I have to admit Dan, I didn’t make it through your whole review (sorry!)… I think you put about 10x the effort into the plot research as George Lucas.

I like the aliens plotline. They did Jewish ghosts, immortal Christian crusaders, Pagan rituals, so why not aliens? Are religious legends the only acceptable ones for Indy to encounter? Maybe I’ve watched too many crappy alien documentaries, but I thought the premise of this one was classic Indy.

Oh and as for Harrison being old and just going through the motions… well Indy was old in the movie. I thought Harrison acted the part of old Indy quite well.

Sam & I both thought we wouldn’t mind some cheesy spinoff movies starring his son. Despite a few groaners from him like swinging from vines and combing his hair, I thought his acting was pretty good and his character interesting enough to follow on future adventures.

But I can see how people could get turned off by some of the more horrendous Lucasisms in this film. I just don’t see a lot of movies in the theater, so just the experience makes almost any amount of cheese pretty entertaining for me.

The issue is that Vista has heavy overhead. Take a look at its processing and chunking protocols. They are woefully inefficient. The way it directs tasks is disaster waiting to happen. One small problem happens in my Skype IE add-on and it cascades throughout the system. Word, Outlook, Stata — they all go down for the count. Then try reopening them and see the “memory sticking” that happens. Starting up IE has resulting in half hour-long hangs. It kind of just sits there with the cursor spinning, the screen resolution jumping around, and then the screen going black. It is clear that Vista isn’t actually doing anything.

Another problem is that the Task Manager is feeble in Vista. So many processes are protected that disruptive apps can run with impunity. You can’t end that stupid Windows Media Player updater. Why is that so essential? Sometimes the Task Manager won’t even open. The spinning cursor just reappears.

Then there are the 15 minute cold boots ad the 5 minute sleep/wake-up ordeals composed of Vista fighting with its own drivers to get going. My contention is that this further proof that Vista is always on the verge of crashing programs. It just needs a push.

I hate to say this as someone who hates the Jobs cult, but Macs have been quite appealing ever since Vista appeared.

That being said, I did like some of the stark color grading that was done early in the movie. That looked kinda cool.

Dan, Sorry that our conversation on Friday did nothing to prepare you for this utter let down.