Click HERE to see this thread with all of the graphics, features, and links.

Both movies are considered by most people to be the worst of the series, so which one do you prefer?

ToD

it's hard to chose but perhaps Temple is a bit worse

Nah..

Temple is the way superior, way more classic Indy Movie.

Without a doubt.

KOTCS can suck my balls at the best of times,

but especially when compared to "Temple of Doom".
(or any other of the original Trilogy)

Crystal Skull imo. Temple of Doom's one saving grace was short round pwning nubs. But I liked both.

KOTC had no scene coming close to the hanging bridge scene in ToD. That alone gives ToD the victory.

Or the comedy of the spike chamber...
Or that cool shoot out in Club Obi wan...
Or the mountain sequence (which still is more believeable that the shitty reprise they attempted in the latest.)
Or chilled Monkey brains....
Or charismatic, well written villians and sidekicks...
Or the movie being about Jones... (rather than some punk **** kid we just had forcibly introduced to us- short round was a walk in the park compared to Speilberg's "new special little friend" )
Or a genuine sense of peril/danger for the protagonists/heroes.

Or an exciting title.

Yes.

"Temple of doom" even sounds more impressive than "The kingdom of the crystal skull".

TOD all the way for me there.

Charismatic is probably the last word I would use to describe Willie or Short Round, and if the evil bald guy (sorry, totally blanking on his name) has to resort on all that blood drinking/spell/voodoo-esque methods to gain followers, he's probably not that charismatic...but he's still got a little bit more charm than Donovan from The Last Crusade, lol.

Mola Ram.

Willie and Short Round sucked. But John Hurt's character and even Ray Winstone's were complete nonsense and irrelevant. That kinda evens those two out. Leaves us with all of Sadako's points. ToD wins.

If nothing else Temple wins because Mola Ram was probably one of the scariest villains in movie history. Unlike general Spalko, who's most threatening scene was crushing an ant between her thighs.

Which was sexy though.

I don't quite understand what ppl's problem is. In the Lost Ark, they open an ark, weird things happen, people cook and die. Temple of Doom, a guys heart is ripped out, and he's still alive, Indy goes for one hell of a "roller coaster" ride, and then indy decides to cut a bridge in half, across two cliffs. In the Last Crusade, indy takes on the Nazi's, walks across nothing, finds the FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH etc etc etc...

Peoples complaint about the new movie... "Ah, it was too far fetched."...

Hello, ITS ALWAYS TOO BLOODY FAR FETCHED...

I swear man, people expect too much from these classics. I loved it through and through. I don't care that survived at atomic explosion in a fridge, that his son learned how to be Tarzan, and that there are Aliens in the flick.... ITS ALWAYS BEEN BLOODY FAR FETCHED.

Critics!!! Honestly, just think b4 u speak.

Oh the irony of that statement.
They already did, hence the conclusions made.

The other films walked the fine line between grounded believeable-at-not-too-much-of-a-stretch almost reality as far as Hero vulnerability was concerned, and the fanciful situations in action movies.

And on that last movie, the balance was upset and it didn't thrill, as those with perception and intelligence realised that this movie was a cynical grim parody of itself, and that we don't get tougher as we approach our mid sixties. Certainly not tough enough to withstand a nuke and being thrown a mile through the air and smashing down an embankment. From that point those who feel it important that their intelligence isn't insulted grossly during a film at repeated intervals would naturally have a grim view of said proceedings.

The bad reviews have been well earned on this movie.

Sorry for the tone, but I don't like being 'caps'ed at.

Originally posted by sindahouse
I don't quite understand what ppl's problem is. In the Lost Ark, they open an ark, weird things happen, people cook and die. Temple of Doom, a guys heart is ripped out, and he's still alive, Indy goes for one hell of a "roller coaster" ride, and then indy decides to cut a bridge in half, across two cliffs. In the Last Crusade, indy takes on the Nazi's, walks across nothing, finds the FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH etc etc etc...

Peoples complaint about the new movie... "Ah, it was too far fetched."...

Hello, ITS ALWAYS TOO BLOODY FAR FETCHED...

I swear man, people expect too much from these classics. I loved it through and through. I don't care that survived at atomic explosion in a fridge, that his son learned how to be Tarzan, and that there are Aliens in the flick.... ITS ALWAYS BEEN BLOODY FAR FETCHED.

Critics!!! Honestly, just think b4 u speak.

Ok but here's the deal. In raiders you have one scene thats far fetched, with that being the opening of the ark obviously. In temple there's the heart part, which was just awesome and still is one of the scariest scenes in movie history IMO (I was 7 when I first saw it) And in Last Crusade its <insert name here> rapidly aging along with the walking over nothing scene.

Then lets skip ahead to KOTCS:

Nuke/refrigerator scene
Mutt swinging through the jungle and then miraculously jumping back onto the jeep
Marion gunning the amphibious vehicle thing off the cliff, which lands on a tree, which slowly lowers them into the water, and then swings back killing several russians...
Aliens.
Falling off of 3 waterfalls, which would have been fine if someone got hurt or killed to show that they were actually in danger.
Aliens.

Its WAAAY more over the top then the original 3

I don't think any of the Indiana Jones movies can be weighed against each other based on over-the-top moments or how far-fetched something is. All action movies are far-fetched. Sure, I'll give you the fact that I cringed when Mutt swings along with the little monkeys. But the 3 other movies are so far-fetched in that Indy ALWAYS comes out on top. You can even survive an Indy movie by extension. As long as you are on his side and don't double-cross him, you live. In spite of snakes, bugs, rats, Nazis, crazy cult people, a huge shirtless man punching you closer and closer to a propeller, jumping out of a plane on an inflatable life raft, being shot at constantly, poisonous darts blown at you by over 100 guys, driving a boat between two ships, flying a plane you don't know how to land and relying on seagulls to save the day, coming face to face with Hitler, and slicing an already questionable swinging bridge in two... you see what I mean?

KOTCS is in no way more far-fetched than the other movies, so to argue if it is better than Temple of Doom, you have to use a different criteria.

Originally posted by willofthewisp
I don't think any of the Indiana Jones movies can be weighed against each other based on over-the-top moments or how far-fetched something is. All action movies are far-fetched. Sure, I'll give you the fact that I cringed when Mutt swings along with the little monkeys. But the 3 other movies are so far-fetched in that Indy ALWAYS comes out on top. You can even survive an Indy movie by extension. As long as you are on his side and don't double-cross him, you live. In spite of snakes, bugs, rats, Nazis, crazy cult people, a huge shirtless man punching you closer and closer to a propeller, jumping out of a plane on an inflatable life raft, being shot at constantly, poisonous darts blown at you by over 100 guys, driving a boat between two ships, flying a plane you don't know how to land and relying on seagulls to save the day, coming face to face with Hitler, and slicing an already questionable swinging bridge in two... you see what I mean?

KOTCS is in no way more far-fetched than the other movies, so to argue if it is better than Temple of Doom, you have to use a different criteria.

yes the other ones are also far-fetched, but KOTCS is easily the most far-fetched. But if you want me to use different criteria then fine, these are all the other reasons why I didn't enjoy this movie nearly as much as the other ones:

The villain was not at all threatening.
It never felt like anyone in the movie was in danger.
The overall tone of the film seemed to be aimed more at kids then adults and old fans of the movies.
There was WAY too much CGI, which usually I don't mind however the Indy series was always known for its awesome stuntwork so that kind of sucked.
The ant scene was a blatant mummy rip off... which is ironic because a lot of people say that the mummy series is a rip off of indiana jones. Aliens.
Some terrible jokes/one liners
The ending was exactly the same as Raiders and Crusade: bad guys find mystical item or whatever, use it and then die.
Aliens.
And finally WAY too much CGI

Sorry, I just like to reinforce some points lol

Compared to most action/adventure movies that come out nowadays, KOTCS still blows most of the competition out of the water (especially national treasure) but as far as Indy movies go, it sure as hell isn't up to par even with the sequels IMO

KOTCS also expains too much. That's what makes it farfetched and not very mysterious either. In the other three very little is explained and left to the imagination.

This is going to sound more argumentative than it is, but can you provide an example, queeq?

Well, KOTC is the example.

Ask yourself: how do we know the Ark was the genuine Ark? Due to some uncheckable mysterious events... that's it. Nothing much hard evidencewise.
The Shankara stones: what are they? What do they do? Bring prosperity... very very vague. A true McGuffin.
The Grail: what about it? A simple cup that gives you everlasting life if you stay inside a cave for the remainder of your life.

The items lead to lessons learned, they themselves matter not.
In KOTC there's the skull, it comes from Roswell from aliens. It can read minds, give power over minds, it leads to the spaceship of the owenrs who taught men to grow crops and be civilised. And then the spaceship takes off. But there was one, it's clear aliens visited the earth, taught us all we know and had superior intelligence and technology. All this is extremely factual in comparison to the other three. And that makes it rather lame.

Excellent points.

The mystery in movies is a regular casualty these days, thanks to various factors including over PRing and too much "must program for the lowest demoninator so everyone must heff ze fun, okay?" thinking.

Same with personalities in music today.
No mystery about the people in music these days.
Back in the 30s and 50s, you would have had to wonder about the song or the person, yet in these days of multimedia and Magazines that exist to sell more magazines, you've probably known the inside leg measurements of an artist and read 8 interviews about the row they had with the wife last night or whatever before you've heard a tune. Their egotism counts secondarily to their music, if they are musicians imo.

Same problem in J-Horror remakes in the US too.

The mystique and weirdness and unansweredness is forsaken for whatever glossy, neat, white-teethed, demographically constructed conclusion they can put an unrequited, generic, unsolicited orchestra burst at; Regardless of the impact on the meaning of the whole movie/genre like "The Eye".

Package Package Package.
Sell Sell Sell.

But what are we selling? Ahhhh who cares. We'll just market the f**** out of it, using its previous good name until every man, women and child on earth is terrified that they might miss something really special if they don't see the movie....and then its too late for them...

Temple of Doom didn't need the amount of multimedia hype that this movie got.

Cause it ruled.

Word of mouth got round that it was good, because it was.
It rocked. It was dark, it was genuinely suspenseful and action packed.

Not because we sat through half hour of the movie's own director telling you why he feels that its the second coming of the hero from the genuinely good originals...... when in fact its not and its primarily a launch pad for Shia LeBeouf and whatever CGI company is doing the job that week.

If the movie was a quality one, Speilberg coulda just released the movie, shut up about it and it'd have sold itself.

Oh well, like they say: "An empty can rattles the most."

Hehehe... Sadako really hates it.

I'm reading The Making of Indiana Jones. Quite an entertaining read, of course I haven't gotten to the KOTCS bit.

Well, if it has a section on KOTCS, then I'd say that that was mighty considerate of the publishers to include pages that double up as Lavatory paper...

Just in case you get caught paperless as you read upon the loo.

Nah, it looks nice. Good read.

An interesting passage in the Raiders chapters is that during editing George Lucas removed a scene from Raiders he felt was over the top. It's when Indy and Marion climb out of the Well of Souls. An Arab sees them emerging from the tomb and faints. I'd say: good call, George. But then, isn't this the same guy that wrote all the poop jokes in TPM??? WTF happened?

he got infantile?

Yep. The Gophers and Monkees and Indy having to now be falling over with flailing arms, cartoon style ("He can't even stand straight now cuz hes old now...thats funny..... hyuck hyuck hyuck..." saw it get worse.

Bizarre... he should read up on these Making Of... books of SW and Indy.

Id love to get those "The making of"s.

It will happen.

They're great. Good inside info, not all glowing and positive. And great pics and print quality.

Sounds great from a balancist POV too then.

Even better.

It's made in name of Lucasfilm, but that's how you get all the good pics, sketches and other goodies.

I know... I'm a kid in a toy store.

are you sure of the "in a toy store" part?

It is when it comes to these lovely books.

Temple of Doom was silly, but the silliness was a product of the character and whimsical style that the director chose for the movie. The movie always felt confident of itself and even when the whimsy fell flat, (which it did, often) the story was still rooted in character development and practical filmmaking. With a mature tone, interesting characters and good directing. Most people are able to overlook the extreme silliness because there is much more to enjoy in the movie other than a parody of it's characters and history.

The Crystal Skull, was not whimsical or silly, it was just bad. The movie has no redeeming qualities, not even for nostalgia sake. As a film and as a film fan. One cannot overlook how poorly made the movie is. The movie is almost insulting. From the beginning you can feel that the filmmakers had an over abundance of confidence in their work. I TRULY believe that it was not the quality of work they felt confident about, but the fact that they knew people were going to pay to see this movie on franchise status alone. It took a long time for the plot to work itself out. This is mainly due to horrible writing. The plot twist is revealed to us before the middle of the movie, leaving no intrigue or mystery. The scenario's they found for Indy felt like a parody of his previous adventures. There was no character connection or development. For about the first twenty minutes of the movie you were able to fool yourself into believing that the hysteria might work itself out into a refined story and kick into an actual indy adventure. This is, where i believe that Speilberg lost all influence what so ever. Because, the first and second half of the movie feel like two completely different concepts CRAMMED into one movie The Film felt like it was shot by amateurs. No other filmmakers would be allowed to get away with delivering such a poor quality film. Not even the special effects were worth while. Infact, the special effects, at times are on par with dragon wars. Isn't this supposed to be lucasfilms? Maybe, Lucas shouldn't have ditched his models and decided to work soley with CGI. Harrison fords attempts and shia lebeouf are the only two things worth watching in this sorry excuse for a movie.


I choose Temple of doom

Me too.

Nicely summed up, Rages.

I sent it to Spielberg.

Temple of Doom.....Ofcourse

Of course.

Originally posted by queeq
I sent it to Spielberg.

Did he take note...?

Will we see an amended version released...?

His lawyers will contact you.

Yay...!!!!

An actual face to scream my complaints at..!!!!

Fortunately my sentiments are backed up by the sanity so evident in the poll score right now.

Honestly, who clicked Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as superior to Temple of Doom? That is horribly wrong... I should edit it...

I did not flinch and die as Sadako did during his viewing of the film, but I certainly agree with all his points. At first the nuclear scene was one of those "Oh shit, he's going to be nuked, PANIC!" scenes... but its resolution was ridiculous. I don't care if the refrigerator IS lined with led, why isn't it melted scrap?! I would have preferred if Indy had tripped some sort of sensor or something that indicated there was someone in the blast zone.

I don't even know.

I'd take ToD any day.


That horrible sci-fi crap didn't fit in. Nothing fit in. It was horrible. Just horrible.
I don't even see IJ as sci-fi- I mean, heck, KOTCS is sci-fi- Aliens? What the bloody hell were they thinking?! I've always thought IJ's more of a adventure-history stuff and all that... But sci-fi? What the hell!


What the bloody hell were they thinking when they made this movie?

Hahahaha, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a million times worse. Fact.

Originally posted by J.P Jaeh_Poole
I'd take ToD any day.


That horrible sci-fi crap didn't fit in. Nothing fit in. It was horrible. Just horrible.
I don't even see IJ as sci-fi- I mean, heck, KOTCS is sci-fi- Aliens? What the bloody hell were they thinking?! I've always thought IJ's more of a adventure-history stuff and all that... But sci-fi? What the hell!


What the bloody hell were they thinking when they made this movie?

It's Lucas, dude.... it's Lucas.

Originally posted by Captain REX
Honestly, who clicked Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as superior to Temple of Doom? That is horribly wrong... I should edit it...

I did not flinch and die as Sadako did during his viewing of the film, but I certainly agree with all his points. At first the nuclear scene was one of those "Oh shit, he's going to be nuked, PANIC!" scenes... but its resolution was ridiculous. I don't care if the refrigerator IS lined with led, why isn't it melted scrap?! I would have preferred if Indy had tripped some sort of sensor or something that indicated there was someone in the blast zone.

I don't even know.

Thank you Rex.

I'd buy the last minute sensor thing a million times more easy and like you say, tension could be generated in the scene enough to convey the constant fear of nuclear blasts that would have soaked minds of people in the fifties.

Queeq, did you say that the fridgenuking was in Darabont's script..?
'Cause that kinda would make Lucas AND Darabont jointly responsible with Speilberg for the fridgidaire related shenanigans at least... (If Speilberg wasn't man enough to stand up to Lucas over this and many other terrible issues with that movie, then he is still just as guilty.)

Hold on before you start pointing the finger.

a) Yes, the fridge nuking is in the Darabont script
but...

b) Lucas makes up the story... he says what he wants in it. And Spielberg kinda adds stuff here and there (usually the better elements). So who's to blame for the nuke-fridge scene? I dunno. Could have been Lucas pushing it.

So Spielberg isnt responsible as producer for the quality of the end product...?

No, I blame Lucas for everything. Even for War of the Worlds.

Well....Fair enough then.... lolz

I still am blaming Spielberg for the production errors in Fritz lang's Metropolis...

Which is fair. I mean, that robot is such a blatant copy of C-3PO, it's disgusting.

Indeed. What a disgrace nicking Coruscant's design too.....