00:00.00 kinkella All right? Welcome back to the pseudo archeology podcast episode 115 and we are talking about Indiana Jones 4 and we just went over act one. Let's go onward to act 2 and act 3 and then some final thoughts. Anyway. When we last left our intrepid explorers Indiana Jones and his kid mutt are on an airplane doing that awesome iconic red line trace from the United States down in this point to Peru now at this point. They go to nazka where the Naska lines are and of course they make connections to aliens and the Naska lines which for this movie is fine but again not for academics. Um, and we're looking for a grave of a conquistador who is going to have. Something that we need for in order to move the plot forward right? So we have some ah deals with scorpions. There's always going to be some sort of uncomfortable natural creatures and they'll be more later but ah ultimately we see. This ah elong gateated skull right? We're in the the tomb of like the main conquistador and of course we just tear into that you know it's Indiana Jones I'm not going to do that whole leg I can't believe he did that real archaeologist wouldn't do that. Of course they wouldn't but it's fun. It's an adventure story. 01:29.55 kinkella Get over it. You know so we're gonna we're going to rip right in to the conquistadors tomb. Yeah, really right? We're gonna grab his gold mask off his face. We're gonna grab some gold de blooms um behind him. There is this elongated crystal skull which is magnetic right? and Indiana Jones says things like there's no tool marks on it and this could not be possibly made with today's technology the exact same stuff that pseudo archeologists today. Always say again fine for Indiana Jones to say it. Not for real people. So then unfortunately I think this part since we're in act 2 right? We're just we're we're sort of having trials and tribulations I think most of us have forgotten most of act 2 because. It gets kind of convoluted and weird the idea in the story is that Oxley his friend who they're in search of had had already found this but put it back and you're like why? what? Um but they take it out again. Ah. And the scene kind of ends with his evil friend mac the guy who was originally in the car trunk with him. It's one of his old friends from previous adventures. But we see that Mac is working for the russians. He's a bad guy right? And ah, we're then taken to this camp in the jungle this like russian camp. 03:03.45 kinkella And we meet the friend oxley played by of of course John Hurt who's called in to save every movie ever. Um, he died fairly recently which is sad but ah, he plays this crazy guy. Who honestly I thought as a character this is nothing against John Hurtt again all the actors in this are great was worthless. There was no reason to have this guy. He was just along to kind of give weird clues because he's like out of his mind. He could have been replaced by a book. He could have been replaced by a couple extra pages that mutt had earlier to give to Indiana Jones right and then we have Indiana Jones strapped into a chair and then he has to stare into the eyes of the crystal skull. We've heard. This before too. That's what the psudor archaeologist will say like oh it has an eerie glow it affects people right? So obviously the screenwriters just used every pseudo archeology trope in this if you stare too long into its eyes which Indiana Jones of course does and then he kind of like passes out at the end because it's like too much for his brain. But then. In the most obvious reveal of all time we meet Marion Ravenwood again Karen Allen herself is back for Indiana Jones for and I'm bum because they largely sort of wasted her. They should have angled more. 04:31.70 kinkella Her gravelly toughness which is what we all love and she became kind of poppy and and sort of smiley and I don't think it was going with the character so we meet her in just this lighthearted again. You're in a russian like secret camp in a you know. With with a bunch of soldiers with with guns and stuff and you're torturing people but we meet marion ravenwood again and then we have like a wacky sitcom with her and Harrison Ford like oh hey, been a long time. You know that that kind of silly crap which which makes it so weak. Wouldn't you love if Indiana Jones had like gone into a side tent that was dark and with shades of raiders of lost ark when he found Karen Allen in the desert tent goes in there and like she's she's tied up but she's really like. Energy listened depressed and he's just like Marion like you could hear it you could hear Harrison Ford just go oh my god marion you know like it just it would have been so good but they they. Ruined it they they I can't believe they let that go was just some cheesy ass like sitcom inner ah interaction and then of course they have to run out of there. They get caught in quicksand the salt. The whole scene is stupid. It's lazy writing it's embarrassing. They could have cut the whole thing. 06:02.83 kinkella Like why have this quicksand scene and where they're just sort of joking with each other and I'm like I thought this was supposed to be deadly I don't know and this kind of brings me to another point where I do think there's a great movie in Indiana Jones for but it's like an hour and 10 minutes long you know I wish somebody would do a fan cut of this and just cut out all the schlock I think you could do it and have something really nice, but you know it's funny thinking back I thought Indiana Jones 4 was like two and a half hours long at least. You guys. It's actually slightly less than 2 hours long it's like an hour fifty eight or something like that or write it to it plays very slow which is another terrible sign of a movie that's not working very well. Anyway, after the horrible quicksand scene you they. Get back on a truck and there's a there's a the world's longest car truck chase where there's just a million machine guns and and at this point marion and mut and Harrison Ford they're like all together right? There's just a mass of people and evil Kate Blanchette is after them. they're they're chasing it's super long. It feels super c g it's like the opposite of the motorcycle scene. It feels totally fake and just totally pushed and gimmicky and it totally feels like oh you're just doing this. 07:34.78 kinkella In order to make sure you can make a new ride at Disneyland it feels like a commercial for an amusement park ride right? It's just a guarantee and it feels like it was written by committee you know this is not a serious story which is such a bummer. It could have been so good. So you're on the world's longest chase at one point mut swings up in the trees on vines with a bunch of monkeys. It's like horrible. It almost looks Spiderman -esque it's weird. It. It takes us totally out of the tone. Um, there's a completely deadly crash at the end where they all just like. Scuff off the dirt off their shoulders and get out like it makes no sense. You have these 2 cars just like slam into each other and everyone's fine. It's like what and then they keep going like right when you're done. You're like thank god that car chase that was too long is over then they have a bunch of huge red ants. That are now chasing them and at this point this is just utterly fake. It has nothing to do with the plot. It's not moving us on at all. It's a waste of our time right? It's the opposite of something like star wars where every scene is building the the red ant thing is terrible. Right? They do the hat joke again in there. Um, and now the the car with the heroes in it which is actually half boatat half car and you're like oh man when are we going to use this as a boat they fall off a precariously huge ah cliff and then go into. 09:07.48 kinkella Ah, series of 3 waterfalls which are forewarned by Oxley you know he's like there shall be 3 or something like that. But they go down every 3 and it's like oh my god okay so I see you're selling a water ride at an amusement park right? It's really. 09:26.94 kinkella Guys. It's really cynical right? And that's probably what bums me out the most about this movie is there's a cynicism to it of like we are just gonna sell you bargain basementlock and you're gonna like it and you know what the critics. On Rotten tomatoes. The average is like a 77 and I'm like how dare you the end the the ah the ah audience response is like a 53 which is much more reasonable. That's about where I would say this should land. It's not very good but critics I saw people give this like like I think Roger Ebergates Three and a half out of 4 stars. Are you kidding come on man. So after they magically survived these huge waterfalls that would kill anyone that now you're you're out of act 2 and they they finally find like the final cave. They're going to go in and you know you're into act 3 now because you're like okay what I know is that to go into this cave they have to deal with the crystal skull that they have that they've sort of taken this whole way. They need to put it in the right place and like order will be restored or you know because we've we've found marion we found Oxley. Okay, we're in act 3 which takes place in this this cave place they go into this cave more stuff on aliens all the sort of cliche you know alien stuff. Ah, this ancient culture was taught farming by this alien race right? Whatever and and you see images that are painted on the walls of this this. 11:00.19 kinkella Cave and even though they're in the Amazon. It's all very maya right? They kind of have Maya Hieroglyphics it's maya styled so what the set designers did is they've taken ancient Maya Symbolism and they've brought it into the wrong place in the world by a little bit. Right? And then just said hey this is this is what you get there are as they're cruising through this cave. There's some secret warriors that basically break out of the sides of the cave and they're dressed as vaguely maya warriors that are kind of out to get them. But then they pop out on the other side of this cave and and you realize you're in this huge like hole or bowl or almost a huge sinkhole like a massive massive sinkho. That's like a mile across ah in the middle of the jungle somehow like a lost world thing right? Somehow hidden from us. So. In this lost world. There's Maya Pyramids and all this kind of stuff and so we're running away again from these these warriors and we finally get to the most inner sanctum. There's like this. Inner sanctum ritual space where you know that the crystal skull is supposed to go and inside. There are treasures from all around the world. The idea is that these ancient aliens were also collectors of different things from around the world at one point harrisrs and Ford says. 12:28.92 kinkella They were archeologists right? Whatever so they get in there of course the bad people are hot on their tail. They get caught yet again by evil Kate Blanche and Mac who Mac was against them then he was their friend. Then he's against them in the end and at 1 point he said he was a double agent then Indiana Jones says no, you're a triple agent then max says now I just lied about the double agent thing again. Another character that was like not needed. You could cut out Mac and you could cut out Oxley and be. Better off and nothing against the actors. It's just the story sucks with them in it. So as bad lady Kate Blanchett takes all this stuff. She's gonna ah now utilize the skull for evil of course the skulls put in the right spot and then the. Aliens are like reenergized and then Kate Blanchett is going to have all their knowledge go into her head and we see this a million miles away Kate Blanchett it's too much for Kate Blanch it's brain and Kate Blanchett like light's on fire and explodes. Because it's just too. It's too much for the human brain right? This alien knowledge we learn that they aren't really aliens but more specifically they are interdimensional. Be beings right here I'll say that again for you since I musted up they are intergenerational beings there you go isn't that exciting and then. 14:03.69 kinkella Now that the intergenerational sorry now that the intermensional beings have become complete because the crew the there's too much to say you guys. Now that the interdimensional beings are complete because of the crystal skull now they can take off and by take off I mean that that entire like mile wide sinkle is actually. Where an alien spacecraft has landed so the alien spacecraft starts to slowly shake and now our heroes have to get out of this cave which is actually like the inside of the spaceship they got to run out they get into this well that is like filling with water and luckily they're in there and they get like shot out of this well ah back to safety. They get to the edge. Of this huge sinkhole and they're there with enough time to watch the alien spacecraft break out of the soil of the Amazon and spin spin spin and then disappear into the ether into the cosmos right? And ph. There you go order is restored. There's 1 more scene which is of course the wedding scene. But right before that we find that the rest of the order has been restored to because Indiana Jones has gotten his job back except. 15:30.74 kinkella He is now an associate Dean ah, how dare he now I know that we're not talking about star wars but in this movie Harrison Ford went to the dark side a dean. Indiana Jones the administrator I'm sure Indiana Jones ' next step is to get an e d d ah now that's only harsh for those of us in academia for the rest of you. You probably didn't notice and you were just happy. He got his job back. So then there's the final wedding scene. 16:09.92 kinkella And we have hey Indian Jones gets married um his son Mutt is there The hat joke is done yet again and Mutt is sort of picking it up. 16:25.41 kinkella But Indiana Jones swipes it back from him to say hey the story of Indiana Jones is not over yet and then we March out of the church listening to the Indiana Jones March which even when it's put on something. Lame like that is still so great. So what do I think of this movie I think you guys get it. You know? Um I'm not a huge fan I think it's actually pretty terrible and I think it's. I think it's sad in its cynicism that they just made this thing to make money and they did it reminds me of when I reviewed 2012 on the other podcast. It was a cynical money grab because at about that time. 2012 came out in 2009 this comes out a year before in 2008, you're seeing an expansion of like the international market where I think this movie costs like a 70000000 to make something like that something really high but it made like 700000000 it made way more but over half of that was international sales. So what hollywood learned is you just make movies that just have a lot of explosions that have like no real specifics in them. You know that just sort of are fun to watch on a screen so special effects kind of Trump anything else and then that. 18:01.21 kinkella Equals make money an international market I mean it barring the actors which were great the movie I think largely fails. You know it's unbelievable. Feels like it was written by a committee There's a strange lack of close ups. That's one thing I've really noticed that that I think makes us feel like we're not part of it because we want to see the actors faces. we want to Zoom in and see we want to Zoom in and see um Indiana Jones's face and marion's face when they first see each other again. We want to see that tension. We want to see that emotion. And we don't we just get 40000 explosions instead you know, um, 2 hours feels like 3 ah, the fact that even going through this even telling you guys about it right now I was still on the edge of forgetting scenes and stuff. Because it's so weakly strung together. There are entire scenes like the quicksand scene like the red ant scene which have no reason being there. They don't push the plot forward at all. It has the. Terrible unfunny humor I hate that if I probably if I had to pick one thing that might be it. You know, not not to compare this too closely with a phantom menace because that is truly awful but they both do the same thing of they actively destroy their own tone. 19:35.29 kinkella For the sake of a terrible joke. Why do that? Why have a prairie dog pop its head out why see Indiana Jones's hat blow away for like the twentieth time you know why? Why have these. Fight scenes or chas scenes that go on way way way too long. You know why do all that stuff I don't know you're catching me at a low point. You know, um, if they could just hit that tone again. You know for Indiana Jones 5 coming out I'm I'm hoping that they can recapture the tone of raiders of the lost ark and actually I'll say the Indiana Jones three last crusade I think was pretty successful too. I think 1 in 3 are both pretty damn good. Obviously 1 is iconic but I think 3 hangs in there barring 1 or 2 terrible moments. You know, but they just double down on the terrible moment moments on this. Um I hope that they can be more serious and I can't believe it's somebody like me saying that I mean can you, you're like can Kelly still telling you to be more serious home man. 20:48.31 kinkella Because I mean I like like lighthearted things but it's got to hit its tone you guys and it just it just doesn't here's what I want out of Indiana Jones 5 right I want serious tone but you can still have high concept as long as you take it. Seriously, right? and in terms of do I think that Indiana Jones 5 can be that my answer is yes I'm guardedly optimistic right? and. It's no secret that whatever they make you know I'm going to watch it I love indiana jones I Love Harrison Ford I mean the reason I'm sitting here right now talking to you in this podcast I should say talking to you in this podcast. As an archeologist with a ph d I'm going to give 17% of that to Indiana Jones watching that when I was like 11 you know it just it's cool. But ultimately the kin kill a movie ranking. Score. 2 stars out of 5 they should have known better and with that I'll see you guys next time.