After my poor review of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" last week I was waiting for people to leave comments complaining. None came. That makes me feel justified in my criticism. It was a silly film which received completely unjustified praise. Based on the lack of contradiction everyone agrees with me. However, if there is one Indiana Jones fan out there who was too shy to respond to my article, I hope that my five star rating of "Temple of Doom" will make him happy. This film has everything that the first film doesn't. Right from the parody of the Rank gong in the first few seconds I knew the film would be something special. Then the Chinese version of "Anything Goes" left me wide-mouthed and amazed. And Harrison Ford's appearance in the bar like a 1930's James Bond. If the film had stopped there I would have been happy.
But the film didn't stop there. It was action all the way. When it comes to making action movies, Steven Spielberg is probably the world's best director. I wouldn't say that he's my favourite director. I mean that he's technically perfect. If there are rules that students learn in film school on how to structure a film, he follows every rule. He takes no risks. I prefer Quentin Tarantino because he takes risks and breaks the rules, but Steven Spielberg is so perfect that he couldn't possibly make a bad film.
Let's just forget that "Raiders of the Lost Ark" was ever made. I'm not contradicting myself by saying it was a mediocre film. The problem was that it was influenced by George Lucas too much. That dragged the quality down. "Temple of Doom" is Steven Spielberg's film all the way.
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Lucas and Spielberg were both vital to one another's careers. Indiana Jones was thanks to both of them. But yes, over time Spielberg got more control. Lucas lost his mojo with Willow (even if it is still kind of enjoyable). In later documentaries they commented how dark a film Temple was due to their own personal lives being shaken around the time. So Lucas certainly identifies with this film. It is most significant of course for the formation of the PG-13 rating.
ReplyDeleteAs I've pointed out in other reviews, I have the "feeling" that "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is a George Lucas film, whoever's name is in the credits as director. The following films are obviously Steven Spielberg films, his style is all over them. I haven't watched any of the documentaries you refer to, but they confirm what I felt.
DeleteWhat do you mean about the PG-13 rating?
"As producer George Lucas explained to Empire, "Part of it was I was going through a divorce, Steven had just broken up, and we were not in a good mood. It ended up darker than we thought it would be. Once we got out of our bad moods ... we kind of looked at it and went, 'Mmmmm, we certainly took it to the extreme.'"
ReplyDeleteThose extremes — which included an incredibly violent human-sacrifice scene — outraged parents who brought their children to the PG-rated film. Still, the darker installment was massively popular and brought in $179 million in the U.S. alone.
"Everybody was screaming, screaming, screaming that it should have had an R-rating, and I didn’t agree," director Steven Spielberg told The Associated Press in 2004.
But with no rating in between PG and R, Spielberg would come up with a compromise that would change movies and the rating system forever."
Sorry for long quote, but its quite informative. From http://www.businessinsider.com/
There's no need to apologise. I find the quote interesting. I don't see that it deserved an R rating. It's less PG-ish than Lost Ark, but not R.
DeleteI'm just overly polite.. well, sometimes anyway ;)
ReplyDelete