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Thread: The Way of the MacGuffin
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2020-12-03, 10:02 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Way of the MacGuffin
That is the movie we need right now.
Indy gets run over by the giant boulder at the beginning of the movie, and the rest of the movie is just the Nazis finding the Ark and accidentally melting Hitler’s face.
Edit: And I sort of agree; the ark was both as close to the literal meaning of Deus ex Machina as you can get, and also as close to the figurative meaning as you can get.
I mean, the box even puts its own lid back on at the end as some sort of nodding wink to how ridiculous it was. I think if he could have tied it up with a bow, Spielberg would have done that too.
Still a great movie, though.Last edited by Dion; 2020-12-03 at 10:10 AM.
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2020-12-03, 10:04 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Way of the MacGuffin
It's not, though. The ending is How Indiana Rescued Marion And Tricked the Nazis Into Killing Themselves Because He Was Better Than Belloq. Indy was absolutely instrumental in the faces getting melted. Wouldn't have happened without him. Heck, it's not even guaranteed to have happened with Hitler or anyone else had Indy not maneuvered them into doing it on the island. He was the direct mechanism of his own triumph. The Ark was a tool and he knew how to use that tool better than the others.
Last edited by Peelee; 2020-12-03 at 10:05 AM.
Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2
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2020-12-03, 10:11 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Way of the MacGuffin
The bothans/batha spies stole the second Deathstar plans, and that is all the movie says about them.
The first Deathstar plans are an important plot point.
The second deathstar plans are a throw away line.I should get a Signature
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2020-12-03, 10:13 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Way of the MacGuffin
Last edited by Dion; 2020-12-03 at 10:14 AM.
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2020-12-03, 10:14 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Way of the MacGuffin
Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2
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2020-12-03, 10:22 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Way of the MacGuffin
Ok, I can agree with that.
On a side note, there’s an amazing scene in Hitchcock’s “Rebecca” where he films it as if Rebecca were there, walking around and doing things. But of course there’s no actor there, because the title character of the movie isn’t actually in the movie. So it’s just an empty frame.
I wonder how much of Indiana Jones would have worked that way, with all those scenes without a whip wielding archeologist. And maybe Belloq decides to open the box anyhow.Last edited by Dion; 2020-12-03 at 10:24 AM.
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2020-12-03, 10:56 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2013
Re: The Way of the MacGuffin
As far as I am aware Hitchcock remained more specific, so where there is such a thing, he wouldn't have called it a MacGuffin (which in his definition was a 'something' that was a 'nothing').
There are things in his movies that might be termed a MacGuffin under the more loose Lucas / Spielberg definition as 'plot driver'. Someone mentioned the film 'Rebecca', and the dead wife Rebecca might be termed a MacGuffin, but is pretty integral to the plot. I don't think Hitchcock himself ever referred to Rebecca as a MacGuffin. I'm no film student, so happy to be proved wrong if someone has an actual interview or record of him widening the term in that way.
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2020-12-03, 11:08 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Way of the MacGuffin
Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2
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2020-12-12, 09:28 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Way of the MacGuffin
Still, Last Crusade ends exactly like Raiders: The bad guy wins, and kills himself when tapping on the power of the MacGuffin. I haven't watched Cystal Skull, but my understanding is that it ends exactly the same, too.
That makes Tempe of Doom the sole Indiana Jones movie in which Indy actually matters.
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2020-12-12, 11:21 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Way of the MacGuffin
Indy matters in all the movies. In RotLA, the Nazis would have gotten the ark immediately and there is no guarantee they would have ever opened it. In Last Crusade, his father would have died in Nazi custody.
What Indy cares about and what you care about do not seem to be the same thing. Indy matters a great deal to his stories.Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2
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2020-12-12, 11:30 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Way of the MacGuffin
When did Indy trick the Nazis into opening the Ark? There is no such scene in the whole movie.
The closest scene in the movie about Indy trying to manipulate the Nazis is when he points an anachronistic panzerfaust* at the Ark and threatens to blow it up. And Belloq calls the bluff.
*Actually, it was a custom-made weapon made by the movie crew, based on a chinese RPG model that was a copy of a soviet RPG model, mocked up to look like a Panzerfaust.
Why wouldn't them have opened it? Belloq did tell Indy back in Cairo that Hitler would only get the Ark after he had finished with it himself. He was never going to hand it over to the bohemian caporal without tapping on his powers first.
Without Indy, the nazis would have either never found the Grail, and thus kept Henry alive because he was potentially useful for them, or found the Grail anyway and got killed between the three traps, the fake grails, and the crumbling temple (as it actually happened in the movie). Then, with his captors dead, Henry would have been free to go (as it actually happened in the movie).
You don't know what I care about. The point is, the MacGuffin is so irrelevant in the Indiana Jones Movies that even the actions of the hero are irrelevant for their ultimate outcome. It's the adventure itself what matters. In Hitchcock's movies the actions of the protagonist at least are relevant to the outcome of the MacGuffin (in 39 Steps and in North by Northwest, at least).
Temple of Doom is different. Indy isn't motivated here to go on the adventure to help his ex or his father, neither for the quest for hidden knlowledge or to stop an overarching scheme to take over the world. He goes there just to save some random children from a random village from slavery, making it the most pure and unselfish of all his adventures, and the only one were his actions are actually meaningful for a community of people not directly related to him.
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2020-12-12, 12:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Way of the MacGuffin
That's fair. I misremembered that Indy was the one who argued to open it before they delivered it to Berlin, but you're right, that was Belloq.
Donovan was not going to enter right off the bat; he would send other men in, as evidenced by him doing exactly that when he was there. Assuming he used senior instead of junior to lead the way, on senior's return, he would have come out to... the Nazis. With fully manned tanks outside the temple.
And that's assuming senior broke, which we have no indication he would have. Most likely, he would have died under torture, or been killed for honestly not remembering.
I don't see any possible ending in which Henry Jones, Sr. would have been free to go.
Further, as I said earlier, what Indy cares about and what you care about are not the same thing. You care about the treasure. Indy does not. He openly states this: "All I want is the girl." This video does a great job explaining it (amusingly, I found it while looking up the script so I could double check about whose idea it was to open the Ark). The movie isn't about Indiana Jones getting the Ark. None of them are about Indiana Jones getting the macguffin. Every Indiana Jones movie is about Indy coming to terms with what he believes. The macguffin is necessary for him to get there, but it's neither the journey nor the destination. It ultimately doesn't matter. The movies are not about what you want them to be about. That's not a problem with the movies. That's a problem with your expectations.Last edited by Peelee; 2020-12-12 at 12:46 PM.
Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2
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2020-12-12, 12:50 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Way of the MacGuffin
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2020-12-12, 12:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Way of the MacGuffin
From everything I've seen so far, what your expectations are is "the Ark/Grail/Crystal Skull is the point of the movies and if the actions of Indy do not affect the Ark/Grail/Skull then Indy is irrelevant to his own movie."
If these are not your expectations, then I apologize, but then I am also confused as to what exactly your point is. Because Indiana Jones is absolutely relevant to all Indiana Jones movies, regardless of the magical item that also appears in the movie.Last edited by Peelee; 2020-12-12 at 01:02 PM.
Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2
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2020-12-12, 01:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Way of the MacGuffin
I'll concede that I have overstretched Indy's uselessness in the movies by expanding it to the outcome of the characters. His actions are certainly relevant to save Marion in Raiders (she would have been killed by the nazis in Nepal), and in Last Crusade he either saved his father's life or at the very least saved him a lot of years under nazi custody.
Indy's actions are irrelevant for the outcome of the MacGuffin, though. But as you correcly pointed out, Indy is not specially motivated to go after the MacGuffin. The American Army Intelligence hook him for the quest in Raiders by mentioning Ravenwood, and Donovan enlists him by mentioning his father in Last Crusade. In fact, in Last Crusade Indy is very eager to bail out after rescuing his father, it's Henry who forces him to stay in the race for the MacGuffin because the Quest for the Grail is so mystically important and stuff.
Now, the point for this thread is, there is certain debate out there about Hitchcock's take on the MacGuffin, and Lucas/Spielberg's. While the MacGuffin is more relevant in the latter's movies, the fact that Indy's actions are irrelevant for the outcome of the MacGuffin (the bad guys grab it anyway in the end and get karmic death because of their thrist for power) means the Lucas/Spielberg take on the trope is as valid as Hitchcock's (the latter's characters are usually not very interested in the MacGuffin either).
Temple of Doom is a more straightforward take at the MacGuffin's Trope in Hitchock's terms, and the Stones are pretty irrelevant there. If you ask someone what Raiders is about, he'll probably answer "Indy and the nazis race to find the Ark of the Covenant". If you ask about Last Crusade, "Indy and the nazis race to find the Holy Grail". If you ask about Temple of Doom, it's "Indy goes on to free some children enslaved by a local underground death cult. Stones? what Stones? I missed that part".