Re: My reaction...

[ Reply ] [ The Indyfan Forum ] [ FAQ ]

Posted by Ultraman Tiga from ts006d30.las-nv.concentric.net on December 18, 1999 at 03:11:13:

In Reply to: My reaction... posted by GCR on December 17, 1999 at 06:55:28:

: : CHARACTER DEVLOPMENT 101

: : 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.

Well, it's not as if Indy could learn every language in the known world, and it is a tribal dialect anyway from S. Aamerica (most of Indy's exotic languages are Eastern in nature). As far as putting the idol in a museum, what purpose is there in that, other than fortune and glory? Indy's a hob-nobber, and just wants the credit.


: 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

Which was the point of my post (that SPF is supposed to be playing Indy as more of an innocent), and anyway, you do see that in SPF in some episodes; Mata Hari and all of Hollywood Follies comes to mind, where he claims to "own" the girl. In "Scandal of 1920" he's dating three women at once, and lying to all of them at the same time! Consider that his adventures start with him and a cousin heading to Mexico in search of bordellos! How much sleazier can he get?

: :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!)

One plant and we don't even see him lift the dirt! Anyway, I was exaggerating that scene somewhat (why I included the ice-cream reference) but it still illustrates my point. Let's face it; would anyone make a major Hollywood film glorifying a battle in the streets of Cairo in 1930's with something other than a white-male leading the action? And why would they do this? Again, it's not Indy's or even Spielberg fault that the world was so bigoted and unenlightened - it's just the way it was, and no amount of sugarcoating or pure fantasy can change that.

: : 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.

Like I responded to ROB T above, Indy's concern with the museum is that it's his name going on the placard for The Ark's discovery and retreival. Fortune and glory are Indy's sole motivations, supported by the face that IF the Ark contains the power it does (and Indy was the biggest skeptic of that theory) then the Nazi's would rule the world. Remember, most people of the world had no idea of the extent of the Nazi's evil at that time, even today the holocaust has been ridiculously debunked as fiction. The people that did know what had been going on were of Indy's stature: well travelled (esp. Europe) and well educated - someone who can read between the lines of the headlines. Read a "Saint" novel for more of what I'm getting at there!

:And Belloq? He became partners with the NAZIS!!! If that's not bad...

See above. True, Belloq (without question) knew what the Nazi's were up to. As ROB T above points out, his allegiance is not entirely with them - he's just selling to the highest bidder. How much did Indy get paid by the American government at the end? Cosnideirng he'd rather have achieved the fame and glory, and found the money "satisfactory", I'm guessing it was probably a third of what Belloq was paid.

: : Heaven forbid, indy sprays the S*word in two films! In all three 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.

Considering Henry Sr's. proffesion, yes but they wouldn't have known he was keeping the diary until after they'd hired him. Cosnidering Indy's reputation at that point, I'm pretty sure Donovan's party saw him as nothing more than a formidablly physical loser - look at the way they approached him! Never would they dare "invite" him and have him be seen by that party!

: : 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.

That's the folly of River's portrayal that I'm crying about! Why would he be a 'tenacious scoundrel' at thirteen years old? Other than to irk his father, which he fails miserable at when told to count in Greek? All River did, or was asked to do, was just do an imitation of Harrison Ford, and he was fine, but not spectacular. It's a spectacular sequence, but that's credit to Spielberg and his editors (not too mention William's vibrant score). Anyone could have gotten in there and done just what Pheonix did, and Corey Carrier and Sean Patrick Flanery are both proof of that! Again, if you need proof of SPF's sleaziness, what Sprink Break Adventure and consider his slobber over Mata Hari's photo (did they rename it in the knew video? I know originally that's who it was, but I don't remember them mentioning her by name on the new video.)
Come to think of it, look at the way he treats Cathy Z. Jones in "Daredevils of the Desert". That's SPF's Indy on his way to becoming HF's Indy for sure.

Again, my point was that his treatment of life and women changed after he met Marion and disscovered the Staff of Ra with Abner in '26. The he becomes a sour-puss for at least till the end of Raiders.

: : 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. I would really love to see Lucas flesh out this point and make a film with Sean Patrick Flanery.

: 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.

No. Until his father was kidnapped, Indy pretty much despised the man (see "Winds of Change" or "Travels With Father" for that set-up). If Indy was the same as in Raiders and ToD, his priority would have been the grail first. He was still tempted, that's why he bothered with the knight's tomb (plus it was convenient). That was the point of Last Crusade, without needing any setup from a "Young Indy' series. Even when he did find his father, they pretty much despised each other! It wasn't until after they had adventured with each other that things became cool. Are you sure you understood this movie right?

: : 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!

I prefer to think of it as exploring the issues, more than arguing about them!

Cheerio!

Tiga-ah!



Follow Ups:


Post a Followup:

Name:    
E-Mail:  
Subject: 
Comments:

Optional:

Link URL:   
Link Title: 
Image URL:

[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ The Indyfan Forum ] [ FAQ ]