Indiana Jones Film Series Review

For nearly 3 ,000 years, man has searched for

the lost earth of the Covenant. The Bible speaks

of the ark leveling mountains and laying waste

to entire regions. Something to be taken lightly.

No one knows its secrets. Jones, do you realize

what the Ark is? It's a transmitter. It's a radio

for speaking to God. An army which carries the

Ark before it is invincible. The Ark, it is their

attorneys. Then it is something that man was

not meant to disturb. It is protected by forces

beyond imagination. It is desired above all treasures

on earth by those who are good, trust me, and

those who are evil. Tell me everything. Yes,

I know you were here. Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Let her go. loaded onto a truck for Cairo. Raiders

of the Lost Ark. A film from Steven Spielberg

and George Lucas. 50th episode of the MWIRE movie

we can review. Today we'll be reviewing the Indiana

Jones films. I am TF2 and Mike and Kevin and

I killed Steve Megatron. 50 episodes of MWIRE

and Steve's not even here. What the hell? Uh,

yeah, we killed him and buried him in Michael

Wilson's backyard in the shallow grave. Oh, I

thought you were going to say that we put him

in the Ark. Uh, no, the Nemesis. We put him in

the, no, we put him in the Lost Ark and then

we buried that in the Temple of Doom. You have

to go on a last crusade. Last crusade and then

you have to paint them with a crystal skull.

Exactly. I'm going to find all the skulls and

take them back to the temple. I recorded a podcast

last night. We were recording this Thursday,

July 8th. I think it's the 8th. I don't know.

We're recording this Thursday, July 8th, 2010

and I recently got a new computer. Yay! So any

of you guys that listen to this podcast or any

of the other GeekCast Radio Network podcasts

and always tell us that, you know, on my end

you can hear a giant fan in the background. That

should not be a problem anymore. And so far everything

is working out well. I'm still, you know, becoming

accustomed to Windows 7. I like it a little bit.

I like certain aspects of it. I'm just exploring

it. I think after two years of owning Need for

Speed Undercover, which came out two years ago,

I finally got to play it. I also played GTA IV,

so I've been playing those and getting back into

PC gaming a little bit. Other than that, not

much else is really going on. This afternoon,

before we started recording this, the UPS guy

showed up with Lobo. I don't know if you've seen

this. If you go over to BigBadToyStore .com,

you can look at, just search Lobo, and it's a

Justice League Unlimited figure of Lobo. But

he is a slightly larger scale than the other

JLU figures, and he's very, very awesome. Doesn't

have a whole lot of articulation and I mean his

arms move and which this isn't really toy cast

But and he's very tough heavy, but other than

that he's very cool So I guess getting right

into it Raiders of the Lost Ark also known as

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark

I'm gonna be honest These first two films I have

seen bits and pieces of them. I've never seen

them all the way through what? Never. Have I

seen Raiders or Temple of Doom? Until now? No,

not even now. The only one I watched was Last

Crusade. Oh my god. Wait a second, hold on. I

have never seen these from start to finish. I've

caught bits and pieces here and there. But I

don't dislike them. It's just one of those things

where... Did you grow up in Russia? No. Well,

you gotta think though, uh, Raiders of the Lost

Ark came out, uh, let's see, 19, yeah. It came

out the year you were born. It came out the year

I was a year old. So it's like, you know, I'm

not gonna watch this when I was four. That's

almost like saying that you have never seen any

of the Star Wars from straight to finish. Well,

the prequels. No, I've seen Star Wars. Thank

you very much. All right, just making sure. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. That's like saying like Return of

the Jedi is the only one you've seen all the

way through. You know what? Actually, it's an

interesting story. Somebody will have to remind

me to bring that up for episode 75 of MWIRE,

which will be our Star Wars coverage, because

I have a very interesting story about Return

of the Jedi. Can't wait. Yes. So, as I said,

Raiders of the Lost Ark is a 1981 American action

adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg,

produced by George Lucas, and starring Harrison

Ford. It is the first film in the Indiana Jones

franchise and pits Indiana Jones, played by Ford,

against the Nazis who search for the Ark of the

Covenant in an attempt to make their army invincible.

The film co -starred Karen Allen as Indiana's

former lover Marion Ravenwood, Paul Freeman as

Indiana's nemesis French archaeologist Rene Bellogue?

Bellogue? I don't know. John Rhys Davies as Indiana's

sidekick, Salah, and Denholm Elliott as Indiana's

colleague, Marcus Brody. Yeah, I don't know if

I'm saying that right or not. The film originated

with Lucas Desire creating a modern version of

the serials in the 1930s and 40s. Production

was based at Elstreet Studios in England, and

filming also took place in La Rochelle, Tunisia,

Hawaii and California from June to September

1980. Hmm. When did you first see this? I did

not see these in the correct order. I will say

that much. The first. I was like you, I think,

at first, like I might have seen bits and pieces

of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Temple of Doom

at first. I know the first Indiana Jones movie

I saw from beginning to end and was, you know,

completely involved in was The Last Crusade.

And then after I saw that, I quickly saw Rated

a Lost Ark and Temple of Doom in their entirety.

So it would not have been until after The Last

Crusade had already come out. Yeah. So that was

89. So probably probably 90. Yeah. We're in there.

Yeah. See, I like I know my mom. I think my mom

used to love these films. The first two, I know

she liked Temple of Doom. But again, I never

really Never really get into them until last

crusade and I think it was be the only reason

why I get into last crusade Obviously was because

of Han Solo But yeah Let's see here. It was released

on June 12th 1981 Rays of the Lost Ark became

the top grossing film of 1981 It remains one

of the highest grossing films ever made it was

nominated for nine Academy Award Awards in 82

including best picture and won five art direction

film editing sound visual effects and sound effects

editing awards the film's critical and popular

success led to three additional films temple

of doom last crusade and oh christ kingdom kingdom

of the crystal scholar whatever the hell a damn

uh shia laboff porno video is called um It also

led to a television series, The Young Indiana

Jones Chronicles, 1992 to 96, and 15 video games

as of 2009. Good Lord, I remember one of those

video games and God it was hard. Lego Indiana

Jones? No, like one of the old school ones. I'm

talking about like when I was growing up and

it was for the, it was for either the Commodore

64 or it was an early IBM game and it was freaking

impossible. And like, back in the day, which

was Wednesday by the way, but back in the day

when we had our Commodore 64 and our IBM, I was

big time into gaming much more than I am right

now, and I could beat just about most of the

games I played, but I'm gonna have to look up

the title of this one, but the Indiana Jones

game was very, very hard. I do know that. Yeah,

so I guess getting into the plot here, basically,

we start out in 1936. Treasure hunter slash archaeologist

Indiana Jones braves in an ancient temple in

the Peruvian jungle filled with booby traps to

retrieve a golden idol. Upon escaping the temple,

Indiana is confronted by our arrival archaeologist,

Rene Bellocq, and an indigenous Havodist people.

Surrounded and outnumbered, Indiana is forced

to surrender the idol to Belloc and flees from

the jungle chase aboard a waiting seaplane. Shortly

after returning to America, the college where

he teaches archaeology, Indiana is informed by

two army intelligence agents that Nazis and their

quest for occult power are searching for his

old mentor, Abner Ravenwood. Ravenwood is in

possession of the headpiece of an artifact called

the Staff of Ra. Hmm. I wonder where Swiftwind

is anyway. which is where the Ark is buried.

The agents subsequently authorize Indiana to

recover the Ark and the promise of displaying

it in a museum. Indiana travels to Ravenwood's

Tavern in Nepal for the headpiece only to find

that he has died and that the headpiece is in

the possession of his daughter and Indiana's

embittered former lover, Marion. The Tavern is

suddenly riddled by a group of thugs commanded

by Nazi agent Major Taught Ugh, that's a horrible

name to have. Taut, Tart, Twat, whatever. The

tavern is burned down in the ensuing fight during

which Taut burns his hand on the searing hot

headpiece as he tries to grab it. Indiana and

Marion escape with the headpiece with Marion

declaring she will accompany Indiana in his search

for the Ark so she can repay his debt. That's

a really great scene too. When they first go

to that scene, Marion's basically having a drinking

contest with some big meathead guy and she beats

him. It's just a pretty good overall opening

scene. Basically the main opening scene. Indy

and Marion travel to Cairo where they learn from

Sala, Indiana's friend and skilled digger that

the Nazis are currently digging for the Well

of Souls, with the aid of Vellock and the replica

of the headpiece modeled after the scar on Todd's

hand. In a bazaar, Nazi operatives kidnap Marion

and fake her death in front of Indy, which strengthens

his resolve to find the Ark. That evening, while

deciphering the markings on the headpiece, Indy

and Sala realize that the Nazis have miscalculated

where to dig for the Well of Souls. Only the

front side of the headpiece was burned into Tot's

hand, so the Nazis did not know about the markings

on its backside. Using this to their advantage,

Indy and Sala infiltrate the Nazi dig and use

the staff of Ra to correctly determine the location

of the Well of Souls. Shortly afterwards, Indy

gathers a small group of diggers and uncovers

the Well of Souls, which is filled with venomous

snakes. Why did it have to be snakes? After Indy

obtains the Ark of Beluk and the Nazis arrive

to take it for themselves, they proceed to toss

Marion, who is alive but refused to reveal any

information to the Nazis, down into the well

with Indy and seal them both in. However, Indy

and Marion manage to navigate the underground

temple and escape after a grilling fist fight

with a huge German mechanic blowing up flying

wing ready for shipping. The treasure to Germany

and chasing down a convoy of trucks holding the

arc. Indy manages to take it back before they

can be shipped to Berlin. This movie has so many

good scenes that we've basically already gone

past, but the scene in the bazaar is fantastic.

If I'm remembering right, this is the famous

scene where Indiana Jones meets up with one of

the native guys and he's... wielding his sword

and doing all the tricks with the sword and whatnot

and then Indy just basically raises his hand

and shoots him. So that's a great scene. So you're

telling me it's basically Greedo all over again?

Well, I mean, this guy's like doing all kinds

of sword tricks. He's swinging it from side to

side, showing off and just like raises his hand

and shoots him. But yeah, and another thing that

they're leaving out of this entire plot is the

other character that is accompanying Indy throughout

all this, which is the crazy little monkey. And

the monkey in this movie is absolutely freaking

hilarious. But I'll talk more about him a little

bit later. But there's just a lot of great scenes.

I mean, the snake scene is a great scene, even

though I actually don't mind snakes. I'm glad

it wasn't a pit of spiders. But there's just

lots of great scenes so far that we've covered.

Becoming more memorable for me. I'm remembering

more things just reading through this net So

Indian Marion leave Cairo to escort the ark to

England on board the tramp steamer Wow or bun

on board a tramp steamer. There we go. I thought

that's a dog. I was like, wow, that's The next

morning their boat is boarded by the Nazis who

once again steal the ark and kidnap Marion Indiana

stows away on the Nazis you boat and follows

them to an isolated island where Belak and the

Nazis plan to test the power of the Ark before

presenting it to Adolf Hitler. Indy reveals himself

and threatens to destroy the Ark with a rocket

launcher, but Belak calls his bluff for as an

archaeologist they both want to see it opened.

Indy surrenders and is tied to a post with Marian

as Belak performs ceremonial opening of the Ark,

which appears to contain nothing but sand, possibly

ruined remnants of the Ten Commandments. Suddenly,

spirits emerge from the ark, aware of the supernatural

danger of looking at the open ark. Indy warns

Marian to close her eyes. The apparitions suddenly

morph into demonic creatures. Lightning bolts

begin flying out of the ark, killing the Nazis,

and fires arise in the sky and fall back down

to earth. And the ark closes itself with a crack

of thunder. That is basically the worst part

of the movie. The movie is so great. Until that

scene and it's just too much to take I know they

had they're dealing with our covenant they had

to do something kind of fantastical or whatever,

but You know, I mean it was cool the whole part

about them closing their eyes So they didn't

see and stuff like that. But for me that was

the worst scene in the movie Yeah, it sounds

like a poorly plotted out Michael Bay moment

It's a poor. It's a poorly thought out not George

Lucas moment. Yeah He is known to have those

Yeah, it's what, 35 years before Giant Devastator

Balls? Yeah, exactly. So, to close out the film,

back in Washington D .C., the Army intelligence

agents tell a suspicious indie that the Ark is

someplace safe to be studied by top men. In reality,

the Ark is sealed in a wooden crate labeled Top

Secret and stored in a giant government warehouse

later revealed in Crystal Skull to be located

at Area 51, filled with countless similar crates.

The plot for this is not necessarily the greatest

plot in the world but the scenes are done so

well up until that last one that there's just

so many memorable moments that it just kind of

makes the movie what it is and I'll do a little

comparing obviously between this and the other

movies a little bit later but there are a lot

of good scenes and anybody that hasn't seen a

New Deanna Jones should definitely see this at

some point. But we can get into the cast a little.

Yeah, just going into the casting and stuff.

As we all know, Harrison Ford, solo, stars as

Indiana Jones, an archeology professor who often

embarks on perilous adventures to obtain rare

artifacts. Jones initially claims he has no belief

in the supernatural, only to have his skepticism

challenged when he discovers the Ark. Spielberg

suggested casting Harrison Ford as Jones, but

Lucas objected, stating that he did not want

Ford to become his Bobby De Niro, or that guy

I put in all my movies, in reference to Martin

Scorsese, who often worked with Robert De Niro.

Desiring a lesser -known actor, Lucas persuaded

Spielberg to help him search for new talent.

Among the actors who auditioned were Tim Matheson,

Peter Coyote, John Shea, and Tom Selleck. Wow.

Talk about if their original plans would have

gone through, how much worse these movies. Nobody

would remember these movies. There is no way

that Lex Luthor can be Indiana Jones. No way.

Tom Selleck could have never pulled this off.

Magnum P .I. is Indiana Jones? No. That's why

he was unavailable. Yeah, Selleck was originally

offered the role, but he was unavailable for

the part because of his commitment in the television

series, Magnum P .I. In June of 1983, weeks away

from filming, Spielberg persuaded Lucas to cast

forward -after producers Marshall and Kathleen

Kennedy were impressed by his performance as

Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back. That's not

a movie of my generation. Do you want to take

some of the other ones? Yeah, Karen Allen was

Marion Ravenwood, spirited, tough, former lover

of Indiana. She is the daughter, obviously, of

Abner Ravenwood, which is Indiana Jones' mentor,

and she owns the bar in Nepal that gets destroyed

at the beginning of the movie. Spielberg was

interested in her as he had seen her performance

in National Lampoon's Animal House. Sean Young

had previously auditioned for the part while

Deborah Winger had turned it down. That character

is kind of just, that could have been anybody.

It's not like Indiana Jones where not many people

could have pulled that off. You could fill in

anybody as Marion Raven wouldn't, it wouldn't

affect it much. Paul Freeman as Dr. Rene Belloq,

Jones arch nemesis, does a fantastic job. Belloq

is also an archaeologist after the Ark, but he's

working for the Nazis and he intends to harness

the power of the Ark. himself before hitler could

but obviously he's killed by the supernatural

powers of the ark when it opens and let's see

um john reese davis salah yeah he's he he pops

up in a lot of stuff that i like yeah he's great

he's a really great actor and he has that he

has an awesome awesome voice as well yeah there's

a funny story i don't know if this is anywhere

later on so i'll just mention it now but you

know where they were filming this, especially

when they were over in the, wherever they were

in the Middle East at some point. A lot of other

cast got sick, you know, and Spielberg was even

telling people not to eat anything unless they

brought it themselves or, you know, if it was

from America or something like that, because

a lot of people were getting cholera or different

things like that. Salah or John Rhys Davis actually

had, I believe, cholera at one of the times.

And he was at one point had to bend over or something

during a scene and he actually soiled himself.

He was so sick. But a lot of people had to deal

with sicknesses and dangerous stuff. Harrison

Ford actually, what did he do? He broke his...

Pollar bone? Broke something. No, I think it

was something in his leg. He did something when

he was... I can't remember what the scene was,

but one of the scenes he actually injured himself

and he didn't trust the doctors in whatever country

they were, so he just had them basically wrap

it up in ice and he kept going. There's a lot

of crazy stories coming out of this film. Yeah,

something that I only recognize four people out

of this film. Harrison, obviously, Karen, Alan.

Well, the guy that played Marcus Brody, because

I remember him from the third film. and John

Rhys Davies. And this next one, Dr. Octopus has

his film debut here. Alfred Molina. Debuted as

Sepetoe. Sepetoe is one of the Jones' guides

through the South American jungle. He betrays

Jones and steals the Golden Idol but is killed

by one of the traps in the temple. So that's

kind of a cool note. some of the other characters.

Can you imagine if some of the original cast

people would have got this and we would have

had Tom Selleck instead of John Rhys Davis as

a sidekick it was originally going to be Danny

DeVito? Tom Selleck and Danny DeVito. It would

not have been the same movie. It's junior two.

Yeah. There is one person missing from the cast

list here. Hey, don't look at me. It's Wikipedia.

I'm bringing it up because I think you'll appreciate

it. Yeah The aforementioned by me that's not

mentioned at all in the plot the monkey Was voiced

by Frank Welker. Yes So that's the reason right

there to go watch it all the way through so you

can listen to Frank Welker be a monkey He's an

uncredited for this role, but he's building it

Yeah He pops up everywhere, dammit. Huh? Frank

Welker is everywhere. Yes, yes, he is. I'm not

sure how much of the production we're going to

cover. I've just kind of been skimming through

it, and the production filming notes, there really

aren't that many interesting factoids in here

that I see. No. If any at all. Although, originally

they didn't think, they didn't, even Spielberg

didn't really take this serious. They thought

it was just going to be some type of cheesy,

like... kind of homage to older films of this

kind of stuff that it was based on. They never

expected it to actually be taken as serious as

it was. And I know it's original budget that

they budgeted out for the movie that they spent

way more money than they originally intended.

Well, I don't know about the original budget

and we'll kind of get into the reception, but

apparently... It had a 20 million dollar budget

and it grossed 384 million worldwide Yeah, but

I think like the original budget that they proposed

to the studio or to whoever I don't know exactly

how it was done was way less than they ended

up spending but obviously it made enough to cover

that the the only the only interesting stuff

I've ever read about the production of this is

having to deal with the the snakes and the spiders

the sound effects and then of course the most

famous Indiana Jones scene of all time, possibly

the boulder that's rolling at him as he's running

out of the way. Yeah, yeah. Everybody knows that

scene. I did not know that it was made out of

fiberglass. That's awesome. And I did not know

to get the sound of it. They actually put a microphone

up to a Honda Civic as it rolled down a hill.

Oh, crunch. Yeah. I did not know that there was,

I mean, obviously there's soundtracks to a lot

of films. I did not know that there was. Soundtrack

for this, but apparently there is oh yeah, and

guess what it's Star Wars with archaeology John

Williams come John Williams and Harrison Ford

lucked out Oh Trilogy oh yeah, but of course

John Williams also did Jaws and you know yeah,

he's done a lot of good stuff. Yeah Done a lot

of good stuff The sound the music for Indiana

Jones is awesome. Yeah it is Let's see here.

I already mentioned the budget and the gross

and all that stuff. The film was subsequently

nominated for nine Academy Awards, including

Best Picture in 1982 and won four, which I've

already read that. Spielberg was also nominated

for a Golden Globe. The film received highly

positive reviews from most critics. In his review

for the New York Times, Vincent Canby praised

the film, calling it one of the most deliriously

funny ingenious and stylish American adventure

movies ever made. Oh boy, here we go. Roger Ebert,

the ever flip -flopping video game analyst, in

his review for the Chicago Sun -Times wrote,

with the movie's ability to pile one incident

upon another and an exhaustible series of inventions.

He later added it to his list of great movies.

Whatever. Roger Ebert, you can kiss my ass. As

far as the impact, as we've said, there's three

sequels. The Young Indian Jones Chronicles TV

series. There's a bunch of comics, video games.

In 1998, American Film Institute placed the film

at number 60 on its top 100 films of the first

century of cinema. In 2007, AFI updated the list

and placed it at number 66. Oh, it went down.

At least it made the list, unlike certain other

top 100 lists. Yeah, that's for sure. It's probably

one of the most critically acclaimed, it is the

most critically acclaimed Indiana Jones movie

as far as rewards and numbers and rankings and

stuff like that. It's not my favorite, but every

list of top movies or this or that has Raiders

of the Arc as the highest ranking Indiana Jones

movie. The only video game based exclusively

on the film is Raiders of the Lost Ark released

in 1982 by Atari for their Atari 2600 console.

The first third of the video game, Indiana Jones

Greatest Adventures, released in 94 by JVC for

Nintendo's Super Nintendo Entertainment System,

is based entirely on the film. Several sequences

from the film are reproduced, the boulder run

and the showdown with Kyro Swordsman among them.

However, several inconsistencies with the film

are present in the game, such as Nazi soldiers

and bats being present in the Well of Souls,

Sequence, for example, the game was developed

by LucasArts in Factor 5 and Indiana Jones in

The Infernal Machine. A bonus level brings Jones

back to Peru, South America from this film. He

can explore the cave and discovers other hidden

idol. LucasArts released Lego Indiana Jones,

The Original Adventures on June 3rd, 2008 in

North America and June 2006 in Europe. It coincides

with the release of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Lego released several building sets based on

the film in early 2008. In 1981 Kenner released

a 12 inch 30 centimeter doll of Indiana Jones

and the following year they released nine action

figures of the characters in the film, three

play sets as well as toys of the Nazi truck and

Jones' horse. They also released a board game.

In 1984, miniature metal versions of the characters

were released. For role -playing game, in a 1995,

Micro Machines released die -cast toys of the

vehicles in the film. Hasbro released action

figures based on the film ranging from 3 to 12

inches, 8 to 30 centimeters, to coincide with

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on May 1st, 2008.

A novelization by Ryder Windham was released

in April of 2008 by Scholastic to tie in with

the release of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

I'm getting really tired of saying Kingdom of

the fucking Crystal Skull. The home video release,

really quick here. It was released on VHS in

pan and scan only and laser disk in both pan

and scan and widescreen. It was also released

on Betamax for its 1999 VHS reissue. The film

was remastered in THX and made available in widescreen.

The outer package was retitled Indiana Jones

and the Rangers of the Lost Ark to correlate

with the film's prequel and sequel. The subsequent

DVD release of 2003 featured the title as well.

The title and the film itself remains unchanged

even in the restored DVD print. The DVD and the

glass portion separating Jones from the Cobra

in the Well of Souls was digitally removed. The

film along with Temple of Doom and Last Crusade

were re -released on DVD with additional extra

features. not included in the previous set on

May 13, 2008. Final thoughts before we move on

for Raiders. Raiders of the Lost Ark was, like

I said before, it's one of the most critically

acclaimed movies of, it is the most critically

acclaimed movie of the Indiana Jones, whatever

you want to call it now, since there's four of

them. You know, it has so many memorable scenes

from the rock boulder to the snake pit to the

bar drinking thing to, I mean, there's... the

sword and the gun thing, the monkey. I mean,

there's so much great stuff going on. I'm not

a big fan of the last scene. It's not my favorite

Indiana Jones movie, but maybe, technically,

it might be the best of them. Yeah, again, I

mean, I like, I mean, just from reading throughout

the whole plot and all this other stuff, it sounds

like something I would probably like. It's probably

not something anytime soon I'm going to see.

Just because I don't know I think and I and I

will most definitely bring this up when we get

to Last Crusade but Last Crusade is where I come

in and where I came into the indie franchise

and Last Crusade is where It's pretty much the

only film I really acknowledge as far as a really

really good indie film I'm not saying that Raiders

and Temple of Doom are bad. I I just I like the

third one the best so We are gonna be moving

on It must be Indiana Jones. From Steven Spielberg

and George Lucas. Indiana Jones. And the Temple

of Doom. Next is Indiana Jones and the Temple

of Doom, which is a 1984 adventure film directed

by Steven Spielberg. It is the second film in

the Indiana Jones franchise, and the prequel

to Raiders of the Lost Ark. One film in and they're

already making prequels, holy crap. After arriving

in India, Indiana Jones is asked by a desperate

village to find a mystical stone. He agrees,

stumbling upon a Kali thug religious cult plotting

child slavery black magic and ritual human sacrifice

Producer and co -writer George Lucas decided

to make the film a prequel as he did not want

the Nazis to be the villains once more The original

idea was to set the film in China with Hidden

Valley inhabited by dinosaurs more cancelled

plot devices included the Monkey King and a haunted

castle in Scotland Lucas then wrote a film treatment

that resembled the final storyline of the film

with Lawrence Catison turning down the offer

to write the script Willard Hook and Gloria Katz

wrote the script The film was released to financial

success but mixed reviews which criticized the

on -screen violence Intriguing to the creation

of PG -13 writing. Holy crap Wow So, yeah When

did you first see this one? Right after Raiders

of the Lost Ark. It might have been even the

same day or the same weekend or whatever. I remember

I believe renting, or my family renting them,

my mom renting them, or my brother, after I had

seen Last Crusade, and at whatever point we decided

to watch both of these, basically back -to -back.

So that's why a lot of times, even in my head,

I get these two a little confused with each other

sometimes, because I saw them basically at the

same time, and they're kind of very similar.

I mean, obviously all the Indiana Jones movies

are similar, but these two are the most similar

out of all of them. But yeah, I remember seeing

them probably in 90, 91, somewhere in there.

I think what turned me off to this one was the

whole horror aspect of it. Yeah, I mean, yeah,

technically, I don't think the whole sacrificial,

you know, pulling the heart out of the body thing

was, I think it was better done than the spirits

that came out of the Park of the Covenant in

the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Mm hmm. But I agree

that there's lots of parts of this that are just

kind of. It's easy to turn you off of it. Yeah.

So why don't you summarize the plot for us? Good

lord. Basically, obviously like we said before,

this is happening beforehand. So we're back to

1936. It's happening a year before, right? Wasn't

it 1936 in the first film? Something like that.

So we're back in 1935 on this one. Basically

Indiana Jones narrowly escapes the clutches of

a crime boss in Shanghai And then with pretentious

nightclub singer Willie Scott and his 11 year

old Chinese sidekick short round in tow Indiana

flees Shanghai on a plane that unknown to them

is owned by the crime boss The pilots leave the

plane to crash over the Himalayas though the

trio managed to escape on an inflatable boat

kind of MacGyver seen there, and ride down the

slopes into a raging river. They come to Mayapur,

a desolate village in northern India, where the

poor villagers believe them to have been sent

by the Hindu god Shiva, and enlist their help

to retrieve three sacred siyalinga stones stolen

from their shrine, as well as the community's

children. from evil forces in the nearby Panko

Palace. Basically, what happens now is they're

trying to get these stones and they're trying

to rescue these kids that are all being kept

by these guys in the Panko Palace. And there's

this whole human sacrifice thing where the head

guy basically tears the heart out of people.

He just basically takes his hand and shoves it

into the people's chest and pulls out hearts.

So basically a Buffy the Vampire Slayer villain.

Yeah, basically. So basically the whole plot

is Indy trying to rescue all these kids and the

people and get the stones back from this torturous

guy who at one point is going to pull Indy's

heart out. So most of the scenes, if you're not

familiar with the film, instead of the last one

where there was a lot of outside chases and that

scene in the bazaar where they're attacking each

other and the scene in the bar, this one's basically

all within this, whatever you want to call it,

this mine shaft type thing. So you have stuff

like mine cart chases and more stuff like that.

Basically... Take the first one and instead of

having the Ark of the Covenant with the evil

spirits, you have a guy that's taking the hearts

out of people in these stones. Take the chick

out, replace her with another chick. Take the

monkey and replace him with a little Asian kid

who's much more annoying than the monkey. And

you basically have an almost identical movie.

Yeah, it doesn't sound like I would ever watch

this either. If you're going to watch one of

the two Raiders of the Lost Ark or Temple of

Doom, I suggest watching Raiders of the Lost

Ark just because it has so many classic, iconic,

cool scenes in it. Even if the story or the overall

thing isn't what you want necessarily, you might

not be a fan of that. It's worth it just for

the little scenes, whereas this one doesn't have

as many of those classic indie scenes in it,

which is one reason why I put it at the bottom

of my indie list of movies. And the kid just

annoys me compared to the monkey. I don't know

why. It's like, it's like, uh, you know, the,

you know, they, the Chinese or I'm probably crossing

all kinds of lines here cause I don't know what

actual ethnicity the kid was in, but in Goonies,

you know, the one that's, that's always screaming

at the group. Yeah. It's kind of like that in

a way to me. I mean, that's what I can compare

it to. And I just kind of find it annoying. Wow.

Again, the cast for this, I recognize Kate Capshaw

as Willie Scott, the love interest, but outside

of Harrison, I don't recognize anybody. Yeah.

The Jonathan Kate Kwan as little kid. Oh, God.

Yeah, I don't recognize anybody, and I'm not

sure if Frank Walker managed to get in this movie

or not. But yeah, and there was a thing about

the girl because they were gonna recast the same

girl from the first one but apparently I don't

know if it was George Lucas or if it was Stephen

Spielberg, but I think it was George Lucas who

basically said that he wanted a different girl

in every indie movie a different girl for Indie

in every movie kind of like a Bond type thing

or whatever That's what we ended up with I'm

trying to see what other stuff this kid was in

He was in The Goonies, so that's why he recognized,

that's why he reminds me of that. He was Richard

Data Wang in The Goonies, so that's where I've

seen him. Yeah, the production notes are mostly

just, you know, technical film babble that really

I have no interest in, but as far as the release,

it's quoting Spielberg, After I showed the film

to George, an hour and 55 minutes, we looked

at each other. Spielberg remembered that the

first thing that we said was too fast. We needed

to decelerate the action and did a few more match

shots to slow it down. We made it a little bit

slower by putting breathing room back in so there'd

be a two -hour oxygen supply for the audience.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was released

on May 23rd, 1984 in America. accumulating a

record -breaking $45 .7 million in its first

week. The film went on to gross totaling $333

.11 million with US $180 million in North America

and the equivalent of $153 .11 million in other

markets. Temple of Doom had the highest opening

weekend of 1984 and was the third highest grossing

film in North America of that year behind Beverly

Hills Cop. Thank God it was behind Ghostbusters.

Thank God it was behind those. It was also the

10th highest grossing film of all time during

its release. I'm so glad I wasn't going to theaters

as a kid. LucasArts and Atari Games promoted

the film by releasing an arcade game. Hasbro

released a toy line based on the film in September

of 2008. As far as the reception, the film received

mixed reviews at the time of its release based

on 58 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes. 84

% of the critics said they enjoyed the film with

the average score of 7 .2 out of 10 for each

review. Roger Ebert called Temple of Doom the

most cheerfully exciting, bizarre, goofy romantic

adventure movie since Raiders and it's high praise

to say that it's not so much a sequel as an equal.

Oh, Christ. Roger Ebert, why can't you get your

opinions right? I guess you can talk about the

controversy part. Yeah, basically there's a lot

of racist controversy here. Before filming could

begin in India, filmmakers had to have the script

approved by the Indian government. The government

found the script racist and demanded that many

changes be made and eventually filmmakers decided

to instead film in Sri Lanka. So that's how they

avoided that. The film's depiction of Hindus

caused controversy in India and brought it to

the attention of the country censors who placed

a temporary ban on it. Yvette Rosser has criticized

the film for contributing to racist stereotypes

of Indians in Western society writing, it seems

to have been taken as a valid portrayal of India

by many teachers since a large number of students

surveyed complained that teachers referred to

the eating of monkey brains. You know whatever

everything 80s everything from the 80s and beforehand

before the the politically correct police took

over the world All the bad guys were always horrible

stereotypes of some type of race or ethnicity

I mean come on the the Russians or the you know

Middle Easterns or the Asians or whoever it is

has always been depicted like that so You know

you got to have bad guys in these movies, so

I don't see the problem Yeah Bond was always

fighting the Russians the GI Joe was always fighting

basically a some type of Soviet group even though

they didn't call themselves that Rambo and Rocky

were fighting Russians. I mean Hey now at Rambo

and Rocky well Rocky was fighting. Mr. T. Come

on now another one he fought a Russian yeah But

I mean it's always been one race to the other

it's changed over time I mean we went from the

Russians during the Cold War to we you know now

we're it's always the Middle Eastern you know

descent It's just always gonna be like that,

so I don't see why People get so upset yeah and

as far as people reflecting on the on the casting

crew. Kate Capshaw called her character not much

more than a dumb screaming blonde. Capshaw, who

is a feminist, was annoyed by the criticism she

received of her portrayal. Spielberg said in

89, I wasn't happy with Temple of Doom at all.

It was too dark, too subterranean, and much too

horrific. I thought it outpultered Poltergeist.

Wow. Holy crap. There's not an ounce of my own

personal feeling in Temple of Doom. He later

added during the making of Indiana Jones in the

Temple of Doom documentary, Temple of Doom is

my least favorite of the trilogy. I look back

and I say, well, the greatest thing I got out

of that was I met Cape Capshaw, which we married

years later. And that to me was the reason I

was fated to make Temple of Doom. Overall, just

from going through some of this information,

I'm glad I haven't seen this all the way through.

It's the worst one of the original three. I don't

know how I would compare Temple of Doom to Crystal

Skulls. Well, we'll get there once we get...

But it's the worst out of the original three

trilogy, that's for sure. Yeah, yeah. So we are

going to be moving on to what is pretty much,

at least in my own opinion, the best out of all

of the indie films. We will be back after this.

About to complete a great quest. The holy grail,

Dr. Jones. Oh, rats. Look, the shield is the

second marker we found. Indiana Jones is on the

quest of a lifetime. But for some adventures,

one Jones is not enough. Dad? Junior? Don't call

me that, please. A race across three continents.

And in this sort of race, there's no silver medal

for finishing second. Hang on, Dad, we're going

in! ...into the homeland of the enemy. Nazis.

I hate these guys. Our situation has not improved.

In his search... for the Holy Grail. We are back,

and, um... If only they had stopped when it was

getting good. We are coming up on the third Indiana

Jones film and I wish they would have stopped

it here. Stop passing the buck. Indiana Jones

and the Last Crusade is a 1989 adventure film

directed by Steven Spielberg from a story co

-written by executive producer George Lucas.

It is the third film in the Indiana Jones franchise.

Harrison Ford reprises the title role and Sean

Connery plays Indiana's father. Henry Jones Sr.

Allison Doody and Denholm Elliott, Julian Glover,

River Phoenix, and John Rhys Davies also have

featured roles set largely in 1938 Indiana searches

for his father, a holy grail scholar who has

been kidnapped by Nazis. After a mixed reaction

to the dark Temple of Doom, Spielberg chose to

compensate by completing the trilogy with a movie

lighter in tone during the five years between

Couple of doom and last crusade he and executive

producer Lucas reviewed several scripts before

accepting Jeffrey Baum's The filming locations

included Spain Italy England and Jordan the film

was released in North America on May 24th 1989

to a neat to near Universal critical. He claimed

it was financial success making 474 Yeah, it

made close to 480 million dollars I'm not even

gonna try to do that thing there. So, when did

you see this? Obviously, you saw this like 90,

91. Actually, no, I saw this one... What year

did you say it came out? 89? I think I saw this

in 89. I think I did too. I saw this one before.

I saw the other... two in their entirety. I might

have seen little bits and pieces of the other

two first, but I had never seen them in their

entirety. This was the first Indiana Jones I

had seen from beginning to end, and I proudly

watched it a half a dozen times before I ever

saw the other two. I mean, I just loved this

movie from the first time I watched it, and I

could not watch it enough. Every time it was

on TV, or every time we had the chance to rent

it before it was actually on TV, we did it, and,

you know, this... this was Indiana Jones to me.

And I agree, which is, you know, we haven't agreed

on a lot of things lately, especially over on

Tooncast, but you know, I agree. This is by far,

number one, it's by far the best indie film out

of all four of them. Number two, I think it is

the definitive story of Indiana Jones. And it

is just an overall great film. So I guess getting

into the plot here. The prologue depicts a young

Indiana Jones in 1912 as a boy scout settling

in Utah battling grave robbers for the Cross

of Coronado, an ornamental cross belonging to

Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, as the foiled

grave robbers give chase, Indiana hides in a

circus train, in the process using a whip, scarring

his chin and gaining fear of snakes. Although

he rescues the cross, the robbers tell the sheriff

that Indiana was the thief and he is forced to

return it, while his oblivious father, Henry

Jones Sr., is working on his research into the

Holy Grail. Keeping meticulous notes and diary,

the leader of the hired robbers, dressed very

similarly to the future Indiana, and impressed

by the young Indies tenacity, gives him his fedora

and some encouraging words. In 1938, Indiana

recovers the cross from the robber's ship on

the coast of Portugal. Portugal and donates it

to Marcus Brody's museum. First of all, rest

in peace, River Phoenix. He played young Indiana

Jones. Very well done. I can't be for certain,

but I think this is the only thing I've seen

him in. I know he died shortly after this, didn't

he? Yeah, I think I don't remember exactly what

year he died Yeah, I'd some point. I don't think

this was his last role that he ever did I know

that there was some other movie that some other

really famous movie that he did before he passed

away Right can't remember it off top my head,

and I don't feel like looking it up cuz I'm late

but Basically he's the first person to ever play

a teenage version of indie yep And he pulls it

off very well yeah But but there's basically

one reason why One of the main reasons why this

is the best Indiana Jones movie is because of

Sean Connery Well, yeah, I Mean it's not too

often you have Indiana Jones and James Bond in

the same film Basically, Indiana Jones is the

son of James Bond So in 1938, Indy is introduced

to the wealthy Walter Donovan who informs him

that his estranged father has vanished while

searching for the Holy Grail. Using an incomplete

stone tablet as his guide, Indy receives a package

which turns out to be his father's grail diary

containing all his life's research on the grail,

understanding that his father would not have

sent the diary unless he was in trouble. Indy

and Marcus travel to Venice where they meet Henry's

colleague, Dr. Elsa Schneider. Indy and Elsa

discover the catacombs beneath the library where

Henry was last seen and discover the tomb of

Sir Richard, a knight of the First Crusade, with

a complete version of the stone tablet that Henry

used. They flee when the catacombs are set aflame

by the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword, a

secret society. They are pursued and escape on

a speedboat and chase through Venice ensues.

which they capture the cult's leader, Kazim.

After Indy convinces him of their intentions,

Kazim explains the Brotherhood are protecting

the Grail from those of evil intentions, and

that Henry was abducted to Castle on the Austrian

-German border. He had never gotten past the

rats. Dad hates rats. I like how they assume

that the doctor is going to be a male. Yeah.

And it turns out to be this blonde chick. Yeah,

that's for sure. What else did you like about

this whole... Technically, this is the second

opening because the first... The way I see this

film, even though they run the credits as the

first part with Young Indie is going along, I

see this as kind of like a Justice League episode

where you have a little prequel thing. And then

you have the title cards. And then you come back

from, say, commercial break, and you have this

whole 1938 story. So what did you think of this

whole beginning here with older Indy? The beginning

was great. I mean, you got to see a lot of different

aspects or a lot of different sides of things

that introduces the story well. You get the feeling

that there's going to be lots more Nazi killing

in this one. It's just, I don't know, the whole

The whole storyline that they came up with this

one which was Spielberg's idea basically to have

this whole father -son storyline mm -hmm just

it's just so awesome and Beginning right when

you see that you're immediately interested or

intrigued to learn more about this whole thing

And of course it just gets better as the whole

movie gets going as far as the interaction between

Henry Harrison Ford and Sean Connery Yeah, I

totally agree. Yeah, the beginning just does

a great job of setting everything up Yes, I totally

agree. So Indy and Elsa infiltrate the castle.

Indy finds his father but learns that Elsa and

Donovan are working with the Nazis. She ransacked

her own room. How dare you kiss me! Who seeked

with the Nazis to seek the grail hoping that...

Indy would discover its location. The Nazis capture

Marcus, who has traveled to Iscanderon, Haiti,

with the map to the Gorrell's location. The Joneses

are able to escape and recover the diary from

Elsat, a Nazi rally in Berlin. There, they proceed

to try and escape from Germany to meet with Sala

in Haiti, where they learn of Marcus' abduction

and that the Nazis are already moving to the

Gorrell's location. With the help of the Brotherhood,

The Joneses ambushed the convoy and rescue Marcus

though Donovan and Elsa continue on to the canyon

of the crescent moon where the grail resides

Again, I did not see Raiders, but this was where

I love John Rhys Davies as Sala. Oh, yeah, he's

so awesome and One of the things I didn't really

breathe it isn't really brought up in the in

the plot paragraph there is the whole rescue

slash escape from the castle. Because obviously

they get caught and his father's like, she's

a Nazi, how do you know that? She talks in her

sleep. And then the whole fireplace scene, that

was hilarious. And just the banter between the

two of them is just awesome. I think so what

separates this movie from the other movies too,

besides the fact that we've had, we've shifted

from Monkey to A Little Annoying Asian Kid to

Sean Connery as the sidekick. That, for one thing,

is a complete shift in what Indiana Jones had

been, you know, what we've seen in previous movies

and that makes this different. But I think the

other big thing, which is what you're about to

get to, is the ending of this movie separates

it from the other two movies. Oh, yes. The ending

of this movie is a hundred times better than

the ending for Raiders and for Temple. I mean,

the ending to this movie is just fantastic. I

mean, the Raiders, the worst part of the entire

movie is the end. In Temple, you have kind of

too much graphic horror, you know, dark tones

at the end. This one is just anybody who's seen

The Last Crusade, the last scene and this ending

part, sticks in your mind and you can remember

it. Anybody who's seen this movie and doesn't

remember the last scene, I don't know. I question

things about them. It just imprints itself on

your mind forever. It's that great of an ending.

Basically, to get into it for the plot, Indy,

his father, Marcus, and Salah. four people all

together basically, which is great. Catch up

and find that the Nazis are unable to pass these

two traps set before the grail. This is when

we get Indy at its best, the MacGyver part of

Indy. After the four discovered, Donovan shoots

and mortally wounds Henry, forcing Indy to circumvent

the traps using the information in his father's

diary. This is awesome stuff. With Donovan and

Elsa shortly following him. Indiana succeeds

and finds himself in a room with the last night

of the first crusade Kept alive with the power

of the grail. I was I was wondering about that

because I hadn't okay like The DVD version and

I'll talk about this later when we get down to

the DVD stuff But the version I have is the re

-release of 2008. It's a single disc It's not

like a special edition or anything there hasn't

actually been a special edition set for any of

the indie franchise things, but I bought this

at Target, and it's one of those things where,

and I've said this before, I don't know if I've

said it with you and I recording, I've said it

before on podcasts, that sometimes I will buy

DVDs just to have them in my collection. And

this was one of those things. They had all three

films of the original series in the special edition...

Reddish box? Well, yeah, it's... It's kind of

like a goldish box, and it doesn't glitter. It's

not sparkly like some vampires or anything like

that, but it's very shiny to it. And when I watched

this the other day before we were going to record

this, when I watched it like Friday night or

whatever, I'm thinking, okay, they specifically

mentioned that the Crusades happened over...

a thousand years ago or something like that.

So when we get to this scene, I'm thinking, wait,

he should be pretty much skull and bones. What's

going on? And then I realized, well, he knows

which is the true grail. And obviously, because

he has to be the protector of it, he would use

it. And he has, the knight has good intentions

because he was entrusted to protect the grail

from robbers. So basically, we have Indy in the

room with the last night there, who, like we

said, has kept alive by the power of the grail,

which has been hidden among several other cups.

And then basically, we have Elsa selecting a

cup for Donovan and Indy selecting a cup. So

Elsa selects a gilded cup encrusted in jewels

for Donovan, knowing it to be fake. And then

Donovan drinks from it. He ages rapidly in what

is one of the most... horrific scenes I've ever

seen in my life. No, it's not that bad, but it's

so disturbing at the time when you're little

and you see it. Oh, yeah. Basically gets old

and rapidly before decaying and turning into

dust. Andy recognizes that the grail would be

that of a humble carpenter instead of a wealthy

king and selects the correct cup, quickly takes

it to his father with the holy water, which heals

his wounds instantly when the older Jones drinks

from it. And then, of course, we have the twist

of the end as they prepare to leave, the night

warns them. to not take the grail out of the

temple, but Elsa, being a dumb bitch, does so.

Causing the temple to collapse, Elsa falls into

an abyss during a greedy attempt to recover the

grail. Indiana nearly suffers the same fate until

his father tells him to let it go, and he is

pulled to safety. The Joneses, Marcus and Salah

nearly escape the collapsing temple, and while

they prepare the horses to ride off, Salah asks,

why henry jones calls indiana jr henry tells

sala it's indiana's name henry jones jr and that

indiana was the name of their dog which is actually

you want named after the dog i see i i can't

impersonate dave but i'm actually the indiana

is named after a dog it's named after george

lucas's dog so that's not a fake part of the

plot that's really how they came up with the

name yeah And it was originally going to be Indiana

Smith, not Indiana Jones. Oh, God. But there's

a cool scene in there when they're kind of leaving

and the knight kind of looks at Indy. But it's

just such a great last sequence. Yeah, and the

whole running gag with Marcus is he got lost

in his own museum and at the end he's like...

Indy or Henry Indy follow me. I know the way

ha ha ha and he runs on you know, he starts galloping

off on his horse and he nearly falls off the

damn horse and and And and Henry goes to turns

Indy goes got lost in his own museum, huh? Yep

I love this movie. It's freaking fantastic if

it wasn't for the scene with the rats And if

it wasn't for Donovan's skull issue, I could

watch this movie over and over and over again.

Yeah. That is such a disturbing scene for me.

I mean, it's not now because, whatever, I'm older

and I've seen much worse. But when I was a kid

and I saw that guy turn old so fast, I was completely

traumatized. It's not that bad, but for some

reason it just got to me. It's just, I don't

know, now that's what makes the movie so great,

I think. It's just so much a better ending than

the other two movies. But, interesting note,

since we're gonna talk maybe a smidge about the

cast. I found an interesting note on the whole

Sean Connery and Harrison Ford thing, and their

partnership together. Ford and Connery have passed

up three subsequent opportunities to work together.

Connery accepted the role. in The Hunt for Red

October, but Ford declined the role of Jack Grine

in that movie, and it went to Alec Baldwin. And

then, of course, Ford later took over the role

in Patriot Games. Ford and Connery both, get

this one, both declined the roles, I wish they

wouldn't have, of Alan Grant and John Hammond

for Jurassic Park. Oh, really? Instead of whatever

his name is, the two main guys in Jurassic Park,

it would have been Harrison Ford and Sean Connery,

but they both... turn it down. Can you imagine

if Harrison Ford would have done three Indiana

Jones movies, three Star Wars movies, and the

Jurassic Park? Yeah, wow. And Connery, of course,

declined to return to the role of Henry Jones

in our next movie, The Kingdom of the Crystal

Skull. So I guess they never wanted to work together

again. Wait, what? Connery returns in Crystal

Skull? No, he declined to return. Oh, OK, OK,

OK. So, one way or another, they've always declined

roles so that they've somehow never worked together

again. It's kind of interesting. Hey, you know,

there are good things and bad things about One

Hit Wonder partnerships. Yeah. I just want to

know what Jurassic Park would have been like

with these two guys. Oh, yeah, that would have

been awesome. I mean, it still is awesome, but...

Yeah. I'm going to hit on the River Phoenix stuff

because he plays the 13 -year -old Indiana...

Phoenix had portrayed Ford's son in The Mosquito

Coast. In 1986, Ford recommended Phoenix for

the part. He said that of the young actors working

at the time, Phoenix looked the most like him

when he was around that age. Phoenix had been

looking for a lighter, more comic role. Ford

was present during filming to advise Phoenix

on the portrayal. Lucas Films was secretive about

Phoenix's casting, referring to the young Indiana

as a boy on train. in the script. When it was

leaked, they spread a rumor that he was playing

Indiana's younger brother. Phoenix performed

the opposite of the lion, although the stuntman

was required for more dangerous shots of Indiana

being swiped at and the shot of Indiana cracking

his whip at the animal. Ninety -four. Ninety

-four was his last role. I'm not sure if that's

the exact year he died. Yeah, but it was some

famous movie. I don't remember what the hell

it was, though. Silent Tongue is the last one

listed. No, there was... Even Cowgirls Get the

Blues and a couple... My Own Private Idaho was

91. No, there was something else I don't remember,

anyway. And we have James Bond in an Indiana

Jones film. Yeah. Sean Connery plays Professor

Henry Jones, Indiana's father, a professor of

medieval literature who cared more about looking

for the grail than raising his son. Alex Hyde

White stood in for Connery in the prologue. Spielberg

had Connery in mind when he suggested introducing

Indiana's father, though he did not tell Lucas

at first. Subsequently, Lucas wrote the role

as a crazy, eccentric professor resembling Lawrence

Olivier. Olivier, or however the hell you say

his damn name, who was a relationship with Indiana's

strict schoolmaster and student rather than a

father and son. Spielberg had been a fan of Connery's

work as James Bond and felt that no one else

could perform the role as well. Spielberg's biographer

Joseph McBride wrote, Connery was already the

father of Indiana Jones since the series had

sprung from the desire of Lucas and Spielberg

to rival and outdo Connery's James Bond movies.

Connery initially turned the role down as he

is only 12 years older than Ford, but he relented

Connery as a student of history began to reshape

the character and revisions were made to the

script to address his concerns. I wanted to play

Henry Jones as a kind of Sir Richard. Connery

commented that I was bound to have fun with the

role of a gruff Victorian Scottish father. Connery

believed Henry should be a match for his son,

telling Spielberg that whatever Indy had done,

my character has done, and my character has done

it better. Connery signed to the film on March

25, 1988. He improvised the line, she talks in

her sleep, which was left in because it made

everyone laugh. In Boehm's scripts, Henry telling

Indiana that he slept with Elsa occurs later.

Just great casting. Like you said earlier, you'd

like to... You wonder what certain films would

be like if these two, Ford and Connery, would

have gotten together and been in films like Jurassic

Park and stuff like that. Right. These two guys

have a great chemistry between the characters.

And that's why it separates this movie from the

first two. You went from some animal or some

little kid as basically the sidekick to Sean

Connery. I mean, you can't compete. You can't

compare those. Yeah, that's well. That's why

this movie is so much greater because you have

them playing off of each other when Harrison

Ford had nobody really to play off of in the

first two films Yeah another interesting note

Pat Roach Who? Was a wrestler and a stuntman

he played he and Harrison Ford are the only two

people to appear in all of the movies This Pat

Roach guys just played different things like

Basically, a cameo as a Nazi in one of them.

What else was there? I mean, he wasn't necessarily

the same character. He was just these minor characters.

But him and Harrison Ford were in all of them.

Yep. Very, very awesome. And Alison, I guess

it's Doody or Dottie, I don't know, is Dr. Elsa

Schneider, an Austrian art professor who was

in league with the Nazis. She seduces the Joneses

to trick them. Doody was 21 when she auditioned

and was one of the first actresses who met for

the part. Doody scarred herself while filming

the catacomb scene when a hot wax on the torch

she held dripped onto her hand. Ford noticed

and dipped her hand into the water, preventing

a burn. Although Doody drove the boat for the

Venetian chase, no one had instructed her in

driving it. Not good. The filmmakers regretted

their decision when she almost crashed her boat

in the one in which they were filming. She did

not mind filming with her ass, noting the animals

were probably more afraid of her than she was

of them. Yeah, right. Oh boy. What else do you

want to talk about as far as the cast here? You've

got the same person as Marcus Brody. You've got

the same person as Fala obviously. So you've

got Van Holm Elliott and John Rhys Davies. You

know, those are the only other major people besides,

I guess, Julian Glover's Walter Donovan. But,

you know, they're all exactly what they are.

They're playing certain roles and, you know,

some of them could be replaced by other people

besides, I think, John Rhys Davies obviously.

No one should ever replace Sala. We can replace

Sala or Marcus, but anybody else, you could have

exchanged them with other people, it wouldn't

have been a big deal. The four of them together

is just so great when you have Harrison Ford,

Sean Connery, John Rhys -Davies, and the guy

for Marcus Brody that could force them. I'm going

to have to go back and watch this, but Glover,

who played Donovan, was one of the generals in

Empire Strikes Back. There is a lot of similarities

obviously since we got Spielberg and Lucas there's

a I've read quite a few things too of like Certain

sound effects that were used in both movies I

guess there's one part where a plane is supposed

to be taken off and it stalls or something that's

the exact same sound is when the Millennium Falcon

stalls at one point so there's lots of crossover

stuff between the Star Wars and Indiana Jones

trilogy Which you would expect with the people

in charge Yeah, um, what do you think of Michael

Sheard's performance as Hitler? Yeah, I've never

been impressed with anybody that plays Hitler.

Well, okay. Well, obviously, you know, obviously

I'm not gonna have anything, you know, nice to

say about it. But I mean, I mean, I've never

been. I've never thought someone has done like

a spectacular job at it. But I mean, this one

wasn't bad. This one wasn't bad. The guy who

plays them in Valkyrie isn't bad. But a lot of

people that have played Hitler have done a horrible

job of it. But this one this was actually like

I said this one's not bad Yeah, apparently um

Lucas initially suggested going into the production

here a little bit Lucas initially suggested making

the film a Haunted Mansion movie As much as I

love Star Wars George Lucas is not that great

of a Whatever you guys should know Go over to

This Week in Geek's project website, GeorgeLucasHasLostHisMind

.com. I mean, so much of his ideas are so bad.

I mean, I get Star Wars is the greatest film

of all time, possibly. And, you know, it's a

great trilogy and all that. Well, whatever you

want to call it now. But, you know, he proved

with his other three how good of a movie maker

he was. I'll give him credit. He's better than

Jason Bay. or not Jason Bay, Michael Bay. Yeah,

I was going to say, what the hell? Not the baseball

player, he's better than Michael Bay. I was going

to say, wait a second, he was in the Red Sox

for a little bit. He's better than Michael Bay.

Yeah. But they're both a little out there. Yup.

Yeah, I'm just kind of looking through the production

that really isn't. I know Spielberg, I don't

know if it's in there or not, but Spielberg is

on record as saying that this is his favorite

of the three. Yeah. Oh yeah. And he was doing

this basically for two reasons. One, he had basically

a commitment to do three films with George Lucas,

so this was gonna fulfill that. And the other

reason he wanted to do this is basically he had

a bad taste in his mouth from Temple of Doom

and he wanted to make something to kind of lessen

the bad stuff that has been said about that.

So, you know, glad he made it, that's for sure.

Yes, very much so. As far as the box office stuff,

the film eventually grossed $197 million in North

America and $277 million internationally. For

a worldwide total of $474 million, at the time

of its release, The Last Crusade was the 11th

highest -grossing film of all time. Despite competition

from Batman, The Last Crusade became the highest

-grossing movie worldwide in 1989. Ha! Take that,

Tim Burton. In North America, Batman took top

position behind Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

and Raiders of the Lost Ark. The Last Crusade

is the third highest grossing Indiana Jones film

in North America, though it is behind Raiders

and Temple of Doom when adjusting for inflation.

I am sorry. Nothing. None of these films should

be behind Kingdom of the crystal fucking skull

As far as the impact the film won Academy Awards

for best sound editing and also received nominations

for best original score Best sound but lost to

the Little Mermaid and glory respectively weird

Let's see here. The prologue depicting Indiana

as a youth inspired legacy at the Young Indiana

Jones Chronicles television show which featured

Sean Patrick Flannery as the young adult Indiana

and Corey Carey as the eight to ten year old

Indiana. The thirteen year old incarnation played

by Phoenix in the film was the focus of a Young

Indiana Jones series of young adult novels that

began in 1990. By the ninth novel the series

had become a tie -in to the television show.

German author Wolfgang Holabein revisited the

1912 prologue in one of his novels in which Indiana

encounters the lead grave robber, whom Holabein

christened Jake in 1943. The film's ending begins

the 1995 comic series, Indiana Jones and the

Spear of Destiny, which moves forward to depict

Indiana and his father searching for the Holy

Lance in Ireland in 1945. Spielberg intended

to have Connery, Cameo, S. Henry, and King in

the Crystal Skull in 2008. But Connery turned

it down as he had retired. We've said it before,

we both love this film. This is easily the best

film out of the four. You just can't say enough

good things about it. It's so awesome. I agree.

This is my favorite of all of them by far. Yes.

And now we move on to the shitstorm that is Kingdom

of the Crystal Skull. control over its power.

You will help us find it. A simple yes will do.

Unfortunately, but thankfully, finally, we close

out the Indiana Jones franchise with Indiana

Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which

is a 2008 adventure film. In this fourth film,

the Indiana Jones franchise, created by George

Lucas and directed by Steven Spielberg, released

19 years after the previous film, the film acknowledges

its star Harrison Ford's age by setting itself

in 1957, plays tribute to the science fiction

B -movies of the era pitting Indiana Jones against

Soviet agents. led by Arena Spalco, played by

Cate Blanchett. For psychic alien Crystal Skull,

Indiana is aided by his former lover Marion Ravenwood,

played by Karen Allen, and their son Mutt Williams,

played by Shia LaBitch. Ray Winstone, John Hurt,

and Jim Broadbent are also part of this supporting

cast. everyone should know well by the time this

episode airs everyone should have listened to

our planes trains and automobiles episode where

i went extremely explicit at the end there and

yeah this was pretty much a year or maybe i don't

even know when they started filming on this but

i know transformers had just released and so

guess Spielberg wanted to further LaBitch's career

and So basically you have Michael Bay on the

left and Spielberg on the right with Shia LaBeouf

in the middle. That's all I'm gonna say. I got

no problem with Shia, but you did mention that

you said this was finally the end of it. Well

for this episode is what I meant. There is gonna

be a fifth one at some point. They signed her

originally originally way back in the 80s Spielberg

signed a five film, Indiana Jones contract deal

plot something So I don't know if you got out

of it somehow. Otherwise, I'd expect to see another

I I just I've seen trailers and clips of this

film. I have never seen it. I will never own

it I don't care how many people try to praise

it to me. This has got to be the worst Outside

of Harrison Ford, this has got to be the worst

film ever out of this series. There's no way

Harrison Ford could do another one anyways. He

could barely do this one. And that's the thing.

I'm thinking we are going to have a Geekcast

radio episode about famous actors who are aging

or something like that because you take a look

at Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Peter Cullen,

Frank Welker, who else? Oh, God. Everybody? Well...

Bruce Willis? Yeah. Yeah, I don't think there's

gonna be a fifth Die Hard. But I mean, people

that have, you know, made roles... Lester Stallone?

Yeah. Well, yeah. People that have made roles

iconic, like Indiana Jones, like... You know,

Star Wars and Luke Skywalker and Hansel and all

that stuff. What are we going to do? What's Hollywood

going to do when they can't rehash things anymore

with original people that originally did them?

Same thing they did with James Bond. Yeah, but

see that... Batman. Superman. The thing with

the Bond series is you really can't... fault

them for that because they specifically wanted,

I believe, a different Bond for each film. Sean

Connery, there's no way in hell he was gonna

do 21 Bond films. And I like the fact that James

Bond changes. Of course, my favorite Bond era

is the Brosnan era because that's what I grew

up on. And that's a whole other story for a whole

other episode and then we're kind of getting

off topic because I'm actually kind of delaying

talking about this one because I really don't

want to talk about it. We don't have to. We don't

have to. Yeah. The film languished in development

hell because Spielberg and Ford disagreed over

Lucas's original concept which featured a more

overt focus on aliens. Screenwriter Jeb Stuart,

Jeffrey Bohm, and Frank Darbont and Jeff Nohansen

wrote drafts before David Kep's script. satisfied

all three men. Shooting began on June 18, 2007

and took place in various locations in New Mexico,

New Haven, Connecticut, Hawaii, Fresno, California,

and on sound stages in Los Angeles. To keep aesthetic

continuity with the previous films, the crew

relied on traditional stunt work instead of computer

-generated stunt doubles and cinematographer

some cinematographer that I can't pronounce his

name study Douglas Shulcombe's style from previous

films um yeah I really don't care to go through

the plot of this movie Basically this film had

way too much of a George Lucas imprint and this

is weird because I'm the biggest Star Wars fan

in the world and all I'm doing is hating on George

Lucas but of course he had to bring in the whole

alien thing and we're all about Roswell, New

Mexico and these skulls that have special powers

and it's just it was to take basically take Raiders

of the Lost Ark the last scene with all the supernatural

shit coming out of the arc and decide that your

whole movie is going to be that you know that

type of just unbelievable Crazy stuff where I

know I know all the movies had unbelievable crazy

stuff, but When they did Last Crusade they've

made it believable. Yeah, you know the way they

did it the way they filmed it the You know everything

about the way they went about that made it believable

whereas when they opened the arc in the first

one that was not believable and Most of this

movie was not believable. I was still entertained

by it. I don't hate it as much as most people

do but it's just too far -fetched for Indiana

Jones. I need my Indiana Jones to be more based

on archaeology, digging up stuff from the past,

not with the whole alien angle. Yeah, I agree,

and there's just no way in hell that I will ever

watch this film. Have you ever seen it at all?

No. You've never seen it? Nope. I've seen previews

and little mini -clips on the internet. Other

than that, nope, never. Wow. Yeah. I've seen

it twice. Basically the reason why I saw it twice

is because everything else about the film is

actually good. What I mean is the way they shot

it, the cinematography, all that stuff is perfect

in touch with the old Indiana Jones movies. It

looks like an Indiana Jones movie. The reason

I'm bringing that up is because take the last

Terminator that came out. No, you take it, please.

Well, the last Terminator that came out, which

obviously was around, you know, give or take

a year or so, about the same time, that, when

you watch that, never felt like a Terminator

movie until the very end. And then all of a sudden

it felt like, oh, I'm watching a Terminator movie.

And see, that's my biggest thing with these franchises

or trilogies or et cetera, like, you know, these...

multiple movies on the same topic is they need

to feel the same in every film. It doesn't have

to be the same plot, it doesn't have to be all

the same characters or whatever, but it needs

to feel the same. You need to feel like you're

in one of those movies. And in Terminator, I

didn't feel like that. In the Indiana Jones movie,

I felt like I was watching an Indiana Jones movie

for the entire time. They did a good job of capturing

that part of making it feel like an Indiana Jones

movie. I think the only reason this movie is

not as good as the original three is the plot.

From get -go, no matter what they did with this

movie, it was not gonna be good based on the

crystal skull and the alien storyline. I think

the actors did fine. I think the writing, as

far as dialogue, was fine. The way they shot

it was fine. The special effects are even better,

obviously, than what was possible on the older

films. It's just the whole plot is just where

they went wrong on this one. Yeah, I... It's

worth watching once. No, thanks. I'm just telling

you, I understand where you're coming from. I

was like that for over two decades on... How

can you go from the masterpiece that is Last

Crusade, just the emotional everything that goes

in there... And then you go to giving George

Lucas a fucking pen and letting him bring in

aliens and having Shia LaBeach run around. Oh,

God. He's actually not that bad in this movie.

But to me, I have to watch it because I'm a completist.

I'm OCD about stuff like that. And if I basically,

if it's something like that, I'm not talking

about, I don't like one, I'm not like that when

there's only one sequel. When it's just a movie

and a sequel made later on. I'm not for that,

but when it's a part of a series of movies, I

have to, if I'm a fan of it, I have to watch

all of them no matter what. Otherwise, I would

have never, after I watched the first episode

one of Star Wars, I would have never got to see

the two that came after that were better than

episode one. You know, it's funny you mentioned

sequels because there will be at least a few

episodes of Tunecast where we have sequel Disney

films that you must watch. Whatever. I'm against

sequels. I'm against sequels as... I don't know.

It's a long story, but I don't know. This one,

if you're an Indiana Jones fan, which I understand

where you're coming from and why you haven't

want to watch it, that's the same reason why

for 20 years I refused to watch Titanic until

I eventually broke down and watched it. But I

don't know, it's worth one watch. One singular

watch. I'm sorry. There's no way that I'm gonna

watch Shia LaBeouf playing Henry Mutt Williams

Jones III, a motorcycle riding greaser, and Indiana's

sidekick and son. There's no way in hell I'm

watching this. You gotta see Harrison Ford just

to see how much you think he either pulls it

off or doesn't pull it off playing Indiana Jones.

If somebody can like get the DVD of... Crystal

skull and cut out all of shy of the scenes and

just show me all the indie stuff sure fine, but

um So what you're saying is that you're a big

child about no not at all Not at all Okay, anyways,

so yeah stuff happened in this movie. That's

really all I'm gonna say about it I don't care

about the plot if you want to do a brief synopsis

I don't need to go into it. It's not worth discussing.

It's worth watching one time, and that's it.

Watch it one time so you can say you've seen

all of the Indiana Jones movies, even though

you haven't seen the first two either. And then...

No, wait a second. I've seen them bits and pieces.

I haven't seen the first two all the way through,

but I've seen bits and pieces of them, so I know

how good they are. I will let you slide on not

watching Crystal Skulls if you watch at least

Raiders of the Lost Ark. from beginning to end.

You have to watch one of the three movies from

beginning to end, and I'm suggesting it be Raiders

of the Lost Ark. I already did watch one of the

four movies from beginning to end. I watched

Last Crusade. One of the three you haven't seen.

And you will thank me for it. Yeah, I'm cutting

out pretty much every single bit of information

on this. I really don't care. I guess we can

talk about the music. Obviously John Williams

did the music for this. I think he's done the

music for all of them. And then worldwide release

on May 22nd, 2000, whatever it was. 2008? Yeah,

2008. 2008, 2000, whatever. Apparently there

was some secrecy involved. Frank Marshall remarked,

in today's information age, secrecy has been

a real challenge. People actually said, no, we're

going to respect Stephen's vision. Fans on the

internet have scrutinized numerous photos of

the film's promotional Lego sets in hope of understanding

plot details. Spielberg biographer Ian Freer

wrote what indeed Four is actually about has

been the great cultural guessing game of 2007

08 and yet has to be said that there's something

refreshing about Being ten weeks away from a

giant blockbuster and knowing next to nothing

about it Don't care Just just don't care. There's

tons of marketing stuff The film was released

on blu -ray disc and DVD in North America on

October 14th 2008 This includes a two -disc edition

Blu -ray, two -disc special edition DVD, and

one -disc edition DVD. These editions were released

in the UK on November 10th. Among the collectible

editions include Kmart, which contains four LEGO

posters parading those of the film, Target Corporation,

whose DVD has an 80 -page booklet of photographs,

and Best Buy, whose edition contains a replica

of the Crystal Skull created by Sideshow Collectibles.

As of March 1st, 2009, it has made 109 million

something dollars in revenue. Oh, God. Oh, I

got some great information for you. Indiana Jones

Five is coming to theaters in 2012. Let's see

if I can get anything else for you. I knew you'd

be excited. Let's see. Steven Spielberg is still

involved. So is Harrison Ford. So is Shia LaBeouf.

It's basically Indiana Jones vibe takes Indiana

and Shia LaBeouf as you call him to Bermuda Triangle.

No, yeah, I've seen those rumors of it, but yeah

We'll see if that's true. Basically it says Seems

like that's what's going on here. I really don't

care and my my final thoughts are basically Last

Crusade is the only Indiana Jones film that I

recognize. Oh good Lord what no Raiders of the

Lost Ark is good. I didn't say that the other

two, Temple of Doom and Raiders, weren't good.

I'm not saying that. I'm saying as far as the

story of Indiana Jones, I recognize Last Crusade

only. That's just my opinion on it. Based on

technicality and how all that nonsense, I would

think, as far as critical claim, you gotta go

Raiders of the Lost Ark first. But as far as

my opinion, I go Last Crusade first, Raiders

of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom, Crystal Skulls,

and I will reserve my judgment for the future.

But this is podcasting and the internet. We don't

reserve judgment. We jump to conclusions beforehand.

I'm going to say that I will give the fifth movie

a chance to beat Temple of Doom. No, you give

the fifth movie a chance to beat Crystal Skull.

Well, it already should do that. Let's hope.

Alright, so I think that's it for this episode

of MWIRE. Thank you for joining us. There are

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Search Geekcast Radio Network. We hope you enjoyed

this episode of MWIRE. I wish you'll join us

next time when we will be starting the DC Spotlight

Volume 2 with Superman the Movie. We will be

having yet another special guest host, Steve

Snowball -Sailor from This Week in Geek and the

acclaimed author of The Caffeine Collection.

For now, I am TFG1 Mike with Optimus Solo from

BehindTheVoiceActors .com. Thank you for listening.

Until next time. Well, there has been a slight

change in plans, even though in the outro of

this episode I say that we are starting the DC

Spotlight Volume 2, that is incorrect. Because

of scheduling stuff and everything else, we've

got to move some stuff around, and DC Spotlight

Volume 2 will not happen until the 60s episodes

of MWIRE. So, the spotlight that we will be doing

from Episodes 51 through 57 is Police Academy.

Until next time... Dad, please, what does it

always mean? This is Tony. What's his name? Henry

Jones Junior. I like Indiana. We're named the

dog, Indiana. May we go home now, please? The

dog? You are named after the dog. We've got a

lot of fond memories of that dog. Ready? Ready.

Indy! Henry! Follow me! I know the way! Got lost

in his own museum, huh? After you, Junior. Yes,

sir.