Indiana Jones 5 officially announced

The real question is why? Why ressurect a dead actor when you could just tell a whole new story? Are writers and producers that creatively bankrupt that they couldn't conceive of a different idea altogether? There's a sad irony in all of this where some would view the possibilities of this technology as endless, yet it has thus far been used a crutch to not have to think of a story outside the confines of the known. Yeah, it's a neat parlor trick, but the charm isn't as endearing as people make it out to be. There is something truly cold and dead about it and it honestly creeps me out.

I don't think anyone benefits from getting more of the same stories over and over and it certainly taints the credibility of said story to rehash or continue it far past when it should have ended. I know I'm in the minority on this but it's something I've come to feel very strongly about in the last few years. Movies are timeless not because they have endless sequels and reboots but because they were so well constructed that they are self contained classics. If it means a movie is a stand alone, or it's part of a trilogy or what have you, just let it go with dignity.

When I have kids I'll share with them the movies that I loved the most but I have no interest in seeing those films rebooted to fit my children's sensibilities. I want them to have their own stories from totally different places that they can call classics. I really don't understand Gen X's obsession with trying to rewrite pop culture history to fit modern tastes. A story loses it's power and meaning the more you try and rewrite it or continue it too long. Just let it be.

Indy 5 should have never been a thing. Indy 4 should have never been a thing. It should have ended on a high note with Last Crusade. I've never seen it, but I know fans of Firefly were crushed when it was cancelled. Do you honestly think after all this time if they brought it back that it would fare any better than any of these other franchises would? No. It wouldn't. Sometimes you just have to let things be.
 
Psab keel said:
The real question is why? Why ressurect a dead actor when you could just tell a whole new story? Are writers and producers that creatively bankrupt that they couldn't conceive of a different idea altogether? There's a sad irony in all of this where some would view the possibilities of this technology as endless, yet it has thus far been used a crutch to not have to think of a story outside the confines of the known. Yeah, it's a neat parlor trick, but the charm isn't as endearing as people make it out to be. There is something truly cold and dead about it and it honestly creeps me out.

I don't think anyone benefits from getting more of the same stories over and over and it certainly taints the credibility of said story to rehash or continue it far past when it should have ended. I know I'm in the minority on this but it's something I've come to feel very strongly about in the last few years. Movies are timeless not because they have endless sequels and reboots but because they were so well constructed that they are self contained classics. If it means a movie is a stand alone, or it's part of a trilogy or what have you, just let it go with dignity.

When I have kids I'll share with them the movies that I loved the most but I have no interest in seeing those films rebooted to fit my children's sensibilities. I want them to have their own stories from totally different places that they can call classics. I really don't understand Gen X's obsession with trying to rewrite pop culture history to fit modern tastes. A story loses it's power and meaning the more you try and rewrite it or continue it too long. Just let it be.

Indy 5 should have never been a thing. Indy 4 should have never been a thing. It should have ended on a high note with Last Crusade. I've never seen it, but I know fans of Firefly were crushed when it was cancelled. Do you honestly think after all this time if they brought it back that it would fare any better than any of these other franchises would? No. It wouldn't. Sometimes you just have to let things be.
Click to expand...
You've never seen Firefly???
What are you waiting for, man?!
 
The real question is why?
Click to expand...

scrooge.jpg
 
These deep fakes are "amazing" but in everyone I've seen the eyes are dead (Morgan Freeman looks soulless, which he most definitely is not!).
And those are the ones we look at most when people talk. But in a few years time, perhaps...
 
At the very least, the deepfake technology will allow filmmakers to do twins with a single actor much more easily now., at least on the production end of things. You no longer have to do split screens and/or double takes, nor does the actor have to shoot the same scene twice playing a different twin each time. They can whichever twin they want and you have a body double the gets deepfaked over.

The deepfake tech also permits filmmakers to continue with a film if one of their main actors dies before filming all of their scenes like Brandon Lee did in The Crow. They were able to do it then with darkly lit scenes and double, plus the fact that he had fairly heavy makeup helped, but the deepfake tech would allow filmmakers to do it in broad daylight to a character with no makeup to hide their face.

Another use for it would be to make action scenes that much more exciting by allowing for close ups during live stunts. Right now, it's either you shoot the action from afar so you can't see the stunt person close enough to tell that it's a stunt person or you film the actor faking the stunt against a blue/green screen and comp in the background. In both cases, most audiences know that it's not the actual actor performing the stunt, but with a deepfake, you can shoot a stunt person closeup and digitally replace their face in post and now every actor can Tom Cruise and perform their own "stunts".
 
If used in that regard and sparingly I don't see any issues. Ressurecting dead actors or doing an entire movie of just A.I. generated Deep fake characters is creepy and unnecessary. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

 
Riceball said:
At the very least, the deepfake technology will allow filmmakers to do twins with a single actor much more easily now., at least on the production end of things. You no longer have to do split screens and/or double takes, nor does the actor have to shoot the same scene twice playing a different twin each time. They can whichever twin they want and you have a body double the gets deepfaked over.

The deepfake tech also permits filmmakers to continue with a film if one of their main actors dies before filming all of their scenes like Brandon Lee did in The Crow. They were able to do it then with darkly lit scenes and double, plus the fact that he had fairly heavy makeup helped, but the deepfake tech would allow filmmakers to do it in broad daylight to a character with no makeup to hide their face.

Another use for it would be to make action scenes that much more exciting by allowing for close ups during live stunts. Right now, it's either you shoot the action from afar so you can't see the stunt person close enough to tell that it's a stunt person or you film the actor faking the stunt against a blue/green screen and comp in the background. In both cases, most audiences know that it's not the actual actor performing the stunt, but with a deepfake, you can shoot a stunt person closeup and digitally replace their face in post and now every actor can Tom Cruise and perform their own "stunts".
Click to expand...
So you're saying we can look forward to a remake of Jean Claude Van Damme's Double Impact?
 
Uses like Tarkin in Rogue One would seem to be the most natural use. You want to make a sequel to an older film but you need an appearance by a passed actor to tie everything together. I expect to see a Maltese Falcon sequel with a Cameo from Bogart at some point.
 
Axlotl said:
You've never seen Firefly???
What are you waiting for, man?!
Click to expand...

I watched it recently because I missed it when it was on. It's interesting, but I don't think it was as good as something like ST or Stargate SG1. Maybe if it had more episodes it would have had more time to flesh things out. I do love the cast though.
 
Sluis Van Shipyards said:
I watched it recently because I missed it when it was on. It's interesting, but I don't think it was as good as something like ST or Stargate SG1. Maybe if it had more episodes it would have had more time to flesh things out. I do love the cast though.
Click to expand...
A few observations.

People dug it because, at the time, it was very, very different. Also because Whedon's writing is generally pretty good. That said, I think folks have soured on Whedon in years since, and reevaluate a lot of his work through the lens of what we now know about the guy and...yeah, a lot of his stuff doesn't quite hold up.

Even before that, I had come to the realization that Whedon -- like M. Night Shamalyan -- seems to reeeeeaaaalllly like hitting the same kind of beats over and over again, to the point where it came across as kind of lazy to me. Especially with respect to killing characters and breaking up couples. It was interesting and edgy....in 1998. Now it's old hat. You want to impress me? Keep everyone alive and keep them interesting. Don't break up romances, but have them survive drama. That's interesting. Any ******* can drop a 10 ton weight on top of a character and then have everyone boo hoo that they're gone. But keeping them alive and still making them interesting? That's challenging.

Mostly, though, what I think people loved about Firefly (and Serenity) was the potential. See, Whedon shows tend to have first seasons that are mostly these warm fuzzy affairs where he builds a family up and shoots it warm (especially true in Firefly), and generally makes it a fun romp with your regular crew who feel like your friends. And then s**t goes seriously sideways in Season 2 and he starts killing characters and ruining everyone's lives. And yeah, it's still entertaining...but it's also just...old hat now. But Firefly never got a Season 2, so all people have about the show are those warm fuzzy feelings. And then they got an interesting film with a much bigger budget that hinted at conflicts within a larger universe...and then it got dropped (well, there's comic book continuations).

Bottom line, I think Firefly is still a fun show, but it's not the be-all/end-all that people made it out to be when it was out. A lot of that was driven by fans proselytizing the show in the hopes that creating more fans could somehow resurrect the property, but no such luck.
 
I think you nailed Whedon and Firefly right on the head there.

Whedon's M.O. is to create a jolly ensemble cast and then psychologically damage the hell out of everyone.

IMO it's a great storytelling instinct for a shorter-length franchise, like maybe 6 hours or less. But at the lengths of modern franchises it gets worn out.

I feel like this is the next big frontier in TV/cinema. We've got all these franchises being dragged out for too many movies & seasons. The producers start off with some plot framework for the first few movies/seasons but it's uncharted territory after that. They get into a routine of cheap twists keep people watching. Evil twin brothers, shocking deaths, characters coming back from the dead, amnesia, the entire last season was a nightmare, etc. A generation ago this was soap opera stuff. Now it happens in 'Fast & Furious' and 'Terminator'.

The game has changed in the last decade. Modern audiences are starting to expect a coherent story structure (and not too many cheap tactics) even when the story is 20 hours long. If you want Marvel universe money then you have to do Marvel universe plotting.
 
Last edited:
Exactly! I think, more and more, unless you're doing a procedural or formulaic "monster of the week" show, if you're doing an overarching narrative there is much more desire for coherent stories that are actually plotted out.

Characters should be have believably, and the plot should flow naturally and fit. I think a lot of shows and film series have relied upon "mysteries" or contrivances or attempts to manipulate the audience, and it just doesn't work in most cases. Especially for longer-running series/franchises.

At the very least, even if you don't know that in 10 years you're gonna have these characters have gone through those things and come up against this challenge, you need to refer back to your earlier work and double-check that what you're doing tracks with the groundwork you've already laid. You can't come out of left field with some wacky crap that doesn't fit.

Most of all, I have become incredibly disdainful of meta-narrative/meta-textual attempts at audience manipulation. If you can't do that through the story then you aren't a very good storyteller, are you? And at the end of the day, that's all that this stuff is: storytelling. Film, television, novels, it's all just storytelling. Playing on audience expectations and meta-textual knowledge can work in some instances, but most of the time it's a lazy crutch for the unoriginal. It may make people feel good in the moment, but it's hollow and disposable, and stories should be something more with that. Even the bad ones.
 
That's why I think plot twists are overrated. They frequently get used as crutches/patches and don't organically belong there. 'Fast & Furious' spent 8 movies beating the drum about family and then whipped out a long-lost evil brother in the 9th movie. 'Terminator' spent decades fawning over John Connor and then whacked him in the opening scene of the last one. Luke Skywalker in TLJ. Etc. These shows are harming the larger franchise for the sake of an individual entry in it.


This may come out of left field, but I think 'Empire Strikes Back' probably mined too much of the character drama in the OT. When they had to carbon-freeze Han (Harrison's refusal to sign for 3 movies), they basically pushed up the timeline on Han & Leia's relationship. It was largely resolved by the end of ESB. Lando fully redeemed himself too. The end scene sort of implied that Lando might be taking Han's place.

Everyone agrees that ROTJ is a weaker movie than ESB. But the analysis rarely goes beyond "I hated the Ewoks" and "A second Death Star was repetitive". Han & Leia & Lando are three of the biggest characters. None of them had much arc/development left to do for the entire 3rd movie. Leia had to deal with the Anakin/sibling reveal but that didn't get much screen time.
 
Last edited:
Prop Collector said:
You know? It's just idiotic enough to be believable. I believe it. Indiana Jones 5 Rumored To Set Up New Lead To Replace Harrison Ford
Click to expand...
I have zero doubt that this is the plan. In fact, I'd be shocked if they didn't try.

Indy doesn't appeal to the younger crowd, so they (D) need to modernize it in order to better monetize it ™.

Part of me agrees. I believe there is a way to expand that property into a more modern world, for a modern audience, without destroying the past or embarrassing themselves and those who made Indy happen. That expansion might not end up being for "us", but that doesn't mean they can't make into a good product.

However, I don't believe D has the ability or the desire to do any of that. At least not in the foreseeable future.

I was reading about how the Bond production hired writers to update the franchise to more current times, current trends. I'm expecting Indy5 to go down that route too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Tommy
Misleading presentations of Indiana Jones lots by Goldin / Studio Auctions
Replies
7
Views
930
GKvfx
G
Psab keel
Limited Run Indiana Jones Metal Raiders Gunbelt Hardware and Bag Straps
Replies
3
Views
1,517
Psab keel
Psab keel
Sevv
Custom Indiana Jones 'Collectable' figure
Replies
8
Views
2,369
kickman88
kickman88
parfaitelumiere
Interest Indiana Jones raiders pocket knife
4 5 6
Replies
104
Views
14,778
Mitch LaRue
Mitch LaRue
Sarednab
Interest Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny - Destiny Journal
2
Replies
38
Views
7,985
Sarednab
Sarednab
Back
Top