How Could You Forget?

I've had an "Indiana Jones" post mortem rolling around in my head for the past few days (now that we're a week or so out of the film's release) but I've decided, after a few more days of reflection, that something bigger is happening here.

You don't need to be a detractor to know that "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" was a "meh" at best. Most people are not disappointed they went, but didn't come out of the theater with a big grin on their face. The movie wasn't amazing but wasn't bad. It was meh.

What struck me was how incredible that is - an "Indiana Jones" movie was "meh." That's a pretty amazing thing, the single most iconic theater creation since death played chess with Max Von Sydow made a movie that most people had a passable likeness for. I read a good number of reviews who were heaping praise on the fact the movie didn't "ruin the franchise." Talk about setting the bar low.

The bigger issue here goes back a little ways, but has branched out something fierce. Over the past few years, there has been more anticipation for movies than arguably ever before - it's part of the remake culture to create anticipation. It's like anticipation (and the accompanying first week box office) is the currency in which movies trade, and when you do that, you start to lose respect for the audience. More importantly, you start to lose what made audiences love movies in the first place.

Quickly, there's an easy anti-argument to what I'm about to lay out, and that's "if a beloved movie came out today it wouldn't be so beloved." It's hard to argue that. You know fan boys would be screaming about how the "it's not a torture implement, it's a coat hanger" scene in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is totally awful and why did he point the bazooka at the ark anyway? And that ending? FAKE! It's hard to argue that point.

But (and excuse me for getting a bit wistful), it feels like older movies were less focused on the BANG that we seem to need in the summertime, and more focused on story and character, things that not only endeared you to a movie but the type of thing that makes a franchise. Nobody went to see Indiana Jones because he survived a nuclear blast in a refrigerator, they went to see a very human guy push the limits of what a human guy can do.

And it's where Spielberg and Lucas lost me. From the moment he puts on the Fedora, IJ is bigger than life and impenetrable. He doesn't die hard, he simply cannot be shaken. We don't love the character because he's Superman, we love him because he's who we want to be. But, they gave us Indiana Jones as Superman. And John McClane as Superman. And countless others. They forgot, or maybe never understood, why most of us connected.

Look no further than Star Wars for proof of that. Everything that sparkled in the original trilogy by and large tanked in the new ones. The effects are weak, the acting is wooden, the fun, dead in favor of...what? If you have an answer, let me know.

The blockbuster is king of sick, it seems, or more accurately, the filmmakers who know how to make blockbusters aren't sure how to make them anymore.

God bless Jon Favreau.