My reaction...

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Posted by GCR from spider-wb041.proxy.aol.com on December 17, 1999 at 06:55:28:

In Reply to: When Indiana Jones becomes "Indy" (this kinda goes with my other SPF v. RP post, and it's anothe good long healthy one, much like this sentance; just can't stop, sorry!). posted by Ultraman Tiga on December 17, 1999 at 03:19:06:

: CHARACTER DEVLOPMENT 101

: I'm hearing "naive" this and "innocent" that.

: Remember, when we first met Indiana Jones back in Raiders of the Lost Ark - he's a complete bastard. He robs treasures from other cultures (Even his arch-rival had the courtesy to learn their language)!

-I always found that a bit odd, considering what a talent the young Indy has for speaking so many different languages. And it was Belloq who wanted to sell the idol, Indy, although he was 'stealing' it, was still gonna put it in a museum.

He fools around with young girls ("Love you"-girl, and Marion was only fifteen when he put his purple-headed warrior to her love pudding, thus ruining her life - read the novel for more).

This is true, and this goes along with the fact Speilberg wanted the character to be a kinda sleazy guy...a trait I don't see in SPF


:Even if he himself doesn't belive it, he IS purporting to the "white man as god" image that was inescapapable in that unenlightened segement of time (you don't need to look further than the Cairo scenes, but thank god the villains are the Nazis, a clever way to mirror the fact that white-men were also the blight of the Earth at the same time - indeed many still are). He hires a bunch of diggers and relaxes calmy with ice-cream in hand while they slave to the mastah and uncover the Well of Souls. Okay, so he didn't have ice cream.

Lest we forget it was Indy who planted his shovel into the ground first? Also, I doubt any of the diggers had been through a fight and shootout in the streets of Cairo, Indy had goo reason to rest, hell, he HIRED them to dig! (It's not as though it were slave labor!)

: Again, Belloq is the class-act of this film (literally, Indy murders people, and the most evil thing Belloq does is accidentally swallow a fly), and Indy is just another greedy, dirty fightin' gold-digger. Yet, that's the ambiguous nature that made the film so riveting, and why it's best not to call it "Indiana Jones and the...". Indy is merely one of the "Raiders" of the title.

I disagree, Indy wasn't just another gold digger (Marcus: They want you to go for it! Indy: Ohh, Marcus!!! Marcus: They want you to get a hold of the Ark before the Nazis do and they're prepared to pay handsomely ... Indy: And the MUSEUM? The MUSEUM gets the Ark...blah blah..)He still had that underlying 'belongs in a museum' boyscout in him. And Belloq? He became partners with the NAZIS!!! If that's not bad...

: Heaven forbid, indy sprays the S*word in two films! In all th
ree films, there is evidence that Indy has a smeared reputation - ToD: the grave-robber accusation; Raiders: anything with Marion and Belloq and Indy's line about the govt, "What would they want to see ME for?"; Crusade: Donovon hired Henry Sr. before even thinking of going to Indy.

I believe it was due to the fact Henry Sr. was obsessed with the GRAIl, and was a GRAIL expert. That and they probably needed his diary in order to complete the mission for the Nazis. Indy was brought in only when the diary went missing and they needed someone to locate the knights tomb etc.

: Was Indy always so bad and rotten? No. This is why he's not a punk-ass bastard who deserves to die at the end of the film with all the other goons. It's pretty easy to see where Indy turned sour - when he met Marion, while working with Abner. It's all there in the film and all the various sources.

: So of course he's going to be a much better person before these events, and that's the Indy you see in Chapters 1 - 24. Flanery still has the physical mannerisms that make him Indy - the ready-for-anything walk, the sheepish grin, the determined sneer. But if his attifuted seems different, it's because it IS! He has exactly the attitude a=Indy at that age would: younger and more naive, not only of himself, but of the world and everyone around him. This is why i's so dramatit when Mata Hari pegs him dead on, "You're nothing more than a stupid boy prentending he's a man!"

: In LC, River's Indy shouts: "That belongs in a museum!" In ToD and Raiders, his notions are nowhere near as noble! Fortune and glory are all that matters.

Here again is where I will refer to the quote from Raiders I wrote above. Indy was a scoundrel, but you are making him out worse than he really was, and that makes the SPF portrayal even less realistic (to me) I doubt someone as strong willed and tenacious as the Phoenix Indy could then become as naive as the SPF Indy only a few years later. And I doubt the SPF Indy could then regain the strong will and attitude, along with the scoundrel quality by 1926. The SPF Indy is just as naive as the Corey Carrier Indy!!! I just can't buy SPF as a sleazy/scoundrel-with a drinking problem going around 'de-flowering' 15 year olds.

: Kinda makes me wish Lucas would have made a chapter before Raiders to show when his life took a turn to the dark side. But it's easy to see for yourslef (I hope, if you don't have this kind of imagination that Lucas' efforts are wasted on you, and you should leave the forum immediately): Indy goes into a self imposed guilt trip without realising he'd jerkily took advantage of a young girls affections. he can't quite shake, gets a quick remedy out of booze (more than one implication in Raiders that Indy knows his stuff) and god knows what else.

That goes along with the Speilberg sleazy-drinker character. Lucas wanted the character to be more of a playboy, kinda like a Bond type, and this is briefly explored in ToD in the begining.

: Lastly, in LC, Indy is more fixed, if not perfect. He has gone back to the "museum" theory, lives comfortably as a college proffessor, and is more laid back and prone to think before sending his fists into action. What tamed him? Hopefully, a PART 4 might answer that question.

I'd have to say I don't think Indy was 'fixed' in crusade, I think he always had the 'museum' theory with him, and that his scoundrel qualities are kinda lost by being with his Dad, but they are still there. If Crusade didn't have Connery in it, or the character he played, Indy would have been the same Indy as in the other two.

: Sophia Hapgood perhaps? Willie? Or maybe Marion and he had a really long nice talk after meeting up again at the end of Raiders?

: Here's hoping Lucas allows that gap to be filled someday.

: TIGA

I hope so too, until then, all we can do is argue about it in the forum!
-GCR


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