Green Phoenix - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Review

As stated in my Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom review, the Indiana Jones franchise was originally pitched as a trilogy of stand-alone films. Following the mixed reception of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Spielberg and Lucas elected to make the third film in the trilogy more traditional and in line with the first film the franchise.

This resulted in the release of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in 1989. The film in the franchise that is easily my favorite and honestly the entire reason why I decided to take a look at the Indiana Jones franchise in its entirety.

Bringing back many of the powerhouse cast from Raiders of the Lost Ark and adding in the overwhelming charisma of Sean Connery, otherwise known as James Motherfucking Bond, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is widely considered to be the perfect Indiana Jones movie.

But does that hold up on a more analytical level? I may love this movie subjectively, but when taking a look at the more generalized elements of effects, music, characters and story; does Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade really deserve its place as the most popular of the franchise?

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Green Phoenix - 8 Epic Video Game Tracks

I have never been much of a video game player. I did play a bit when I was younger and I still enjoy the occasional computer game now and again, being a big fan of simulation and RTS games. But the real draw that I have to video games is the immersive cinematic quality that so many possess, especially as the technology and financing as grown to enable that level of narrative story-telling.

And much like films and television, a key element to a cinematic experience in video games is the music that accompanies it. While most early games at pretty basic 8-bit musical sections, as technology and visuals advanced, so to did the musical compositions. And the effect was some truly stellar and epic video game music tracks.

And it is these tracks that will be the focus of today's article. Today we will countdown, in no particular order, and highlight 8 absolutely epic video game tracks. Those musical pieces that you find yourself listening to completely outside of the gaming experience. The songs that get played over and over again or seem to represent the very thematic heart of the game in question.

Today is going to be a hell of a lot of fun and I hope you all will join me in geeking out about some of the coolest sounding video game music I can think of.

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Green Phoenix - Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Review

The Indiana Jones franchise was originally pitched by George Lucas as a trilogy of films, much in the style of adventure serials of the 1940s. Raiders of the Lost Ark was a tremendous success, popularizing and revolutionizing the fantasy adventure genre in much the same way that Star Wars had revolutionized science fiction film. And so with that success in mind, Director Steven Spielberg and Producer George Lucas set about working on the next film in the trilogy.

When Lucas conceived of Temple of Doom, he imagined the film would stand within the Indiana Jones franchise much like The Empire Strikes Back stood within the Star Wars saga. The darker and grittier middle child that was more experimental and adult-oriented. Something that could steer the direction of the entire future franchise down an unexpected course, despite the intention of each film to be standalone adventures.

But where The Empire Strikes Back succeeded in its dark tone, Temple of Doom was much more controversial. The film was too dark for many audiences and especially the MPAA, who refused to give the film a PG rating. Knowing that an R-rating would kill the film in its cradle, Spielberg and Lucas worked with the MPAA to design an entirely new rating system, creating the PG-13 rating.

Temple of Doom's legacy within the Indiana Jones franchise remains a black sheep. Its middling performance revealed that it was more than the pure spectacle that drew audiences into the franchise. But was it deserving of its lukewarm reception?

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New Video Game Releases of the Week Spotlights (March 25 - 31) - Predictions

Any new games look interesting this week? Click "read more" and I'll point out a few stand outs.

Team Fortress 2 (steam)

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      Team Fortress 2 (TF2) is a Valve developed game that was released all the way back in 2007. It became free 4 years later in 2011. There are many ways of looking at the game as many people play it differently. As such, I will have to cover those ways differently.

Green Phoenix - Walking With Dinosaurs (1999) Review

As stated many, many times during my various Jurassic Park reviews, I was absolutely obsessed with dinosaurs and paleontology growing up. A love I have actually healthily maintained to this day.

While I enjoy the fictional portrayals of dinosaurs, that passion also helped me to develop a love for documentaries and educational television and films. So much so that I even have a subscription to CuriosityStream simply because I want to have access to documentaries that I can't get on Netflix, Disney +, and Amazon. I had considered acquiring the documentary streaming service for a few months, due in no small part to the recommendation of some of my favorite YouTube educators and theorists. But the information that finally convinced me to purchase CuriosityStream was the knowledge that they had the entire Walking With... series available for viewing.

In the wake of the release of Jurassic Park in 1993, public interest in prehistoric life reached a fever pitch. This public excitement inspired Tim Haines with the idea of using ground-breaking computer effects and animatronics, similar to Jurassic Park, to create a dinosaur-centric documentary miniseries. Collaborating the Jasper James and special effects artist Michael Milne, Haines succeeded in creating the most advanced paleontological documentary ever seen to that point.

Walking with Dinosaurs is easily one of the most notorious and influential nature documentaries in recent memory and the progenitor of an equally influential franchise. It was a game-changer in the field of nature documentaries, utilizing state of the art animatronics, computer graphics, and the top paleontological knowledge of the time to bring the world of dinosaurs to life.

While dinosaur nature documentaries are a dime-a-dozen nowadays; back in the late 90s, Walking with Dinosaurs was truly revolutionary and the chance to talk about it in detail is exhilarating to me.

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Dynasty Warriors 2 (PS2) - Review (Dynasty Warriors Retrospective)

Continuing this look back on Dynasty Warriors, we have the second title that is the first hack & slash that this series in known for. While marketed as a sequel in America, it was actually the first in another series in Japan under the title Shin Sangoku Musou. This title change lead to a numbering difference in regions that still persist to this day. (Shin Sangoku Musou 2 = Dynasty Warriors 3, ect.) But, enough history lessons, (for now), click "read more" and let's see how this title holds up.