I normally don't do the "reply to replies" thing (too much work getting all the quotes done properly), but I just had to respond to a few of these.

lordjedi said:

Apparently we both saw different movies. The hotrod race was their to introduce the Russians (or did that just completely go over your head?) as well as show the time period (am I the only one that figured out immediately that it was 1950's Nevada, somewhere outside Vegas?). Good God people. Yeah, it was a bit of a nod to American Graffiti courtesy of Lucas, but then again, so were a bunch of other scenes.

It didn't go over my head, i just didn't like it. Someone else mentioned the "in mission" opening sequences to all the Jones films as inspired by the Bond films & i get that. But this one DIDN'T have Jones in it! It felt like it didn't belong.

& I still don't like the gophers. Comic relief or not, they just made me roll my eyes.

And I guess it wasn't possible that those guys tightened their gun straps? Give me a break. It was very obviously pulling on everything and there's no reason to believe that they didn't simply tighten the straps beforehand.

But it wasn't pulling on everything. & i don't recall their straps being very tight. It was just a detail that stuck out & bugged me.

Maybe because it was cheaper to have an animator do them in the computer than it would be to get permits for wild animals and deal with PETA. I know that if I had the choice between those two things, I'd go with the computer too.

And i wouldn't go with the computer. this really comes down to personal taste & i strongly dislike using CGI for things that could very well be done in real life b/c i think it's lazy.

Wait, your problem with the sword fight is that it was blue screen? HAHAHAHAHA! How about the fact that a kid with some sword fighting experience was actually standing up to a woman that seemed to be an expert with a sword? My biggest gripe is that that sword fight would've ended in about two seconds. Have you ever seen real competitive sword fighters go at it? Even those fights last mere seconds and they've been doing it for years. To have this "greaser" stand up to her for that long was just a joke. But again, I can deal with it for the purposes of a movie. It seems to me that Spielberg wanted someone to fight a swordsman at some point in one of his movies and not run away. This was that fight.

While i know you probably didn't mean it, i actually found this rather insulting. I fenced for four years in college learning all three olympic weapons (foil, epee, & sabre). I've taken kendo (japanese fencing derived from samurai fighting techniques) for two years & still actively train with both the Minneapolis Kendo club & the Memphis Kendo club (when i'm in town down there). I know exactly how long a real sword fight would last. Sword fights in movies are almost never realistic b/c they wouldn't be very exciting to the general populace who has no idea that a real fight would last about 2 seconds once the opponents made a move. I can accept that & enjoy a good swashbuckling fight. The part of the scene that bugged me was not the sword fight, but the splits between moving vehicles while getting thumped in the nads. it wasn't an exciting sword fight, it was a childish circus act. It's possible to make a great movie that appeals to people of all ages without being childish & that's what i was hoping for. Unfortunately, it didn't happen, imo.

I think a lot of you are simply ripping this movie apart because Lucas was involved.

I can see why you might say that about my post, but it's really not the case. I went into this movie with fairly low expectations, but i still had high hopes. Like when i walked into the theater for each prequel, i WANTED to like this movie so much! I WANTED it to be as much fun as the others. But then it wasn't & that left me disappointed, just as i feared i would be but hoped i wouldn't.

the thing is, with some minor edits & tweaks & someone ballsy enough to tell them to stop using so much CGI, i think it could've been a really good IJ adventure. Not great like Raiders, but as good as any of the sequels. That just makes it even more disappointing to me.

i really don't hate lucas(he DID make some of the greatest films ever), it's just that all the things that really killed this movie for me just feel so much like his influence. The gophers? the car race opening? the tarzan swinging? the ridiculous amounts of unconvincing cgi? tell me you don't see Lucas in every one of those