You're not alone there.   For example, I have only watched one Asylum movie in its entirety, ever.   And that was just once, when we DIF'd it.

/yes, it was the one I directed
/not kidding

My answer is - because the entire trip (including the dinner party scene once they arrive) contributes nothing to the plot, and no vital character info either.     It's all shoe leather, the equivalent of watching characters drive all the way somewhere and look around for a parking space before arriving at a scene that actually matters.     Willie remains annoying, Short Round and Indy continue to bicker, there's a lot of unfunny business with animals and guys in turbans... all just filler, and not particularly entertaining filler.   

A little bit of the trip would have been fine, there's nothing wrong with taking a moment to ride elephants through some nice scenery in an Indy movie - exotic locales are part of the appeal.   But it just goes on too long, for no purpose.   Look, vampire bats!   Which will play no part in the story!    Willie is frightened by them!   Which isn't the least bit new or surprising!

At the dinner we do get a meager few lines of back story about the Thuggees, but even that isn't really necessary - Indy could have covered that info from elephant-back on the trip in, he's usually the knower of all things historical anyway.

So the story doesn't get going again until Indy and Willie flirt (an advancement of character) and Indy gets attacked in his room (a hint, finally, that there's an antagonist in the story... somewhere) which leads - finally - to entering the actual Temple of Doom.    From there until the end, the movie works much better, but it was a long time comin'.

Finally, there's no ticking clock - there's no urgency to the trip because there's no particular time they have to arrive.  And other than "get the Happy Stone back and find the kids if you can" it's not clear what they're going to DO when they get there, or even what the threat is.   It's called The Temple of Doom so it'll probably be unpleasant, but that's all we know.   

Compare that to Raiders, where it's spelled out early on that the Ark of the Covenant is the equivalent of a Holy A-bomb that the Nazis are about to get their hands on.  So right from the beginning the race is on, and the stakes are established.     Even though Indy goes to Egypt via freakin' Tibet, the urgency is still there because we know that he's gotta get the medallion from Marion fast so he can get on down the road.

Yeah, pretty much agree with all the above.  Which is why they'd make potentially good DIF's, there's stuff to talk about.

But when I say Zodiac was forgettable, I mean it quite literally.  I saw Zodiac, it was well-made and kept my interest throughout.  But there's not a single thing about it that I can remember now, other than the basic facts of the Zodiac case that I knew anyway.

In fairness to Mr. Fincher, in my previous post I forgot he also directed Panic Room, which I would put in my "hit" category.

I'd go for that.   I thought Zodiac was well-made but completely forgettable, so I wouldn't have much to say.   But LA Confidential and Collateral, while neither is without flaws, are well worth discussion.

Solely because of this thread, I rented Source Code last night.  Thought it was great.     The ending made perfect sense to me, and should have to anyone who understood Back to the Future II, since it's the same premise.   

Not a transcendant OMG best movie EVAR, but entertaining and well made in all respects.  And as Teague said, love it or hate it, there should be more movies like that.

Spoiler - The one issue that I would quibble about is the "erasure" of the poor fella whose body gets inhabited.   The movie sorta ignores this, and not surprisingly.     But the inhabit-ee was dead when the story began, and in no scenario could he have survived without everyone else dying too.  Unfortunate, yes, but that's just the way the equation played out.  So the incident did have one casualty after all. 

Yes, I would have preferred the movie give some acknowledgement of that unavoidable fact, but I can understand why they chose to just downplay it.

Add a matching Un-like feature and I'm sold.

The answer is always Surrogates.

Correct!  Proceed.

I stay with my original answer:  the Fairchild C-82A.  If you crash, you just make another plane out of it!

Note:  the C-119 is a less-preferred but acceptable substitute.

Seconded.  Dorkman wins the page.

Last Year At Marienbad

The Raptor That Taunts An Indoor Shopping Arcade

This is a wild guess, but maybe it was Videodrome?  Haven't seen it myself in decades, so I don't remember the specific image you're describing, but - it's an '80's Cronenberg with lots of techno-fleshy images and other similarities to existenz, so maybe that's why you thought it was the latter?