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Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie?

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[Poll]

Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie?


Raiders of the Lost Ark
  55% (387)
Temple of Doom
  10% (76)
The Last Crusade
  33% (234)


Total Votes : 697
(last vote on : 21/3/2009 12:49:17 AM)
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Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 11:03:41 AM   
Olly Richards

 

Posts: 599
Joined: 30/9/2005
As part of Empire's Indy Month, three of our writers made their case for the best Indiana Jones film. You can read their arguments here. So, which do you think is Indy's greatest adventure?

< Message edited by Amar Vijay -- 6/5/2008 11:10:55 AM >
Post #: 1
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 11:22:28 AM   
StewieGriffin

 

Posts: 6
Joined: 1/9/2006
The best Indy is a simple matter of weighing the good against the bad....

Doom has the best set piece (mining cart get away) but is irritating at times.....

Crusade is good but the baddies aren't bad enough and the 'trek' to the grail not memorable enough....

Every scene, practically every line of dialogue in Raiders is legendary and that's why it's the best.



(in reply to Olly Richards)
Post #: 2
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 11:33:36 AM   
dunkah


Posts: 274
Joined: 1/9/2006
From: London
 Isn't it a bit like asking which is your favourite kid? It's always gonna be the oldest, right? So Raiders all the way!
But I honestly don't see why Temple Of Doom gets a hard time. So what if it's darker? Granted Willie is as one dimensional as they come but is she really that bad?

(in reply to StewieGriffin)
Post #: 3
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 11:38:59 AM   
Mojo


Posts: 5447
Joined: 30/9/2005
From: The CIC, next to the old man.
 Temple all the way.

(in reply to dunkah)
Post #: 4
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 11:39:12 AM   
livewire


Posts: 2674
Joined: 24/1/2006
From: Northern Ireland
 Raiders for me. It has a cracking story courtesy of a brilliant MaGuffin. The opening sequence a great introduction to indys character but i think the overriding thing about raiders is that it holds you even after all these years. You know whats coming. you've seen the film a million times but it just doesn't age like other films. You still love every minute of it. Thats why it's the best

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Post #: 5
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 11:50:36 AM   
Irfaan

 

Posts: 1
Joined: 27/4/2008
It was tough, but its got to be Raiders!!!!

Belloq is just tooooooo awesome, even against Mola Raam and Donovan

"What's briefly yours is now mine!!!!!!"

(in reply to livewire)
Post #: 6
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 11:51:56 AM   
indy2606

 

Posts: 11
Joined: 20/12/2005
I tink that Raiders is the most iconic one. It was the beginning of an adventure that still goes along.
Raiders has it all. Great set pieces, great villan and a good girl.
Doom is the one, for me, with the best set pieces AND the best shots. Spielberg outdone himself in this one. Especially the shot where he saves the childeren, and the minecart lamp is moving up to the hero's face. (the same shot is on the best Indy poster so far).
Crusade is the most fun of them all. I like the joke about the Ark the most (you know, in the sewers of Venice).
Connery and Ford are briljant in this one. But it laks of a real bad guy. Especially Donavon. He is a pussy compared to Belloq and Mola Ram.

I think, and i hope that the new one, will go further than the other 3. Spielberg and Lucas have done completely different directions on all 3. So let the fourt one be different, and maybe, just maybe, be the best.

Temple of doom is the most memorabal of the three, because that was the first one for me. It did it all for me.
So, for me, Temple of doom is the best, but just because it was the first one, and made me look at movies on a total different way. (i'm a filmmaker myself now)

 

(in reply to Olly Richards)
Post #: 7
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 11:52:09 AM   
The Last Crusader

 

Posts: 1
Joined: 5/9/2006
Raiders will always be the best, but they're all great! I'm hoping for Crystal Skull to end up being my second favorite. That seems possible.

(in reply to livewire)
Post #: 8
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 11:53:52 AM   
Greg Andrew


Posts: 246
Joined: 30/1/2006
From: Under Burt Reynolds moustache
 an astonished "JUNIOR" has me cracking up. Or "Look what you did!!!" odes it also, the father and son reunion was never better.

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Post #: 9
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 11:58:08 AM   
Barraluke


Posts: 905
Joined: 7/4/2008
From: Knoxville, Tennesse
 RAIDERS ALL THE WAAAAY!
It has the best lines, the best macguffin (Sankhara Stones? Really?), by far the best baddies and the best storyline. Raiders was the best film, the original, but for the second film the plot had to change drastically. Steven, George and Harrison did not have the best time making this film for their own various reasons. It was darker, and although Last Crusade was light, funny and almost carefree, that is emphasised by it's dark predecessor Doom.
Crusade produced Connery, the perfect Indy father, and his was one of the biggest bombshells in the trilogy (now set to be a quadrilogy):
Indy was named after the dog!

(in reply to The Last Crusader)
Post #: 10
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 11:59:05 AM   
swordsandsandals


Posts: 4524
Joined: 6/1/2006
From: Isle Of Man
 Crusade is the most entertaining, and has Sean Connery. Easy win.

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Post #: 11
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 12:08:34 PM   
dracovir


Posts: 1555
Joined: 3/10/2005
From: Wolverhampton, England
 I have to go with Raiders.  It has e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g you need for some perfect entertainment, never outsteps itself and is every bit as great today as it was upon release.  Temple and Crusade are both also brilliant for a vast variety of reasons, but neither quite match up to the scope of adventure as the first film.

It might be unfair to keep on comparing them to Raiders, but both sequels do refer to moments in the first film which for me, sometimes, takes me out of the film (for instance a scene in Temple sees Indy confronted with two swordsmen, he gives that wry smile and goes for his gun as in that all time classic moment from Raiders - although the outcome is different, the reference just makes me stop like, in an 'I know what you did there!' kind of way).

Raiders has more quoteable dialogue, the most memorable antagonist (Paul Freeman's Belloq is one of my fave motion picture villains ever), the most memorable enemy henchmen, the best 'Indy girl' with Karen Allen's Marion Ravenwood, some of the best stunt gags ever that have made such an impact (how many times has that boulder scene been emulated or spoofed?)

Before realising that the Beeb were screening Raiders over this past weekend, I had sat through a marathon of all three pictures back-to-back, so they are very fresh on my mind at present.  I love all three, they are among the greatest films of their particular kind (and still top what is probably the best of the pretenders,the 1999 version of The Mummy), but Raiders gets more of an audience reaction from me than its two worthy, though not-quite-as-good sequels.


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RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 12:17:44 PM   
gene bradley


Posts: 177
Joined: 12/3/2008
From: scunthorpe
quote:

ORIGINAL: livewire

Raiders for me. It has a cracking story courtesy of a brilliant MaGuffin. The opening sequence a great introduction to indys character but i think the overriding thing about raiders is that it holds you even after all these years. You know whats coming. you've seen the film a million times but it just doesn't age like other films. You still love every minute of it. Thats why it's the best


I agree with every word Livewire said,every word.

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Post #: 13
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 12:23:20 PM   
steje73

 

Posts: 3
Joined: 23/4/2008
Raiders every day of the week.

As Belloq says "This IS history!

(in reply to gene bradley)
Post #: 14
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 12:39:24 PM   
frankie


Posts: 937
Joined: 30/9/2005
From: Manchester
 Didn't need a second thought to vote on this.
It's Temple of Doom every time for me, and like Ian Nathan I despair of Spielberg's insitence on making it OK to disown it as part of the trilogy.

For me, Doom is almost the perfect movie, especially when you're 12 years old. It's exciting, funny, scary and Harrison ford is at his best. I soo wanted to be Indy after seeing this. I merely liked him after watching Raiders.

Just because Raiders is the original, it doesn't make it the best. Don't get me wrong i really love raiders, but as i've said before on here, i think that when raiders is good, it's sublime, but when it's not, well, it's just a tad bit dull to be honest.
As for Crusade, well  bar the River phoenix scenes it never did much for me. It's not nearly as memorable as the first 2 movies, has no really original set pieces and worst of all tries far too hard to be another Raiders based, in my opinion, on the poor critical response for Doom. I like it more nowadays, but it's certainly the black sheep for me. I'm just hoping Crystal Skull will impress me more (and it's worth noting that i'm very very excited about it), but I fear it will make the same mistake as Crusade in emulating the wrong episode. Let's face it, it's gonna be nowt like the Temple of Doom.

I think a lot of us base which is our favourite on how we felt about them as kids. Where we were when they came out, their impact on our then emotional values and how we responded at the time.
But what about deciding this debate by seeing how today's children ('cos kids are the target audience after all) rate them after objectively viewing the trilogy as a whole?

Well, my own kids will only watch Raiders and Crusade by skipping to the set pieces. Doom holds their attention throughout. That's proof enough for me.



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RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 12:51:29 PM   
Wraggsterino

 

Posts: 37
Joined: 4/9/2006
It's interesting that the proportions of the results so far reflect the relative sensations I have towards each film. What's worth noting though is that it's a tribute to the quality and class of the 3 films comprising the franchise that we're able to debate without an obvious stand-out winner, without it simply coming down to the rule of dimishing returns: The oldest being the greatest and the standard dropping with each subsequent release. Think of the crap trilogies we've had to sit through where things go off and start to stink gorribly with age: Shrek, Matrix, Spiderman, X-Men, Pirates, Jaws, Jurassic Park even.

Indy in all incarnations rules.

(in reply to Olly Richards)
Post #: 16
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 12:55:20 PM   
grucl

 

Posts: 1404
Joined: 11/2/2008
Easy choice: Crusade!

It holds a special place in my heart since it's

a)      the first Indy movie I saw
b)      the only one I saw at the cinema (6 times total over a two week timespan)
c)      the movie that kickstarted my love for the cinema at the age of 12 (I literally was a different person after seeing it)

I love the other two movies to bits, don't get me wrong. They are wonderful adventures in their own right. But Crusade holds the throne…forever!

Therefore I am thrilled to read that Indy IV will be closest to Crusade in mood!

< Message edited by grucl -- 6/5/2008 12:56:39 PM >

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Post #: 17
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 1:00:13 PM   
the anomaly


Posts: 4412
Joined: 20/6/2006
Out of Raiders and The Last Crusade for me.

(in reply to grucl)
Post #: 18
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 1:00:58 PM   
jimibadboi7

 

Posts: 115
Joined: 7/12/2006
Crusade is the most rounded of all three...the most satisfying....the best Indy.

But, Raiders isn't far behind at all... Doom on the other hand...just doesn't sit well with me at all (with exception to the opening sequence)...as soon as that raft lands in India...it's all down hill!

(in reply to Olly Richards)
Post #: 19
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 1:01:24 PM   
Scruffybobby


Posts: 2038
Joined: 30/9/2005
From: My House
 Raiders is the first and the best, but only just. Its got the most memorable set pieces - the boulder, the swordsman, the snake pit, the flying wing. the truck chase. It's got the best villains - Belloq, Toht, Nazi Monkey and it's got the best love interest. It's got some great quotable dialouge- "Snakes..., It's not the years" etc. Its just action adventure gold. 2 hours of cinema heaven.

Temple of Doom is great entertainment. Spooky and squirmy with another great villain. Willie Scott is shrill and annoying at times, but Kate Capshaw has a great chemistry with Harrison Ford, espcially in the "Nocturnal Activities" montage. A lot of the negativity towards her seems to come from the fact that she isn't Marion. Short Round is a bit irritating but he gets some great monents - like the scene where his fight with the Maharajah mirrors Indy's one with the Thuggee guard. And the action sequenes are great.

Last Crusade is of course the one with Sean Connery in it, and his presence elevates the film. The "maguffin" is a bit uninspring but it really is just a distraction. Its the chemistry between Henry Jones Sr and Jr that makes this such a joy. So what if Connery's only 12 years older than Ford? They're a great pairing. The supporting characters get some great moments too - like Sallah's hilarity at the revelation of the source of Indy's nickname.  The villains are a bit weak though and Alison Doody doesn't really make as much of an impression as the other love interests (although she is the prettiest ).  It's a great ending (or was) to the series and probably the warmest of so far. It humanises our hero more than any of the others (and humiliates him just a bit - named after a dog?Ha Ha Ha!)

I love them all but I if I have to pick one then it's Raiders becuase ... I don't know I'm making this up as I go.



< Message edited by Scruffybobby -- 6/5/2008 2:53:02 PM >

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Post #: 20
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 1:03:11 PM   
Evil_Monkey25

 

Posts: 86
Joined: 27/10/2007
quote:

ORIGINAL: dunkah

Isn't it a bit like asking which is your favourite kid? It's always gonna be the oldest, right?


I've got twins, what the hell do I do?

Easy, I vote "Raiders", declare it to be not only the greatest Indy film of all time but one of the best films outright, and hide from my girls the fact that they'll never be as important as that one film... well, maybe not the last bit....

(in reply to dunkah)
Post #: 21
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 2:01:43 PM   
shool


Posts: 4504
Joined: 24/3/2006
From: In The Pipe, Five by Five.
 I absolutely love them all, but if I had to choose one it would be last crusade.

I love the humour in it, the relationship between father and son, the set pieces are excellent and I love the 3 trials.


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Post #: 22
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 2:14:15 PM   
Kazuya


Posts: 7961
Joined: 23/8/2006
From: The Eighth Dimension c/o Buckaroo Banzai
 Raiders of the Lost Ark any day of the week and twice on Sunday. 

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RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 2:30:56 PM   
steveg66


Posts: 342
Joined: 5/9/2006
From: harlow
 Raiders just pips it for me, it's that power of God thing. BUT, combine Raiders with the Last Crusade and then you'll have the best Indy film of all time!

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Post #: 24
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 2:38:59 PM   
cactusjac2000

 

Posts: 1
Joined: 4/5/2008
Temple is as close to 'pure' Indiana Jones as you can get.

The first episode dealt heavily with Jones' relationship with Marion; the third with his father. Temple presents a situation where his only ties are a young sidekick and a love interest none of us are supposed to take seriously. It's more of a straight-up adventure, and I love the idea behind the sankhara stones and the slave children. Plus, Mola freakin' Rahm! He's easily the scariest villain of all three flicks.

Temple is the one where Indy really gets to do his thing!

(in reply to steveg66)
Post #: 25
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 2:50:16 PM   
Wraggsterino

 

Posts: 37
Joined: 4/9/2006
Scruffybobby, what film is your posting GIF/image from? Driving me crazy - in more ways than one...

(in reply to Scruffybobby)
Post #: 26
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 4:19:34 PM   
CHRISMOORE1

 

Posts: 3
Joined: 8/8/2007
quote:

ORIGINAL: grucl

Easy choice: Crusade!

c)      the movie that kickstarted my love for the cinema at the age of 12 (I literally was a different person after seeing it)


You were literally a different person? 

(in reply to grucl)
Post #: 27
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 4:27:37 PM   
dunner05

 

Posts: 120
Joined: 2/5/2006
Raiders, but for my buck Temple of Doom has the coolest, meanest Ford performance and the ripped-shirt and machete pose on the bridge is the iconic Indy image

(in reply to Olly Richards)
Post #: 28
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 4:34:25 PM   
Concise_Statement


Posts: 35
Joined: 1/2/2008
Last Crusade.

It's the one I grew up with so this probably brings out the 'party loyalist' in me - it's MY Indiana Jones film.Critically though I genuinely think it's superior.

It has the smartest script with all those Freudian nods of Indy and his his dad both sleeping with Elsa, possibly within a few days of each other.

And for that matter I also think it has the best girl - she's absolutely beautiful, but corrupt, and I think much of the audience, like Indy, is even more drawn to her after finding out she's bad.

The artefact for my money is even more grand than the Ark. Yeah the angels booby trap was cool, but in and of itself, it raises the question, who gives a stuff about some stupid tablets for Moses, when you've got the very goblet of Jesus Christ.

The film's pacing and structure is fantastic as we rattle through increasingly exhilerating set pieces culminating in the tour de force of the tank chase. And then when that can't be topped, it changes tone, and it becomes a journey about Indy and his father finally appreciating their relationship. You'd have to be made of stone not to be moved when Henry gets shot and then subsequently healed. It's the perfect ending. (Too bad for Elsa.)

One last question. Has Elsa became so evil, that she intentionally gave Donovan the wrong cup? She certainly knows her job. Did she do it because she hated being in league with the Nazis? Did she really want to share the real Grail with Indy. Or was her genuine horror at Donovan's demise reflective of an honest mistake? I still can't work that girl out!






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Post #: 29
RE: Which Is The Best Indiana Jones Movie? - 6/5/2008 4:54:47 PM   
Gazdance


Posts: 1090
Joined: 3/10/2005
From: Southampton
 It has always been Temple of Doom for me.  No amount of preaching from anyone is ever going to be able to convince me otherwise because I just enjoy it too much.  It was the first one I saw when I was younger and the set pieces were the ones I reenacted in many a tree/park/adventure playground.

Raiders just seems slow in places, though it is undeniably great in many parts as well.  Crusade feels the most fake, I can't quite put my finger on it but when I watch it I feel like I can almost sense the lighting rig, boom, camera and everything else.  I'm somehow more aware of the artifice of film making.  Despite it's many pleasures, I just can't enjoy Crusade.

(in reply to Concise_Statement)
Post #: 30
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