The Indy 4 Trailer: The Harder Questions - One Week Later
by Tom Burns

BACK TO THE GOOD:

In terms of other good bits, there seems to be a lot of action in the trailer that hearkens back to classic Indy moments - Indy swinging on his whip, a truck chase along an impossibly deep ravine, Indy running from a template followed by a horde of South American natives, Indy fighting a strangely huge foreigner (the guy with the chain in the trailer) who seems to be kicking the crap out of him.... hmm, actually, maybe they're overdoing the nods to the earlier movies. Keeping in the spirit of the first 3 movies is fine, but outright copying them seems like an exercise in futility. Yes, there are recurring gags and set pieces in each movie (think of the snakes in Raiders, bugs in Doom, and rats in Last Crusade), but no one wants to see older Indiana trotting out a "greatest hits" montage.

We also really enjoyed the brief moment with the strangely magnetized Army crate from "Roswell, New Mexico" - we're on record as doubting the coolness of the "alien" MacGuffin behind Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but, at least, they seem to be treating it in the same way they treated the Ark in Raiders (i.e., as a bizarre artifact shrouded in mystery). And the sinking quicksand Mayan temple that transforms into the descending staircase (that's where Indy starts yelling "Faster!") looks extremely well-designed, though some web Indy fans have brought up visual comparisons between the staircase and a sequence in the 1999 video game Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine.

One last bit of speculation: five people are seen running down the stairs in that sequence - Indy, Mutt (Shia), Marion, and Mac can be seen, but who is the fifth person? Spalko? Abner Ravenwood? Short Round? Who?

FURTHER INSPECTION - THE BAD:

Not to be a hater, but we have a few problems with the opening of the trailer. Yes, we all love the previous Indiana Jones movies and who doesn't love a highlight reel? But, tonally, the "Previously On" montage doesn't fit with the Indy series AT ALL. The opening treats Indy like he was the heroic messiah of mankind, telling us that "He protected the power of the divine" and "He saved the cradle of civilization." What the hell? Indy is a warts-and-all working-class hero. All of his exploits start out as personal missions - either for family or fortune and glory - and the more noble results of his adventures happen as Indy begrudgingly does the right thing at the last moment. That montage makes it look like he's running for president. Note to Spielberg: learn from Bryan Singer's mistake in Superman Returns and Sam Raimi's mistake in Spider-Man 3 - if you work too hard to make our audience think that your protagonist is divinely messianic, it will come across as forced and make the hero look like a whiny, holier-than-thou jerk. This isn't The Chronicles of Narnia. It's Indiana freakin' Jones.

And while we're on the bitching wagon, for all the press the production team did, where they stated that CGI didn't really have a place in the world of Indiana Jones, there are a lot of obviously computer-aided moments in the trailer (more on bad CGI later). The truck chase scene along the ravine looks particularly suspicious - we realize that FX aren't done yet, but the cliff matte painting in Raiders looked better. Oh, and the "Part Time" line? That was the best trailer ending line you could come up with? Really? Meh.

The Indy 4 Trailer: The Harder Questions - One Week Later Page 3