Valthonin here, the biggest Indy fan ever(its not up for discussion. I am what I am. I am Indiana Jones).
Well.....i saw it. I went to the theaters with 30 or so of my friends to see that first showing at 12:01am. I was fully dressed as Indiana Jones. There were several others dressed as him, but mine was definitely the best put together costume. Me and my gang swarmed the theater as soon as they let us in and practically took over the seats and got the best seating. For the duration of the night, everyone ceased calling me by my other name(its not important) and called me by my true name...Indy.
SPOILERS AHEAD
So, the movie itself. Scale from 1-10 : 6 or 7. And for an Indiana Jones film, thats bad. Raiders and Last Crusade would be 10's and Temple (for me, I actually LIKE Temple of doom) would be a 9. This film is definitely the worst of the series, but I NEVER expected it to be better than the originals. Dont worry though, the film was definitely fun. As in, I did have fun watching it. It was exciting to see my idol on the big screen for the first time ever. It was surreal. There were funny parts, intense parts, action-y parts, thrilling parts...the whole shebang. BUT, as soon as the monkeys arrive and fight the Russians and Mutt Williams turns into Tarzan for a moment, the movie takes a turn for the worse.
I can see exactly where Lucas comes in and chopped up Frank Darabont's original script for this film... He even has his favorite movie killer...small fuzzy creatures that defeat well armed evil soldiers. Now, the monkeys dont beat the whole Russian army of course, but they do delay and fight the Russians in a stupid way... just like Ewoks.
When Marion is driving the car and she lands it on the tree and it perfectly descends into the water....bogus.
DID ANYONE ELSE NOTICE THAT INDIANA JONES DID NOT SHOOT HIS REVOLVER!?!?! What is up with that? He only takes it out ONCE and its seen for 2 seconds. Gimme a break...he coulda shot ONE rooskie(sp?).
The ending....jeez. Aliens? UFO's? For gods sakes...this is INDIANA JONES NOT STAR WARS. It was way too weird, WAY too weird. It also contradicts all the religious centered Mac Guffins (those are the center pieces of the films, for example the Ark in Raiders, Sankara stones in Temple, and the Holy Grail in LC). Indiana Jones has always been centered upon the mystery of God and religion in general...by why oh why...aliens?
The marrage, I didnt have a problem with. Very fairy tale-ish, but cute. It was cool to see Indy settle down with Marion finally.
Personally, I thought Shia would ruin the movie. I didnt consider him a problem in the least. I think he did a great job, thank God for that. Its actually somewhat believeable that he is Henry Jones III, but maybe they coulda gotten a rougher looking kid, idk. But Shia did do a good job.
Part of me is feeling like this was a movie for non mainstream Indy fans. in other words, ppl that DIDNT know Indy too well and werent huge fans, but knew of him.
One of my FAVORITE parts is right at the end when Indy's fedora falls at the feet of Mutt and he picks it up. He's about to put it on, (at this point im flipping out. If Shia puts on that fedora then im going to Skywalker Ranch and personally making sure Lucas never screws with Indiana Jones again) and then Indy snatches it and puts it on his own head. They almost had me there, that was a nice little trick. Cool scene.
The bar fight? Hilarious. "Hey thats my boyfriend!" POW, lol. The dry sand pit? Also funny.
The cameo of the Ark in the Hangar 51 scene was very, very cool. Too see the Ark one last time, and have Indy and the Russians run by it and not realize what was there...awesome.
Thats all for now, sorry i'm a day late. I had my graduation today :D. More too come when I remember it however.