Hermes Rocket

End of an era

The last few months have been a whirlwind romance between myself and Tumblr, but I’m afraid it ends here. I’ve moved on … to Wordpress. The new site has more options and is slightly less baffling to look at. So have a look.

MacGuffined

Yesterday, I read the original rejected Indiana Jones IV script. After reading that it had been leaked online and yanked almost instantly, I refused to believe that I couldn’t track it down in three Google steps or less. And I did. This morning I can’t seem to find the link anymore, so if any of the four people who read my blog want a copy, let me know.

Writer Frank Darabont has been airing his grievances since his script was tossed, claiming that Spielberg loved it while Lucas spiked it. “It was a tremendous disappointment and a waste of my year,” he told MTV. He may get some grim satisfaction now that some people are calling his script superior to the resulting film.

Let’s set the record straight. Darabont’s script has many of the scenes and plot points that end up in the film: a nuclear blast survived by refrigerator; Indy’s subsequent lost job; an expedition to Peru; Professor Oxley; a reunion with Marion and, of course, the infamous Crystal Skull and its attached alien mythology.

What it doesn’t have: Indy’s erstwhile son, Mutt; a central villain a la Cate Blanchett’s character; a logical progression of action or any kind of point. Wait, the final film doesn’t have that either. (Didn’t I say I loved it? I did; but I was also starved for American junk culture at the time, having just spent two extraordinary but trying weeks immersed in Spanish culture. I actually watched Rock of Love at the end of those two weeks and genuinely admired it, too.) The final Indy IV is a pastiche of Darabont’s script and (presumably) Lucas’s desires for the film. I have to assume he is responsible for the CGI gophers at least.

There are at least two scenes in Darabont’s script that should have made the cut. First, Indy’s heartfelt farewell to his students. Second, a ludicrous but potentially thrilling airplane chase where he and Marion save their skins - barely! - while trading verbal jabs.

I have to assume that many of the major changes came with the future of the franchise in mind. Of course Indy needs a successor. Watching The Last Crusade some weeks ago, I thought what may have happened had River Phoenix lived. As he approached middle age, would he pull a Johnny Depp and surprise us with a series of big-budget, hugely entertaining fantasy-action films?

Phoenix’s replacement of sorts, Shia LeBouf, will probably grow into the fedora just fine, but he’s charmless in the film. “Mutt” (how has no one commented on the lameness of this name? Indiana, named after the dog, has an accidental son - and Marion names him MUTT? What, was Illigity McBastardson taken?) isn’t given much direction or history, and he fails to spark with Harrison Ford the way Sean Connery did.

Meanwhile, Karen Allen is demoted from leading lady in Darabont’s script to tag-along in the film. To be fair, she didn’t have much to do in Raiders of the Lost Ark, either, except look pretty, drink hard and occasionally wail “Indeeeeeee!” I would like to have seen more of her - women don’t get a fair shake in any Indiana Jones movies, although Cate Blanchett makes a fair villainess. We’re robbed of any real confrontation between her and Jones in the movie, however, as she becomes just another member of the cartel shuffling after the Crystal Skull.

With Marion a peripheral presence, and Shia LeBouf failing to make much of an impression, we’re left with Indiana Jones to carry the movie. I’ll admit it. There is something hugely satisfying about seeing Harrison Ford with the hat and the khaki and the whip. I could watch a whole movie with some cool whip tricks. Too bad Indy IV didn’t have any.

Harrison Ford does just fine, and seems to be enjoying himself despite the fact that he has to know how incredibly stupid the plot is.

Speaking of plot, each of the Indiana Jones movies employs a “MacGuffin,” a central item that drives the narrative. In classic MacGuffin form, it doesn’t matter what the Crystal Skull does or what it is. Like the Maltese Falcon, it’s an item that everyone desires and yet has no real meaning. “In crook stories it is almost always the necklace and in spy stories it is almost always the papers,” said Alfred Hitchcock.

Our MacGuffin is a featherweight plexiglass skull with an elongated cranium and magnetic and/or psychic powers some of the time, generally when it’s needed to further the action. When I talk with people about the movie, this is their central problem. What the fuck is with the Crystal Skull? What the fuck, indeed.

But it was a coworker who dissolved all the muck about the plot and the purpose into one central explanation: We aren’t kids anymore. I remember hearing my dad yelling for me from the den in our house in Indianapolis, telling my to come quick. Invariably, when I got there, he was watching The Temple of Doom on cable at the scene where they eat soup with eyeballs in it. Eyeballs! I was grossed out but fascinated, a young fan.

Like Indiana Jones, we’ve grown up into less-amusing versions of ourselves. We smirk and scowl instead of laugh and wink. We get cranky when we lack logic, like coffee. For this reason, I’m glad I saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull when I did. I did love it, loved its outsized ridiculousness, its callow characterizations, its silly questing. Hell, I would even look forward to another installment starring an actually geriatric Harrison Ford. Bring it.

This guy broke the world record for the 110-meter hurdles while wearing wire-framed glasses and what appears to be some kind of Brooks Brothers watch. Seems like a nice guy.

Yes, I’m sure this photo of two small children playing musical instruments while Dad folds the laundry in the living room is a perfectly accurate representation of this family’s daily life, and the New York Times photographer just happened to be there. Sure.

Via the New York Times.

Tuna as economic indicator

In the May issue of Harper’s, Jonathan Rowe argues that the Gross Domestic Product is a poor measure of an economy’s health because it only tallies spending, and doesn’t take into account whether the spending actually adds anything to our quality of life. According to the GDP, he writes, “a terminal-cancer patient going through a costly divorce” is “the nation’s economic hero.” Likewise, the GDP measures increased fossil fuel use as a positive, since it burns dollars; in actuality, the nation is poorer because its irreplaceable natural resources are diminished.

Where am I going with this? I think I’ve come across a real-world example of Rowe’s thesis: according to an industry group, high fuel costs could take up to one-third of the world’s longline tuna fleet off the oceans. This is great for the yellowfin and bigeye tuna usually targeted by these boats, but of course the industry group and the article posit that this “bad” for the economy.

Our natural resources aren’t considered in the GDP, and so most talk of “stimulating” the economy doesn’t paint a full picture of what’s really going on. As we burn fuel, cut down trees, scoop out tuna and lop off mountaintops, we irrevocably give up parts of the planet, parts of ourselves even, for the sake of positive statistics.

As Rowe concludes, “The purpose of an economy is to meet human needs in such a way that life becomes in some respect richer and better in the process.” Leaving some tuna fish in the sea, I think, moves us closer to this ideal.

Indiana Jones IV is half-baked, self-congratulatory, colonialist, insincere, full of mawkish sentimentality, includes CGI animals and features a central amulet that appears to be made of Saran wrap, and I only understood one-third of the dialogue because I saw it in Spanish with the part of Indy voiced by Antonio Banderas.

And I loved every second of it.

I smell treatment

I think they should make a reality show about a group of inconstant comedians living together, and call it ‘House of Cards.’