I was mooching around the Internet reading outraged fan reaction to things like a factually incorrect Star Trek cake, Indy IV (more on that in a sec) and Dr. Who when I stumbled across this fantastic phrase:
… and it’s almost literally like I’m covered in bees.
(from here)
I think everyone should try and use that phrase whenever they can to express their outrage, particularly that classic fanboy outrage that can only be provoked by something completely insignificant.
Help me make this turn of phrase mainstream, start slipping into normal conversation. You may want to practise a bit until you can say it with a straight face.
Talking of outrage, I saw Indy IV last night, and I know a lot of fans are almost literally covered in bees about it but I really can’t see why, I liked it.
In the end it’s a good fun action romp, that uses the Indiana characters in the Indiana universe without ever quite making it to the level of true greatness. Still it’s better than a lot of junk out there.
In particular a few of the complaints against it are really stupid, the reason (and spoilers) after the jump.
There’s a lot of things wrong with the film, particularly some of the action sequences which are sillier than the Willis-rides-a-jet sequence in Die Hard 4.0, but that seems to be a trend with sequels where they try and out do what came before because they’re scared to making things seem too easy.
What bugs me is a few particular criticisms that have been levelled at the film, normally by the same people that hold Raider of the Lost Ark up as one of the centuries cinematic highlights.
It’s too long. Bollocks, it’s less than ten minutes longer than Raiders. Now, I’ll admit it could stand to lose those ten minutes, but this talk of two hours being too long for a film ignore the fact that Raiders clocked in at 115 minutes.
In fact if you look at the four films they’re based around the same basic structure, sure the early films pulled it off better but the problem doesn’t lie in the length, it’s the content.
For what it’s worth I thought the film went along just fine from the point that Indy gets out of the fridge, everything before that they could have cut or shown us in a flashback and I’d have been just as happy.
Aliens, OMG, WTF? This really annoys me. Look, it’s the same damn ending that the other films have, but everyone hates this because it’s crystal aliens.
Just to clarify, we’re fine with the Ark of the Covenant, the whatever-the-hell-it-was-in-the-second-one, and the Holy Grail being all religious and mystical but dare to have psychic aliens with advanced technology and everyone is out the door bitching about ‘realism’.
You can bitch about them using the same non-ending again or bitch about cliched gold is treasure is knowledge line but you can’t bitch about the aliens killing the bad guys and fixing up everything if you’re prepared to accept the Ark doing the exact same thing in the first one.
Well you can but you just end up looking like a tool.
Also, didn’t the whole survive-a-nuke-in-a-fridge bit tip you off that we might not be in the realm of real-world realism.
I’m glad I’ve got that off my chest.
Along with the bees.