New Indy Trailer: We Do This Old Fashioned Way

[hanchan]

It's all happening, boys and girls.

It's one thing when a trailer for a forthcoming, much-anticipated film looks impressive, and another thing entirely when it looks good. Some of the trailers for Iron Man have been awful. Some good, and some impressive.

But it's not enough just to impress. A lot of us did sit back in slack-jawed disbelief when the first trailer for Episode 1 came out, but then the film itself created a different flavour of disbelief. It's very difficult to make a blockbuster look good these days. They just look... like blockbusters. A genre that's come a long way since they were must-see films for a reason, not just through lack of choice. They have to be bland, they have to hit certain emotional points and show a certain sense of scale, ticking off everything on a great long market-tested list, but all that huffing and puffing isn't blowing the house down anymore. They're boring.

Let's not forget it was Spielberg who invented the blockbuster, with Jaws. No-one does it better. And let this trailer show you the way:



It's pitch perfect. It's weary and electric and romantic and classic Indy. The cobwebbed bodies. The fistfights, choroegraphed but somehow more real than anything Orlando Bloom learned in a pair of Hugo Boss sweatpants. The motor oil, waterfall, shafts of light stillness. The editing style which is EXACTLY Indy. It's not slick, it's nothing new, it's just - right. Forget the artificial adrenaline of jump-cuts. This is adventure.

If it feels like Indy - Good god, his appearance in silhouette! - then let it be Indy. Bring it on.

[dalmatianjaws]

Are we allowed to swear on this forum? Cause if we are, HOLY FUCKING SHIT!

Indiana Jones vs Zombies?

Indiana Jones vs Dominatrix?

Indiana Jones vs Aliens?

Has the world gone   FUCKING MENTAL?!   Are we SO HARD UP for original idea that we have to rape our own childhoods for entertainment? My god I want this to be good, but it comes from the wrong place. There is no continuation of an underlying story ... which is what made Indy 1 and 3 so awesome: the adventures were good but they were born of a greater personal story, Indy as the ultimate underdog, fighting for his old love and then for his father! That's storytelling! And you need to tell a good story, even in a summer blockbuster. That was why Temple of Doom fell so flat - even with the cool heart rip-out and mining car chase, it was lifeless. Now it's ... Indiana Jones and the Adventures of His Bastard Son against Alien Russian Zombies.    I hope all these rumors are false and the trailer is meant to be misleading ... I hope they cut a horrible trailer for a good movie (Stardust) because otherwise ... I have lost all chance of cinematic joy.

[Sheridan Passell]

The reason it was delayed for 20 years was that George Lucas insisted it be about an alien invasion (in keeping with 50s B-movies) and Spielberg and Ford refused because it was ridiculous. They wanted it to be about something else entirely, but Lucas had veto. Eventually they had to compromise, hence alien skulls.

Darth Vader as a kid, now this.

Advance word on Indiana Jones 4 is "Don't get your hopes up." And besides the fact that Indiana Jones is back, I see nothing in this trailer that gets me excited. Harrison Ford is too old to be doing this, but he has to because his career is dead.

[dalmatianjaws]

Frank Darabont came over to a friends house with Jan Kaczmarek to talk about movie music, and ended up telling us his story about Indiana Jones 4. He said that he never spends more than three months writing a script cause he hates the nuts and bolts of the actual process, but spent over a YEAR writing Indy 4. Spielberg was on sabbatical so he started feeding versions to Lucas, and according to Frank the notes he got back were not only horrible they were also incoherent and hard to read. He'd worked with these guys before on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles but was TOTALLY confused why his ideas were being shut down. He emailed Spielberg who responded something like "I agree with you but I can't deal with this now."

When Spielberg got back he read the finished first draft and told Darabont it was the third best script he'd ever read (I REALLY want to know what the first two were) ... but George Lucas scrapped it. Hated it. Spielberg and Darabont tried to reason, but he refused to listen, and Darabont went to Spielberg privately to try and fix the situation. Spielberg felt like his hands were tied because Indy is Lucas's baby and he wasn't going to threaten a long friendship because of a script.

Darabont learned his lesson and refused to write for anyone else again, he'd only script films he planned to direct.

Aboout this time he had the script for The Mist (this was a few years ago and I saw it sitting on my friend's table) so I wonder if this experience played a part in why it was so poisonously angry.

Dude, I'm so depressed. I thought Rocky Balboa was a fantastic bookend to the original flick, and Live Free or Die Hard was a bit uneeded but ultimately a lot of fun and true to the spirit of Maclaine (other than the truck vs. jet bullshit) ... but this, this ... this might end in my suicide.    Too strong?