Mayhem & Chaos: The Blog

It’s been sometime since I’ve written something, but it took my disappointment of the new Indiana Jones movie to get my blogging. *Warning, SPOILERS Ahead*

Today was a pretty good. Our boss rented out the Alamo Draft House here in Houston and treated the company to a private screening of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull or should I say Scully? I’ll jump right into it. ALIENS? What. The. Hell?!

I’ve defended Lucas many times over but this was just…just..wow. ALIENS? Me being the historical fan, I’m fully aware of the ridiculous theories that aliens came down here and populated a hybrid, slave race or Humans. I’ve seen/read lots and lots of conspiracy theories on how the government is in league with these aliens to harvest a mass drone population; and looking around, I can see how someone could buy into that. But, for Heavens sake, WHY, oh WHY did it have to be the main plot of this highly anticipated, 20 years in the making of a movie?

I think what really set me off is that we at the office got to have an Indiana Jones marathon in preparation for the movie today. I had all three movies to watch back-to-back and get all giddy about going to see it with my wife and co-workers. For that, I’m grateful and of course for the boss taking all of us. And, judging by his tweets tonight, he wasn’t too impressed either.

Alright, lets start from the beginning, literally. The opening scene was a CGI gopher or what-not. Yes, A CGI GOPHER. That’s probably one of my first and biggest complaints. This movie did not need to have so much CGI. It’s Indiana Jones for Pete’s sake. Second, it was fairly obvious that Mutt Williams would be revealed to Jones’ son. But, it was so very anti-climactic. Hey, by the way he’s your son. Oh, really? Alright, lets go get the bad guys. Which leads me to my next gripe. The villain, or lack there of was just simply a joke to all villain in movies. Cate Bland-chet was a cheap Natasha, of Boris &, spoof. I wasn’t impressed, nor intimidated by her character.

Characters and bad acting aside, the fact that they tied in aliens to this movie was just out right silly. The Ark, the Holy Grail, the Occult were themes of the first three films. Now, one could argue and say that the cult of alien followings would make for a good theme for this movie. I would have to agree and say that it would be a good theme…for the next X-files movie. The climax of the movie was very reminiscent of the climax of X-files - did any else catch that?

I’m all for revamping a good movie and breathing new life into it. Rambo, in my opinion did a great job of it. Balboa, not so much, but eh. Halloween did it right. But this was just a shame. A down right shame.

Overall, if I take away the Indiana Jones aspect of it, the movie was fine. But for Indiana Jones, finder of the lost art, savior of slave children in India and patriot of the Holy Grail, it just did not fit. Other then Harrison Ford and the other returning characters, I feel that this was not a true Indy film.

I’ve also read a lot about Shia’s character, Mutt, coming back and continuing the Indiana Jones adventures. After seeing this movie, I really hope not! One plus: Shia didn’t have his “NO, no, no, no, NO!” moments in this movie.

Mr. Lucas, I’m a huge fan of your work, but please, please stop ruining the movies I’ve grown up on. Lord forbid you remake or make a sequel to Willow. I’ll be crushed!

If any of you caught the series premiere of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles you might has been a little disappointed like I was. Overall I have to say that the show was pretty good and I hope to see it take off so I have another Monday night show to watch other than Heroes.

The thing that I found most disappointing was the weak-ass portrayal of Sarah Connor. This series is supposed to take place shortly after T2: Judgment Day and last time I saw it, Sarah Connor was no cry-baby. io9.com has a good posting and review of the show. The T.V. show almost feels like it takes place after Terminator, where Sarah is still a little less “aggressive”, rather then the hardcore, M-16 toting T2 Sarah Connor.

Understandably the lack of good character portrayal is due to the writer’s strike, but I’m not going to pin it all on them. I’m sure the execs wanted to tone it down too, but why, I don’t know - it’s the damn Terminator story.

Another factor that I wasn’t too impressed by, which I’m sure every guy will disagree with me, is the new guardian Terminator, Cameron (a possible nod to James?), played by Summer Glau of Firefly and Serenity fame. Now, please don’t get me wrong, I have no objection to seeing her in the show, but was her character just put in there for the sake of eye-candy and appealing to us guys or concrete reasons? If anything, I’d like to see her in a killer Terminator role, like Kristanna Loken did.

I’m gonna wait it out and keep with it to see how the story pans out. It’s almost like watching Titanic (another Cameron piece) where you know how it will end (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) but you want to see how they get to that point.

Update: After reading some more articles, reviews and the wikipedia article, I’ve come to realize that this show completely omits the storyline of T3: Rise of the Machines. The Sarah Connor Chronicle (hate that title) is an alternate storyline. I guess you can do that when it comes to time travel - no such thing as continuity.

The movie contains an example of a predestination paradox. The Terminator’s mission in the first movie is to go back in time and kill Sarah Connor, thereby preventing John Connor from being the leader of the resistance forces. However, had the Terminator not been sent back, Kyle Reese would not have been sent back to father John, preventing John from being born. The Terminator is also reverse engineered and used to create Skynet. By sending the Terminator and Kyle Reese back in time, Skynet and Connor ensure their own existence. Does your head hurt now?

I haven’t read any reviews on this movie so this is based solely on my personal preference and observation from the trailers. Why do I think this new adaptation of the classic Beowulf will fail? Well, I think it’s the big obvious reason. The entire movie is done with CGI. It worked for “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within” but I just don’t feel it happening for this movie. Read the rest of this entry »