Comments on: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Review http://www.seanpaune.com/2008/05/27/indiana-jones-and-the-kingdom-of-the-crystal-skull-review/ Sun, 12 Feb 2012 05:14:13 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Indiana Jones 5 Looks To Be Happening - SeanPAune.com http://www.seanpaune.com/2008/05/27/indiana-jones-and-the-kingdom-of-the-crystal-skull-review/comment-page-1/#comment-40425 Indiana Jones 5 Looks To Be Happening - SeanPAune.com Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:41:18 +0000 http://www.seanpaune.com/?p=1704#comment-40425 [...] LaBeouf, who was one of the worst things in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, is out doing press for Transformers Revenge of the Fallen, and the subject of Indiana Jones 5 has [...] [...] LaBeouf, who was one of the worst things in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, is out doing press for Transformers Revenge of the Fallen, and the subject of Indiana Jones 5 has [...]

]]> By: Contrary Jack http://www.seanpaune.com/2008/05/27/indiana-jones-and-the-kingdom-of-the-crystal-skull-review/comment-page-1/#comment-27960 Contrary Jack Fri, 30 May 2008 02:32:59 +0000 http://www.seanpaune.com/?p=1704#comment-27960 One of the great things about Raiders is that this was a 20th-century world where (we discover) the Old Testament was true in all the scariest particulars. God in Raiders is the nasty, jealous YHWH who stomped cities flat for pissing him off. One reason the sequels from the 1980s didn't work very well is that they lost the grandeur of this idea, and in fact they diluted it by getting all multicultural (i.e., apparently Kali is real, too) and trying to add in the New Testament (i.e., Jesus doesn't like Nazis). The first managed to be about the dangers of seeking divinity, but the other two seemed to be more about how to touch divinity and be OK. (Faith was key in both cases, although it took very different forms in each.) In this new thing, all the Chariots of the Gods crap seems to invite us to reconsider and reinterpret everything in the first three movies, esp. the first. There are a LOT of visual resonances between the big climaxes in the fourth and first movies--the bad guy's head catches fire--the portal opens in the air above the arena of the final conflict--and I couldn't help thinking that the movie wanted me to wonder, was this what was happening when they opened the Ark? Does this mean that nasty old YHWH just another bighead grey alien critter living in the space between spaces? This, to my way of thinking, sucks. I'm an agnostic, but part of my agnosticism is an attempt to appreciate the scale of the unknown in the universe. It's big, it's ineffable, it's damn scary; any time you look too far into that abyss you start to feel the abyss looking back at you (as Nietzche had it). That's the sense of divinity Raiders caught, and each successive movie has shrunk it down and labeled it and explained it until it's just one of the lamer episodes of the X Files. That's just my opinion, of course. Jack One of the great things about Raiders is that this was a 20th-century world where (we discover) the Old Testament was true in all the scariest particulars. God in Raiders is the nasty, jealous YHWH who stomped cities flat for pissing him off.

One reason the sequels from the 1980s didn’t work very well is that they lost the grandeur of this idea, and in fact they diluted it by getting all multicultural (i.e., apparently Kali is real, too) and trying to add in the New Testament (i.e., Jesus doesn’t like Nazis). The first managed to be about the dangers of seeking divinity, but the other two seemed to be more about how to touch divinity and be OK. (Faith was key in both cases, although it took very different forms in each.)

In this new thing, all the Chariots of the Gods crap seems to invite us to reconsider and reinterpret everything in the first three movies, esp. the first. There are a LOT of visual resonances between the big climaxes in the fourth and first movies–the bad guy’s head catches fire–the portal opens in the air above the arena of the final conflict–and I couldn’t help thinking that the movie wanted me to wonder, was this what was happening when they opened the Ark? Does this mean that nasty old YHWH just another bighead grey alien critter living in the space between spaces?

This, to my way of thinking, sucks. I’m an agnostic, but part of my agnosticism is an attempt to appreciate the scale of the unknown in the universe. It’s big, it’s ineffable, it’s damn scary; any time you look too far into that abyss you start to feel the abyss looking back at you (as Nietzche had it). That’s the sense of divinity Raiders caught, and each successive movie has shrunk it down and labeled it and explained it until it’s just one of the lamer episodes of the X Files.

That’s just my opinion, of course.

Jack

]]> By: GFS3 http://www.seanpaune.com/2008/05/27/indiana-jones-and-the-kingdom-of-the-crystal-skull-review/comment-page-1/#comment-27863 GFS3 Tue, 27 May 2008 17:58:09 +0000 http://www.seanpaune.com/?p=1704#comment-27863 You make some great points about the flaws of the movie -- because get too deep and it collapses on itself. Here's another interesting thing about Indy -- he's a misogynist. The evidence is there is all the movies -- if one cares to look. Here's the evidence and the argument: http://tiny.cc/RK1D8 You make some great points about the flaws of the movie — because get too deep and it collapses on itself. Here’s another interesting thing about Indy — he’s a misogynist. The evidence is there is all the movies — if one cares to look. Here’s the evidence and the argument: http://tiny.cc/RK1D8

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