Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: Unholy Edition (Released) — Page 2

Sounds a lot more to my liking than your Temple cut. I love the original as is, but mighnt give this a go if i run into it.

I LOVE this edit.  This is a case of a movie that suits this kind of treatment.  The original is okay to pretty good.  It pales compared to the original, but it has the saving grace of an interesting new character played by Sean Connery. 

But now it follows in Raiders' footsteps so much better.  Without so many half-assed jokes and self-referencing nudges, the story actually works.  The small changes are my favorites-- eliminating the "Dad hates rats" line for example.  Now it seems like smart screenwriting when we get to Connery and see that he hates rats-- it's a little joke now as it should have been.

Indy remains cool throughout.  He's almost as cold and determined as he was in the original.  It's just so damn much better. 

Great work.

The only quibble I have is that I don't understand why the college students are busting down Indy's door for office hours.  Is he a celebrity now?  That never made sense to me and it sure contradicts the low enthusiasm his students show in Raiders. 

But without the River Phoenix opening, this didn't bother me as much.  Great choices everywhere. It was really cool to see the credits over that opening fight-- it was not the same mood as Raiders, but it really seems to suit this movie.  Again, thanks and good job.

Nice review, MTH. Makes me want to see it even more. I think I have to cool it with the downloading for a bit, though. I don't trust my ISP's internet usage tool, which says I'm already up to 75% of my monthly allowance. I'll probably get it near the end of the month, I guess. There's also that serial version of Raiders to get!

Thanks, MTH!  Good to hear from you.  Thanks for the comments.  Glad you enjoyed it!

Ripplin, why don't you ask someone to mail you a copy?  Are you able to PIF?

--ID 

I could, but I'll probably just wait a bit. I'd want to do a full blown trade with someone, anyway. :p

Hey, did I tell you I watched your Temple of Doom edit now? Very nice! :) And once KotCS is released, it'll be interesting to see what deleted scenes are included. Might be able to do a lot with them.

InfoDroid surprised me with an unexpected copy. (Thank you!) I hadn't been on the boards in a short while, so I didn't even know this existed!

Can't wait to watch it as I always felt this film could use a little tightening up.

PiF is open, if you need one.  I can still send out the ID ToD edit, too.

Not to knock the edit job, but the boat's waaaay too modern. It looks like what it is, a modern fishing trawler, not a 30's tramp steamer!

pnag said:

Not to knock the edit job, but the boat's waaaay too modern. It looks like what it is, a modern fishing trawler, not a 30's tramp steamer!

And I knew someone would eventually say it. Something made it inevitable.

Well, pnag...far be it from me to ignore the need for accuracy, but I believe that some things, not all things - but SOME things - require a reasonable amount of imagination on the the part of the viewer. I'm no Steven Spielberg, after all. It's not like I can go out and spend millions of dollars re-filming sequences for a movie that's been in the can since 1989. I'm just a dude sitting in an apartment on his home PC.

See, removing the Young Indy sequence presented a problem. I needed something to fade into the Paramount mountain logo (lest I risk the breaking of tradition and incur the wrath of devoted fans). I solved that problem with the best thing I had available to me...shots from another movie. But it couldn't be just any shot. This shot had to be a ship...at night...in a storm...the right kind of storm...the "perfect" storm, in fact...slightly blue tinge...and the exact right angle to match the lines of the logo. So, I compromised with what I had, which...I think...if you squint a little, all things considered, it works pretty well.

It works for me anyway...and in the end, that's all that's important. LOL!

So, I say just relax and enjoy.  But, kudos to you for being so eagle-eyed.

--ID

p.s. - If you look real hard, you're even able to make out the words "Andrea Gail" emblazoned on the ship's hull. Blink and you'll miss it.

i thought this was an ok edit..

i've never liked 'the last crusade' , (it was almost as bad as 'the temple of doom')..

it's just way too derivative of the first movie, and almost follows the outline to the T,

along with Nazis, looking for a religious artifact, the fights, jokes, etc.....

i was hoping this might change some aspects of the movie to improve it..

however, i  did not find it to be the case...  it almost made it worse in a way,

the missing intro scene was fun to me, but its gone, now we're dropped into

a random fight scene for no reason...the rest of movie progresses pretty much

the same way the original did, with no real improvements either,.... yeah some

of the pacing is different, lines are altered here and there.....

but overall, i didn't get the feeling that movie was altered enough in a meaningful

way, to change its major flaws (being a subpar clone of the first movie)..

not recommended for everyone...

nice job on the editting ... you might want to wipe out 'river phoenix' from the

credits, since he's actually not in it...

later

-1

Well, negative1, at least you're aptly named. 

Sorry you didn't like it.

Thanks for the review.  Not sure why you expected anything different than the complete list of changes I posted right here at the top of this thread. 

--ID

stossmo said:

ID, maybe you should have changed the Nazi plot up a bit by using Neimodian subtitles from Episode 1.....  

 

LOL!

Yeah, it's totally a clone of the first movie-- funny how I never noticed before, what with the intro of Indy's childhood and domineering father, and then the duplicitous love-interest girl archeologist who works for the nazis, the way Indy never doubts the grail is real or magic-- it's a virtual shot-for-shot remake.

What movie did you watch, Negative1?  Aside from the presence of Nazis, there isn't one thing in Last Crusade that's the same as Raiders.  That's why I didn't like it (until Infodroid dialed down the dumb by several factors with this edit).

Of course you're free to not like the edit, but I don't know how you could have read Infodroid's description of his changes and expected something totally different.  I wish your criticisms at least made sense.

what i meant i the themes were too similar to my tastes...

ROTLA - introduces belloq(sp?) and history with indy

TLC - introduces some other guy that has a history with indy

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

ROTLA- indiana has a talk about finding the ark of the covenant

TLC - indiana has a talk about finding the holy grail

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

ROTLA -indiana jones travels to exotic location to find out more info,

           runs into a beautiful girl

TLC - indiana jones travels to exotic location to find out more info,

           runs into a beautiful girl

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

ROTLA - indiana has a fight scene shooting up the bad guys in a bar

TLC - indiana has a fight scene shooting up bad guys on a boat

(and for an added bonus, fighting with the possibility of getting

chopped up by a propeller)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ROTLA - indiana does intricate problem solving to find artifact in the desert

TLC - indiana does intricate problem solving to find artifact in desert

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ROTLA  - indiana finds the artifact and it gets taken away by the nazis

TLC - indiana finds the information about where to get artifact, but the

nazis want to take it away

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ROTLA - cue several chase scenes with indiana being pursed by nazis

TLC - cue several chase scenes with indiana being pursued by nazis

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ROTLA - indiana has a dramatic fight with a nazi, that goes back and forth,

with indiana of course ultimately winning in a dramatic way (plane)

TLC - indiana has a dramatic fight with a nazi, that goes back and forth,

with indiana of course ultimately winning in a dramatic way (tank)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ROTLA - the nazi bad guys act stupid with the artifact, and dies a gruesome death

TLC - the bad guy acts stupid near the artifact, and dies a gruesome death

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ROTLA - the artifact is put away where no one will ever find it

TLC - the artifact is lost in a place where no one will ever find it

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

yeah, it actually follows all the major plot points, timing, and events

that closely..

as much as TOD sucked, this sucked just as bad,

because THERE WAS NO ORIGINAL THOUGHT PUT INTO THE MOVIE..

thats why i liked INDY 4 so much....(although, come to think of it,

it was pretty derivative too , subtitute nazi = russian, etc)..

later

-1

Not a big James Bond fan, I take it.

You left out that they were both shot on film and released by Paramount.  By your list, the only way a sequel wouldn't be too much like ROTLA is if Indiana didn't go after artifiacts and fights badguys who try to take them from him and meet beautiful girls in exotic locations.  You actually thought Indy fighting fez wearing grail protectors on speedboats was a rehash of Indy fighting the Nazi hired thugs in Marion's bar? 

The fact is ROTLA is the story of a skeptic learning to face real magic while TLC is the story of a man healing his long hurtful rift with his father.  Yeah, they both have nazis, fights, artifacts and pretty girls, but so does Schindler's List.  For TLC to have so many Indy trademarks worked into a completely different story is an accomplishment, not a cop-out.  Sorry you don't see it that way.

MTHaslett said:

Not a big James Bond fan, I take it.

not really, although there's a few sean connery ones [he WAS james bond] that i liked,

at least they had different enemies..

You left out that they were both shot on film and released by Paramount.  By your list, the only way a sequel wouldn't be too much like ROTLA is if Indiana didn't go after artifiacts and fights badguys who try to take them from him and meet beautiful girls in exotic locations.  You actually thought Indy fighting fez wearing grail protectors on speedboats was a rehash of Indy fighting the Nazi hired thugs in Marion's bar? 

no, you're still missing my point, they DONT have to be exactly the same,

its just the timing, and sequence of events..

yeah, think about why TOD was better, even though it sucked overall:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

intro : completely wild fight scene in a club, and an awesome start

girl   : meets the beautiful girl early on

location : ends up in a trap (plane), that takes him to india, that he has to escape

from..

plot : yeah, ok its more religious artifacts....lame....couldn't it be something else?

crazy bug/animal scene : the feast at the indian place .... lame....totally overdone..

and then the added scene with the bugs in the tunnel.....

bad guys : indian thugs  ...  very original .... at least they're not ...shhh..nazis..

wild chase scene : done on underground rail cars .... some points for originality ...

fight scene / dramatic moment : cutting the bridge in half ... amazing......

climactic fight with bad guy     : yeah its there...   but at least is not ....shhh. ...nazis

resolution : they actually return the stuff they were looking for

SEE, WAS IT THAT HARD TO CHANGE ALL THE ELEMENTS?

too bad though, because in itself the changes were ok, but put together,

they became a very tiring / boring / poorly orchestrated sequence of events...

 

The fact is ROTLA is the story of a skeptic learning to face real magic while TLC is the story of a man healing his long hurtful rift with his father.  Yeah, they both have nazis, fights, artifacts and pretty girls, but so does Schindler's List.  For TLC to have so many Indy trademarks worked into a completely different story is an accomplishment, not a cop-out.  Sorry you don't see it that way.

didn't matter too me....

it's all about spiritual stuff (and i'm semi-religious christian).....so what difference did

it make? or how he got there, or if the lame dialogue with his father (which totally wasted

sean connery being in the film).......

you casually throw aside valid plot points, similarities, and structure, just because of

1 or 2 differences?   and what about schindlers list? when did oscar go looking for

an artifact? what beautiful girl are you talking about? where was the big dramatic

fight scene ? what are you talking about?

is that the best comparison you could come up with?

don't you think alan quartermain and the city of gold, or the first one, were

actually better at cloning 'indiana jones', than the actual sequels themselves?

dont you think there were plenty of other parodies, and attempts that tried

to establish themselves : ie : romancing the stone, jewel of the nile...

give me a break, lucas and spielberg realized how big a turkey they had

with the second one, and desperately tried to return to the formula that

they had the first time, and failed miserably with the third, which pretty

much killed off the series..... luckily they were able to resurrect it with

something much more original the 4th time around..

later

-1

You and I look at film completely differently.  You see deep structural differences as inconsequential and superficial surface similarities as totally over-riding.  But one of the buy-ins to the Indy series is that it's James Bond with an archaeologist.  So he's going to go after religious artifacts the way Bond goes after world-threatening mcguffins.  That's where Lucas and Spielberg started, but it's a non-starter for you.  Did you really think Infodroid was going to change that? 

The changes you like in TOD are why that movie didn't feel like Indy at all to me.  Replacing the Nazis with Thugees (or whatever) was fine, but nobody makes better bad-guys than Nazis.  But the real problem is at the deep structural level-- TOD has a man who was a skeptic about magic in ROTLA taking an earlier adventure where he uses magic like a superpower to save the day?  The professor from ROTLA is nowhere to be found.  Instead we have a womanizing, tuxedo wearing tough-guy who seriously says he "spares" people's lives.  There are no Indy elements in TOD except the hat and the whip. 

TLC is far from perfect, but at least the character resembles the guy from ROTLA.  Instead of jettisoning the character, it expands upon him by doing the father story. 

You seem to want the guy who discovers the actual ark of the covenant and sees it work to then forget about it and pursue non-religious artifacts?  Is that a likely development?  Would you?  TLC is a natural follow up to the story of the Ark. 

Crystal Skulls and Shankara stones, on the other hand, contradict the very clearly Old-Testament universe that ROTLA is set in.

thank you mthaslett for the civil debate...

although i will just say that, much like the EU did for star wars

(people either like it or hate it), i read every indiana jones story

that was released, and some of them were pretty good..

not to mention the videogames (fate of atlantis), and all the

young indiana jones tv episodes also (which i thought were

very good also).................

there is a wealth of adventures/stories that indiana has explored

outside of the 'old testament' universe........... i just wished they

had used them instead..

later

-1

Reading my posts, I hope I was civil.  I think it's good to hear more about where you're coming from to better understand your review, Negative1. Thanks.

I am definitely of the opinion that the first movies (Star Wars and ROTLA) got it right. Period.  And anything that comes along later and contradicts it is sub-par work.  Even as much as I enjoy Empire Strikes Back, I can't give it my whole heart because it fundamentally contradicts Star Wars (plus it doesn't even end).  So I am an eager fan-edit devotee when someone comes along with my bias.

The unholy edition of TLC is definitely for fans of ROTLA who want more of that flavor.

So....anyone seen Gunga Din?  ;)

oh sure, just make a joke of it all.  >:P

MTHaslett said:

oh sure, just make a joke of it all. >:P

Hey, if anyone is qualified to...