Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (no major spoilers in OP)

[Charger]

@Peter Morris

Another thing, in the first three movies he went after artifacts from the Jewish, Hindu and Christian faiths. In this one he went after an alien spaceship. Aliens? In Indianna Jones? WTF?

Scientology is an increasingly popular religion. I wouldn’t be surprised if they loved the “validity” this movie gave it.

Still, seeing all the shaking heads leaving the theater, there was a pretty much universally recognized WTFittude about the film.

[Zomling]

@Peter Morris

Another thing, in the first three movies he went after artifacts from the Jewish, Hindu and Christian faiths. In this one he went after an alien spaceship. Aliens? In Indianna Jones? WTF?

I agree, I am not religious, but somehow I can accept the religious angle to the films more than the alien/sci fi. Possibly it’s just my own prejudices, but aliens and indy just don’t work together.

[Hilarity_N.Suze]

Warning: Spoilers aplenty. But I found this almost as much fun as I used to have reading the MAD versions of movies, although it’s not as visual.

[Mister_Rik]

@Number

His tryout was marred by a series of inadvertent beanballs, one of which ended the baseball career of fellow Yankees prospect Fidel Castro.

This made me LMAO because it reminded me of MAD Magazine’s I Love Lucy parody from years and years ago, which included a young Fidel Castro unsuccessfully auditioning for Ricky’s band. Ricky suggested to Fidel that he go back to Cuba and get an education, and maybe he could grow up to be President.

[Number]

Thanks. I borrowed that bit from an urban legend about Fidel. I figured it’s no more absurd than magnetic aliens or monkey armies.

I wonder if the MAD writers also had that in mind or if they were just putting together famous Cubans.

@Hilarity N. Suze

Warning: Spoilers aplenty. But I found this almost as much fun as I used to have reading the MAD versions of movies, although it’s not as visual."

Hehe. I love this:

JIM BROADBENT
Sorry Harrison, but the government
thinks you might be a Soviet.
Apparently someone rented “K-19:
The Widowmaker” and panicked.

HARRISON FORD
Bullshit, nobody saw that movie.

[Cat_Whisperer]

What a mis-fire. There were moments when the movie alllllllmost turned into something good, but then it just…didn’t. How do people of this caliber, with this much time and money, make something this mediocre? My theory is that George Lucas is too powerful, and no one tells him what he needs to hear anymore; my husband’s theory, well, he can’t think of any reason for it at all.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

I just got around to seeing the movie today, in the last day in the last first run theater still showing it. Don’t ever do this. The screen had a flicker problem big enough to cause seizures in epileptics.

But I came in because I couldn’t believe that with all the movie fanatics here nobody got the biggest reference in the whole movie.

Cate Blanchett was playing an exact replica of Greta Garbo as Ninotchka in the 1939 movie of that name. (Remade as Silk Stockings in the 1950s with Cyd Charisse playing the role.) It was so blatant that it was both brilliant and annoying at the same time. The poor girl. She just needed to go to Paris and be shown how much fun decadence was.

Also not said.

The first thing the government did to people on their Commie suspect list in the 1950s was pull their passports. Indy could never have left the country.

All those times that Mudd (I heard Mudd; his name will always be Mudd to me) pulled out his comb for no reason I figured had to be plants leading up to a payoff. Which never came. How is that possible?

I did enjoy it as a thrill ride, which is how some review I read referred to it. It bears no thinking about at any time. Nothing made sense. Nothing was even possible, let alone plausible. It suffers from the curse of all modern blockbuster movie making: make it bigger and louder and make the ending so big and loud the masses stumble out dazed and happy. I’d hate to have to give it a grade. It was awful yet more fun than most blow-things-up awful movies. I’m glad I did get a chance to see it, and that’s about all that counts.

[carnivorousplant]

@Exapno Mapcase

All those times that Mudd pulled out his comb for no reason I figured had to be plants leading up to a payoff.

I don’t understand.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

You “plant” an event or a character or a trait or a line of dialog early in a movie and it grows to be a scene of importance later on. Mutt’s constant playing with a knife becomes important later in the movie when a knife is necessary for the plot. His reference to being a fencing expert is needed to establish him for the duel with Irina. But he plays and plays with his comb, and pulls it out ostentatiously long after we get the point that he’s the second coming of Marlon Brando. In movie terms those are normally glowing neon arrows pointing to something you need to know because it will appear later. It never appears. That’s actually amazing.

It wasn’t meant to be a reference to you, BTW.

[Martini_Enfield]

@Exapno Mapcase

You “plant” an event or a character or a trait or a line of dialog early in a movie and it grows to be a scene of importance later on.

This is known as Chekov’s Gun, interestingly.

Mutt’s constant playing with a knife becomes important later in the movie when a knife is necessary for the plot. His reference to being a fencing expert is needed to establish him for the duel with Irina. But he plays and plays with his comb, and pulls it out ostentatiously long after we get the point that he’s the second coming of Marlon Brando. In movie terms those are normally glowing neon arrows pointing to something you need to know because it will appear later. It never appears. That’s actually amazing.

That surprised me too- I was expecting a sequence where he went for his knife and pulled out the comb, or tried to comb his hair with the knife, or something like that, but it never happened- and I rather like that, as a matter of fact. It was a nice change.