Respect the Fedora

 

 

 

 

 

How I got here:

Do you remember where you were in the summer of 1981?  Some of you may not have even been born yet, admittedly.  Me, I was 19, on my way to my 20th birthday later that year.  But I still remember the first time I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark. (Note: that was the full title when it was first released.  It didn't garner the additional designation of Indiana Jones and the part until the release of the boxed set in 1999.)

I was visiting a college friend one weekend and, on the way home, I decided to check out the movie which had been out for a couple of weeks by that time. I remember thinking it was a great adventure.  I was talking to my sister and apparently we went to see it together.  But I'm pretty sure i must have convinced her to go after seeing it the first time.

I have always like these kinds of movies.  So by the time Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom rolled into theaters, I was ready for the next installment.  Doom did not impress me, but it didn't disappoint me enough to turn me off of the franchise. (My sister no longer went to movies with me by this time, so I only saw it alone).

By the time Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade hit theaters I was ready to try to get back into the story.  By that time I was a student at what was then called Southwest Texas State University ( it has since changed to just Texas State University).  I was involved with a campus Christian group which was preparing for it's annual leadership conference in Washington D.C.  As a group, several of us went to see Crusade on the last night before we were to start our trek to D.C.

Everyone in the group greatly enjoyed Crusade. It would be 20 years before another installment of Indiana Jones came along. By that time, Harrison ford, who has played the adult Indiana for the entire run, was 66.  I had become jaded by then, since I was in my late 40s, and just couldn't wrap my brain around an aging old man playing a character who was supposedly still spry.

Note: I really have no idea how old Indiana Jones is supposed to be in any of the films.  Given that he is old enough to be a Boy Scout in 1912 at the beginning of Crusade, I estimate he was probably born in the late 90's.  For argument's sake and a point of reference, lets just put it at 1897.  That means he was in his late 30's/ early 40's for the first three movies and 60 by the time of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  In comparison, Ford was about 40 in 1981 and mid 60's by 2008. OK, so at least they aren't trying to get away with much.  But, still...

Anyway, as a result of that trepidation (and the fact that I was dealing with glaucoma which severely limited my movie going enjoyment and experience) it wasn't until after it was released on DVD that I finally got to see Crystal Skull. 

Despite all that, I am, as of the start of this entry, on the verge of going to see the new release, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Ford is 80 at the time of this and his character, if what I read on wikipedia is right, is 72 (based on the calculation I arbitrarily made for his birth above).  If being a 60 year adventurer seemed a bit too much, I am having a REALLY hard time accepting a 72 year old, but I will at least approach it with an open mind.  (see the last entry in this post for a follow-up to this initial thought.) 

Note: I wrote the last paragraph prior to going to see the new movie.  Here a few days later, as I finish this entry I still have some problems with accepting the 70+  character acting like a 40 year old, but what the hell, it's only a movie.

 

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981):

 1936: The saga starts of slam bang with Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) attempting to find a sacred idol.  He is accompanied by Satipo (Alfred Molina).  (For some reason I keep hearing Jones call him "Sapito" Not sure if this is a character error or if they mistakenly misspelled it in the credits...)  Anyway, Jones has to maneuver a trap laden cavern to get to the idol.  But success is fleeting, as when he exits the cavern he is stopped by the natives and Rene Belloq (Paul Freeman), a rival archaeologist with less scruples than a spider with a flytrap.  Belloq takes the idol away from Jones and Jones is left to escape the natives empty handed.

Back at the university where he is a professor, Jones and his boss, the dean of the university, Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliot), are approached by two men representing the U.S. government.  It seems that an old professor from Jones' university student days is being sought for an artifact that the Nazis want, to help them find a sacred relic, the Lost Ark of the Covenant. The Ark, a sacred Jewish relic, has been lost for centuries, but the Nazis think they might have a line on how to find it.  The reason they want the ark is it just might be the most powerful aid to help them win the war. Jones is recruited to find the artifact they seek before they do.

The daughter of the old professor, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) , might know it's whereabouts so Jones heads to Nepal, her last known whereabouts.  But the Nazis also know where Marion is, and the villainous Nazi Toht (Ronald Lacey) is sent to her location. Although the Nazis are not successful at retrieving the artifact, they do get some help. Toht gets burned by the red hot artifact, searing half of the writing on his hand.  Note to self: Never try to pick up a metal object that has been sitting near a red hot fire for several minutes... (not that I needed to be reminded, but apparently Toht did.)

 Armed with the relic, Jones and Marion head to Cairo to meet up with Sallah (John Rhys-Davies), an ally who is one of the many employed by the Nazis for a dig near the site of the ancient city of Tanis, where the lost ark is thought to be located.  Coincidentally (or not, this is the movies, after all), also on hand at the dig is Belloq.  But, as Jones discovers, they are digging for the Ark in the wrong place.  (Remember Toht and his unfortunate tattoo?  It seems he has only 1/2 the information needed to discover it's location.)

Using ALL the information, Jones discovers the true location of the Ark and rescues it from it's sandy crypt.  But, then, you know that's not all the story. The last 1/3 of the movie involves Jones rescuing the ark, losing it, rescuing it again and losing it, until the final confrontation where Belloq tries to initiate a Jewish ritual before opening the ark.

Raiders of the Lost ark ranks as #2 on my list of ranking the films.  Most lists I saw put it at #1, but I chalk that up to people who never forget their first love (or their first introduction to the character of Indiana Jones.)

 

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984):

 The second installment of the series actually takes place a  year or so before the events of Raiders. At the beginning, Jones is in Shaghai to exchange a relic to a Chinese big wig (read: mobster) named Lao Che (Roy Chiao) for a valuable diamond.  The exchange takes place at Lao Che's nightclub where the main attraction is a singer named Willi Scott (Kate Capshaw).

Of course, Lao is not about to play fair. He poisons Jones and demands the diamond back in exchange for the antidote.  Chaos breaks out as Jones and Lao's henchmen run amok.  Jones escapes the bar with Willi and boards a plane.  But the plane is owned by Lao and the pilots desert the plane in mid-flight.  Setting up the plot, as Jones and Scott and Jones's diminutive partner, Short Round (Ke Huy Quan) have to desert the plane, too, before it crashes.

They are helped to a native Indian village where devastation has occured.  The village's sacred stone has been taken, as well as the children of the village.  Jones is given the task of retrieving the stone from it's captors.  This leads the band the the palace of Pankot, where the residents are under the spell o of Mola Ram (Amrish Puri), an Indian shaman trying to re-institute the worship of Kali, the god of destruction and change in the Hindu religion, as well as the Thugee cult which was dedicated to ridding the country of it;s British rule.

Mola Ram and his Thugee cult are using the children as slave labor, mining the area for more of the sacred stones needed to complete a ritual that will put Kali in full power.  There is a lot of a religious aspect to this whole scene, something which it had been already established that Jones didn't subscribe to, but he does have enough knowledge to know what is going on.  His goal to achieve the release of the children and the retrieval of the village's sacred stone are hinged to the cult practice of human sacrifice

In case you didn't know, Jones is successful in the end, despite the interference of Mola Ram (and on occasion, Willi).

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom ranks as #5 on the list.  A lot of that has to do with the less than believable plot, but a good portion of it is attributed to Capshaw as Willi.  That is not necessarily a bad mark on her performance, she isn't bad as an actress.  But her character is the most annoying, shrill and self-centered woman I have ever seen on film. Personally, I would have shoved her out of the plane early on. If Capshaw is even remotely like the character she plays I fell sorrow (and respect) for Spielberg for putting up with her for all these years. (But she probably isn't anything like Willi in real life.)

 

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989):

 We get some background to Indiana Jones' character in the early part of the movie.  In 1912 he is a Boy Scout (played by River Phoenix) who happens upon a grave robbing scene while on a camp out with his Boy Scout troop.  He retrieves the Cross of Coronado only to have to give it up.  Jones' father makes an appearance, although we don't actually see who it is until later in the movie, (but you can't miss Sean Connery's voice if you are familiar with him.  Note: there's a reason why you don't see him.  That's not actually Connery in the scene.  But his voice was dubbed in.)

During the chase to get the Cross back we are introduced to many of the familiar quirks and accoutrements of the character, such has how he acquired his fear of snakes as well as how he got his trademark fedora and whip.  27 years later Jones reacquires the cross and defeats the man who originally took it from him.

In the new installment the story is started off by the fact that Walter Donovan (Julian Glover) is on a quest to find the Holy Grail (the legendary cup that Christ drank from at the Last Supper as well as caught the blood as he was dying on the cross.) Jones' father was the expert on the trail, but it has turned out he has disappeared, so Donovan entreats Jones to take up the quest where his father left off. He makes this journey with his dean of the archaeology department, Marcus Brody (with Denholm Elliot reprising his role from Raiders).

Jones ends up in Venice where he meets Dr. Elsa Schneider (Alison Doody) who helps him locate key artifacts in his quest.  But it turns out, as will be seen later, that her loyalties lie with an entirely different set of principles.  Need a hint?  This is 1938, and they ARE in Europe, and she is Austrian... Also during this trip, Jones meets up with the nefarious villain of the piece. (No, not Hitler, himself, although Jones does manage to meet him in person briefly.) No, this is Toht's (remember Toht from Raiders?) counterpart, SS Colonel Vogel (Michael Byrne, making him the second Nazi villain played by an English actor, to perfection I might add).

In the process, Jones finds and frees his father from captivity in a Nazi fortress and the two go off in quest of the Grail with the help of Jones, Sr.'s Grail diary. Using all the clues that are found, they locate the hiding place of the Grail, but Jones has to alter his perceptions slightly when it comes to navigating the booby-trap laden passage to the hiding place.

Last Crusade  gets the #1 spot in my list of the best in the series. Sean Connery's prescence as Jones' father boosts it up past Raiders in my opinion.  Plus the adventure gets an added bonus because of the Grail legends that abound in it.  Personally, I'd much prefer to find the Grai than the Ark of the Covenant if I were a true historian (rather than the amateur one I am today. Can't call myself a real historian since I never finished getting my degree in history...)

 

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008):

It's 1957. Jones has been taken hostage by Russians.  He is given the task of finding one crate in a warehouse full of them. Like finding a needle in a haystack?  Well, not necessarily.  The crate they want is one that came from an event in Roswell, New Mexico.

Yes, that Roswell, and if you are already ahead of me you already have an idea what's in the crate.  So the head of the Russian contingent, Dr. Irina Spaiko (Cate Blanchett) and her KGB comrades take possession of the crate, despite the heroic efforts of the (60 yer old) Jones trying to stop them.  Jones escapes but ends up hiding out in a fake town, one built for a nuclear test site.  Moments before the bomb goes off he hides in a refrigerator and survives. (Not likely, if you ask me, but you have to make some allowances when watching Indiana Jones movies).

After rescue he becomes a person of interest to the F.B.I. and is summarily dismissed from the university (although they term it as a leave with pay)

He decides to go to Europe, but while on the train he meets up with Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf) who gets him to help rescue his mother and an old colleague.  The colleague, Dr. Oxley (John Hurt), was on a search for a legendary Incan city of gold, El Dorado, when he ran into his own problems with the Russians. 

After retrieving a crystal skull in the lost grave of some legendary missing conquistadors, Jones and Mutt head off for another legendary city, Akator.  Of course, the russians are hot on his trail.  He is captured where he finds that his old colleague Oxley, who has apparently lost his mind, is a captive.  Not only that, but mutt's mother is a captive, too.  Guess who Mutt's mother is...?  If you said Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) then you are absolutely right.  We also find out that Mutt's relationship to Jones is a lot closer than either of them suspected. (yeah, you are on the right track there...)

So the quest to return the skull is off and running as, as usual, Jones escapes, is captured (again), escapes (again) etc. (and just as a side note, how can so many supposedly expert soldiers with machine guns fire off so many bullets but not hit anybody?) Ultimately we arrive at Akator where it turns out that there is an aspect to this alien story that may not have been expected.

So why did (and still do) so many loyal fans of the first three films hate this film?  Maybe it was the whole alien theme that came into it.  The Jones saga "nuked the fridge" (a real term based on the "jump the shark" trope) when it added an alien theme to the mix, apparently.  It got good reviews from quite a few reviewers.  Roger Ebert, for one, gave it 3 1/2 stars. Fans, on the other hand, for the most part, rank this one as 5th in the 5 movie series. The new Dial of Destiny is already being hailed as #3.

As for myself, I liked this outing. Of course, I'm much more prone to liking a bit of aliens thrown into the mix.  Therefore, I put Crystal Skull in the ranking as #4.  Much better than Temple of Doom and neck and neck with the new Dial of Destiny for the 3 spot.  That ranking may change after I have seen Dial a second time, however, but I am giving the new one a better ranking just for it being new and fresh.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023):

OK. so we are in the late 1960's now. As I said early in this post, based on the arbitrary date of birth I estimate that Indiana Jones must be close to 80).  Although at the beginning, it is still in the 40's, and through the magic of CGI and some make-up, Ford does look like he's still in his 40's.His dean, Marcus Brody, does not make an appearance, because, after all, I told you in the previous entry that the actor Denholm Elliot had passed away. Jones and his colleague, Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) are seeking to free the Lance of Longinus, a relic related to the Christian tradition.  It is supposed the spear used to pierce Jesus' side to cause him to bleed to death on the cross and make sure he was dead. It is of course the Nazis who are seeking the Lance. (as a side note: You know, for a group of people who rejected the trappings of Judeo-Christian beliefs, Hitler and his ilk sure did seem to seek out some very Judeo-Christian relics...)

Anyway, as the Nazi scientist Vollmer (Mads Mikkelsen) helping the Nazis locate the Lance points out, the relic they find is a fake.  But in the process, he has discovered 1/2 of the Dial of Archimedes. This is the relic that drives the story as 25 years later Vollmer,, who survived whatever criminal roundup gathered all those Nazi scientists back in '44, is still on the lookout for the other 1/2 of that dial.

You see, Archimedes apparently had discovered a way to travel through time and developed tis dial as a way to find fissures in the time-space continuum. Hut he had the wherewithal to know, apparently, that it could be used for evil purposes (like, oh I don't know, say, a former Nazi 700 years in the future seeking a way to change the outcome of the past...?)

Jones is accompanied this round by his goddaughter, the daughter of his former colleague Shaw, Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge).  Both he and Vollmer go on a quest trying to beat the other to find the other half of the dial.  What Jones intends to do with it may not be entirely certain although he does say that he would use it to go back and prevent his son, who had been killed while serving in the military, from ever signing up.

You would think, and rightly so, that Vollmer plans to go back and make sure the Nazis win WWII. But if you think you have a line on how, it's a good bet you'd be mistaken.  Since we don't find out his true objective until 3/4 of the way through the movie, I won't spoil it.  I will tell you that the dial is not just a worthless relic that has no power, however.  But what happens at the end was a pleasant surprise.  I concluded, just as the movie was nearing it's climax that they were going to throw a curve ball (to use a baseball metaphor), but instead got one hell of a slider (another baseball metaphor, and no baseball does not figure into the ending, but at this writing it is almost time for the MLB All-Star game, so it's on my mind...)

I told friends on Facebook that this movie is better than Temple of Doom and it is.I'm ranking it #3 on the list.  Another decent Nazi villain and the aspect of time travel push this one up the list. Always did like time travel stories.

So if you made it this far here is a summary of my rankings (which doesn't gibe with anyone else's that I could find, but it's my blog, so my list...)

1. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

2. Raiders of the Lost Ark

3. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny  

4. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

5. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Hope you enjoyed the trip.  The old Plymouth is fired up and we are heading home now.  Drive safely.

 

Quiggy