Scots Taffer on 3/6/2008 at 11:39

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Doom being darker was Lucas's influence, not Spielberg's.

Crusade's ONLY real strength is the dynamic, other than the opener. :(

Aja on 4/6/2008 at 02:27

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...

The only saving grace?? Most movies should be so lucky to have such a wonderful on-screen relationship! Even if what you're saying is true (and it isn't), the dynamic between Ford and Connery is so fucking entertaining that it could stand on its own.

I rewatched the entire triology for the first time in years last month, and found Last Crusade to be the hands-down winner of the three. Better pacing, more interesting quest, some of the greatest action scenes ever put to film, plus, John Williams' soundtrack is more memorable than ever. For me, Last Crusade is the pinnacle of action films, while Crystal Skull is only a pale imitation. I can't think of any better way to make my point than to just give you a gigantic list of all the great scenes from Last Crusade, but obviously, you've seen it, and for some mindboggling reason, remain stoic and unaffected. :(

Scots Taffer on 4/6/2008 at 05:59

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Your post is so wrong I don't even know where to begin. Bear in mind that while I rank Crusade last of the three as adventure films (adventure films, not action) but still rank it quite highly in comparison to nearly anything else in the genre. It's still a solid 3.5/5 as compared to 4/5 for Doom and 5/5 for Raiders (going by my recent flickster ratings, lol).

But Crusade > Raiders?
This is wrong on every imaginable level, with perhaps only the very scarce credit going towards the score side as Williams was spinning pure gold in that movie.
The Joneses dynamic is excellent yes, but to those who find Willie Scott and Short Round grating, I found bumbling Brody and constant "JUNIOR" references to be bordering on grating (but definitely did not interfere with my enjoyment).

But as for the systematic weaknesses of Crusade?
It doesn't really break any new ground, for all the great scenes in that movie* there are equally redundant scenes that really feel like a pale retread of Raiders:
- the rats scene with the tomb is pretty fucking close to the snakes scene with the Ark
- horse versus tank (sounds familiar? oh yeah, horse versus trucks - the best action scene in all Indiana Jones history)
And in general, the whole movie (in terms of structure) is Raiders all over too: some bad guy helps Nazis chase after something that the bad guy really wants, you'd expect the Nazis would really want it too, but apparently they're never aware of its true power.
But perhaps the weakest link of all is the MacGuffin, the Grail has a haunting theme and the idea of obsession and belief runs through the movie, but the Grail itself is given scarcely a fraction of the attention (and hence characterisation) as the Ark. The Ark was a fucking character in Raiders, you were in awe of it and you were afraid of them opening it, the script flawlessly constructs a real tension around the opening, and rightly so - given the payoff.
The Grail by comparison gets very little in the way of elucidation, preferring to rely on the Father's obsession with it and how that estranged Indy from him, this is fine as the Father-Son dynamic is brilliant, but it makes the focus of the film a more emotional romp than a true adventure in the archeology sense. Also, the Grail just sort of quietly shoe-horns in a ridiculously high level of mysticism at the end with a 700-year old Knight. Uhhhh OK.

Let's compare with Raiders:
- FUCKING amazing introduction, it's iconic, thrilling, witty, brilliant
- the "love you" eyes
- Indy's encounter with Marion and the bar fight (...whisky?)
- the search for the location of the Ark (the spotlight)
- the dig and the tomb (asps, very dangerous, you go first, Indy)
- the airfield fight
- the horse vs trucks chase
- Indy and Marion on the ship
- the face melting WRATH OF GOD
- "top men" and the warehouse scene

The whole thing is perfectly acted, done with the right amount of sincerity, humour, energy and action. It is quite simply one of the best movies ever FUCKING made so JUST TAKE BACK WHAT YOU SAID RIGHT GODDAMN NOW.

* And here are some:
- the opener and segue into Jones as an adult is sublime (though the boat scene itself is very weak)
- Jones slipping out of his office via the window
- the first meeting between the Joneses with the vase and the dead nazis and the Elsa entendres and the lighter and the escape (though the motorcycle chase is a bit meh)
- Hitler
- No ticket!
- The end of the airplane chase - car, bomb and seagulls
- The actual getting to the grail
- He chose poorly
- Indiana, let it go...

But yeah, I obviously violently disagree.

I can even do a point by point on why Temple of Doom is way better than Crusade too, if you'd like. :D

Fafhrd on 4/6/2008 at 07:06

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Can we stop using MacGuffin incorrectly? It's starting to bug me.

Brian T on 4/6/2008 at 07:19

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If I may add some useless trivia the role of Hitler was played by Michael Sheard who was perhaps most well known as Mr Bronson to watchers of the BBc's Grange Hill school drama series in the late 1980s. Bronson was scarier.