It's difficult to compare then and now because up until videos became very wide spread and the films cheap to buy, watching films ay homewas rare thing. As a kid films seemed to be more important because you had to remember them. Kids nowadays see their favourite filsm tens of times where as as older types we saw it once at the flicks (maybe a few if you were well off!) and then had to wait five years plus for it comr on tv. Even when video came about people didn't buy the vids to watch at home for many years who would have spent 20 quid on a film for the kids to watch. Now dvd are £3 from tescos.

On the subject of Indie and starwars the main diffence between the 2 eras is that in the early films the characetrs are more roundly formed have better lines and actauly interact. In the latter stars wars film lucas has a perverse tendency to put together characters and then send indvidually all over the gallaxy to interact with cgi blobs.

Also most right minded people agree that stars wars was over the moment they decided to explain that the Force was just a case of the flu.

I do think the new Indiana Jones and star Wars films are much worse than the originals, mainly because they are lacking in any kind of inspiration. They had loads of money to make them and they knew they were going to be massive hits so they created soemthing absurdly overblown with no new ideas. The last Indiana Jones films is one of the worst things I have seen at the cinema, ever.

However one of the biggest controbuting factors here is the insidious overreliance on CGI. Because there are no limitations with CGI it goes to the special effects directors heads and ends up being totally ridiculous and unbeleieavble. Plus, it looks rubbish. When is Hollywood going to wake up and realise that CGI is wholly unconvincing and not at all exciting. When you're watching soemone fighting a big rubbery cartoon monster there is absolutely no sense of peril at all, it's just lazy and unconvincing. I'm pretty sure Ray Harryhausen has spent the last ten years spinning in his grave.

CGI (over)use is almost always lazy and overblown. I always find myself yearning for something that looks real, even if it's much less 'spectacular'. But as I said in the original post, these films aren't really meant for us. I suppose if your average ten year old wants that, they'll continue to give it to them. But do they really want it? Do they know what they're missing?

Over the weekend my younger brother and I debated my unwillingness to view the most recent addition to the Indiana Jones saga.

He expressed incredulity that, even if he purchased the film on DVD, put it in my DVD player and pressed 'play' on my behalf, it would still require Clockwork Orange-style eyelid hooks to make me watch it. We then moved on to discuss the hypothetical sums of money and assorted perks that would be necessary to make me sit through a performance of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I am a principled (read childishly stubborn) man who cannot be won over by tawdry gifts and trinkets. Furthermore I don't want my enjoyment of the original trilogy diminished by a sequel that, with the exception of the frothy hyperbole of movie poster quotes, is thought of as mediocre at best.

I sat through the mostly awful Star Wars prequels. After watching the X-ecrable X-Men III, I dug my heels in. I purposefully avoided the last Spiderman film - Peter Parker goes Emo. I’m not watching any more bad or half-baked Indiana Jones films, no matter how much I like the idea of a man who fights Nazis with a bull whip.

I never saw the first film at the cinema so the first one in the series I saw was the Empire Strikes Back in my late teens. I thought it was ok but Return of the Jedi was utter rubbish. When I finally saw Star Wars on video several years later I thought no better of it. As to the prequels they sounded over-hyped and, having read the reviews, I did not see them and by all accounts didn't miss much.

Now Raiders. Oddly I avoided the original as, based on the posters, I thought it was a cowboy film! (odd how under informed we were back in those days). I finally caught it several months after release and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Temple of Doom? Less said about that the better but Last Crusade was a return to some kind of form.

Now I was deeply suspicious about the Cystal Skull. I went to see it on a wet weekend and actually it wasn't that bad. It rolled along, had the usual implausible plot but any film with Cate Blanchett in it passes muster in my book. The woman is incapable of delivering a bad performance whatever the film. Would I see it again? Probably not.

My 7 year old son absolutely adores the "new" Star Wars films. Loves the characters and the plot lines. He saw these before he dug out my DVD's of the originals. Given a free choice, he will sit through Attack of the Clones as his preferred SW option. I can't stand them. The wooden acting, the dreadful scripting and Jar Jar fucking Binks.

George Lucas always said that the SW films were made for kids, not adults or fanboys and guess, in my experience, the proof is in the pudding.

The Spiderman trilogy is well worth watching though....!

One could argue that Lucas had the three prequels "written by kids" as well.

As an aside, on The Empire Strikes Back he employed Leigh Brackett, who had written screenplays for the Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye and Rio Bravo no less. Seems like he should have employed similar quality control twenty years later.

Contrastingly...on the Indiana Jones topic, I agree with Diz. It delivered the usual hokum with the usual supects. What were people expecting? Too bloody much as usual.

part time in a cinema when Indy 3 was released (the one with Sean Connery). I was in my 20s then. So, I must have seen it at least a dozen times, and it really did not get at all tiresome. It had a very funny script and terrific performances.

Now if I had to sit through Crystal Skull even twice I think I'd have resigned from that part time job. It is truly awful. The script is terrible, and makes you wonder how bad the many rejected drafts were. And contrast Sean Connery with the charisma-free zone that is Shia Le Boef (or however you spell it).

It's usually Lucas who gets blamed for these things, but having sat through the equally disappointing Munich last weekend I think Spielberg is probably as much to blame.

...the Star Wars or Indiana Jones films.

...what I'm missing with Star Wars but I don't think I managed to sit through any of the older films yet. I just don't 'get' sci-fi, I guess. The sequels did nothing for me either.

Indiana Jones I'm slightly more receptive to but Lord, that new film was both dumb and dull.

I don't think the new Bond film was all that hot either, if we're getting onto disappointing recent installments of franchises!

...make that 'prequels', not sequels.

1. The new Star Wars films are crap. The old ones are the best films of all time.

2. All Bond films are flawless because they're Bond films.

In my view:

1. The Star Wars films are harmless fun but massively overrated, weighed down with some truly awful acting and dialogue, and are not nearly as good as you remember them to be.

2. Some Bond films are very good. Some are beyond awful. I don't think that any of them really qualify as great.

I just couldn't be bothered with the new Indiana Jones film. The old ones weren't really that good, were they?

Bah. Humbug. And it's only November.

The new Indiana Jones film is pretty ropey, but "Last Crusade" was fun, as is the Lego Indiana Jones computer game, which I bought for my seven-year-old son but have spent rather more time than I ought, playing myself.

As for Star Wars, I'd rather read Anthony Lane's extremely entertaining demolitions of the prequels, in the New Yorker. Here's a link to one - I couldn't find the review of The Phantom Menace, but it's in "Nobody's Perfect", which is well worth ten of your English pounds.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/05/23/050523crci_cinema

His verdict on Yoda sums the whole experience for me: "Break me a fucking give".

I remember lining up for The Phantom Menace on the day it was released, and when I saw the faces of those coming out of the previous screening I knew something was up.
There were a few people who had gone to the trouble of dressing up as their favourite character and I could tell they couldn't wait to get home and get that costume off.
There were a few children actually crying.
The disappointment was huge.

When I finally got in there and the famous scrolling words started I thought "yep, this is looking good".
But those famous scrolling words were talking about tax embargos and the like.
Star Wars films should not be about tax embargos.
I have never looked at my watch so many times in two hours.

The first three films are and always will be fantastic entertainment though.