Happy 80th Birthday George Lucas!

 

It was on May 14th, 1944 that a little boy was born in Modesto, California.  Growing up he was a restless young man, with no clear idea of what he wanted to do with his life.  He finally settled on being a race car driver.  But a near-fatal car crash a few days before graduating high school put a damper on that idea.

Our hero eventually decided he wanted to go to college.  He enrolled in a junior college and studied everything from anthropology to sociology to literature.  While there he began experimenting with filmmaking.  He then ended up at University of Southern California, choosing to continue his studies in cinematography.  And he discovered that he enjoyed it, a lot.  A series of student films followed, and many of them gained notice for their groundbreaking and breathtaking visuals.

The young lad graduated from college and tried to enlist in the Air Force.  Unfortunately his many speeding tickets, of all things, disqualified him.  He was drafted to serve in the Vietnam War but was again disqualified from service, for medical reasons.

He then returned to University of Southern California as a graduate student.  After producing the short film Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB he came under the wing of Francis Ford Coppola.  It wasn't long after that when the young man was given the opportunity to make a full-length adaptation of his film, and in 1971 came the release of THX 1138.

It was not a box office success.

Undaunted, our hero decided he wanted to make a different film.  One drawing from his experiences coming of age in Modesto.  That became the genesis of 1973's American Graffiti: a film that has become as classic as any.

Then, around 1974, our young hero sat down with a pad of paper and began writing the first draft of what he roughly titled "The Star Wars".

And the rest, is history.

On this very special day, The Knight Shift and its eclectic proprietor wishes a Very Happy 80th Birthday to George Walton Lucas Jr.  A man who perhaps more than most in our lifetime has impacted the world in so many positive ways than can ever be counted.

And I like to think that he still isn't finished with his craft.

Someday, I hope George Lucas once again shows us something we haven't seen before.

Before I close out this post, I want to share one of my favorite photos of Lucas.  It's from the filming of American Graffiti.  Here is Lucas, sitting on the floor beneath the countertop at Mel's Drive-In, directing Ron Howard:

I just love the pose Lucas is in.  That, my friends, is directing with dedication.

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Reveal trailer for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle!

Word is breaking loose at this hour that Bethesda's new Indiana Jones game has finally been revealed...

Coming later this year it's Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.  Looks set pre World War II aka the "golden era" of the saga.  As for the "MacGuffin" of this particular adventure, there are hints of in in the trailer that went live a little while ago.

So let's take a look at it!

I'm not much of a video game player anymore (though I still want to eventually finish Fallout: New Vegas) but this might tempt me to get a new console.  Well, of course a new BioShock game would make me want that even more :-)

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Elementary school kids in Arkansas produced an AMAZING Indiana Jones fan film and you can watch it now!

This is... THE greatest thing that I have seen in a very long time.  These kids are... wow.  They are amazing!  They were able to pull off what a lot of us thirty and forty years ago were only able to dream of doing.  I know my best friend Chad and I used to plan out our own Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies.  How when we grew up we would be the next Lucas and Spielberg.  I like to think a little of that carried over to when we were making our films fifteen or so years ago.  Still a bit of childhood magic left.

But these kids, the young men and women of Oliver Springs Elementary School in Van Buren, Arkansas were not content to wait that long.  No, they went all out and they did it now.  It took them two years of fundraising and planning and then filming, but they succeeded in their mission: they made a professional-grade Indiana Jones fan film that stands as mighty as any movie ever conceived.

Indiana Jones and the Treasure of the Aztecs finds the globe-trotting archaeologist in the swamps of Arkansas circa 1958.  On the trail of the Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto, Indy runs afoul of rogue Russian agents who are looking for Montezuma's gold.  It seems that there is some mystical quality associated with the treasure: just the sort of thing that Dr. Jones has expertise in.

It runs half an hour but you are going to want more.  These young people have accomplished a film that is incredibly well-shot, smartly composed, exceptionally scored, and astoundingly acted.  These kids are performing their hearts out.  They get the world of Indiana Jones, maybe better than many adults.  And as if a cherry on top, they even got Karen Allen - Marion Ravenwood herself - to make a cameo appearance!

KSFM 5 News has more about the Oliver Springs Music Club and their film, and Arkansas CW Crew has posted a few interviews with some of the movie's cast and crew.

But, you are no doubt wanting to watch this for yourself.  I don't blame you!  There have been precious few Indiana Jones fan film efforts.  In fact the only one that comes readily to mind is the delightful Raiders of the Lost Ark adaptation that was made by Mississippi youngsters in the Eighties.  Well, Indiana Jones and the Treasure of the Aztecs possesses no less soul, and has all the benefits of modern technology and cinematography.

I cannot possibly rave about this enough.  So click on over and watch Indiana Jones and the Treasure of the Aztecs on YouTube.  Or, watch it embedded below.  Hint: click the link instead.  You'll better appreciate the wide aspect ratio these lads and lasses shot their film in.

Young men and women of Oliver Springs Elementary School, this blogger gladly salutes you!

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Dad would have liked it: My review of INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY

I was seven years old when Raiders of the Lost Ark first came out.  That film more than any other impacted and steered the direction of my life.  The day after seeing it I had volumes of encyclopedias opened up on the floor and the family Bible along with them.  I wanted to learn all about the Ark of the Covenant and ancient Egypt and World War II and the Nazis.  All heady stuff for a kid in second grade!  What can I say though: my childhood interests were pretty atypical.

I think Dad was pretty impressed though, that a movie could stoke a youngster's intellect like that.  And I know that Dad was impressed with the movie too.  When we see Jones board the seaplane that is going to take him west to Nepal, Dad leaned toward me and told me what kind of plane it was and that he had flown on one years earlier.

It was a magic moment that I don't think I've ever shared before, until now.  It was so weird, being with my father and discovering that he and I were enjoying this movie together.  That for all my weirdness and then his practicality, we had some things in common after all.

Every time an Indiana Jones movie came out after that, Dad and I made sure to catch it as soon as we could make it to the theater.  The next opportunity came in 1984 with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.  And once again Dad and I had a shared experience.  Actually, I think everybody in that screening had the same experience: almost puking all over the floor at how gross that movie was!  But still we endured.  Dad still thought of that five years later when it was opening weekend of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: "This isn't going to be as sick as the LAST one was, is it?" he asked before we left for the cinema.

And then fifteen years ago came Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  Dad and I saw that on its opening day.  Dad admitted that he was confused by it.  I think a lot of people probably were.  It's a film with numerous faults.  But even so I think George Lucas and Steven Spielberg achieved their goal.  Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a big-budget homage to the hokey sci-fi "B-movies" of the Nineteen Fifties.  Just as Raiders of the Lost Ark owed its spirit to the Saturday afternoon serials at the movie theaters.  Bear that in mind and the film is spot-on entertaining.

There had been discussions about a fifth Indiana Jones movie after that.  As was often the case, those were produced during those fleeting times when the stars were right and Lucas and Spielberg agreed on a new "MacGuffin" to propel the movie.  And if things had hastened, Dad and I could have seen that movie in the theater too.

Except that never got to be.  Dad passed away a few days before Thanksgiving, almost nine years ago.

So it's like this: I wasn't actually sure if I wanted to see a new Indiana Jones film, at least not when it first debuted.  It... didn't seem right.  Like I wouldn't be honoring Dad's memory, or something.  And then gradually it hit me: Dad would have wanted me to see a new Indy movie if one was ever made.  That I would actually be honoring the fun that he and I had together.

That's what I've borne in mind all these long months leading up to Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.  A film that I went in absolutely cold about, except for the trailers and the posters.

A short while ago I came back from a day-early showing of this latest chapter in the life of Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones.  My expectations were high... but they were also prepared to be crushed.  I braced myself for whatever the next two and a half hours were going to bring.

And now that I have seen it?

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny isn't a perfect film for the franchise: that will always and forever be the place taken by Raiders of the Lost Ark.  But it is not the disappointment that some have been ready for.  I actually enjoyed this movie quite a bit.  I will say that it is by a great measure much better than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, if that gives any indication for you.

The film opens in 1945: the final days of Nazi Germany.  And if it was at all possible I would absolutely love to see this period of Indy's life developed further.  We know what he was doing before World War II began and the fourth movie implied that Jones was quite active against the Axis powers during the conflict.  But until now we've never seen WHAT the heck he was up to.  Dial of Destiny gives us a good peek at that, and it involves a historical artifact that was at one time the original prize in the first few drafts of Raiders.  When I saw this my face broke out into a huge grin, because I have always wanted to see Indy go after that particular item.

That probably won't happen.  Harrison Ford is eighty and has been quite adamant that this is his final film as Indiana Jones.  But I'm still thankful for this little morsel.  And the Lucasfilm boffins did a beautiful job digitally de-aging Ford by four decades.

Well, it turns out that there is another item that the Nazis are interested in.  One that Indy and fellow historian Basil Shaw are keen on keeping out of German hands.  A thrilling sequence aboard - and atop - a high-speed train later, the two have succeeded in recovering the artifact.

Forward almost a quarter century to 1969.  Jones is still teaching archaeology, but the days when his female students flirted with him are long past.  Time has moved beyond the days of high adventure, and Indy is feeling very much like an anachronism.  The Apollo 11 astronauts have returned from the Moon and it hangs over Indy's head: what is his purpose in a world where man is now landing on other worlds?  Which is something that Indy isn't all that crazy about, given that the United States ended up recruiting many former Nazi scientists in its bid to get ahead of the Soviets in the race to space.  It's a sentiment that is having Indy graciously retired by the administration of his school.

And then Indy gets approached by Helena Shaw: Basil's daughter and Indy's godchild.  She has kinda, sort-of followed in the family tradition.  And her main interest is in that strange object that Indy and Basil heisted from the Nazis.

That's probably all I should say about the plot.  If you're reading this, I want you to go in cold too.  Don't be prepared to stack this Indiana Jones movie against the others in the franchise.  Dial of Destiny does a magnificent job in portraying an Indiana Jones whose age has caught up with him but also might have a spark of fight still in him.  This is not Indy age forty and when the calendar hits 1969 it doesn't pretend to be.  It might be pretty sobering just how much mileage Jones has accrued since we first saw him.

But Indy is not "along for the ride".  And he keeps up with the much younger Helena (played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge) as well as he's ever done in these movies  Let's have no more jokes about "Indiana Bones".  Nobody is phoning it in with this movie, least of whom Ford.  It is in every way a fit and proper Indiana Jones motion picture, with its scope forwarded a few more decades.  It also hit on all the right elements of the Indy movies, like the red line showing where our hero is en route to next.

Dial of Destiny is cast well.  It also seems that the digital effects were kept to a minimum. This doesn't look like an overly-CGI'ed movie anyway.  James Mangold did a terrific job in directing this film (he also co-wrote the script).  And for what may well be his swan song, John Williams has achieved a mighty accomplishment with the film's music.  You'll be certain to hear a number of familiar motifs that have had a presence in previous Indy movies.  If this really is Williams' last movie before hanging up the baton, he has done so magnificently.

I really don't know what else to say without tipping my hand too much.  Except, that Dad would have liked it.  I feel like I got to enjoy Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny for him, in his memory.  It was time well spent on a summer afternoon and I think if we're going to be honest, many other people are going to leave the theater feeling much the same, too.

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Good deals on Indiana Jones computer games

I'm hearing very mixed word about the upcoming motion picture Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.  I seriously want this to be a good movie.  Raiders of the Lost Ark is my all time most favorite film and I found something good in each entry of the franchise.  I even thought that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was pretty good: all you need do is keep in mind that Lucas and Spielberg wanted to make a homage to the "flying saucer B-movies" of the Fifties, that they fondly remembered from adolescence.  Do that and it's a perfectly fine movie.

But I want Dial of Destiny to be good because seeing an Indiana Jones movie in the theater together was something Dad and I did with every chapter of the series.  This will be my first time seeing a new Indy movie without him. I want to enjoy this movie in Dad's memory as much as for my own sake.  We'll find out later this month.  I hope there will be some pleasure in writing that review.

Anyhoo, while we're waiting for that next Indiana Jones movie to be released, you might consider immersing yourself in the role with some of the saga's computer games that have been released over the years.  I've played and completed each of these (including all three of Fate of Atlantis's paths) and can vouch for their entertainment value.  And I just checked: there are some very solid deals going on right now if you purchase them from an online vendor.  Over at GOG.com they're each currently selling for a little over two bucks, while Steam's store has them for $5.99.  So you might wanna jump at the opportunity to add one or all of these to your game library while the iron's hot right now.

Like I said, I can attest to how good these games are.  Especially 1992's Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.  This classic "point and click" adventure set in 1938 finds Indy and former protege Sophia Hapgood traveling from the streets of New York City to Iceland to Monte Carlo and everywhere in between seeking the lost continent, trying to keep the Nazis from obtaining a mystical metal that could power everything from cars and airplanes to atomic-grade munitions.  One of the things I like about this game is that it has great replay value because of its multiple paths feature.  At a certain point in the game the player chooses from three ways forward: Team (having Hapgood along for the entire ride), Fists (where Indy resolves a lot of conflict with knuckle-baring action) or Wits (encouraging Jones to use his noggin to solve various puzzles).  The version on GOG and Steam is the 1993 "talkie" edition that was released on CD-ROM, taking advantage of multimedia technology that was just coming to market.  Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is still wildly acclaimed now more than thirty years after its release.  I would highly recommend this one if you're at all interested in the world of Indiana Jones.

Some years later - in real life as well as in the Indy universe - Doctor Jones is enjoying the relative post-war calm of 1947 as he looks for Native American artifacts in the Utah desert.  That is where he is found by Sophia Hapgood, who wants to recruit Indy on behalf of the newly-formed Central Intelligence Agency.  Seems that the Soviets have had scientists scouring the Mid-East looking for the remains of the Tower of Babel.  The goal: locate a mechanism of extraordinary - some would say un-earthly- power.  So begins Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine from 1999.  This game was LucasArts's answer to the popular Tomb Raider games that had been a hit for a few years already.  Admittedly the visuals when compared to the graphics of nearly a quarter-century later leave MUCH to be desired.  But if you can overlook that Infernal Machine is still a rip-roaring adventure around the globe.

And finally, we have 2003's Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb.  Set in 1935, this game is something of a prequel to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (which itself was a prequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark, pretty meta aye?).  The game opens with Indy in Ceylon (what will later become known as Sri Lanka) and there is a positively enormous crocodile that once encountered you will never forget it.  Afterward our archeologist hero is approached by officials with the Chinese government, asking for his aid in recovering the Heart of the Dragon: a black pearl of reputed power that had been secreted away in the resting place of the country's first ruler.  Emperor's Tomb features far better graphics than its predecessor, and also provides a much more action-oriented experience, especially when using Indiana's signature bullwhip.  Emperor's Tomb is a rather hidden gem of the Indyverse: it was kind of overlooked upon first release. Maybe now, twenty years after it was published, it can be discovered anew and better appreciated.

Just in case you're wondering: no, nobody is paying me to hawk these games.  I'm simply doing it because I'm an Indiana Jones nut (hey, I watched every episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles) and have always found the world through his eyes to be a fascinating one.  If you dig (ha-ha, "dig", get it?  Yes ladies and gentlemen I'll be here all week!) a good quest rife with solid story, great action, perplexing puzzles and terrific characterization, and if you just want to experience a bit of what it's like to be cinema's most famous globe-trotting archaeologist, any of these three games will satisfy you.

Come to think of it, I may play one of these also while we're waiting for the next movie to drop.

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Ralph McQuarrie has passed away

I cannot begin to imagine what the Star Wars saga - and a lot of other movie and TV franchises - would have been like had it not been for Ralph McQuarrie.

He started out at Boeing, and then was hired by CBS to create animations of the Apollo program as NASA was preparing to land a man on the moon.

Some years later McQuarrie was approached by a filmmaker named George Lucas, who was planning a movie about a galaxy far, far away and needed to populate it with a unique assortment of heroes, villains, robots and spaceships. And had it not been for McQuarrie's visual conceptions, what was at the time merely "Star Wars" might never have been picked up by any studio.

But thanks to Ralph McQuarrie, it was. And in addition to creating the looks of Darth Vader, Chewbacca and R2-D2, McQuarrie would go on to further flesh out the look and feel of the Star Wars saga. He also worked on the original Battlestar Galactica series and then again for Lucas and Steven Spielberg when they set out to produce Raiders of the Lost Ark. Along with many other movies and television series.

The sad news this morning is that Ralph McQuarrie passed away this weekend, at the age of 82.

Thoughts and prayers going out to his family this morning.

Thank you, Ralph, for sharing your talents and visions with us...

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RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK came out thirty years ago this week

In 1973, around the same time that he was putting ideas together for what would become the Star Wars saga, George Lucas came up with a rough outline for "The Adventures of Indiana Smith". Nothing came of it until a few years later, when Lucas was vacationing in Hawaii... and happened to run into fellow director Steven Spielberg building a sandcastle on the beach in Maui. It was Spielberg who suggested changing the name from "Smith", and Lucas thought up "Jones" instead.

Four years later, their new hero swashbuckled onto movie screens and forever into popular culture...

Raiders of the Lost Ark came out thirty years ago this week, on June 12th 1981.

Incidentally, this is my all time most personal favorite movie! I could literally watch it all day, all week, and not get tired of it. No other film ever influenced my life more. Raiders of the Lost Ark is what ignited my love and passion for history. I still remember pulling down the "A" volume of the World Book Encyclopedia as a seven-year old on the day after I saw this movie, so I could read up about the real Ark of the Covenant. And that led me to going all through our family Bible to read even more (guess you could say that the Ark was my very first research project).

Anyway... Happy Thirtieth Anniversary to Raiders of the Lost Ark and to everyone who made this movie happen!

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Fifth INDIANA JONES movie... is REALLY happening?!

So sayeth Harrison Ford, adding that he's already getting in shape and that work on a new Indy movie has progressed further than most of us have suspected...

"The story for the new 'Indiana Jones' is in the process of taking form," Ford told France's Le Figaro. "Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and myself are agreed on what the fifth adventure will concern, and George is actively at work. If the script is good, I'll be very happy to put the costume on again."

Others may disagree, but I thought last year's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a fine addition to the Indy mythos. That and that it was as good a homage to Fifties B-movies as Raiders of the Lost Ark was a tribute to the Saturday serials of yesteryear. With that in mind, I'll gladly welcome another Indiana Jones movie (and maybe even one more if Ford is up to it :-)

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Ark of the Covenant to be revealed tomorrow, sez Ethiopian patriarch

Abuna Pauolos, patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia, has announced that tomorrow will finally see the revealing of the biblical Ark of the Covenant, which his church is said to have guarded for centuries.

According to those who adhere to the legend, King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba had a son named Menelik I, who eventually came to Jerusalem as a young man and spirited the real Ark of the Covenant away (with Solomon's blessing).

It is there, in that land which in ancient times has been called Aksum and is today known as Ethiopia, where the very Ark of the Covenant which contains the Ten Commandments that G-d gave to Moses is said to be kept in this chapel, with a lone guardian tending to it night and day for as long as he lives...

(According to some reports, the Ark guardians don't live anywhere near a full span of life and have a tendency to developing cataracts, supposedly a testament of the Ark's awesome power.)

The patriarch has said that a museum is being built in Ethiopia where the Ark will be displayed for all to see.

If it is the real Ark of the Covenant, let us hope that these guys know what they are doing, and have read the instruction manual (namely the Old Testament) really meticulously.

Or else, who knows what might happen...

UPDATE 06/26/2009 9:20 p.m. EST: As many have noted, the announced time of today's "revealing" of the Ark of the Covenant has more than come and gone, with nothing to show for it. There are some allegations coming out of Ethiopia that Abuna Pauolos has a shady background. Here's WorldNetDaily's report on the failure of the patriarch to produce the goods.

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A Capella tribute to John Williams

Dear friend Jenna St.Hilaire (who was previously Jenna Olwin before her recent nuptials) spotted this video on YouTube and sent it this way. It's a four-way split-screen of a dude who's doing an a capella rendition of several John Williams movie scores, with a Star Wars-ish twist. It's pretty amazing!

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Frank Darabont's script for INDIANA JONES 4 is online... somewhere!

So if you are diligent enough with Google, right now you should have no problem at all finding an Adobe Acrobat file of Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods: Frank Darabont's now-legendary script for the fourth Indiana Jones movie. G4's Mike D'Alonzo wrote a review of it a few days ago and Moriarty at Ain't It Cool News confirmed that it's legit. It took me about two minutes of looking around to snag a copy for myself.

Thoughts?

Darabont's draft is so much like what became Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull that until I know why, it's going to be an eternal question in my mind as to why he never received a writing credit for the final product. It's the same basic story: Jones gets involved with a quest for a seemingly-mystical crystal skull and the adventure winds up in Peru. The space aliens angle is still here. So is the rocket sled, the mushroom cloud, and the refrigerator (but those all date back to Jeb Stuart's Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men from Mars script in 1995 anyway). Mutt is not in Darabont's script, but Marion returns here too... and I have to say that Darabont's script might have captured the spirit of her character more than what we saw in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. There are many references to the previous entries in the series: some pronounced and others very sly (especially one thing that hearkens back to the first time we see Indy and Belloq meet in Raiders of the Lost Ark). Sallah and Henry Jones Sr. have some fun cameos in Darabont's script, too. Oxley also figures in Darabont's story and doesn't feel as tacked-on as he did in the actual movie.

Now please don't get me wrong here: I loved and still love Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. There are numerous elements in Darabont's draft that I wish had made it over to the finished work, however. I liked the new character Yuri and the dialogue he shares with Indy and I could easily picture Ray Winstone in the role, too. The aliens are a much bigger threat and per Darabont's pen feel very... well, "alien", in a Lovecraftian way. And Indy himself comes across as more happy-go-lucky and whimsical: a sign of the growth that he has undergone as a character after so many adventures.

Anyhoo, it's out there, if you want to read it for yourself. Good luck! :-)

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Review of INDIANA JONES: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE

Yesterday I bought a copy of Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide. I've long been a fan of DK Publishing's Star Wars books, which have been in the format of visual dictionaries and beautifully illustrated cutaways of locations and vehicles in the Star Wars saga.

Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide continues DK's tradition in providing lush eye candy and detailed information, this time about a certain globe-trotting archaeologist. Written by James Luceno (who has been praised on this blog numerous times for his Star Wars work), the book covers most of the span of what we know about the life and times of Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones Jr, beginning with the birth of his father in Scotland in 1872. Indy himself is born in 1899 and considerable space is devoted to his early exploits (which were documented in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles television series). The book pics up the pace with the events of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in 1935, on through Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, while also covering material that was introduced in various novels, comics and video games. And being that this is the season of (finally!) a new Indiana Jones movie, it's only fitting that there is sumptuous information regarding Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, including more about Mac, Mutt, and Spalko. The book concludes with a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Indiana Jones movies, and some of the merchandise and marketing that has been done for the franchise over the years.

This book is going to be one that I will certainly appreciate having on my shelf for many years to come. However, it's not absolutely complete in my opinion. There is nothing at all about "Older Indy", the 93-year old version played by George Hall in the bookends for ABC's original run of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. In addition to how those aren't in the DVD sets and haven't been shown in the occasional reruns on television for some time, it's enough to make me wonder if George Lucas now considers those not "canon". Which would be a darn tragedy 'cuz the bookends with George Hall as Indy were awesome! And strangely, the events of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, considered by many to be the finest Indiana Jones video game ever and one of the best of the entire graphic adventure genre, are not mentioned at all (although Sophia Hapgood is referenced, as is the Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine game).

But in light of what else is in this book, Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide is still a must-have for fans of Indy. I particularly enjoy the cut-away illustrations for the buried city of Tanis, Pankot Palace and the Thuggee mines, and the Grail Temple (along with the catacombs beneath Venice: it turns out that St. Mark is buried down there too).

I was expecting nothing but goodness to come from Luceno and DK with their treatment of the Indiana Jones saga, and they have certainly delivered fortune and glory with Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide. Heartily recommended!

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Review of INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

"Raiders of the Lost Ark is my favorite movie!"

-- Chris Knight while shaking hands with Steven Spielberg
August 2nd, 1989

So here it is: my review of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. A review that for various reasons I never thought that I'd find myself writing.

And all this time y'all thought the Star Wars movies were tops on my list. Well, the Star Wars saga remains my favorite film series. But so far as individual movies go...

No other movie before or since has influenced my life as much as Raiders of the Lost Ark did. I was seven years old when my family went to see it on the night before New Year's Eve in 1981. The next day I was on my bedroom floor surrounded by opened volumes of the World Book Encyclopedia and our family Bible, looking for every scrap of information that I could find on the Ark of the Covenant: my first-ever research project. Before 1982 arrived I'd already figured out that Lucas and Spielberg might have "taken some liberties" (as I found out years later is what you call it) with the real story of the Ark. Like, nowhere in the Bible did I find that the Ark could "level mountains". Still didn't keep me from wanting to see the movie again though...

That was the beginning of my life-long interest in history: one that would ultimately see me earning a college degree in the field.

I'm sharing all of this to let y'all know what the Indiana Jones movies mean to me, and the profound impact that they wound up having on my life. And that's been the most consistent thing that I've been able to come up with so far. Usually I spend a lot of time composing my thoughts for a movie like this, and just as much writing them. And since yesterday evening I've started writing a proper review of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull no less than four times.

I saw it yesterday afternoon at the Grande Stadium 16 in Greensboro, along with my wife Lisa and my father. Dad and I have seen every Indiana Jones movie together as each was playing in the theaters. We've been talking for months about seeing this one too, and I could have caught it during the midnight premiere on Wednesday night or opening day Thursday but nope: this is something he and I had to do together. Figure in Lisa and that's two of the people who matter most to me that I wanted to share this with (I would have asked Mom if she wanted to come but she's still grossed-out by memories of what happened to Belloq, Toht and Dietrich when they opened the Ark).

So... what did I think of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull?

I THOUGHT IT WAS AWESOME!!!

No, I'm not just saying that either. I seriously thought it was a very, very good movie. And it only gets better the more that I think about it since watching it yesterday afternoon.

The movie takes place in 1957: nineteen years after the events of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (but chronologically it's seven years since we last saw Harrison Ford in the role during his cameo in a 1993 episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles television series). The film begins with a convoy of U.S. Army trucks driving through the Nevada desert. The vehicles arrive at an Air Force hangar. The soldiers disembark, shoot the base personnel and then drag two men out of a car trunk: George "Mac" McHale (played by George Winstone) and Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones Jr., looking none the worse for wear in spite of two decades and hints of action in World War II.

It turns out that their assailants are Soviet soldiers under the command of KGB agent Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett). And the building they have arrived at is none other than the now-famous government warehouse shown at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Spalko has brought Indy and Mac here because Russian intelligence has discovered that in addition to all of the other U.S. government secrets (including the contents of a certain crate... which we do get to see again) there is something in the warehouse pertaining to an incident that Indy was called in to consult upon in 1947.

Of course, Indy escapes (in one of the most outrageously fun sequences that I've seen in an action movie in many years). But the circumstances of what went down in Nevada leave Jones academically black-balled at the height of the Red Scare. En route to teach elsewhere, Indy is approached by Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf), a "greaser"-type in love with motorcycles. Mutt shares with Indy the news that an old colleague named Harold Oxley (John Hurt) has gone missing after discovering a crystal skull in Peru. The new team of Indy and Mutt are soon en route to South America (and the classic Indiana Jones-style map and red line is back!) to unravel the mystery. It's not long before Indy once again runs afoul of Spalko and the Russians, who are holding as their captive Mutt's mother and Indy's old flame Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen, looking as great as she did in Raiders of the Lost Ark!).

And yeah there's much more to this movie, but that should be enough to tantalize folks who haven't seen it. And they really should go see it in theaters if they can, 'cuz I honestly can't remember the last time I saw a movie quite like this and had that kind of enjoyment. Maybe not since the Nineteen-Eighties even...

You see, to me at least there are three things that one should realize to fully enjoy Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The first is that this is an Eighties movie, made two decades later. In terms of style and tone it's not at all what we've come to expect from a modern blockbuster. So in that respect, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is something of a "love letter" to the original Indiana Jones movies and other films that my generation grew up with.

If that bothers some people, then maybe it would also help to understand what it is that, I believe, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were doing when they set out to make Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Remember how they said that Raiders of the Lost Ark was intentionally a homage to the classic "Saturday afternoon serials" of the Thirties and Forties? Well, I believe that just so, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is best appreciated when it's understood that this movie is a homage to all of those Nineteen-Fifties science-fiction films, including so-called B-movies. All of the classic elements are there in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: aliens and flying saucers, atomic warfare, Communist spies, psychic powers, heck even a cheesy-sounding title! This is an Indiana Jones movie that George Pal, Gordon Douglas and Joseph M. Newman would have made back in the day... and for that reason alone, I love it!

And the third reason why I thought Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a great movie: this film represents at long last the return of "the old" Steven Spielberg. When I met him in 1989 at the National Boy Scout Jamboree, that was the Spielberg that was still making Indiana Jones movies and stuff like Back to the Future, and went on to make Jurassic Park. A lot of of other people at the time commented that Spielberg in person really did act like "a big kid having fun".

But then a few years later Spielberg made Schindler's List. One of the stories I've read is that while visiting Auschwitz, Spielberg found a strange puddle in the ground and stuck his hand into it. Only then did he realize that it was a pit of human ash and bone debris.

How does something like that not affect a person? Spielberg was never the same after Schindler's List. I know people who've met Spielberg in the years since and as one put it "he's creative, but haunted". Even when his next movie The Lost World: Jurassic Park came out, it seemed as if Spielberg was a rattled director. At least since A.I.: Artificial Intelligence he's been trying to "come back home" to the kid he once was, but it's been a hard road.

With Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I think that Steven Spielberg finally has returned, and maybe to the point in his life that he wants and needs to be at. A few years ago I heard John Rhys-Davies comment that he thought Spielberg was still "a young director" with potential to grow even greater. With this latest Indiana Jones movie, we see that "the kid" Steven Spielberg is still alive and well. He's been there all along: he just had to go on his own "Grail quest" and come back a little wiser for it.

As for the plot of this movie: having followed the development of a fourth Indiana Jones movie for fifteen years now, I caught a lot of elements that had been suggested in that time. At one point Indy jokes about "saucer men from Mars", and indeed Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men from Mars was the title of a proposed fourth Indy script from the Nineties. I thought that I could also pick out more than a few things from the Indiana Jones and the Sons of Darkness script (just one of the wackier things that happened on the way to making a fourth Indiana Jones flick). Maybe it's just the Indiana Jones "geek" in me coming out but I noticed what could have been nods to Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (considered the best Indiana Jones video game produced to date) and even Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, which also pitted Indy against Soviet goons. At one point Indy tells Mutt that he rode with "Pancho" Villa, which is more than a passing reference to the events of the two-hour pilot episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. And although Marcus Brody and Henry Jones Sr. have sadly passed away (Denholm Elliott died in 1992 and Sean Connery is enjoying retirement) they are still a strong influence in Indy's life. It was very neat to see them acknowledged, particularly how Marcus is remembered around the Marshall College campus.

It might have been a maddening melange of MacGuffins. But Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull brings home the goods in classic Indy style.

I thought the acting was terrific, the action intense and the humor was just right. Spielberg, Lucas, Ford and the rest of the crew no doubt had some laughs playing around with this "new" era of Indy's life, and it shows. Ford as the older Indy shows some poignancy we haven't seen in the role before, but he's just as quick with his mind and wits... and his fists... as he ever was. The biggest surprise in terms of cast was LaBeouf as Mutt: I thought he was the perfect Fifties-era sidekick to Indy, and by the end of the movie he's becoming something of an apprentice, which is perhaps something that Jones has needed more than he knew. Karen Allen is a delight to watch as Marion again. Blanchett brings the right balance of menace and humor to Spalko. I enjoy Winstone as Mac (and I hope we get to find out more about what happened between Mac and Indy during World War II) and James Broadbent in his all-too-brief appearances as Indy's friend and Marshall dean. The one criticism I kinda have is that it would have been good to see more of John Hurt as Oxley. But even there, I have to wonder: Harold Oxley reminds me greatly of Lt. Col. Percy Fawcett: an English archaeologist who also went looking for lost cities of gold deep in the Amazon basin. Fawcett disappeared in 1928, and there were stories that he was spotted years later in the jungle having "gone native" and screaming mad. Was Oxley based on Fawcett? Seems little doubt that he was. So in that regard, I have to believe it was inspired casting to put Hurt in the role.

The special effects of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull are outstanding, but it is not a movie as bereft of digital enhancement as I was expecting. The early publicity was almost enough to make us believe that Spielberg and Lucas would shoot this with the same level of technology as the three original movies. There's CGI galore in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull but I never thought it was as overwhelming as, say, one of the Star Wars prequels (didn't all of those Clonetroopers as a whole look more than a little un-natural?). The stunts are, so far as I can tell, still all physical... including Harrison Ford, who seemed to impress everyone at our screening with the fitness he shows for a 65-year old actor. The man has definitely been keeping himself in great shape all of these years while waiting to do this movie.

John Williams' score for this movie complements the action nicely, but curiously I can't recall any single theme that resonates as well afterward from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as much as, say, the Ark's theme from Raiders of the Lost Ark or the music for the Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I did buy the soundtrack CD a few days ago though for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and have been playing it a lot while I work. There is a lot of repetition of previous movements, but otherwise I think it's okay for an Indiana Jones soundtrack. Not at all "outstanding" like the one for Raiders of the Lost Ark, but still good in its own right.

I could go on writing about how great a movie Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is. But you know... it all comes down to the experience I chose to have watching it with my wife and my father. Lisa and Dad loved it. Especially Dad: he admitted that parts of it were "weird to me" (especially the stuff toward the end) but it was pretty obvious to both Lisa and I that he was thoroughly enjoying this movie. It was also enough to make Lisa want to watch our DVD of Raiders of the Lost Ark when we got home.

And as for me: I've been watching a new Indiana Jones movie writhe and linger in turmoil for a decade and a half now. I've said for months that I wouldn't believe this one was really happening, until I sat down in the theater and saw it on the big screen for myself.

Well folks, that's just what happened yesterday. I saw a new Indiana Jones movie at last and I enjoyed every minute of it!

And if you can buy into the notion that this is an old-fashioned Eighties blockbuster, you will too.

(And if you want another, although very different take on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, my good friend Phillip Arthur has posted a review also :-)

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Rave reviews coming in for INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

Harry Knowles is madly in love with it. Roger Ebert has given it 3 and 1/2 stars. And when it was premiered at Cannes Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull received a three-minute standing ovation.

I'm finally beginning to let myself believe that after a decade and a half of crazy rumors and false-starts, that this week we are going to see an Indiana Jones movie... and one that stands as tall as any of them.

I'm currently debating whether to catch it at the midnight showing on Wednesday night, or wait 'til Friday at the earliest to see it with Dad and Lisa. If I see the midnight premiere, I get to post a review of it all the sooner for this blog. But if I wait a few days, I get to enjoy it for the first time with my father (with whom I've watched every Indiana Jones movie in a theater) and my wife. Right now I'm leaning toward waiting, and discover it fresh with some of the people closest to me... 'cuz a memory like that is worth much more than filing an earlier report, right?

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Final poster for INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

Drew Struzan delivers as classic a poster as I've ever seen for the last (?) chapter of the Indiana Jones film saga...

Is it just me, or does Karen Allen look even more beautiful in this poster than she did in Raiders of the Lost Ark all the way back in 1981? Her face is positively radiant!

What I would give to have this poster on my own wall. Hope they make them available for sale soon!

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It's official: INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

That's the title of the fourth Indiana Jones movie. Shia LaBeouf announced it live during the MTV Video Music Awards and Lucasfilm quickly confirmed it with a press release.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? Hmmmmm... I don't like it. Sounds way too long and positively hokey. If the title is referring to this crystal skull, then I'm kind of disappointed 'cuz there's much better artifacts out there waiting to be MacGuffins for a good Indiana Jones story. The "crystal skulls" thing to me always seemed on the same level of wacky as Chariots of the Gods? or the Lost Continent of Mu. In this final(?) movie installment, why couldn't Indy be sent looking for the Lance of Longinus or the Tooth of Buddha or the Mormon Plates or the Cloak of Muhammad?

But then, these are just the thoughts of a guy who's always said that Indiana Jones and the Sons of Darkness was a pretty good read... so what do I know? :-P

EDIT 7:22 a.m. EST: Okay now that the initial shock has passed I must admit: I kind of like this title. Why? Because it occurred to me during the night that when Spielberg and Lucas set out to make Raiders of the Lost Ark all those years ago, they intended that movie to be a homage to those classic serials that they and all the other kids of their generation used to flock to the local theater to see on Saturday afternoons. And those flicks usually had pretty outrageous titles, like Drums of Fu Manchu and Secret Service in Darkest Africa. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull sounds like it's got that same kind of vibe, just with "Indiana Jones" tacked onto it. I know: this is basically the identical argument that Lucas used to sell us The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones... but those wound up working well. So by the same merit, I'll have to say that I'm starting to dig Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

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YOUNG INDIANA JONES on DVD and why history teachers should want it

TVShowsOnDVD.com has the scoop on what to expect with next month's long-awaited (well I sure have been wanting this anyway :-) release on DVD of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles - Volume 1.

In case you never saw this, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles was a show on ABC that started in March of 1992 and ran for a year or so on-and-off. The brainchild of George Lucas, Young Indiana Jones Chronicles followed, well, young Indiana Jones on adventures from the time he was 9 on up into his early twenties. We got to see Indy meet T.H. Lawrence (of Arabia) and Howard Carter (discoverer of Tut's tomb) in the burning sands of Egypt, all the way to fighting in the trenches of World War I and then as a college student in Chicago where he was roomies with Elliot Ness. It was an amazing show that happened to come along at the wrong time: I've always thought that television networks struggled quite a bit back then with a lot of new shows that were well ahead of their time. ABC was rife with this: first Twin Peaks, and then Young Indiana Jones. I also think in hindsight that the show was probably marketed the wrong way. How it should have been marketed is something I'm still trying to figure out. In any case, I've always thought that The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles had enormous potential as a teaching aid in the classroom, and indeed that was the driving impetus that was part of the show's production from its inception.

Well, it's coming 15 years after its premiere, but it looks like The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles is finally going to bear the fruit it was always intended to bear. The DVD set of Volume 1 is going to weigh in at 12 discs. What's on them? Well there'll be the first several episodes from the show, but also a bunch of historical documentaries that George Lucas and producer Rick McCallum have been working on for several years now just for this DVD release, an "interactive timeline" and some other goodies.

The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles - Volume 1 is going to street with a suggested retail price of $117.99 (U.S.). Which is the most that I've ever heard of for a DVD set of a television series. But I cannot emphasize enough how much of a wonderful tool this is going to be for teachers of middle and high school history classes. The episodes themselves, I always found to not only be rollicking fine entertainment... but they were also some of the finest historical fiction that I've ever come across. This was a show that showcased the history of the early 20th Century with an unprecedented amount of detail and accuracy for a show with a network television budget. Much more important than that, the show made viewers appreciate - through the eyes and experiences of young Indiana Jones - some of the most important events of the past hundred years in a way that perhaps audiences had never been led to empathize with before. The episode that takes place at Verdun, during which Indy is a courier for the Allied army in World War I: to this day, that episode haunts me like precious little on television has. That's one episode that might have a lot more relevance today than it did when it first aired in the spring of 1992, even (if you saw it you'll probably understand what I'm talking about).

If I ever wind up teaching history in a high school setting, you'd darned well better believe that I'm going to get this set. Not just for my own collection and as an Indiana Jones fan, but because this is going to present a lot of material that I'm eager to share with my students in a way that is going to thoroughly engage them and make them want to learn more about it on their own. Which, I've always thought, is how you can know that you've succeeded as a teacher.

So if you are a history teacher already, you may want to check this out: I've a hunch it's going to wind up seriously recommended as an instructional aid, and you might want to look at having this in your school's library.

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Karen Allen confirmed to return as Marion in INDIANA JONES 4!

Gadzooks, check this out!

Tonight, via satellite hookup, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford revealed to those attending Comic-Con in San Diego that Karen Allen would be returning as Marion Ravenwood in the as-yet-not-properly-titled Indiana Jones 4. There's more pics at the link. Doesn't Allen look simply amazing?! I can't tell any difference between her in 2007 and how she looked circa 1981 in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Now, the return of Marion Ravenwood, well ... adds considerably to the melange of mystery that I'm seeing coming out of this project. I've heard all kinds of things about what the next Indiana Jones movie entails. One rumor I heard a few weeks ago, when I first came across it I thought "that's the STUPIDEST thing I've ever heard about an Indiana Jones movie", and now I can't help but think "that's the most BRILLIANTLY CLEVER thing that I've ever heard about an Indiana Jones movie!" Basically the rumor has it that Indy is going after the Ark of the Covenant again, 'cuz it's been stolen by the Soviets. Dunno how that notion is going to pan out but the presence of Marion (and the story that John Hurt will be playing the long-presumed dead Abner Ravenwood) does make one wonder.

However it turns out, it's great to know that Marion return. Of all of Indy's girls, she was my favorite. Maybe we'll get to see that she and Indy got together after all :-)

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Crazy-as-all-get-out INDIANA JONES 4 rumor

I'm barely keeping up with this project. Mostly 'cuz I want to be as un-spoiled about it as possible, I guess. I managed to do that fairly well with Revenge of the Sith and I really went into Transformers as "virginally" as possible (at least so far as already being a childhood fan of the toys goes, anyway). I want to see Indiana Jones and the ... (whatever #4 is called) next May in the theater, with the person who I've seen every other Indiana Jones movie with: my Dad. And enjoy it for the first time along with him.

That said, this news, if true... raises my eyebrows bigtime. And leaves me wondering about just what direction this is going to be taking.

Click here if you want to know more. It has to do with the character that John Hurt is now said to be playing.

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I'm getting tired of seeing this "Old Indy" crap

Yesterday on the official Indiana Jones website, this photo - taken by Steven Spielberg - was posted, the first in more than 14 years of Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones:

Ford looks great! I never had any doubts that he would fit back into the role again. But showing this pic ain't the reason I'm making this post. I'm here 'cuz I'm completely fed-up with this "age-ism" nonsense.

Just about everywhere that I've seen this photo or otherwise heard about the next Indiana Jones movie being talked about, I see where he's referred to as "Old Indy". Look people, he is not "Old Indy". He is an older Indiana Jones... just like you and I are gradually getting older... but other than being old-er, what differentiates this Indy from the one we first saw in Raiders of the Lost Ark? Yeah, older, maybe a little wiser, more developed as a person (as experience is supposed to do for anyone) but this doesn't make him somehow less of a person. Fercryingoutloud, didn't anyone see George Hall's portrayal of 93-year old Indy in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles? Even that on up in years, Indy is doing stuff like sliding down stair railings and driving fast cars and is still hot with the chicks. That was the very same Indy that we've seen and will see again at younger stages of life: the years have changed him a little, but this is still the same guy.

It's like this: we get older. None of us can escape that. But we don't get "old" unless we really want to be. If we really believe the world when it tells us that we are "old". And Indiana Jones is a character who will never get old.

That said, I am definitely looking forward to seeing Harrison Ford as the older Indiana Jones come next May.

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