Why, Hollywood, why?

This is partly a general movie rant and partly a rant about the new Indiana Jones movie. Now, I haven’t seen the Indy movie, and, after spending some time on line reading reviews, I’m not sure if I will, but unless a hell of a lot of reviewers are lying…it has issues. But first, the general movie rant, so that those who don’t wish to read Indy spoilers can more easily avoid them.

I’ve seen several movies in the past few years that I felt like I’d seen before – while watching them for the first time in the theater. I don’t just mean that they hit all the clichés of the genre, I mean I literally sat in the theater trying to figure out what various scenes were from. Not only is that bad on it’s own, but I like adventure movies, and one shouldn’t have time for that kind of thought while watching an adventure movie. But I did.

I’m still convinced that the entire climax of the first Pirates of the Caribbean is from… something. I can’t for the life of me think what, but either I somehow saw it before I saw it, or there’s some movie from the 70’s or 80’s that also features a climax with a cursed treasure and zombies…or something close enough for me to sit there thinking “I’ve seen this. I’m sure I have.” It wasn’t just that I predicted what the heroes could do, it was that I could almost, almost conjure up images from the movie that first had that scene.

Or I’m crazy, always possible.

The National Treasure movies have it even worse. The scene with the ice bound shipwreck, the theft of the Declaration of Independence, and the climax of the second movie (and other scenes from both movies I can’t quite think of right now), I swear are right out of episodes of MacGyver. Whether or not they really are, that feeling gave the movies a very made-for-TV feel to me.

And those are movies I enjoyed. I know there were any number of other movies I’ve seen recently that also suffered from “Haven’t I seen this before?” syndrome, but they were so unmemorable that I don’t remember them. Which is even more disappointing. I mean, really, is it too much to ask for a good adventure movie that doesn’t leave me thinking I’ve seen it before?

What does “Haven’t I seen this before?” syndrome have to do with the new Indiana Jones movie?

Now we enter spoilery territory…





After what happened with the Star Wars prequels, I had a bad feeling about the new Indiana Jones movie before I knew anything about it, so I was probably predisposed to see problems. Then I heard rumors that a character was Indy’s son, and I muttered to myself about why it’s never a daughter, and found myself thinking that now, instead of National Treasure being reminiscent of Indiana Jones, Indiana Jones is going to be reminiscent of National Treasure. Then I saw the trailer and went “Uh, didn’t they do this on Stargate SG1?” and my bad feeling grew.

So I went looking for reviews and spoilers. And my bad feeling blossomed to planetary size. Crystal skulls and aliens? They did do this on Stargate SG1 on an episode called Crystal Skull, no less. *headdesk*

Yes, I know crystal skulls are real objects, people think they may have something to do with aliens (or hoaxers), but, come on, why would you pick a MacGuffin that was bound to remind the audience of a television show? Why? Hell, despite it being the goal of the second National Treasure movie, the seven cities of gold would be a better MacGuffin. Just have Cibola, Quivira, and whatnot somewhere sensible and people will forget about the silliness under Mount Rushmore. (Oh gods, it just occurred to me that Indy said something about a city of gold in the trailer… )

Can’t we have some bloody originality? Hell, somehow Clive Cussler keeps me reading his outrageous Dirk Pitt books, and I loved the TV show Relic Hunter, so it’s not the clichés of the genre, it’s really not. It’s that sinking “Haven’t I seen this before?”


(And if anyone knows how to spoiler tag on Blogger...share the knowledge, please?)