Jake

It's kind've ironic that Craig may end up starring as Bond in more videogames than movies.

Leno is likely to remain #1, even if he experiences a few more drops in ratings. No one seems to realize that he averaged the same kind of viewership (that he'd enjoyed on the Tonight Show) when he was at 10pm. It wasn't enough to be competitive in primetime, but it was enough to show that his audience was still tuning in. And they've apparently followed him back to late night.

Conan's problem is that he had trouble maintaining his own Late Night audience. Most of those fans complained that he had watered down his style too much for 11:35. It's why he started dropping like a stone his very first week at the Tonight Show.

By comparison, Leno held extremely well his first week back. If he'd only been getting viewers out of curiosity, we would've seen some MUCH sharper drops last week. He even posted some very strong ratings on Friday- a day when just about everyone is way down.

I also find myself having no interest in this, despite being a longtime fan that grew up with Cameron's films. I just don't have any interest in Jake or his Avatar or the Na'vi.

However, I do think it will be interesting to see how the 3D issue affects the box office. Someone mentioned skipping the 2D version, but- realistically- how many casual filmgoers are likely to do that?

I agree completely. I think comicbook fans expected this film to be worse than the Dolph Lundgren version, and simply chose to stay far away. If I hadn't stumbled upon an interview with the director, I wouldn't have gone myself.

But this was a very entertaining film, and delivered the kind of violence that was lacking in the Thomas Jane version. I did feel that the second act needed another big Punisher scene, like the two that bookended the film.

Ray Stevenson was a perfect choice to play Frank Castle, and I'd love to see him get to realize those sequel ideas.

"For example, why do the monkeys head directly to the Russians and attack them?"

One of the rejected scripts for Indy 3 was titled "IJ and the Monkey King". (A draft can readily be found online.) It got pretty far out at times- including a finale where monkeys aided in a battle with the Nazis.

In other words, the Indiana Jones films have ALWAYS been more about escapism than realism. But the obvious problem here is that the internet has encouraged an entire generation to crave and expect the latter.

You can't sit around all day posting about something that makes you feel silly. If you do, it's only going to remind you how silly it is to sit around all day posting about the same film. So suddenly, everything has to be "gritty" and "realistic", and hopefully treated "seriously" by the filmmakers and public at large.

The other big problem/misconception is that most kids don't seem to realize that Indiana Jones is supposed to be a pulp hero. Instead, they see the historical, religious, and archaeological elements and assume, "Okay, this is supposed to be grounded in our everyday reality." But the actual reality is that the films treat the religious aspects with the same pulpy tone as a sci-fi Macguffin like the crystal skull.

Ultimately, Steven Spielberg said he wanted to make a film that could fit comfortably alongside the previous sequels. By doing so, he completely sidestepped the current fad to try and modernize a franchise by rebooting it or making a sequel to the original film only. I think the movie strikes that tone perfectly, and is one of the rare sequels that won't seem jarringly out of place when viewed with the originals. Pretty impressive when you consider the lengthy gap since the last entry.