Monadology In search of the unifying principle. Leibniz This guy is being sucked up a glass tube. This guy is being sucked up a glass tube. This guy is being sucked up a glass tube. This guy is being sucked up a glass tube. This guy is being sucked up a glass tube. This guy is being sucked up a glass tube.

A Public Service Announcement

February 20, 2008

by HB

I’ve debated whether to post this, given its rather low importance compared to what’s discussed around here. But in case anyone out there is harboring hopes of renewing the enjoyment of his youth caused by the fun, if not particularly serious, Indiana Jones movie franchise, be now warned: the fourth movie will not be good. The proof was offered in last month’s issue of Vanity Fair by none other than George Lucas himself.

While filming a 1993 episode in which Ford made a cameo appearance, Lucas happened on something that gave him the idea for a fourth movie installment. He mentioned it to the actor, who wasn’t too impressed. Lucas later told Spielberg about his new concept, only to find that the director wasn’t so hot on the idea, either, although generally warm to the notion of a fourth film.

But Lucas was adamant. It was this idea or nothing.

…

Ford can laugh about Lucas’s obstinacy now. “He’s a stubborn sucker,” the actor says, “and he had an idea that he kept pushing into script form, and then they’d run it by me, and I’d usually rebel, and, finally, you know, one script came along that really struck me as being smart, not working too hard to give reference to the other films, but that carried on the stories we had told so far in a logical way. The character was allowed to age, and we found ourselves in a different period of time, and what I read was a great script, so I said, ‘Let’s go, let’s make this one.’”

There you have it, folks: the two talented people in this triumvirate thought this movie’s idea was a bad one for a decade until George Lucas, the man who wrote some of the worst dialogue ever and single-handedly ruined his own franchise, finally wore them down and into submission.

Some of my acquaintance—better and stronger men, all—believed in this movie’s badness on faith alone. Me, I needed to see the marks myself. But now I have seen and believed: there is no justification for giving this man any more of my money.

Comments

On February 21 at 1'23 PMPermalink, Nate wrote:

1

It is, at least, some small comfort to me that there are some discoverable reasons for Lucas’s poor artistry. It reminds me of a critique I read by Orson Scott Card about Ray Bradbury’s later career, and how Card believed Bradbury’s work to have been irrevocably harmed by the unilateral praise of his earlier corpus. With the ability and urge to bring much discrimination to his own output thus dulled, Bradbury’s work became ever more drowned in its own excess.

Lucas’s reported stubbornness may do much to explain his later failures as an artist. May it be a caution to us all.

On February 21 at 3'00 PMPermalink, Neil wrote:

2

Isn’t that a similar complaint against some of the later Harry Potter books? That Rowling was not given a strong editor capable of reining in her more turgid impulses?

On February 21 at 3'12 PMPermalink, Nate wrote:

3

I haven’t heard that, but that certainly seems plausible. I don’t agree: I think Rowling’s merits were most evident when they were ladled out rather than spooned. Her books were wonderful to sprawl out in. It never seemed to me that she’d abandoned editorial criticism either internal or external that she’d had before. But that’s just my take. Are you a proponent of the argument you raised?

On February 21 at 4'10 PMPermalink, Neil wrote:

4

I have mixed feelings, to be honest. On the one hand, the books got longer and longer and longer, but never seemed to really get any deeper, which isn’t to say they were bad, just long. I guess I do think that judicious editing could have tightened some of the later books. On the other hand, however, the books were never bad, and I quite enjoyed them. So, mixed feelings.

On February 21 at 5'19 PMPermalink, hb wrote:

5

I thought they did get deeper as they went on: not into a complicated mythology of how Harry and Voldemort came to oppose each other or some overarching vision of an alternate universe, but in its portrayal of Harry’s growing up.

Lucas, on the other hand, wrote the stories to his earlier movies, while other people wrote the scripts and screenplays. Then, convinced of his own greatness, he decided to write the scripts to his later movies, and lo and behold, he wasn’t good at it.

On February 21 at 5'23 PMPermalink, hb wrote:

6

I should add this chilling passage from the end of that long article, which I think illustrates how Nate’s analogy may be accurate.

“I know the critics are going to hate it,” he says. “They already hate it. So there’s nothing we can do about that. They hate the idea that we’re making another one. They’ve already made up their minds.”

At least the legions of Indy geeks will be pleased, right?

“The fans are all upset,” Lucas says. “They’re always going to be upset. ‘Why did he do it like this? And why didn’t he do it like this?’ They write their own movie, and then, if you don’t do their movie, they get upset about it. So you just have to stand by for the bricks and the custard pies, because they’re going to come flying your way.”

On February 21 at 5'58 PMPermalink, Michael Sullivan wrote:

7

So what’s this terrible idea they’re all talking about? All I know about the movie is the title, which itself doesn’t bode well.

On February 21 at 7'00 PMPermalink, hb wrote:

8

Not sure. The article explicitly doesn’t reveal it although it does reprint speculation that Indy’s son is in the movie and that the crystal skull is of extra-terrestrial origin. Both seem plausible and worrisome to me. I like my Indiana Jones with only religious fantasy elements, not science fiction, thank you very much.