MOVIE COMMENT CATCH-ALL THREAD

[Antacular]

"Do the Nazi's win or does the Ark just nuke Germany if it is opened again?"

 

Pretty much. So basically Indy could've ended the war years earlier by just leaving it in Nazi possession, thus saving countless number of lives, but chose to instead bring the WMD back to the U.S. What a prick.

[Control]

Since action heroes tend to be characterized by their agency--their ability to actually affect the world--this is a decent observation, but it's not correct to describe it as "Indy is irrelevant to the plot" or "story" or whatever. The story is about his adventure. Whether his actions directly influence the climax is less interesting than that clip tries to make it.

 

EDIT: I just graded a bunch of Intro. Lit exams, so I'm grumpy about any misunderstanding of how fiction works.

[J.T.]

Pretty much. So basically Indy could've ended the war years earlier by just leaving it in Nazi possession, thus saving countless number of lives, but chose to instead bring the WMD back to the U.S. What a prick.

 

All of that shit is overanalys anyway.

 

Indy is central to the story because he is the hero that gets the girl. Doesn't get much simpler than that.

 

If there is anything to gripe about it is the Deus Ex Machina. Indy never gets out of his own scrapes; a mystical force always has to directly intervene. Maybe that is how it is supposed to be?

[Brian Fowler]

The fact that I had had this discussion in my life before Big Bang Theory existed makes me scared that maybe I'm even a bigger geek than I realized.

[Antacular]

Since action heroes tend to be characterized by their agency--their ability to actually affect the world--this is a decent observation, but it's not correct to describe it as "Indy is irrelevant to the plot" or "story" or whatever. The story is about his adventure. Whether his actions directly influence the climax is less interesting than that clip tries to make it.

 

EDIT: I just graded a bunch of Intro. Lit exams, so I'm grumpy about any misunderstanding of how fiction works.

 

Indy's tasked with recovering the Ark from the Nazis because it's believed that having them in possession of the Ark will give them the tactical advantage in the war. The actual result is that if Indy is never sent to retrieve it, the outcome is not just the same (Nazis die as they did), but the main concern of the film (Nazis having a WMD) is completely invalidated. I don't know how much more irrelevant it gets than that. The story may be about his adventure, but his adventure is ultimately inconsequential to the climax. I love Raiders, but from an analytical standpoint, that's a terrible narrative.

 

 

 

All of that shit is overanalys anyway.

 

Indy is central to the story because he is the hero that gets the girl.  Doesn't get much simpler than that.

 

If there is anything to gripe about it is the Deus Ex Machina.  Indy never gets out of his own scrapes; a mystical force always has to directly intervene.  Maybe that is how it is supposed to be?

 

 

But the story isn't about Indy getting the girl, it's about Indy stopping Nazis. Which would've occurred with or without his involvement. Regarding DEM, I'm sure that's how it's supposed to be, but doesn't make it good story telling. And again, I fucking love this film.

[J.T.]

But the story isn't about Indy getting the girl, it's about Indy stopping Nazis. Which would've occurred with or without his involvement.

 

 

We don't know whether or not it would've happend with or without his involvement because there'd be no story to tell without him, right?

 

Besides, the story really isn't about Indy stopping anyone anyway.  All of the bad guys in the Indy films get what's coming to them because they fuck around with things best left undisturbed.   Forces they think they control, but really they can't.

 

That's the real moral of the story and why I don't mind the DEM so much anymore.  Indy survives those moments because he a healthy respect things he doesn't quite understand.  He knows when to be analytical, he knows when to have faith, and he knows when to leave shit alone.

[Control]

 

Since action heroes tend to be characterized by their agency--their ability to actually affect the world--this is a decent observation, but it's not correct to describe it as "Indy is irrelevant to the plot" or "story" or whatever. The story is about his adventure. Whether his actions directly influence the climax is less interesting than that clip tries to make it.

 

EDIT: I just graded a bunch of Intro. Lit exams, so I'm grumpy about any misunderstanding of how fiction works.

 

Indy's tasked with recovering the Ark from the Nazis because it's believed that having them in possession of the Ark will give them the tactical advantage in the war. The actual result is that if Indy is never sent to retrieve it, the outcome is not just the same (Nazis die as they did), but the main concern of the film (Nazis having a WMD) is completely invalidated. I don't know how much more irrelevant it gets than that. The story may be about his adventure, but his adventure is ultimately inconsequential to the climax. I love Raiders, but from an analytical standpoint, that's a terrible narrative.

 

We don't know whether or not it would've happend with or without his involvement because there'd be no story to tell without him, right?

 

What JT said. You're making the mistake of acting as though events exist (or could exist) distinct from how they are actually presented in the film's narrative. That isn't the case. If anything, the way you're looking at it should lead you to conclude that the climax is unrelated to the story (which would still be incorrect, just less incorrect).

[Antacular]

 

But the story isn't about Indy getting the girl, it's about Indy stopping Nazis. Which would've occurred with or without his involvement.

 

 

We don't know whether or not it would've happend with or without his involvement because there'd be no story to tell without him, right?

 

Besides, the story really isn't about Indy stopping anyone anyway.  All of the bad guys in the Indy films get what's coming to them because they fuck around with things best left undisturbed.   Forces they think they control, but really they can't.

 

That's the real moral of the story and why I don't mind the DEM so much anymore.  Indy survives those moments because he a healthy respect things he doesn't quite understand.  He knows when to be analytical, he knows when to have faith, and he knows when to leave shit alone.

 

 

The characters in the clip explain what would've happened without Indy: The Nazis would've had the medallion that he was in possession with, eventually finding the ark anyway, thus opening it and dying just as they did.

 

You may be right that the MORAL of the story is to maintain a healthy respect for the unknown, but the plot, the actual task that Indy is charged with, is to recover the ark. Without the museum guy asking Indy to retrieve it, we have no story.

 

 

 

 

Since action heroes tend to be characterized by their agency--their ability to actually affect the world--this is a decent observation, but it's not correct to describe it as "Indy is irrelevant to the plot" or "story" or whatever. The story is about his adventure. Whether his actions directly influence the climax is less interesting than that clip tries to make it.

 

EDIT: I just graded a bunch of Intro. Lit exams, so I'm grumpy about any misunderstanding of how fiction works.

 

Indy's tasked with recovering the Ark from the Nazis because it's believed that having them in possession of the Ark will give them the tactical advantage in the war. The actual result is that if Indy is never sent to retrieve it, the outcome is not just the same (Nazis die as they did), but the main concern of the film (Nazis having a WMD) is completely invalidated. I don't know how much more irrelevant it gets than that. The story may be about his adventure, but his adventure is ultimately inconsequential to the climax. I love Raiders, but from an analytical standpoint, that's a terrible narrative.

 

We don't know whether or not it would've happend with or without his involvement because there'd be no story to tell without him, right?

 

What JT said. You're making the mistake of acting as though events exist (or could exist) distinct from how they are actually presented in the film's narrative. That isn't the case. If anything, the way you're looking at it should lead you to conclude that the climax is unrelated to the story (which would still be incorrect, just less incorrect).

 

 

So you're shunning the entire concept of plot holes?

[jaedmc]

I think this makes the movie better.

 

Indy is an archaeologist, he can't change history. And so with Raiders he serves as a recorder of history, and as an extension for the audience. We get to go back in time and have an adventure as the coolest fucking hero ever. And what better fantasy for an audience to live out than going back and stopping the Nazis. But we can't do that and neither can Indy. Dr. Jones, instead of uncovering bones and artifacts and imagining what their lives were like, can now experience history, LIVE, but he can't alter it - which by extension means WE can't alter it. 

 

Indiana Jones is also Steven Spielberg, wishing he could be Harrison Ford and unleash the wrath of god on the Nazi's, but he can't. The climax of the film is where Spielberg separates from Indy. Where Indy is tied up and must close his eyes, Spielberg realizes his freedom to look back at history with his camera, and while this doesn't stop what happened, by keeping the the memories of these monsters at the front of our mind, perhaps we can stop it from happening again.

 

Yeah. I like that Raiders even better. Good talk, guys.

[Fat Spanish Waiter]

The fact that there's two pages on how irrelevant Indy is closes the case for Jim Cameron.

[caley]

So, Pain and Gain was pretty all right!?  I'm kinda surprised at how much I enjoyed it.  Mark Wahlberg is perfectly cast as a meathead trainer who thinks he can kidnap people and take their money because he's watched a lot of movies.  The Rock steals pretty much every scene he's in with his naive ex-con bodybuilder and it has a pretty stellar supporting cast: Anthony Mackie, Tony Shalhoub, Ed Harris, Rebel Wilson, Rob Corrdry, Ken Jeong, Peter Stormare.  In some ways (no way am I saying it's AS good) it reminds me of 'Fargo' in that you have this central plot of people doing horrible things to each other but it has a nice little undercurrent of black humor that keeps it interesting.  I mean, there is no way a movie about bodybuilders kidnapping and torturing and murdering and disposing of bodies should be this funny, but it is.  It is actually quite funny.  And, really, it's the perfect tone for this story because otherwise you'd basically be delving into torture porn if you didn't have that undercurrent of humor.  Plus, it's the perfect story for Michael Bay to tell because it's full of people, shapely people, set in Miami and Bay loves to show beautiful people in beautiful locales.  This works, it really, really works.

 

Also The Hangover 3 isn't nearly as bad as the second one and I chalk most of that up to them giving John Goodman a role, but also in moving much of the setting back to Vegas, because it never should have left there, central as it is to the series'...mystique?, I guess.  It also seemed like after the lady-boy sex of Part 2, they dialed back much of the "let's push the envelope and make it naughty" humor, and let the characters tell the central story.  Thought the ending was pretty weak with them trying to give Alan's - who is, let's be honest, basically a psychopath - character some pathos and they missed the perfect opportunity to leave it open-ended for a sequel down the line but I was expecting this to be just terrible and it was all right, so...yeah.

 

EDIT: Apparently I missed a mid-credits sequence, so disregard the part about "push the envelope" and the sequel bit...lol

[J.T.]

The characters in the clip explain what would've happened without Indy: The Nazis would've had the medallion that he was in possession with, eventually finding the ark anyway, thus opening it and dying just as they did.

 

There is no guarantee that the Nazi's get the medallion first, because that assumes that the US just does nothing but twiddle its thumbs while the Nazis try to get their hands on a doomsday weapon.  Not likely.

 

The medallion is a MacGuffin anyway, IMO.  The Nazi's are already digging in Egypt.  They don't need the medallion to find the Ark.  They will eventually find it if they excavate long enough because they are in the general vicinity of the actual location.  There is one of your plot holes.

 

As for Indy's involvement, he wasn't some random dude on a list of heroes that got picked for the job.  The museum guy charges Indy to recover the medallion because he is the foremost expect on the subject matter and he has personal knowledge of the people involved.  He knows Abner Ravenwood, Marion, and most importantly, he knows Belloq.

 

Like it or not and plot holes or no, Indy is central to the action in Raiders.  Flawed though it may be, the story doesn't get told without him.

[jaedmc]

I think I just watched a movie that isn't on imdb.com. I think I should win something.

[Antacular]

 

The characters in the clip explain what would've happened without Indy: The Nazis would've had the medallion that he was in possession with, eventually finding the ark anyway, thus opening it and dying just as they did.

 

There is no guarantee that the Nazi's get the medallion first, because that assumes that the US just does nothing but twiddle its thumbs while the Nazis try to get their hands on a doomsday weapon.  Not likely.

 

The medallion is a MacGuffin anyway, IMO.  The Nazi's are already digging in Egypt.  They don't need the medallion to find the Ark.  They will eventually find the Ark if they excavate long enough because they are in the general vicinity of the actual location.  There is one of your plot holes.

 

As for Indy's involvement, he wasn't some random dude on a list of heroes that got picked for the job.  The museum guy charges Indy to recover the medallion because he is the foremost expect on the subject matter and he has personal knowledge of the people involved.  He knows Abner Ravenwood, Marion, and most importantly, he knows Belloq.

 

Like it or not and plot holes or no, Indy is central to the action in Raiders.  The story doesn't get told without him.

 

 

Exactly! My point isn't that the story isn't about Indy's adventure, or that the story can be told without him. It's that the adventure exists to prevent the Nazis from obtaining the Ark and thus ruling the world, when the reality (Ha!) is that even if Indy is never tasked with the adventure (and thus a story to tell) at all, the end result is STILL the same: Nazis die!

[Control]

 

So you're shunning the entire concept of plot holes?

 

Maybe. I'd need an example. But we're not discussing plot holes. A plot hole is usually a gap or an inconsistency in the plot, right? So if Indy was in prison in one scene, and then free in the next, without an escape, that would be a plot hole. Or if he knew where to go without explanation, etc. That's not what the issue is here, though. What's at issue here is Indy's centrality to the story. And the entire film is about Indy's search for the Ark. Every scene relates to that--most scenes are about Indy himself, and if not they're about his antagonists (the Nazis) trying to get to the Ark.

 

Discussing what the Nazis would have done without Indy is just as pointless as discussing what would have happened if Martians intervened half way through the film--it's a discussion about a film that doesn't exist, not the one that does.

 

The narrative doesn't exist "to prevent the Nazis from obtaining the Ark and thus ruling the world," it exists to place Indiana Jones in a series of thrilling adventures.

[J.T.]

I don't think that anyone is arguing that it is an imperfect story.  The fact is that Indy is embedded in the plot and the argument that the same things happen with or without his involvement just don't hold water because:

 

1. You're expecting the same sequence of events to unfold the exact same way with or without Indy's involvoment or existance which is temporally unlilkely.

 

2. You're expecting an item which has never been confirmed to exist to actually exist.

 

3. You're expecting it to actually have mystical powers.

 

3. You're expecting God's wrath to be real enough to kill Nazi's in "present day" which if you are so inclined to believe in the Bible, kinda goes against the message of the entire New Testament.  What happens to the Nazi's that are athiests or worse, the ones that believe in God and the power of the Ark and simply close their eyes at the right time?

 

The reality is that there is no reality.  The story unfolds just as it should and it presents the message it was intended to:  Mortal men don't have the footwork or the punching power to box with God. 

 

Eat some popcorn and enjoy the movie.

[Brian Fowler]

I disagree.  I am arguing that it is flawless.  And fuck you if you disagree.  FLAWLESS.

 

[J.T.]

I also think it is a phenominal story.  To argue Indy's relevance to the action does a disservice to the character.  He is a hero with few peers.  He is brave, smart, resourceful, respectful of others and their cultures (Is there a citizen of the world better than Indiana Jones?), and honorable in spite of himself.  

 

Despite his roguish manner, he rarely fails to do the right thing.

 

Harrison Ford also threw some of the best punches in cinema history in Raiders.  The Indy vs the Nazi Mechanic fist fight is fucking epic.  It is a Gold standard of movie brawling up there with Nada vs. Frank from They Live  How can you not love Raiders of the Lost Ark?

[Reed]

Indy stood up to the Nazis, aka History's Greatest Monsters, and did everything he possibly could to stop them. He didn't just idly stand by and let them do whatever the hell they wanted. That alone is a pretty big deal.

[Antacular]

 

 

So you're shunning the entire concept of plot holes?

 

Maybe. I'd need an example. But we're not discussing plot holes. A plot hole is usually a gap or an inconsistency in the plot, right? So if Indy was in prison in one scene, and then free in the next, without an escape, that would be a plot hole. Or if he knew where to go without explanation, etc. That's not what the issue is here, though. What's at issue here is Indy's centrality to the story. And the entire film is about Indy's search for the Ark. Every scene relates to that--most scenes are about Indy himself, and if not they're about his antagonists (the Nazis) trying to get to the Ark.

 

Discussing what the Nazis would have done without Indy is just as pointless as discussing what would have happened if Martians intervened half way through the film--it's a discussion about a film that doesn't exist, not the one that does.

 

The narrative doesn't exist "to prevent the Nazis from obtaining the Ark and thus ruling the world," it exists to place Indiana Jones in a series of thrilling adventures.

 

 

And WHY is Indy searching for the Ark? Because the Nazis are, and plan on using it to rule the world. It's not as if Indy was looking for the Ark at the start of the movie, and just so happened to discover Nazis engaging in the same endeavor midway through. It's not imagining a different movie, it's noticing the fact that with or without Indy, the Nazis still find the Ark, and still die at the end. It's not complicated.

 

 

I don't think that anyone is arguing that it is an imperfect story.  The fact is that Indy is embedded in the plot and the argument that the same things happen with or without his involvement just don't hold water because:

 

1. You're expecting the same sequence of events to unfold the exact same way with or without Indy's involvoment or existance which is temporally unlilkely.

 

2. You're expecting an item which has never been confirmed to exist to actually exist.

 

3. You're expecting it to actually have mystical powers.

 

3. You're expecting God's wrath to be real enough to kill Nazi's in "present day" which if you are so inclined to believe in the Bible, kinda goes against the message of the entire New Testament.  What happens to the Nazi's that are athiests or worse, the ones that believe in God and the power of the Ark and simply close their eyes at the right time?

 

The reality is that there is no reality.  The story unfolds just as it should and it presents the message it was intended to:  Mortal men don't have the footwork or the punching power to box with God. 

 

Eat some popcorn and enjoy the movie.

 

You're both doing mental gymnastics to cover up the gaping irrelevancy of Mr. Jones. The Ark has powers with or without Indy. And again, with or without Indy, the Nazis find the Ark, and still die. That's all there is to it.

 

Now, if someone wants to argue that Indys quest was to ensure the Ark ends up in the hands of top men, that's a point I'm willing to debate.

[piranesi]

Fuck the ark.  Fuck the nazis.  We get to see a dude do really cool shit and be stylish doing it. 

 

Also if he wasn't there, then I wouldn't get to see any of it, because I'm not letting my spirit-dream-story-eye follow some nazi cunts around the desert. 

[Tabe]

Is this where I mention that my brother and I - and the entire theater we were with - left Raiders 30 minutes before it was over because we thought it had ended? 30 years later, I still haven't seen the whole thing.

[Brian Fowler]

You should fix that.

[Jrag]

WHAT THE FUCK.  How?

[EVA]