Monday, June 16, 2008

Indiana Jones

As many of you know, I was an anthropology major, and for a few years focused on archaeology. So it was with great interest that I went to see the new Indiana Jones movie. I had read all kinds of tounge-in-cheek critiques of the old movies (where's his line level?), and am really enjoying some of the stuff being written on anthropology/archaeology blogs about this new one.

But here's the best comment I've read so far. Over at Savage Minds they're picking apart some details (how would he learn Quechua in Mexico?). The final comment seems to settle any possible perplexity:



Someone named Jo Donaldson did the research for the film, including the
archaelogical details. She’s not an archaeologist, however; she also researched
Star Wars eppy 1 and 2, and Howard the Duck.
[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0232120/]



Aha! Howard the Duck. I should have known.

I also love this one: a mock denial of tenure notice for Dr. Jones.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My favorite part of the new movie is when a tribe of monkeys agrees to help Shia LaBoeuf fight the communists because he has the exact same haircut they do.

A.B. said...

My department at Pton includes classical archaeology, so we are forever getting department email forwards about digging and whatever-all-else archaeologists do. A few months ago we got one from a TV show - Good Morning America, if I remember correctly - hoping to find a few graduate students to go on TV to talk about how Indiana Jones movies shaped their interest in archaeology (!!!!). I doubt they were looking for some geek to debunk the movie. Can you imagine the bleak job prospects if you were the person who got on national TV and showered Indiana Jones movies with unbashed, uncritical praise?