Indiana Jones and the [Insert Your Own Geriatric Joke Here]
So George Lucas has announced that Indy 4 is set to begin filming next year. I can't help it - I'm excited about it. There's a lot of nerds out there convinced sight unseen that it will suck, and who can blame them? After the general suckitude of the Star Wars "Special Editions" and prequels, everyone's understandably a little gun-shy about George Lucas ressurrecting old franchises. "It's going to be fantastic," Lucas said. "It's going to be the best one yet." Fair enough, but I think he said the same thing about Attack of the Clones, didn't he?
Still, I can't help it. I can't wait to see this movie. Hell, I can't wait to see the trailer for this movie. Yes, I'm a big enough nerd that just sitting in a theater next Xmastime, watching the trailers and hearing the "Raiders March" is going to give me goosebumps. Can't help it. It comes with the territory of nerd-dom. This is the sort of thing that gets us excited. I'll admit it - I'm one of those nerds who paid good money to see the Freddie Prinze Jr. sci-fi/videogame epic Wing Commander just to see the Episode I teaser trailer. And that's not even the lowest I've sunk just to see a trailer.*
Of course, the trailer will be fun and make the movie look great. It's the movie itself, of course, that will be the real event. And I just don't think I can even describe the enormous goofy grin that will surely be on my face as the Paramount Logo dissolves into some other sort of mountain in the actual movie. Of course, I had just the same enormous goofy grin on my face back in 1999 when "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." appeared on-screen at the beginning of Episode I, and look how that turned out.
Still, "Hopes High, Expectations Low," that's my motto. I hope it's great, every bit the equal of Raiders, or at the very least the equal of Last Crusade, and I'm excited about seeing it based on my hopes. But I don't expect much from it at all. If it meets my hopes, great. If it meets my expectations, too bad, but at least I'm not disappointed.
* To just what depths I've sunk, I don't think I can even admit.
