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Wednesday, December 3, 2025
FTM 798: FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
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Download this episode here.
Download this episode here.
Hola gents, I hope you’ll forgive a belated reply to the Patrick/Mike Temple of Doom pod from some time ago. :)
ReplyDeleteFirstly, Indy absolutely has a character arc in Raiders of the Lost Ark, growing from a smirking skeptic to (if not a whole-hearted convert to monotheism) someone with a healthy reverence for the power behind the Ark. This evolution would be repeated with minor variations in each of the following four flicks, all to lesser effect.
But the core problem with Temple of Doom, IMO, that I didn’t hear at all addressed in either the F! or Blank Check pods, is that it jettisons one of the things that makes Raiders such a masterpiece, and that’s verisimilitude. I enjoy a live-action cartoon superhero flick as much as the next guy, but there’s also something to be said for a movie in which, climactic ancient ghosts excepted, everything feels just grounded enough to remain plausible. (I’d argue that this applies even to cosmic sci-fi flicks like Alien/Aliens and The Wrath of Khan - as wild as the technology gets, the human characters still feel like actual mortals.)
With Temple, however, almost everything’s a cartoon, from the magically expanding stage opening musical number on. The mountains-to-river raft ride is every bit as physics-defying as Crystal Skull’s nuked fridge, and the big mine cart sequence feels more like a Super Nintendo Donkey Kong level than events which exist in the same universe as Raiders’ centerpiece truck chase. (Just because it was filmed with models and dolls and no CG doesn’t make it any less cartoonish than, say, the tuk-tuk chase in Dial of Destiny.) The nighttime jungle card-playing scene, with a menagerie of animals (including an owl?!) all sounding off perfectly on cue, plays like a sitcom sketch. Finally, sorry, but it doesn’t matter how great the screen chemistry between Ford and Ke Huy Quan is, there’s absolutely no scenario in which a violent adventurer like Indy would repeatedly involve a child in his scrapes. Someone who can’t take a punch or drive a car without stilts would be a liability, not an asset.
In short, whereas Raiders feels tantalizingly and thrillingly plausible, Temple offers cartoon character dynamics and cartoon physics in a cartoon world, and that, rather than its darker tone, cultural insensitivities, and maddeningly screechy heroine, is what makes it the far weaker film. (And the same can be said for the following sequels.)
"we don't know how to continue"
ReplyDeleteThey can't just make another Bond movie, they have to make it work in the continuity. Explain every little detail of how and why the new guy is 007. They can't just put him in the role and start banging miss universes.
I hate the continuity trend in movies right now, but apparently that's what the fans want.
Awesome for you guys to finally do an episode on The Office!
ReplyDeleteOf course Blofeld's plan is revenge-based, it's the R in SPECTRE.
ReplyDelete(Btw, it's SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion. And no, I didn't have to look that up.)
Just to answer the possibly rhetorical question on the show, people do still listen to the (formerly slash) Filmcast! It's not my favorite film related podcast, but does the trick for new releases and solid discussions. It doesn't seem like David Chen has any ill will towards Rian Johnson for the trolling he endured, or maybe he's dying inside every time Rian comes back on the show.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, keep it up with the slow Bond series, I enjoy each one even tho I'm not much of a Bond person.
I definitely used to like that show and have nothing against it! I just kind of fell off and forgot all about it.
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