INDIANA JONES & THE DIAL OF DESTINY To Rival "John Carter" As Disney's Biggest Bomb

[AndyDursin]

Disney doesn't have enough cash to afford a physical release apparently.

That company is in a massive hole and it's not going to get any better.

Also this nugget headline today....in comparison, JOHN CARTER was a better movie too! And at least there you could understand why it did so poorly (unfamiliar IP not a sequel to one of the big hits of the 1980s etc)

[Eric W.]

Disasterous and it didn't have to happen.

[AndyDursin]

This was a weird movie for me. Indiana Jones waking up in his apartment in the middle of the NYC with his socks hung to dry on a makeshift clothesline outside of the window. He's on the sauce, so to speak. Just not how I'd like to remember the character going out. I don't understand this massive love by some people for this movie. Was it entertaining? Sure it was - to a point. Then it became sullen, maudlin at times. Like it has been said, the premise of the time travel element was not at all bad. Hell, if we can see a 600-year old knight in THE LAST CRUSADE, then why not this. Better writing could have explored the possibilities more effectively. Better direction and execution under Spielberg would have given the visual gusto and dramatic cohesiveness that this film needed. There's much more, but I'd relegate this to the CD discussion in this thread.

Responding to Ed's analysis -- this is very much in sync with my review. I think time travel COULD have been the perfect way to use Ford -- but this screenplay, which clearly was mitigated by Disney's corporate filmmaking "writer's room" processes and "focus group finessing," didn't find a satisfying way of utilizing it.

And agree, so much of this movie could have been adjusted in a positive way by Spielberg. The tonal issues and surprising lapses in judgment -- like the number of dead bodies, people shot dead, the entire "waste the Nazis" graphic shootings on top of the train -- are something Spielberg absolutely would not have agreed to. They don't fit within the old-time Saturday Matinee tone of the first 3 films (excepting the graphic violence TEMPLE OF DOOM infamously veered towards, which Spielberg lamented after it was released). Plus, would Spielberg have cast Phoebe Waller-Bridge? Seen Indy as a washed-up bum? Undoubtedly not.

All that said, there was still no way around the fake, phony CGI and green screen which became the baseline for CRYSTAL SKULL and was carried right into this movie. That "you are there" location feel that the original trilogy had was gone from these last 2 films, to the point where they aesthetically and otherwise, don't aesthetically feel like they are connected with the original Indy trilogy. Yet as lame as parts of CRYSTAL SKULL are (and they still are), it's still preferable to DIAL OF DESTINY. Spielberg's sensibilities at least make the film feel connected to the prior movies, even with its rampant shortcomings (Karen Allen has a few lines of dialogue but just sits there, for example). Williams's scoring is a lot more developed, thematically, and less frantic by comparison with DIAL, etc.

I'm also surprised like you Ed -- given the bad reviews and poor box-office -- how excited some people were by this movie. I believe the core demographic of fans for this movie is 65+ and they're mostly people who post on the FSM board. I'd imagine there's some semblance of just emotional attachment -- "hey, look at Ford still doing his thing!" -- but the issues involving the story, tone, total lack of appeal for Helena (is she good? bad? who cares), and clumsy and obvious reshooting didn't improve a very clearly misguided, and misconceived, project right from the get-go.

[Edmund Kattak]

This was a weird movie for me. Indiana Jones waking up in his apartment in the middle of the NYC with his socks hung to dry on a makeshift clothesline outside of the window. He's on the sauce, so to speak. Just not how I'd like to remember the character going out. I don't understand this massive love by some people for this movie. Was it entertaining? Sure it was - to a point. Then it became sullen, maudlin at times. Like it has been said, the premise of the time travel element was not at all bad. Hell, if we can see a 600-year old knight in THE LAST CRUSADE, then why not this. Better writing could have explored the possibilities more effectively. Better direction and execution under Spielberg would have given the visual gusto and dramatic cohesiveness that this film needed. There's much more, but I'd relegate this to the CD discussion in this thread.

Responding to Ed's analysis -- this is very much in sync with my review. I think time travel COULD have been the perfect way to use Ford -- but this screenplay, which clearly was mitigated by Disney's corporate filmmaking "writer's room" processes and "focus group finessing," didn't find a satisfying way of utilizing it.

And agree, so much of this movie could have been adjusted in a positive way by Spielberg. The tonal issues and surprising lapses in judgment -- like the number of dead bodies, people shot dead, the entire "waste the Nazis" graphic shootings on top of the train -- are something Spielberg absolutely would not have agreed to. They don't fit within the old-time Saturday Matinee tone of the first 3 films (excepting the graphic violence TEMPLE OF DOOM infamously veered towards, which Spielberg lamented after it was released). Plus, would Spielberg have cast Phoebe Waller-Bridge? Seen Indy as a washed-up bum? Undoubtedly not.

All that said, there was still no way around the fake, phony CGI and green screen which became the baseline for CRYSTAL SKULL and was carried right into this movie. That "you are there" location feel that the original trilogy had was gone from these last 2 films, to the point where they aesthetically and otherwise, don't aesthetically feel like they are connected with the original Indy trilogy. Yet as lame as parts of CRYSTAL SKULL are (and they still are), it's still preferable to DIAL OF DESTINY. Spielberg's sensibilities at least make the film feel connected to the prior movies, even with its rampant shortcomings (Karen Allen has a few lines of dialogue but just sits there, for example). Williams's scoring is a lot more developed, thematically, and less frantic by comparison with DIAL, etc.

I'm also surprised like you Ed -- given the bad reviews and poor box-office -- how excited some people were by this movie. I believe the core demographic of fans for this movie is 65+ and they're mostly people who post on the FSM board. I'd imagine there's some semblance of just emotional attachment -- "hey, look at Ford still doing his thing!" -- but the issues involving the story, tone, total lack of appeal for Helena (is she good? bad? who cares), and clumsy and obvious reshooting didn't improve a very clearly misguided, and misconceived, project right from the get-go.

The obvious component was the character of Helena being off pulse. Like you said, is she good or is she bad? However, the consistency was very jarring for me. Endearing is some moments, borderline sadistic in others ("I told them to shoot you.."), elements of erratic sympathy, apathy, selfishness, and a brief moment of damsel in distress. It doesn't make sense from a human nature perspective, never mind a narrative flow. The re-shot ending had her character seem fulfilled and wholesome (judging by the expressions on her face), but treated to this this erratic schizophrenia on screen for the past two and a half hours. I just don't buy it by the time we reach end credits. That ending where Marion says "They say you're back." seems very contrived, like much of the character traits they give Indy (the alcoholic innuendos by having him add some kind of alcohol to his instant coffee, or taking a sip from a flask, or going to alone to bar in the middle of the day to drink while watching the TV???) But back from where? What psychological place did he go to that they did not explore during the 2:40 time frame of this movie? Are we to assume he had already been in a bad place at the beginning and is somehow in a good place at the end? What transformation did he internally go through by the end of the picture that makes him whole again, especially since he had to be forcefully knocked out in order to "come back?" Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy - denouement.

The writer's room on this movie laid out a career path for this man that seems at odds with the history and demeanor of the character. Why would he leave a quaint New England college with a statue of Marcus Brody to teach at a non-descript school (Hunter College?) in NYC? He's living in an apartment just at the start of the great NYC decay of the 1970's. The loud neighbor (Is he a 60's hippie or modern-day young hipster wannabe
?) who blasts The Beatles at 8am on a workday has no payoff to the scene other than reinforcing that Henry Jones Jr. is old. He takes a baseball bat down to knock in his door while standing there with his bloated old body in his underwear? His neighbor doesn't seem threatening, nor does his cute girlfriend. But why do this? And why is Prof. Jones not at school already. Even in college in the 1980's my professors were there early before 8 - even when they didn't have later scheduled classes. This is really not how I'd expect him to be at this point in his life. If they want to argue that the grief over his loss is what his motivation is, then it was poorly conceived for this movie, as it does not remain consistent. When they throw comedy into the movie (Indy and Helena at gunpoint in Tangiers by the slighted former fiancee(?) Is this an action-adventure movie I'm, watching? The beats seem way off kilter for me.

At minimum, the movie was not done justice by its writing. The maximum was the wasted potential of characters demising in needless visualization of on-screen vilence. This is something that Spielberg had mastered over the years, whereby he did not need to show you the violence but most often the aftereffects (Color Purple - Whoopie getting smacked by Glover, but all you see are the birds frantically flying off).

There are so many hanging threads in this movie that I suspect were not just left on the cutting room floor, but not even realized in the writing of this disappointing opportunity.

[John Johnson]

A friend of mine called the film Indiana Jones and the Diarrhea of Destiny, saying it made Crystal Skull look like Raiders.

He wasn't that far wrong.

[Monterey Jack]

It was an utterly deflating experience. Say what you will about Crystal Skull, but at least it had a Ford who didn't look like he was gonna shatter into a million pieces if he tripped and fell down and Spielberg's camerawork.

[AndyDursin]

CRYSTAL SKULL is such a comedown from the original Indy trilogy -- but despite all its problems (and it has many), as we've said, it's not an outright disgrace the way DIAL OF DESTINY is. Which is a Disney corporate product instead of a Steven Spielberg film, and shows in how it misjudges its audience, misjudges it tone, and frankly doesn't understand elements (quick pacing, two hour run times, "Saturday matinee" thrills and not a high body count) that made its predcessors so popular. It's a modern, bloated "franchise movie" from corporate goons who don't really "get" what Lucas and Spielberg were doing, and shows in every facet.

For me, this series will always end -- in my own canon -- riding off into the sunset at the end of LAST CRUSADE. That's the actual ending of this series.

[Monterey Jack]

(quick pacing, two hour run times, "Saturday matinee" thrills and not a high body count)

Even Temple Of Doom, which had literal child slavery in it, didn't feel as "off" as seeing Indy's co-workers being shot in their office. That would work in a movie like The Fugitive (which is much more of a "real world" thriller), but not something that's supposed to be FUN.

[AndyDursin]

(quick pacing, two hour run times, "Saturday matinee" thrills and not a high body count)

Even Temple Of Doom, which had literal child slavery in it, didn't feel as "off" as seeing Indy's co-workers being shot in their office. That would work in a movie like The Fugitive (which is much more of a "real world" thriller), but not something that's supposed to be FUN.

And yet even with that -- plus the scene of Nazi soldiers being slaughtered on the train at the beginning -- Disney still put their name and studio "family brand" on this movie! Which just says everything about how lost they are...

[John Johnson]

I believe Disney+ have this on 1st December.

[Monterey Jack]

And yet even with that -- plus the scene of Nazi soldiers being slaughtered on the train at the beginning -- Disney still put their name and studio "family brand" on this movie! Which just says everything about how lost they are...

They also opened the third Pirates Of The Caribbean movie with a MASS HANGING scene (including a young boy!), and The Lone Ranger kicked off with Armie Hammer's brother getting his heart cut out and eaten in front of him.

Disney hasn't been "Disney" for a long, long time. No wonder parents are dropping their movies, shows and theme parks left and right...when they're not too violent, they're pushing stuff for an audience FAR too young to understand it ("Why is there a bearded man in a dress welcoming us into Disney World, Mommy? What's a 'period', Daddy...?").

[Paul MacLean]

How can this be?

I mean it’s a sequel to a 42-year-old movie with an uncomely, annoying leading lady trying upstage a much-loved (and now decrepit) hero.

[Monterey Jack]

If 2023 has taught us anything, it's that audiences will no longer automatically show up for a franchise so old that Leonardo DiCaprio wouldn't want to date it. Even the only good aging franchise sequel (Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning) tanked, maybe because people realized en masse that the first time they saw an M:I movie was the same year the most popular song/dance was the Macarena. Meanwhile IPs that hadn't been strip-mined to death on the big screen (Super Mario Bros., Barbie) raked it in, mainly because they felt "fresh".

[Monterey Jack]

[AndyDursin]

It's just so unbelievable that someone couldn't find a way to write out "Mutt" without adding this layer of sadness that not only wasn't needed, but doesn't belong with the material to begin with. INDIANA JONES isn't LORD OF THE RINGS. It's not some series with a vast backstory or intricate "lore" that needed elements like that, or needed to be a ridiculous 150 minutes long to begin with. But just like the most bloated of STAR WARS movies, THE LAST JEDI, it shows a profound disregard and lack of understanding on Disney's behalf as to what they're making.

And it's not just the "aging fanboys," everyone is now onto their failures. No more blaming the audience -- even Iger admitted they've made "too many sequels" that didn't need to be made (of course his fault still!). Bottom line is Disney has damaged its own brand through this stuff. They're the corporation that goes out and buys IP's -- then devalues them because they don't understand what made them successful. Whether it's Lucasfilm or the Muppets or now Marvel, it's on them. They didn't create ANY of those properties, but they've managed to bungle them all. Their failures. Nobody else's.

To a certain degree I'm disappointed in John Williams even scoring these Disney films and not working on something more meaningful. He's one of the only links of continuity between Lucas/Spielberg and the Disney company, but he owed no allegiance to the latter. I know he was paid well, but it's given these films some semblance of "class" or "connective tissue" they frankly didn't deserve.