It was definitely interesting to read the impressions of someone just watching these movies now, but I disagree with a lot of what you said about them. I'm sure a lot of our differences of opinion come from our different viewing experiences. You saw one new movie and three old movies in a row, on DVD I assume for all of them. I saw each of them when they were new and all but Temple of Doom in the theater.
Like a lot of people Raiders is my favorite. A big reason for this is something that you didn't touch upon in your review: it has the best female lead, by far, of any of the movies. Actually, I'd go even further and say it has the best supporting characters of any of the movies. Marion, Belloq, Sallah, Dietrich, Satipo, Katenga, even that big bald guy he fights by the plane are just such colorful characters to me. One of my biggest gripes about Temple of Doom—aside from Willie being so annoying, which is everyone's gripe about that movie—is that it has so few interesting supporting characters. Look at Mola Ram for example, such a boring villain. He has surprisingly little screen time, very few lines and there's really not much more to him as a character than a scary costume. Give me Belloq from Raiders as a better foil for Indy any day of the week. Hell, even Donovan from Last Crusade is better.
Hey, so did you catch Dan Akroyd's cameo in Temple of Doom by the way?
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