder if it would perhaps, maybe, if you agree, be a good idea to try something different, just to see what happens?". The kind of maneuvering that is sometimes needed to get something done is exhausting and can slow things down to snail-speed. And it doesn't matter if the product being made is expected (or needs) to be competetive on a global level. (Heh... growing up in the US has gotten me into trouble here a couple times!)

I gotta plead guilty to being one of those who seem 'riled up' there, but it's a conscious decision. I've never used Twitter before, and I usually stay out of discussions like this on social media, but Indy is too important. They've ruined Han, Leia, Luke, Star Trek... and so many more that it feels like he's the last unspoiled hero left standing. So on the chance that they ARE in fact planning on deconstructing or removing him, I'd rather help make a stink of it NOW instead of complaining later.

Harrison Ford also said something worrying in an interview a while back. He said: “If a script came along that I felt gave me a way to extend the character.”

Extend? Hmm...

Yes..."The Buck Stops Here" is the most important thing here! The Director is the ship's Captain. Especially with Cameron who, in my mind, is a genius! Tell me one thing he cannot do. He can thick soooo many boxes on a set...it's not even funny!

Patience is a virtue and has nothing to do with the % of testosterone you have! As I always said; education is the key here!
Some crew members will follow him to the end of the Earth, while others will be frustrated/angry at his type of directing...cannot please everybody; besides, the World owes you nothing!

We've read the stories of U.K. directors not getting along with an American crew (Ridley Scott anyone?) and that's not going to be the first or the last time it happens. Culture matters and, as you mentioned for Swedish crew or others, sometimes stuff is "loss in translation" kinda thing.

 

[joberg]

Maybe because they are part of this weird “culture cult” and we can’t have white dudes as heroic since they are really toxic after all.A little man with a big eraser ...

Again; destroying the Iconic thinking that History will erase itself

 

[Jodo]

As a college admin, can confirm.