Indiana Jones And The Dial of Destiny (2023)

[Dave]

I can't really comment on this film itself until I've seen it myself, but I very much doubt that any film that I've ever seen really required $300 to make and promote, or that you can ever see the difference on screen of spending that kind of money. Heavy promotion isn't required if you have a good product. It will sell itself.

It's a little like the difference between a £70 bottle of wine and a £700 bottle. Clearly, you should pour away down the drain, any bottle selling for £3.50, but you can buy an excellent but relatively unknown vintage wine for £12+.

However, I want to say that I did like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Shia Lebeouf's character. It certainly wasn't the best in the series; it would rank quite low down, maybe even bottom, and nor would I say that there was "no problem" with the introduction of the character of Mutt.

Every film franchise follows the Law of Diminishing Returns with the possible exception of Aliens and Bond. Plenty of film sequels almost killed the film franchise off. There is already several other forum threads here discussing (complaining) about Hollywood so no need to turn this into one too.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I can't really comment on this film itself until I've seen it myself, but I very much doubt that any film that I've ever seen really required $300 to make and promote, or that you can ever see the difference on screen of spending that kind of money. Heavy promotion isn't required if you have a good product. It will sell itself.

It's a little like the difference between a £70 bottle of wine and a £700 bottle. Clearly, you should pour away down the drain, any bottle selling for £3.50, but you can buy an excellent but relatively unknown vintage wine for £12+.

However, I want to say that I did like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Shia Lebeouf's character. It certainly wasn't the best in the series; it would rank quite low down, maybe even bottom, and nor would I say that there was "no problem" with the introduction of the character of Mutt.

Every film franchise follows the Law of Diminishing Returns with the possible exception of Aliens and Bond. Plenty of film sequels almost killed the film franchise off. There is already several other forum threads here discussing (complaining) about Hollywood so no need to turn this into one too.

This is what happened with video gaming in the US back in the early 80s. Atari were mass producing low quality, high cots games. I think it was ET (which is definitely not the worst game ever) they created more cartridges than there were consoles to play them. But with terrible conversions such as Pac Man (the later Ms Pac Man proved that the game could easily have been programmed to the required standard) consumers were deciding that shelling out the equivalent today of $100 for a crap conversion simply wasn't worth it. Which is why here in the UK titles ended up washing up into bargain basements for less than a tenner.

Which is a shame because the likes of Activision with Empire Strikes Back, Frogger, Frost Bite, Pressure Cooker and Imagic with the likes of Atlantis, and Cosmic Ark were basically giving high quality titles away for a pittance. And this of course prevented them from making any more.

But getting back to the point, the cinema industry very much seems to be going the way of the video game market. And if Indy really needs heavily promoting/advertising to bring it to the public's attention, then they really shouldn't be spending this amount of money on it.

In the long run it could be for the best. If Hollywood realises that spending tons of cash on low quality movies leaves the viewing public deciding not to spending the weekly entertainment budget on a night out to watch a disappointing film, and- like with the video game market - resets, and starts to concentrate on quality product for a reasonable price, then we may see an improvement.

Of course if Indy goes on to 'do a Lord of the Rings' and return $1 billion +, we probably won't. But I'm not sure that that 'LOTR' market i there any more.

 

[Bren G]

I'll let others spring from the trench first. Am a huge fan, but like many franchises it seems to have run out of gas.

 

[Vince W]

The real problem with Crystal Skull is that everyone went in expecting the same magic as Raiders. But of course that was quite impossible.

 

[CrazyKB]

I can't really comment on this film itself until I've seen it myself, but I very much doubt that any film that I've ever seen really required $300 to make and promote, or that you can ever see the difference on screen of spending that kind of money. Heavy promotion isn't required if you have a good product. It will sell itself.

It's a little like the difference between a £70 bottle of wine and a £700 bottle. Clearly, you should pour away down the drain, any bottle selling for £3.50, but you can buy an excellent but relatively unknown vintage wine for £12+.

However, I want to say that I did like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Shia Lebeouf's character. It certainly wasn't the best in the series; it would rank quite low down, maybe even bottom, and nor would I say that there was "no problem" with the introduction of the character of Mutt.

Every film franchise follows the Law of Diminishing Returns with the possible exception of Aliens and Bond. Plenty of film sequels almost killed the film franchise off. There is already several other forum threads here discussing (complaining) about Hollywood so no need to turn this into one too.

The Alien films got worse after the second one. Prometheus looked amazing but had a horrible script. Alien Covenant was so stupid that I had to fast forward through most of it.

 

[CrazyKB]

The first film (Raiders of the Lost Ark) was brilliant, the other films (80s) were entertaining, however nowhere near the quality of the original. All the modern iterations, in my opinion, fall under the category of 'milking a franchise'. I remember a time when Hollywood made 'original movies', now all they do is recycle known IPs, destroying their legacies in the process.

 

[paranoid marvin]

The real problem with Crystal Skull is that everyone went in expecting the same magic as Raiders. But of course that was quite impossible.

To be fair though, the directing, writing and lead actor credits went to the same guys who did the first 2 sequels to Raiders , and whilst ToD wasn't perfect, it was still recognisably an Indy film; Last Crusade was arguably the best of the lot. And even the 'Young Indy' series whose stories were credited to Lucas were not bad either. The budget was almost twice that of the first 3 movies combined.

So other than Ford's age - which could easily have been resolved in the editing or in the storyline - nothing should have changed. What seems to have been a major factor though is Lucas, and his nigh-on 10 year hiatus between Last Crusade and Phantom Menace. The magic that was there in movies like Star Wars, ESB and Labyrinth clearly wasn't there any more. And I'm not sure that it's returned since.

It could be argued that Spielberg - who has gone from strength to strength (with the odd hiccup) throughout his directorial career - should have intervened and ripped some of the 'this isn't Indiana Jones' out of the script, but tbh you would have had very little left to work with.

Crystal Skull is not a bad movie, but it is a terrible Indiana Jones movie.

 

[paranoid marvin]

The first film (Raiders of the Lost Ark) was brilliant, the other films (80s) were entertaining, however nowhere near the quality of the original. All the modern iterations, in my opinion, fall under the category of 'milking a franchise'. I remember a time when Hollywood made 'original movies', now all they do is recycle known IPs, destroying their legacies in the process.

I agree that ToD was definitely weaker (although the opening scene all the way up to the end of the sled ride was awesome), but I did think that Sean Connery helped make Last Crusade into a tremendously entertaining movie. Lots of memorable bits, especially when they're all looking over the cliff edge for Indy (another nod to the old serial shows). Always cracks me up that bit. And the part where they're tied to the chair. "She talks in her sleep." and "Dad, I was the next man."

 

[CrazyKB]

To be fair though, the directing, writing and lead actor credits went to the same guys who did the first 2 sequels to Raiders , and whilst ToD wasn't perfect, it was still recognisably an Indy film; Last Crusade was arguably the best of the lot. And even the 'Young Indy' series whose stories were credited to Lucas were not bad either. The budget was almost twice that of the first 3 movies combined.

So other than Ford's age - which could easily have been resolved in the editing or in the storyline - nothing should have changed. What seems to have been a major factor though is Lucas, and his nigh-on 10 year hiatus between Last Crusade and Phantom Menace. The magic that was there in movies like Star Wars, ESB and Labyrinth clearly wasn't there any more. And I'm not sure that it's returned since.

It could be argued that Spielberg - who has gone from strength to strength (with the odd hiccup) throughout his directorial career - should have intervened and ripped some of the 'this isn't Indiana Jones' out of the script, but tbh you would have had very little left to work with.

Crystal Skull is not a bad movie, but it is a terrible Indiana Jones movie.

The modern Star Wars films, IMO, are garbage. Lucas has no input since he sold the IP to Disney. However, his 'prequel trilogy' was quite bad as well. Disney likes to push 'the message' more than focusing on good story telling and entertaining audiences.

 

[CrazyKB]

I agree that ToD was definitely weaker (although the opening scene all the way up to the end of the sled ride was awesome), but I did think that Sean Connery helped make Last Crusade into a tremendously entertaining movie. Lots of memorable bits, especially when they're all looking over the cliff edge for Indy (another nod to the old serial shows). Always cracks me up that bit. And the part where they're tied to the chair. "She talks in her sleep." and "Dad, I was the next man."

ToD and TLC were entertaining films, however they lacked the magic of the original. The first film was one of those 'lightning in a bottle' moments.

 

[paranoid marvin]

The modern Star Wars films, IMO, are garbage. Lucas has no input since he sold the IP to Disney. However, his 'prequel trilogy' was quite bad as well. Disney likes to push 'the message' more than focusing on good story telling and entertaining audiences.

We were given indications with the tinkering that Lucas did to the movies in the '90s that he had lost sight of what 'Star Wars' was. Some people re-edit and re-issue movies as money-making ventures, but I believe that Lucas genuinely thought that he was improving them.

You will get no complaints from me about the movies being re-released in the correct visual format, with Dolby sound and vision. I also can appreciate that today's technology and the high quality of video provided on large tvs mean that modest CGI improvements helped make the films more attractive. But I do have issues when the characters themselves are changed (eg Han shooting first) or when pointless additional scenes are added (eg the horrendous 'Jabba' scene).

As I mentioned earlier, I don't think that Star Wars needed prequels. Or sequels. It started and ended perfectly acceptably. I agree that the sequels were disappointing, but not half so much as the prequels. The first 3 movies are absolutely appalling, with the dialogue being the worst thing about it. The sequels at least had the benefit of having the original actors, but (for me) the story ended with RoJ; there was no need to convolute the plot by telling us what happened next. Imagine if Tolkien had written a sequel to LOTR, where Frodo and Gandalf had further adventures in the Undying Lands? Well he wouldn't, because it would have been silly and unnecessary - just like the sequels to the original SW movies.

Having said that, I really, really liked Rogue One, and I'm more than happy to count that as the first half of Star Wars. I thought that that was a tremendous movie, and probably my second favourite SW movie after ESB. It's amazing how they could have got so much right in that movie, from the great acting to the dark humour, yet failed to capitalise on this with future ones.

 

[KiraAnn]

For Star Wars, I don't think the concept of prequels or sequels is necessarily bad. It was the lack of good planning on how they would go, and then bad implementation as far character development.

 

[BAYLOR]

We were given indications with the tinkering that Lucas did to the movies in the '90s that he had lost sight of what 'Star Wars' was. Some people re-edit and re-issue movies as money-making ventures, but I believe that Lucas genuinely thought that he was improving them.

Lucas mistakenly got it into his head that Star Wars was work in progress and needed contestant updating to stay relevant with movie goers . What he didn't seem to understand is that all science fiction is a product of the time was created and updated won't change this at all. And quite frankly, the added scenes and changes he made in Star Wars didn't add anything of value to the films if anything, the additions ,subtracted from the films .

You will get no complaints from me about the movies being re-released in the correct visual format, with Dolby sound and vision. I also can appreciate that today's technology and the high quality of video provided on large tvs mean that modest CGI improvements helped make the films more attractive. But I do have issues when the characters themselves are changed (eg Han shooting first) or when pointless additional scenes are added (eg the horrendous 'Jabba' scene).

Yes, clean up some of visuals for improved definition and enhance the sound , fixes like that re not unreasonable . The added scenes look like they don't belong in the film.

As I mentioned earlier, I don't think that Star Wars needed prequels. Or sequels. It started and ended perfectly acceptably. I agree that the sequels were disappointing, but not half so much as the prequels. The first 3 movies are absolutely appalling, with the dialogue being the worst thing about it. The sequels at least had the benefit of having the original actors, but (for me) the story ended with RoJ; there was no need to convolute the plot by telling us what happened next. Imagine if Tolkien had written a sequel to LOTR, where Frodo and Gandalf had further adventures in the Undying Lands? Well he wouldn't, because it would have been silly and unnecessary - just like the sequels to the original SW movies.

The problem with the prequels is there was nobody that would or could say no to George Lucas . The reason the first trilogy was as good as it was in terms of story was, because first wife worked with him and she was able tell what was good idea and what was a bad idea in terms story and characters and would actually listen to her. Had she still been with him, it's possible that the prequels would have been much better then what we got and, likely there would have been no Jar Jar Binks character any and vex us .. What did help was the inspire of its wretched storytelling The Phantom Menace was box office winner. . I think the franchise would have better served had that film failed at the Box office because that would been wake to Lucas that he did have a good story concept for the prequels.

Having said that, I really, really liked Rogue One, and I'm more than happy to count that as the first half of Star Wars. I thought that that was a tremendous movie, and probably my second favourite SW movie after ESB. It's amazing how they could have got so much right in that movie, from the great acting to the dark humour, yet failed to capitalise on this with future ones.

I actually like the Abrahams films , they have better overall story then the prequels but my I took think Rogue One is the best of the New Star Wars films.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

Is that a typo? An embellishment? Or have you actually made off-Earth money that you could use to pay to see this?

The first rule of off-Earth money is that there is no off-Earth money.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

Hollywood is ruled by the play it safe mode of thinking. And on the occasions do try something now and original, more often then not , they manage to find some way of screw things up for themselves.


Over the long term , such expenditures on Cinema are not sustainable and could conceivably hasten the demise of Cinema and the bankruptcy of the Hollywood studios.



Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is not a bad film and. I had no problem with Shia Lebeouf or his character of Mutt Williams. I doubt there will be a sequel or film series with Phoebe Waller Bridge Given how much it cost to produce this film, It does'n't seem likely that this film will make enough money to cover all those costs.

Maybe you watched a different version of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull than I did. From scene to scene I found the entire movie a back-and-forth battle between predictable and contrived. The difficulty in creating fantasy/adventure is invoking the suspension of disbelief. That never occurred for me. I didn't believe any of it, from

Spoiler

surviving a nuclear blast

in a refrigerator to the

Spoiler

space aliens

at the end.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

I can't really comment on this film itself until I've seen it myself, but I very much doubt that any film that I've ever seen really required $300 to make and promote, or that you can ever see the difference on screen of spending that kind of money. Heavy promotion isn't required if you have a good product. It will sell itself.

It's a little like the difference between a £70 bottle of wine and a £700 bottle. Clearly, you should pour away down the drain, any bottle selling for £3.50, but you can buy an excellent but relatively unknown vintage wine for £12+.

However, I want to say that I did like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Shia Lebeouf's character. It certainly wasn't the best in the series; it would rank quite low down, maybe even bottom, and nor would I say that there was "no problem" with the introduction of the character of Mutt.

Every film franchise follows the Law of Diminishing Returns with the possible exception of Aliens and Bond. Plenty of film sequels almost killed the film franchise off. There is already several other forum threads here discussing (complaining) about Hollywood so no need to turn this into one too.

I'd say that The Lord of the Rings Trilogy which exceeded that budget (way over if accounting for inflation) was money well spent.

Though, I can't think of another example.

 

[BAYLOR]

Maybe you watched a different version of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull than I did. From scene to scene I found the entire movie a back-and-forth battle between predictable and contrived. The difficulty in creating fantasy/adventure is invoking the suspension of disbelief. That never occurred for me. I didn't believe any of it, from

Spoiler

surviving a nuclear blast

in a refrigerator to

Spoiler

the space aliens at the end.

The warranty on that particular model of refrigerator clearly states that, In the event of a nuclear explosion this model is guaranteed to keep contents safe and fresh.

It's too bad Indy and company couldn't dragged the Arc of the Covenant with them to the ship and opened it for. the Aliens to see.

Truth be told and for sake entertainment purposes , I can suspend alot of disbelief.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

Lucas mistakenly got it into his head that Star Wars was work in progress and needed contestant updating to stay relevant with movie goers . What he didn't seem to understand is that all science fiction is a product of the time was created and updated won't change this at all. And quite frankly, the added scenes and changes he made in Star Wars didn't add anything of value to the films if anything, the additions ,subtracted from the films .



Yes, clean up some of visuals for improved definition and enhance the sound , fixes like that re not unreasonable . The added scenes look like they don't belong in the film.


The problem with the prequels is there was nobody that would or could say no to George Lucas . The reason the first trilogy was as good as it was in terms of story was, because first wife worked with him and she was able tell what was good idea and what was a bad idea in terms story and characters and would actually listen to her. Had she still been with him, it's possible that the prequels would have been much better then what we got and, likely there would have been no Jar Jar Binks character any and vex us .. What did help was the inspire of its wretched storytelling The Phantom Menace was box office winner. . I think the franchise would have better served had that film failed at the Box office because that would been wake to Lucas that he did have a good story concept for the prequels.




I actually like the Abrahams films , they have better overall story then the prequels but my I took think Rogue One is the best of the New Star Wars films.

The irony with the Star Wars updates was that while the filmmakers felt the need to update the stories for a new generation, the galaxy where stars wars exists doesn't seem to ever update. Even as the characters themselves aged at about the rate as the actors aged, the physical spaces around them, particularly the space craft and other tech seemed to stay about the same. How many decades later and holographs still look crappy.

Not true of our galaxy. Even in our corner on humble planet Earth.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

The warranty on that particular model of refrigerator clearly states that, In the event of a nuclear explosion this model is guaranteed to keep contents safe and fresh.

It's too bad Indy and company couldn't dragged the Arc of the Covenant with them to the ship and opened it for. the Alines to see.

Truth be told and for sake entertainment purposes , I can suspend alot of disbelief.

I had a trouble with Temple of Doom as well. I think I'm happier with the magic MacGuffins of the 1st and 3rd than the magic hand pulling out someone's beating heart. In fact, I liked the basic moral of the 1st and 3rd. When you chase after magic MacGuffins you may regret the results.

And don't think about the ending of the first one too hard. [It is still too soon to talk about the ending openly, right]

Spoiler

Why are there magical angry ghosts in a box that contains the ten commandments?
Why did the Germans open it up at all? Apparently they could carry it in front of their army and win. No opening required.
Why was Indy there tied to a stake. That was rather nice of the Germans.

 

[CrazyKB]

We were given indications with the tinkering that Lucas did to the movies in the '90s that he had lost sight of what 'Star Wars' was. Some people re-edit and re-issue movies as money-making ventures, but I believe that Lucas genuinely thought that he was improving them.

You will get no complaints from me about the movies being re-released in the correct visual format, with Dolby sound and vision. I also can appreciate that today's technology and the high quality of video provided on large tvs mean that modest CGI improvements helped make the films more attractive. But I do have issues when the characters themselves are changed (eg Han shooting first) or when pointless additional scenes are added (eg the horrendous 'Jabba' scene).

As I mentioned earlier, I don't think that Star Wars needed prequels. Or sequels. It started and ended perfectly acceptably. I agree that the sequels were disappointing, but not half so much as the prequels. The first 3 movies are absolutely appalling, with the dialogue being the worst thing about it. The sequels at least had the benefit of having the original actors, but (for me) the story ended with RoJ; there was no need to convolute the plot by telling us what happened next. Imagine if Tolkien had written a sequel to LOTR, where Frodo and Gandalf had further adventures in the Undying Lands? Well he wouldn't, because it would have been silly and unnecessary - just like the sequels to the original SW movies.

Having said that, I really, really liked Rogue One, and I'm more than happy to count that as the first half of Star Wars. I thought that that was a tremendous movie, and probably my second favourite SW movie after ESB. It's amazing how they could have got so much right in that movie, from the great acting to the dark humour, yet failed to capitalise on this with future ones.

I loved the second Darth Vader scene in Rogue One, however I didn't like anything else. The characters were forgettable and the story had no weight because we already knew the outcome. I remember one character since he stars in Narcos.

The most egregious thing about the new SW films (and there are many) is that by making the Emperor a clone they completely destroyed the weight of the first three films. The Return of the Jedi isn't about Luke, it's about Anakin leaving the Dark Side with help from his son and saving not only Luke but the Galaxy by 'chopping off the head of the snake' (throwing the Emperor down the shaft).