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INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL RULES!!! :D

Brian and I FINALLY saw it last night, and it was AMAZING!!!

I've read a couple of glowing reviews, and I read a couple of hum-drum reviews of the movie, and Brian & I agree that this was A MAGNIFICENT MOVIE!!! (I almost said "a magnificent film", but there's a certain connotation that goes along with the word "film"... Indy 4 isn't a "film" it's a "movie", and as such it ROCKS!)

And here's why...

I learned about "cliff-hangers" or movie serials when George Lucas revealed that that was the inspiration for Raiders of the Lost Ark (and, for that matter, Star Wars). I'm, like, 10 years old and all my friends are telling my how cool this movie is, and I see this making-of documentary before I actually get to see the movie.

Then I finally get around to talking my parents into letting me see the movie, AND I'M BLOWN AWAY!

Most exciting movie of my life!

So, naturally, I look into Serials when I'm a little older and the VHS has been invented and mass-distributed, and I find his really interesting world... You usually had one really interesting character fighting really bad villains, and these situations that made you think there's NO way the hero can survive.

Comic books, basically. (Though the movie cliffhanger pre-dates the comic book... HOWEVER... the concept of "serials" began with the daily comic strip, which inspired the movie serials...)

Okay, so...

As I grew up and wanted to learn more about the history of story-telling in the 20th Century, I learn about B-Movies and Pulp Fiction (NOT the Tarantino flick, lol) and I discover that what entertains me most are these marginalized forms of entertainment that are disregarded by the entertainment "inteligencia" , but terribly fun to EXPERIENCE!

...by the way...

If you're looking for a bad-ass movie serial to introduce you to the world of Cliff-hangers, I'd like to recommend The Adventures of Captain Marvel. It's got all the best and worst that cliff-hangers have to offer, and is an excellent example of the format!!!

Getting back to the topic...

Before Indy 4 came out, I was aware that Lucas had wanted to make a sequel called Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men from Mars. Which, at first consideration, seems like a grievous mis-step.

BUT...

If you look at the Indiana Jones franchise, that's really not a bad idea!

The first movie reflects Serials of the 1930s/1940s. The second film really feels like a 1940s movie (by the time they did Last Crusade they had a "feel" for what made an Indiana Jones flick an Indiana Jones flick, so they went with that) and the knowledge that they had to acknowledge the passage of actual time between Indy 3 and Indy 4 meant that HAD TO make Indy older by that much time...

Which means the film has to be set in the mid-50s...

And what was the equivalent of the movie serials of the 1930s/1940s in the kid-50s?

PULP FICTION.

So to keep the tone of the Indy franchise honest, there's really only 1 place to search for inspiration!

Which is where Lucas searched.

And if you read pulp fiction or comic books from that period (TV is useless, because TV was, at that time, concerned with recreating the experience of a stage performance, which was trying to be timeless and eternal) they are concerned with 2 things: (1) the Atomic Age and (2) the potential of life from other planets...

So if you're familiar with the history of popular entertainment, the idea of Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men from Mars is a SUPERB idea!!! :)

However, apparently Spielberg and/or Ford weren't as interested in this idea as Lucas was.

So they reworked it into what Indy 4 is now...

WHICH IS AMAZING!!! :D

I've read some reviews that called Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull a B Movie, but in a slightly derogatory manner, as though the film delivers slightly less than one would hope.

But this was not my experience of the flick!!! :D

I thought Indy 4 was a GLORIOUS celebration of ALL that Indy represents!!! :D

It's cool, because I listened to an episode of Spooky Southcoast that had an expert on Crystal Skulls -- Joshua "Illinios" Shapiro -- talking about the history of them, and he provided a great deal of context that I took with me into the movie. I even kept Brian up a little too late listening to that episode, lol.

And when we walked out of the film, I felt like Lucas had not only respected the mythology built up around the Crystal Skulls, but also offered a possible explanation to explain-away the nay-sayers of the Crystal Skulls legend, hehe! :)

And at the same time, he -- and Spielberg and David Koepp and Ford and screenwriter Jeff Nathonson -- delivered to us an Indy flick that met with the tonal requirements of a 1950s "exploitation" flick and a good, solid entry into the history of Indiana Jones!!! :D

I mean, WHO COULD ASK FOR MORE?!!

Now, Brian & I have watched it once on the Big Screen and sort of half a time (we each crashed at different times) on the Net, so we won't be able to determine if this is our favorite Indy flick until it's released on dvd. But right now, I'm willing to say that it might be! :D

I mean, you can't really beat Raiders... It was the product of some young, idealistic folks who were in their prime and trying to recreate for the rest of the world an experience that INSPIRED them to want to make movies! But, for my money, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is AN AMAZING sequel, and a spectacular book-end to the first movie!

ALSO...

Like any good sequel, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull gives a sort of weight and import to the sequels that came before it. It makes the series, as a whole, make sense and feel "right". It even includes a few references that make the TV series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles fit nicely into the "cannon" of the Indy films!

So I have had me a GREAT weekend! ;D

And in a couple of days I'm going to watch my daughter graduate high school A YEAR EARLY!!!

Good times in the life of a Ray Jay. :)

I hope you're experiencing some good times, too!!! (It's always best when the wealth is shared!)