In what order do you rate the Indiana Jones Movies

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They're all fun and all very different from each other, at least in my opinion. I think of them more as part of one big saga.

By the way, the reason so many people hate Crystal Skull is because George Lucas has stumbled upon a winning formula: These days, people LOVE to HATE. I really believe he intentially does things to give people something to complain about. So he made the latest Indy movie about aliens. If he was truly trying to please the fans, he would have picked another religious artifact.

Same thinking went into the Star Wars prequels. He's a very smart man and realizes there's more money to be made in making people miserable than making them happy these days. People want to ^^^^^ and complain, even if they don't realize it. The days of the happy-go-lucky 50's where everything was "keen" are long gone. Welcome to the era of "epic fail."
 
Jedi Princess said:
They're all fun and all very different from each other, at least in my opinion. I think of them more as part of one big saga.

By the way, the reason so many people hate Crystal Skull is because George Lucas has stumbled upon a winning formula: These days, people LOVE to HATE. I really believe he intentially does things to give people something to complain about. So he made the latest Indy movie about aliens. If he was truly trying to please the fans, he would have picked another religious artifact.

Same thinking went into the Star Wars prequels. He's a very smart man and realizes there's more money to be made in making people miserable than making them happy these days. People want to ^^^^^ and complain, even if they don't realize it. The days of the happy-go-lucky 50's where everything was "keen" are long gone. Welcome to the era of "epic fail."
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I guess I have to disagree here! The weekest link in the formula has ALWAYS been Lucas! He's a lazy director/screenwriter! He thinks he's got a formula, but he's only lucky to have a great crew and great actors, and occasionally, a great director to work for him!
Now, I've always dreamed of Star Wars made by a REAL director! Can you imagine if Cameron or Scott had had that licence in their hands? Add a a little grime here, a little blood there, what a formula it would have been!!!!
But you're right about something though! I'm fed up with blockbusters! Take the Dark Knight for instance, a great movie for sure, but that cult following that came after? Boring. You'd think it's the only movie in the world! I guess we've seen all the customs imaginable about it, so much so that I don't even care clicking the link when I see one! Hell, I got my HT Batman and Joker in September! They are still MIB and I'm so fed up with the subject that I must have looked at them only once! I don't even feel like getting them out of the box!
Now, bring us novelty! There are so many great movies that remain to be tackled! Let's have imagination! let's break new grounds and not always tread the same paths!
 
TheObsoleteMan said:
1) Raiders - Action/adventure perfection

2) Temple - Action packed. Best villain. Comes closest to duplicating the 30's adventure serials

3) Crusade - Brilliant chemistry between Ford and Connery. Opening Cross of Coronado sequence is my favortie of the series. On the downside the plot is just a rehash of Raiders and it has the most uninteresting villains of the series.

4) KOTCS - Ford shows he's still got it, and the chemistry bewteen him and Shia is pretty good. Cate Blanchett was fantastic. Terrific opening sequence at the warehouse. Nice job of capturing the 50's B movie vibe. Unfortunatley, there's never any real sense of danger and the movie overall just has a very comfortable feeling.
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quoted to save time! :whip
 
1. Raiders - Just perfect
2. Last Crusade - back fighting the Nazis - where Indy should be
3. Temple of Doom - the whole pulling out the heart thing lost me
4. Crystal skull....mmmmm surviving the nuke in the fridge, that stupid sword fight across the cars, the giant ant death straight out of the mummy & the alien theme completely killed it for me.. but Indy was still cool & even Mutt & Marion worked for me
 
Raiders - probably my favorite movie. It isn't the best film ever made but it succeeds at what it wants to do as well as any movie ever has. The perfect example of an adventure movie.
Last Crusade - almost a cartoon caricature of Raiders, but it has heart and I love the prologue, the tank chase, Henry Sr.'s introduction, the zeppelin conversation...a lot of great moments.
Crystal Skull - it knows it's a sequel, it knows we love Indy, and it just wants to have some fun. Very much the sequel to last Crusade, IMO.
Temple of Doom - I'm glad there have been a lot of vocal supporters of this one in the last 6 months or so. It made me revisit it and appreciate it a lot more. It's a darker story about a man who's hasn't had his "divine" experiences yet. Contains some of my favorite imagery of the series. Unfortunately it also contains the only aspect of the series I truly despise - Capshaw :banghead. It's my least favorite of the series, but still a favorite overall.
 
1. Temple of Doom - Indy is pushed to the limit both mentally and physically, and by the end he's barely hanging together in time for the credits. The villains were actually threatening, each scene is ingenious, Short Round acts like a real kid, Capshaw is spunky and serves as the opposite of Short Round in not wanting any part in this movie. And this is the only movie where I can't fast forward, I just have to watch the whole thing from the "Get ready for the show" musical to the very end in one long chain of action. Mine cars, dark rituals, a village needing a hero, deals with gangsters gone horribly wrong, a sharp sidekick, a fiery damsel, rope bridges over hungry crocodiles, a plane with no gas, a room of spikes, and magic rocks. What's not to love?

2. Raiders of The Lost Ark - Very well-balanced action and great ingenuity and humor. It isn't a chain of action sequences like Temple but doesn't feel slow, and when the action starts up they're always exciting.

3. Kingdom of The Crystal Skull - The first 3 movies were spaced out a few years or a year apart from each other, and we see subtle changes in Indy both physically and ideologically. I loved that in close to 20 years Indy's life has been continuing without us and he acts like, "Where've you been? You missed when I was caught in New Mexico. But no idea who the hell these guys are, they just put me in a trunk...wait...Russians."

4. Last Crusade - Vogel, Elsa, and Donovan weren't really enthralling villains. Also it left most of the movie with Indy's father in place of where his lady friend should be. Old characters were brought back, old locations were brought back, and the action felt sadly generic. I did like Henry Sr., the 3 challenges, and Young Indy but it didn't have the umph the first two did. It works well in one way but blandly as an action movie, and I can't help but skip a few scenes.
 
slynger said:
1. Raiders of the Lost Ark (what's better than the original that started it all?!)
2. Last Crusade
3. Crystal Skull
4. Temple of Doom
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Agreed. Raiders is clearly the best of the group ... and one of the top 10 of all time. I like Last Crusade a lot, but it wasn't nearly as inspired or groundbreaking as Raiders. Kingdom is underrated ... but on a second viewing, is actually a pretty good little adventure movie. There are problems (the monkeys, for instance) -- but I thought it worked overall.

Temple has some good set pieces, and memorable characters (Mola Ram, Short Round, etc.), and the last 20 minutes of action are among the best (bridge, mine cars, etc.). But, the plot was a bit of a mess. The movie was too dark, the dinner gags were ridiculous, Willie was annoying, there was no travel at all, and the Kali Cult plot just didn't work for me. The two Judeo-Christian relics worked better.

SnakeDoc
 
1 - ROTLA & TLC: There were just too many fun aspects about TLC that I couldn't rate it lower than ROTLA. However, that said, ROTLA was great for introducing us to the adventurer. So for me it's a dead-even tie.

2 - TOD: Taking place before ROTLA, for some reason I just wasn't able to buy into it that much. While it was fun watching another Indy film, to me, it just missed the mark by a little bit. At least it had a plot that was understandable though.

3 - KOTCS: I don't like extra cheese on my pizza and this one was chalk full of it. While it was great to see Indy again, things like the atomic fridge, Tarzan Mutt, the heavily laden CGI effects, Marian's annoyingly non-stop grinning like the Cheshire cat from Wonderland and the head-scratching non-UFO - interdimentional alien crap really left me disappointed.
 
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A few months ago I posted a different ranking, but now I find myself ranking them in the exact order they came out. When I first saw these movies, I felt TOD didn't fit and liked it less than Crusade because Crusade felt more like Raiders, but now I've come to really enjoy TOD more and ignore it's differences and just get invested in the Indy story and it's a very good one. I love him as the badass taking charge in the end.
 

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