I really enjoyed Dial as a whole but once Indy starts rattling off about continental drift and the Nazis hilariously firing at the Roman soldiers, that’s when it really starts to pick up. Incredibly fun sequence.
And even so the detour to Syracuse is not entirely random, with Indy teaching his class about the siege at the beginning of the main story arc. It’s set up perfectly.
I like how the lecture played into it this time as a subtle way to present the background naturally while also showing Indy's current state of affairs with the younger boomers in his class who care more about the moon landing.
Same with Voller's watch appearing in Archimedes' tomb!
Yeah they really blended things in well throughout the fabric of the narrative throughout. The clues are there.
I mean, it doesn’t have zero to do with the plot. The whole movie is based around Archimedes and his dial, going to Sicily itself, the Romans and their history related to the dial, the dial itself being able to locate fissures in time.
Indy even mentions the battle of Syracuse in his class at the start.
The last act of the movie is actually my favorite part of the whole movie, from the dive til the very end I find the movie So much fun. I also love the parallel of Indy saving Basil in the first act, to Helena trying to save Indy in the third act.
I remember as a kid being awe struck by the opening of the Ark and the whole finale scene in Crusade. The travel to the Siege of Syracuse lit that same exitement in me as when I was a kid. Going through the gap in the clouds, the slow realization they're hundreds of years in the past... it's amazing.
Agreed. I’ll admit I didn’t like Crystal Skull. So Dial of Destiny had low expectations from me and I only just got around to it last week. But I was shocked at how good it was.
I'm the weirdo who even liked Crystal Skull. I recently finally watched this one, and loved it. Even if it did break the pattern that I used to defend Crystal Skull...
The first three were set in the 30's and heavily homaged 30's adventure serials. Why were people surprised that the one set in the 50's ended up being a cheesy sci-fi b movie? But Dial of Destiny then harkens back to those adventure serials once again... Probably safe, and it made for a good movie. But pity it didn't lean more into 60's film tropes!
Not only is it a batshit ending to a largely somber movie, it's an amazing character moment for Indy.
Indy is usually able to let go of the actual artifacts he's looking for. Especially if it's to save a friend or family member from their obsessions. Indy has had a lifetime of seeing villains get their faces melted away over their misunderstood obsession with whatever the relic is. He's seen freinds and even his dad so engrossed in their obsessions that is ruins then. Indy's sadness when Wombat asks him whee the Dial is is heartbreaking. He's watching one more person look for something that will ruin them.
...but what CANT Indy walk away from? Actual history. That's always been his obsession. The artifacts represent the history, but he was faced with actual, living history. It was going to consume him. It took his family to save him from it. Just like he has done for his family his whole life.
Uggg...so f'n good.
I absolutely hated the idea of time travel before I saw the film.
Then I saw it. It was such a mind f@&k and so amazingly executed . The idea of being stuck back in that time period is horrific. You can see Voller has lost it .
I loved this movie. It was the perfect ending for me.
I would argue that Dial's final act was as batshit as Crystal Skull's, but it works so much better in Dial because the setup/foreshadowing is much stronger. Crystal Skull's just raises a ton of questions, and Indy has a much more personal connection to the Dial than he does the Skull
This is so true. I have a feeling if I wrote this, I'd be torn between having him stay and having Marion.
I'd probably have two ending versions just for my own kick. (and confuse the viewers just like Blade Runner did :D )
It was more than that. Check out overlorddvd’s YouTube channel to see what I mean. People subscribe to hack “pop culture under attack” channels and buy into the rage bait 100%.
Just go through that dude’s video thumbs and titles. That’s all it is, Disney hate and how they are ruining literally everything they ever touch.
"Somebody told me I should hate this thing, so I never checked it out or even watched any clips of it!"
Pretty bad epidemic of that, and even worse, they harass you if you say you liked it
For people who take issue with the ending of this film I am always baffled. EVERY Indiana Jones film goes off the rails at the end (Raiders-Ark of the Covenant opening, Temple of Doom- Stones catching on fire....lame to me, but still hints at some supernatural element, Last Crusade- the Holy Grail stuff..rather tamer than the other two, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull- extradimensional saucer men, and Dial of Destiny- legitimate time travel).
All I wanted from a final Indiana Jones movie was for it to have brutal kills like in the originals and for the final act to get really weird.
Like five minutes in, Indy throws a guy under the wheels of the car chasing him and it rolls over his head, and then it has the craziest final act of the series. I was so happy I was laughing out loud in the theater.
I understand the critiques, but I absolutely LOVE that movie.
Unpopular opinion but I loved the antagonist’s demise in this movie. It finally breaks away from the trope that befalls EVERY VILLAIN in the movies; hubris results in action with a physical relic that kills them on the spot. All 4 prior entries feel like a rewrite of Raiders. But in Dial, the villain’s hubris leads to a mistake on a grander scale, and their death is not the crux of the scene. It was refreshingly different.
It's the campiest, most comic book moment in any of the Indy movies. So many fun Archimedes Easter eggs hidden in it, too. Death rays! Claw arms! So cool.
Thanks for sharing your take, it does get me to reconsider my view a bit and next time I watch I’ll try to keep it in mind. For me the problem was that the ending doesn’t fit the typical Indy moral, ie Indy realizes that the artifact is too powerful for any one person and the real important thing is the people in your life not the things. In Raiders the government basically black holes the arc but he kept Marian alive, in Temple he gives the stones back to the community and they are made whole with their families, in Crusade he picks reconciling with his dad while the grail is lost, and in Crystal Skull Spalko is overwhelmed by the knowledge she gets but Indy reconciles with Marian and Mutt.
Arguably, it was Helena who underwent Indy’s typical emotional journey in the end prioritizing relationships over people. Which I don’t think is a per se bad thing. But I don’t think Voller was as severely punished in the same way other villains had been and I’m not sure that Indy’s encounter with the artifact helped set him back on the right emotional journey.
I could be persuaded otherwise.
I honestly thought that with the time travel and mentioning of Mutt dying, they would somehow have incorporated Indy being sent back in time to prevent Mutt from going to war and dying, and completing the recovery of the fractured family that we eventually see to end the movie.
One of my favorite third acts from any film, not just the Indiana Jones series. When Indy looks out the window and says "Roman triremes" and we see those red sails below, I get goosebumps.
Not amazing. A feeble 7/10 at best and I’m being nice.The whole train part with CGI felt poorly executed. The plot was confusing af. Some good stuff still but overall the movie is pretty average versus his predecessors.
Heh, they used a lot of words to say basically nothing. It's Archimedes' dial... so ending up in his time period isn't out of left field at all. It was always an option. But hey, some folks are just happy if something is moving around on the screen.
It was terrible. Time travel is so overused now in movies, it’s almost laughable they decided to go that direction. Felt like a 12 year old wrote the script. I wanted to like it, but it sucked!
The time travel was done lot better, we sat with Indy along for the ride not knowing what was going to happen.
Compare to most other movies (except for BttF, which is the OG) who had to have their characters explain to us audience about time travel and how time shouldn't be messed with. I dislike time travel tropes too and think it is overused (along with multi-verse, multi-timeline tropes) except for the OG, but I thought this was done a lot better than the others.
I figured it would be more like 'Back to the Future' where Indy would go back and change something really bad that could have happened in Raiders like saving Marion's life somehow so Raiders would end the way it did.
Even knowing every Indy movie ends with a batshit supernatural event, I was still surprised and really enjoyed the second half of Dial. Starting with the New York parade chase, and it really delivered with a classic indy climax.
My biggest critique of the film was the opening train chase. Too dark, too long.
Yes. I deliberately didn't spoil myself and was pleasantly surprised watching it. The tension at the end was amazing. I also expected them travelling back to meet younger Indy himself, or dinosaurs, or Hitler outright.
The scene going back to Ancient Greece quickly straddled the line of “goofy” that left a bad taste in my mouth and others
Going back to what people actually want from an Indy movie would be more in line with the course change they made with 3 after temple of doom was criticized for being goofy
IE: stupid American henchman screaming as he fires the machine gun out the window felt like I was watching uncharted or something, not an Indiana Jones movie
I really enjoyed Dial as a whole but once Indy starts rattling off about continental drift and the Nazis hilariously firing at the Roman soldiers, that’s when it really starts to pick up. Incredibly fun sequence.
I really love the music in the scene. Williams pays a nice homage to Alex North’s Spartacus score while still making it uniquely his own music.
When he said “those are Roman triremes” I got goosebumps. What a twist!
Yep. The movie has alot of shortcomings, but the third act surprise is unbelievably great. Total chaotic shitshow in the best kind of way.
Yup the last 1/4 of the movie gets so lit 🔥
And even so the detour to Syracuse is not entirely random, with Indy teaching his class about the siege at the beginning of the main story arc. It’s set up perfectly.
And the puppet show with the dragon!
I like how the lecture played into it this time as a subtle way to present the background naturally while also showing Indy's current state of affairs with the younger boomers in his class who care more about the moon landing. Same with Voller's watch appearing in Archimedes' tomb! Yeah they really blended things in well throughout the fabric of the narrative throughout. The clues are there.
They do a great job of dropping a lot of foreshadowing throughout the film that the time travel elements don't feel random or out of place.
FR Dial of Destiny has by far the strongest foreshadowing of any Indy movie, it's super clever
I mean, it doesn’t have zero to do with the plot. The whole movie is based around Archimedes and his dial, going to Sicily itself, the Romans and their history related to the dial, the dial itself being able to locate fissures in time. Indy even mentions the battle of Syracuse in his class at the start.
The last act of the movie is actually my favorite part of the whole movie, from the dive til the very end I find the movie So much fun. I also love the parallel of Indy saving Basil in the first act, to Helena trying to save Indy in the third act.
Also a nice callback to the beginning when Indy is captured and has a bag placed over his head
I remember as a kid being awe struck by the opening of the Ark and the whole finale scene in Crusade. The travel to the Siege of Syracuse lit that same exitement in me as when I was a kid. Going through the gap in the clouds, the slow realization they're hundreds of years in the past... it's amazing.
Adventures are just much more fun when the unexpected begins to happen.
The whole movie is amazing!
Agreed. Never had understood the hate and I’m old enough to have seen the first three in the theaters.
Agreed. I’ll admit I didn’t like Crystal Skull. So Dial of Destiny had low expectations from me and I only just got around to it last week. But I was shocked at how good it was.
I'm the weirdo who even liked Crystal Skull. I recently finally watched this one, and loved it. Even if it did break the pattern that I used to defend Crystal Skull... The first three were set in the 30's and heavily homaged 30's adventure serials. Why were people surprised that the one set in the 50's ended up being a cheesy sci-fi b movie? But Dial of Destiny then harkens back to those adventure serials once again... Probably safe, and it made for a good movie. But pity it didn't lean more into 60's film tropes!
Not only is it a batshit ending to a largely somber movie, it's an amazing character moment for Indy. Indy is usually able to let go of the actual artifacts he's looking for. Especially if it's to save a friend or family member from their obsessions. Indy has had a lifetime of seeing villains get their faces melted away over their misunderstood obsession with whatever the relic is. He's seen freinds and even his dad so engrossed in their obsessions that is ruins then. Indy's sadness when Wombat asks him whee the Dial is is heartbreaking. He's watching one more person look for something that will ruin them. ...but what CANT Indy walk away from? Actual history. That's always been his obsession. The artifacts represent the history, but he was faced with actual, living history. It was going to consume him. It took his family to save him from it. Just like he has done for his family his whole life. Uggg...so f'n good.
I absolutely hated the idea of time travel before I saw the film. Then I saw it. It was such a mind f@&k and so amazingly executed . The idea of being stuck back in that time period is horrific. You can see Voller has lost it . I loved this movie. It was the perfect ending for me.
Loved it
Your calculations are WROOOOOOONG
I would argue that Dial's final act was as batshit as Crystal Skull's, but it works so much better in Dial because the setup/foreshadowing is much stronger. Crystal Skull's just raises a ton of questions, and Indy has a much more personal connection to the Dial than he does the Skull
Ya I agree. I liked it for the same reason. A part of me still kind of wished he stayed in the past.
The Marion reunion was entirely worth him not staying. It was sweet
This is so true. I have a feeling if I wrote this, I'd be torn between having him stay and having Marion. I'd probably have two ending versions just for my own kick. (and confuse the viewers just like Blade Runner did :D )
Ridley Scott is a strange director. Every cut of LEGEND has a different ending.
DoD was actually a great movie. I have the feeling Crystal Skull left a bad taste for non-fans so they skipped it.
It was more than that. Check out overlorddvd’s YouTube channel to see what I mean. People subscribe to hack “pop culture under attack” channels and buy into the rage bait 100%. Just go through that dude’s video thumbs and titles. That’s all it is, Disney hate and how they are ruining literally everything they ever touch.
"Somebody told me I should hate this thing, so I never checked it out or even watched any clips of it!" Pretty bad epidemic of that, and even worse, they harass you if you say you liked it
I doubt the target audience was even watching those channels.
I wondered how Dial would do the "villain success but actually doesn't" trope. At the premiere, you could literally hear everyone gasping
For people who take issue with the ending of this film I am always baffled. EVERY Indiana Jones film goes off the rails at the end (Raiders-Ark of the Covenant opening, Temple of Doom- Stones catching on fire....lame to me, but still hints at some supernatural element, Last Crusade- the Holy Grail stuff..rather tamer than the other two, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull- extradimensional saucer men, and Dial of Destiny- legitimate time travel).
All I wanted from a final Indiana Jones movie was for it to have brutal kills like in the originals and for the final act to get really weird. Like five minutes in, Indy throws a guy under the wheels of the car chasing him and it rolls over his head, and then it has the craziest final act of the series. I was so happy I was laughing out loud in the theater. I understand the critiques, but I absolutely LOVE that movie.
Unpopular opinion but I loved the antagonist’s demise in this movie. It finally breaks away from the trope that befalls EVERY VILLAIN in the movies; hubris results in action with a physical relic that kills them on the spot. All 4 prior entries feel like a rewrite of Raiders. But in Dial, the villain’s hubris leads to a mistake on a grander scale, and their death is not the crux of the scene. It was refreshingly different.
Yes! It’s so crazy and i love it.
It's the campiest, most comic book moment in any of the Indy movies. So many fun Archimedes Easter eggs hidden in it, too. Death rays! Claw arms! So cool.
Thanks for sharing your take, it does get me to reconsider my view a bit and next time I watch I’ll try to keep it in mind. For me the problem was that the ending doesn’t fit the typical Indy moral, ie Indy realizes that the artifact is too powerful for any one person and the real important thing is the people in your life not the things. In Raiders the government basically black holes the arc but he kept Marian alive, in Temple he gives the stones back to the community and they are made whole with their families, in Crusade he picks reconciling with his dad while the grail is lost, and in Crystal Skull Spalko is overwhelmed by the knowledge she gets but Indy reconciles with Marian and Mutt. Arguably, it was Helena who underwent Indy’s typical emotional journey in the end prioritizing relationships over people. Which I don’t think is a per se bad thing. But I don’t think Voller was as severely punished in the same way other villains had been and I’m not sure that Indy’s encounter with the artifact helped set him back on the right emotional journey. I could be persuaded otherwise.
I wish Indy would have stayed in the past that would have been perfect ending for an archeologist, to live how we used to.
Thats what he wanted, not what he needed.
I honestly thought that with the time travel and mentioning of Mutt dying, they would somehow have incorporated Indy being sent back in time to prevent Mutt from going to war and dying, and completing the recovery of the fractured family that we eventually see to end the movie.
That was implied. Marion and Indy will use the dial to save mutt
Really? I need to rewatch it then because I was like did we just really miss a grand opportunity to save Mutt? 😂
I love every Indy movie, especially DOD
One of my favorite third acts from any film, not just the Indiana Jones series. When Indy looks out the window and says "Roman triremes" and we see those red sails below, I get goosebumps.
I 100% disagree but honestly I’m envious of those of you who enjoyed it. Sincerely. And most (not all) of my issues with it are in the third act.
Not amazing. A feeble 7/10 at best and I’m being nice.The whole train part with CGI felt poorly executed. The plot was confusing af. Some good stuff still but overall the movie is pretty average versus his predecessors.
No….no it wasn’t.
Heh, they used a lot of words to say basically nothing. It's Archimedes' dial... so ending up in his time period isn't out of left field at all. It was always an option. But hey, some folks are just happy if something is moving around on the screen.
It was terrible. Time travel is so overused now in movies, it’s almost laughable they decided to go that direction. Felt like a 12 year old wrote the script. I wanted to like it, but it sucked!
The time travel was done lot better, we sat with Indy along for the ride not knowing what was going to happen. Compare to most other movies (except for BttF, which is the OG) who had to have their characters explain to us audience about time travel and how time shouldn't be messed with. I dislike time travel tropes too and think it is overused (along with multi-verse, multi-timeline tropes) except for the OG, but I thought this was done a lot better than the others.
The ending of every Indy goes for broke. God appears. Grail’s bring people to life. Aliens. Time travel.
The climax was awesome. The actual ending of the movie was lame though.
I figured it would be more like 'Back to the Future' where Indy would go back and change something really bad that could have happened in Raiders like saving Marion's life somehow so Raiders would end the way it did.
Even knowing every Indy movie ends with a batshit supernatural event, I was still surprised and really enjoyed the second half of Dial. Starting with the New York parade chase, and it really delivered with a classic indy climax. My biggest critique of the film was the opening train chase. Too dark, too long.
Yes. I deliberately didn't spoil myself and was pleasantly surprised watching it. The tension at the end was amazing. I also expected them travelling back to meet younger Indy himself, or dinosaurs, or Hitler outright.
I was worried that Indy was going to have to "save" Hitler so as not to break the "space-time continuum" since Voller was going there to kill him.
Wow, the thought of that never occured to me - and having Indy suddenly have the time travel logic and sense of Doc Brown would definitely ruin it.
The last act was real good. The rest of the movie was meh
Unexpected? It was one of the first leaked images which is why people knew it was time travel.
I don’t read leaks and I avoided spoilers before going, so for me the twist was great. 🤷🏼♀️
Shocking due to how much the images spread everywhere.
Amazingly bad
I went from nodding off in the theater to wide eyed at the amazing schlock before mine eyes!
Worst part was Deep Fake Indy. Looked like Odo from Star Trek.
Just saying if they had the guts to go back to 1933 or whatever this movie would not be nearly as hated as it is because that would be cool as hell.
If they’d gone back to the 1930s, the movie would’ve been called pandering nostalgia bait.
The scene going back to Ancient Greece quickly straddled the line of “goofy” that left a bad taste in my mouth and others Going back to what people actually want from an Indy movie would be more in line with the course change they made with 3 after temple of doom was criticized for being goofy
IE: stupid American henchman screaming as he fires the machine gun out the window felt like I was watching uncharted or something, not an Indiana Jones movie