Posted by
Glen Albrethsen on Monday, March 03, 2008 4:37:19 PM
If some other action hero had taken his place in the interim, I probably wouldn't be looking forward to a movie with a IV associated with it.
How, though, can you compare to the Indiana Jones body of work when it comes to real action, adventure and battles between good and evil?
Indy is a flawed character, but he's not an anti-hero by any means. His desire for fortune and glory is part of a rough exterior he'd like to project, but in reality, he's more about justice and doing the right thing. His father instilled in him, despite Indy's academic background and a grounding in buried history and treasure, a sense of right. Raider's of the Lost Ark was just as much about thwarting the plans of Nazi Germany with regards to the Israelite artifact as it was in being the first one in well over two thousand years to discover its whereabouts and preserve it in a museum for the world to see.
In the second movie, The Temple of Doom, the quest diverted toward ending the re-emergent power of an ancient religion and restoring the health of a village. In the third, The Last Crusade, the Nazi's got another black eye, and the Holy Grail was lost to mankind forever, because it was the right thing to do.
These movies hearken back to an earlier time, the age of the serial, and while most of us under 60 will have a hard time relating to such fare, we understand good movie making when we see it, and we don't like our heroes so dark we can't recognize them from the villains.
The stunts in the Indiana Jones movies were real. Special effects were brought in when it was impossible to do things in reality. Hopefully, that will be the case here. I hate to admit this, but CGI just isn't the same. I like CGI, but they just haven't been able to fully recreate life. Dinosaurs, perhaps, but humans and furry animals still need work. When they dominate the screen, it doesn't work as well as when the live action is taking place. The mind refuses to be tricked.
The trailer looks good and hopefully that means the rest of the film will be, too. Or it will have been a long wait for nothing.