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Just out of curiosity, have there been many prequels that actually WORK?
Turns out, RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES.
I know. I'm as shocked as you are. It has its problems -- certain character motivations are a little 
here and there -- but overall it's really quite something, and easily the best prequel I've ever seen.
It's a half prequel, but Godfather 2 comes to mind.
The Prodigal Son is a prequel of sorts to The Warriors Two, in that it features one of the characters from Warriors Two as a young man. Great films both, probably two of the finer examples of excellent post-Bruce Lee martial arts action from the 'Peking Opera kids' that included Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao, and both are certainly great fight films.
Invid wrote:Just out of curiosity, have there been many prequels that actually WORK?
Turns out, RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES.
A prequel based on the 4th movie in the series, although as I posted elsewhere since it doesn't involve time travel it could serve as the initial start of everything.
Okay, I'm a little late to this party, but I'm reading The Complete Making of Indiana Jones, so it's simmering in my subconscious right now.
Everybody, including Lucas and Spielberg, and quick to point out how dark ToD is. What has always struck me about it, that nobody seem to mention, is how immature it is.
Willie is a screaming blonde girl, Short Round is a "Gee, whiz!" sidekick, the bad guys are so bad that they enslave kids... the whole thing feels like the kind of Indy film a ten-year-old would come up with, playing with action figures. Short Round is there as a kid viewpoint (Indy is a bit too adult a character for a kid to want to be, so if a kid is in an Indy movie, it's as a Robin sidekick). Willie is the kind of girl you think is the perfect woman when you're an eleven-year-old boy, and don't know what girls are actually like. The Temple of Doom is like an action figure playset, with real moving mine carts and a bridge that falls in half and drops your action figures off. Cool! Oh, man, bugs! Gross! Snakes! Those make girls scream! Monkey brains! Gross!
It lacks mystery. It lacks the sense of wonder for past lives and civilizations, now lost and crumbled to dust. In the other two movies, the search for the artifacts reveals something about the characters, a feature of the best adventure stories. In ToD, what does Indy learn about himself? I like kids, I guess?
In summary: Try to imagine John Williams's theme for the Ark, the one that plays in the Map Room at Tanis, as the soundtrack for any scene in ToD. You can't do it, can you?
+2
Wow. Good point.
In summary: Try to imagine John Williams's theme for the Ark, the one that plays in the Map Room at Tanis, as the soundtrack for any scene in ToD. You can't do it, can you?
Well, it is a different movie.
Could you imagine this in Ark?
+1
Could you imagine this in Ark?
I must admit that I can't.
However, freeing children from slave mines (as illustrated by this piece of score) is an appropriate element to mix into an Indy story, whereas a sense of wonder is a core part of Indiana Jones. That core was lacking in ToD.
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I do freaking love that song, though.
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I guess I should also note that not everybody necessarily agrees with me about the importance of the sense of wonder. George Lucas, for one. If you read his comments about the stories, it's pretty clear that he regards the historical artifacts as nothing more than straight-up MacGuffins. While brainstorming Indy IV, he was absolutely convinced that aliens were key to the continuing success of the franchise, and he point-blank refused to make another Indy movie if it didn't have aliens, which is totally mystifying to me.
Still, that wouldn't be the first time that a creator misunderstood what made their story awesome in the first place.
In fact, that wouldn't be the first time that GL misunderstood what made his story awesome in the first place (hint: it wasn't piles of lightsabers and special effects, dude).
I do like the idea of a South American crystal skull. But making the mystery be aliens instead of religious magic was goofy. The ancient astronauts crap didn't get started until the late '60s, so it feels very new-agey.
However, we'd seen enough jungle in the opening of Raiders and in Temple of Doom. It would have been better to do an Asian artifact, since we didn't see much of East Asia in Temple of Doom, or maybe an ancient Greek artifact that leads to the discovery of a fantastic buried temple on an island populated by Amazons.
Yeah, movie producers seem to be absolutely obsessed with the whole Chariots of the Gods thing. That's an old concept, it doesn't make any sense, it's been done to death, and we're over it. Can we move on, please?
It sounds like Prometheus (Ridley Scott's new not-an-Alien-prequel) is built around the same damn thing.
"The (space) journey, metaphorically, is about a challenge to the gods," Scott said. But Scott's ambitions with Prometheus go far beyond simply restarting a hit franchise. The British director said the film's storyline, and script by David Lindelof, was partially inspired by the writings of legendary Swiss sci-fi writer Eric van Daniken.
Van Daniken, author of 1968 bestseller Chariot of the Gods, is best known as the first proponent of the so-called ancient astronaut theory, which holds that aliens kick-started civilization on earth. "NASA and the Vatican agree that is almost mathematically impossible that we can be where we are today without there being a little help along the way," Scott said. "That's what we're looking at (in the film), at some of Eric van Daniken's ideas of how did we humans come about."
(http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/r … omi-206321)
Wait, what? I can't even-- That's total bollocks. NASA has never said any such thing. I don't-- Gah!
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It's also unfortunate that in real life, the crystal skulls turned out to be a hoax. Uh, whoops.
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Yep, jungle and deserts, man. I want some new terrain. Tomb Raider had some excellent levels set in caves in the snowy mountain peaks of the Andes, as I recall. There are lots of different flavors of jungle, too, but somehow, in the movies they all end up looking like Hawaii. Hrmm...
"Prepare to meet Kali... in HELL!"
This movie is just wrong
Ok, I had religion in school, and Kali is not some evil cult goddess. She is the Goddess of eternal energy, the Punisher Of Evil, and is very popular in mainstream Hinduism. Kali is not Satan.
Last edited by Xtroid (2011-10-31 00:15:18)
So, I'm gonna resurrect this one because I just listened to the commentary for the first time and kept waiting for someone to bring something up and it never happened in the actual commentary or in this thread, so now I have to mention it myself.
So you spend most of this commentary talking about the various problems this movie has(most of which I agree with, even if none of them comes close to ruining the movie for me) and how Spielberg and particularly George's state of mind at the time is to blame for how the movie turned out. Now, what struck me as curious is that at no point during the commentary are the actual writers of the movie mentioned. Those writers would be Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz who just happens to be the writers responsible for the cinematic masterpiece Howard the Duck.
This is where I wish I had some interesting insight or actual point to make, but I really just wanted to point out that we should probably direct at least some of the blame for how this one turned out onto Katz and Huyck as well.
I did really enjoy the commentary though. Very insightful and criticism-y, rather than the drunk hatefest mode that you sometimes (very rarely these days) can fall into.
(Oh and on the topic of Kate Capshaw: I don't really have a strong opinion about her, but her daughter Jessica is great. Yeah, I watch Grey's Anatomy, what about it!?!
+1
Yeah, I watch Grey's Anatomy, what about it!?!
It's shit 
(I used to watch it too 
)
Last edited by Lamer (2013-02-26 19:43:09)
Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz who just happens to be the writers responsible for the cinematic masterpiece Howard the Duck.
Their whole filmography is not impressive. American Graffiti (which, according to IMDb ratings, is their best movie) bored the hell out of me. It felt dry and wooden... just like a typical George Lucas film. I turned it off after 40 minutes.
Ok, I had religion in school, and Kali is not some evil cult goddess. She is the Goddess of eternal energy, the Punisher Of Evil, and is very popular in mainstream Hinduism. Kali is not Satan.
Most Western writers tend to think in terms of "Good" and "Evil" as described by Christianity or Judaism. For example, they almost always turn the Greek god Hades into an analogue of Satan. Some of them just fail to grasp the complexities of other religions and mythologies. Others simply assume that viewers are too stupid to understand concepts other than "100% Good"/"100% Evil".
I'm currently rewatching Stargate SG-1. For some reason, the writers decided that Sokar (an Egyptian deity) is Satan 
This trope is called "Hijacked By Jesus".
Wow, Hansen - I didn't know that one. Now I wish I had, totally would have come up.
Hansen wrote:Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz who just happens to be the writers responsible for the cinematic masterpiece Howard the Duck.
Their whole filmography is not impressive. American Graffiti (which, according to IMDb ratings, is their best movie) bored the hell out of me. It felt dry and wooden... just like a typical George Lucas film. I turned it off after 40 minutes.
Xtroid wrote:Ok, I had religion in school, and Kali is not some evil cult goddess. She is the Goddess of eternal energy, the Punisher Of Evil, and is very popular in mainstream Hinduism. Kali is not Satan.
Most Western writers tend to think in terms of "Good" and "Evil" as described by Christianity or Judaism. For example, they almost always turn the Greek god Hades into an analogue of Satan. Some of them just fail to grasp the complexities of other religions and mythologies. Others simply assume that viewers are too stupid to understand concepts other than "100% Good"/"100% Evil".
I'm currently rewatching Stargate SG-1. For some reason, the writers decided that Sokar (an Egyptian deity) is Satan
This trope is called "Hijacked By Jesus".
Interesting trope though the fact that Sokar in Egyptian mythology was associated with ruling the afterlife or the underworld, the idea that a Goa'uld would take on multiple personae to different cultures is hardly new. Besides, no Greek god could be called good
And I had religion in college too and while Kali is not "evil" in Western terms, her deity worship has been associated with death cults and the like. The Thuggee cult was a real organization devoted to Kali and performed assassinations and robbery, which probably led to the visage of Kali being "evil" after the British disseminated information regarding the Thuggees. This is also where the terms "Thug" comes from.
Their whole filmography is not impressive. American Graffiti (which, according to IMDb ratings, is their best movie) bored the hell out of me. It felt dry and wooden... just like a typical George Lucas film. I turned it off after 40 minutes.
I actually like American Grafitti, but I wouldn't say it's because of the writing. I just love the performances and overall atmosphere of it. The actual writing of it is not at all what I think about when I look back on that one.
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