Captain Crazy's Paradise

I might have grown a bit cynical about arcade and pinball spots near me. Mostly because i’ve been let down so many times by the same batch of unmaintained games from the same two Mobile Area huckster operators. Games with no GI, malfunctioning switches and other problems set up for split-take at a myriad of doomed-to-fail spots that decided to open an arcade, without actually having any arcades.

So, when I started to hear about Captain Crazy’s opening in Foley, Alabama I didn’t really have the emotional bandwidth to get excited. It is just going to be another tease, I thought. The universe will smite my excitement with some new rug-pull, I thought.

I was wrong. Captain Crazy’s is freakin awesome.

Plus.. I’ve been a little busy and haven’t had an abundance of playtime.. But this Saturday I found a window and popped down to Foley.
My quick takeaways from the excursion…

I really appreciated the balance of arcades and pinball.
I really appreciated that multiple eras and game types were represented.
I really appreciated that all games were functioning and well-maintained.
I really appreciated that this didn’t feel like a kiddy-gambling redemption arcade.
I really appreciated the vibes; a great balance where adults, kids and teens can all find something fun to do.
I really appreciated the people. The owners and staff are great!
I really appreciated the theming of the space. There are some subtle touches that really help make the space feel inviting.
I really appreciate that they engage with local players for tournaments and launch parties.

That’s it, for now. That’s my review. If you are in the area - go go go go…

Happy New Year!

From a certain perspective, Avengers: Infinity War is the story of that nice Josh Brolin fellow trying to make traffic better for all us and being foiled by a group of billionaire-backed cheaters in tights. Perspective is important, so lets look back at 2023.

In 2023, I knew that I wanted to refactor a portion of the gameroom around an Indy-Tiki Bar Concept. That part more or less went as intended. A few weekends getting the Mario Karts ready for their new home and a few weekends of measuring, cutting and fastening. The detour came later as I started making film prop replicas for the space and eventually the new bar doubled as a maker-space for assembling Dial of Destiny props. The self-realization here is that I’m at my best when building things and to a lesser extent fixing things.

I started 2023 with a single Ultimaker 3 printer. It was originally used during pandemic times for pandemic things and as a handy local fab unit to reduce our trips to the store. Later it was used to print and design difficult-to-find arcade and pinball parts, which is why I included it within the narrative of this blog.

I ended 2023 with (2) Bambu Lab X1C’s, (1) Bambu Lab P1S, (2) Elegoo Saturn 3 Ultras and (1) Elegoo Jupiter. My daughter also has a P1S as a sneaky introduction to engineering skills and maker concepts.

From 1 printer to 6 printers, I spent much of 2023 making film props instead of doing arcade-y things.

Partly as an exercise in tchotchke making in order to fill in the eyeball overload / Planet Hollywood ADHD aesthetic of the game room. The primary objective though is by learning to make common film props, I picked up techniques and references that can be applied later in other ways. Pinball mods, in particular.

I built:
Chachapoyan Fertility Idol and Base
multiple NCC-1701-D’s
an NCC-1701-E
an NCC-1701-G
multiple Rocinantes (from the Expanse)
an Iron Man Helmet and Mask
a civilian FTL ship from Foundation
multiple Prime Radiants
Eyepiece of Ra / Medallion
a Dune Crysknife
an Iron Man Arc Reactor
a BTTF2 Hoverboard
an Infinity Gauntlet
Several Holy Grails
A few low-res, simple Johnny Fives
so very many-many Dial of Destiny’s

2024: Heeeeeeere’s Johnny

As we start into 2024, I’m about 80% complete with printing of a 26” Johnny Five robot.
It is going to act like a visual - design reference for a 2/3 scale build.

For the 2/3 scale build I’m trying to incorporate parts from two other designs. One is a full-scale build and then a smaller 1/3 scale R/C build. A Full-scale build won’t make it through some of our doorways. I’m hoping a 2/3 scale build will still carry the wow-factor with added portability. The 1/3 scale build is highly detailed and most of the parts will double-scale fine for printing. I’m expecting to have to make some design changes around weight and balance, parts at rest and to have to engineer solutions around practicality, strength and automation. This build is going to take awhile, with roughly 540 parts plus an equal number of fasteners and custom pieces along with various electronics components.

In order to keep it manageable I’m breaking it up into milestones and I’m not putting dates on these because I still have a time-thirsty real job and family obligations. This is supposed to be fun, afterall.

Milestone I: Mimir Needs Input
A functional head that can talk, emote through eyebrow motion and neck pitch and yaw.

Milestone II
Open AI and other frameworks, give it a personality and allow it to see through imaging sensors

Milestone III:
Build the drive system

Milestone IV:
Build the torso and arms

Milestone V:
Head, meet body. R/C Control and limited Macro Recording and Playback

Milestone VI:
Fully Autonomous Discovery and Operation

Arcade Stuff

In addition to the J5 build, which is more of a long-term project; I’m excited to get back into some arcade stuff. I’m planning on updating the Bitkit-cabinets in the gameroom, fixing Missile Command, turning Centipede into a Millipede-Multi cab, working on Battlezone.

Pinball Mods

I’ve been working on design and plans for some high end pinball mods for Indiana Jones, Medieval Madness & Tron for starters. More to come!

Merry Christmas

Looking back over the year, the arcade, pinball and retro-game hobbies took a bit of a back seat to my 3d Printing shenanigans. My plan for 2023 involved reworking parts of the game room for a hangout and bar space and focus more on time-with-friends than game collecting. I .. partly succeeded.

Building a welcoming hangout space was a successful project. Setting aside time to hang out, I could have improved upon.

If arcade collecting was a mental disorder, the psychological pathology of being a gameroom builder is probably rooted in a desire to assemble an epic hangout space and to share it with friends and family. A little bit of Willy Wonka meets Silver Spoons. Though, you may also find yourself in a friend group where everyone is expecting to be host and no one wants to be attendee. I’ve tried to be a better attendee this year.

There’s also the fact that arcade games themselves are often not exactly as social of an experience as you might remember. That time you mustered the nerve to ask that girl out at Aladdins’ Castle: It happened in an arcade but probably not at the control panel. With the exception of 2/4-up games like TMNT, Gauntlet, SmashTV, Joust, etc some of the best games are turn-based. This leaves 1-3 of your guests to twiddle their thumbs when not playing.

..That’s a long a reflective way of saying this year, I built a pretty cool bar and we made some memories around it but need to do more!

..I’ll be posting a look-back towards the end of the month but until then - hug your peeps, make time with friends and enjoy the season.
-BillD

Dial of Destiny Prop Info

In the fall, I switched the majority of parts from FDM to Resin. It saves me time in post-processing and not having to create fill channels for sand and quickcrete for weight and balance, the detail is nice and they feel more realistic.

Over the summer, I fell into some prop-building fun by way of creating a 3d printable Archimedes Dial prop based on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. I thought the movie was fun (though far from perfect) but I was really captivated by the prop and it seems plenty of others’ shared that sentiment. I made & sold a surprising number of them on eBay, participated in eBay Charities, donated quite a few of them and added some additional 3d print capabilities along the way.

The experience has been overall pretty rad and a bit redeeming on several fronts. For one, I had a mostly negative impression of eBay going into this having been ripped off as a seller many times in the not-so-distant past. Also, I’ve been surprised by the positive response from people that got them and made a few new friends along the way. Turns out, Indy people are cool.

Want to buy one?

I’m currently building “Anniversary Edition” dials that have more accurate dimensions and they separate in a more film-accurate manner. They also include a spring-loaded compass.

Sorry, the beaded lanyard is not included. I can walk you through making your own, though. It was just more time-consuming than I could commit to for any reasonable quantity.

Direct Order

Prices:
Small / Regular - $325USD (Sold Out)
Large -$650USD (Sold Out)
Anniversary Edition - $420USD (limited)

8/1/2024
I currently have a few of these (more or less) ready to ship minus any customization. Email me if you have questions or are interested but have a hardship situation, need a price cut to make it work out for you. You can also order from this site below.

Image below links to ordering page, if any are currently ready to go. ->

Sold out

Dial of Destiny Prop Replica (Mk42 Design)

$475.00

Indiana Jones, Dial Of Destiny Prop Replica

Want one of these but feeling a little out of reach by price?
No worries - here are some free plans if you feel inclined to print one, yourself. You got this!

(The open source plans are slightly different than this prop replica)

The build is 240mm by 210m by 41mm. This is consistent with the size of the prop on display at Disney World and what you see on-screen. This build is made from a combination of materials, PLA+, PLACF (Carbon Fiber) but the majority of it is Resin. I intentionally built this one to be heavy, to feel realistic in the hand.

The hands move, it can be displayed assembled or in split-view similar to the film Premiere and includes a static compass for the center assembly that can be optionally installed. It does not facilitate travel through time but congratulations, you are already traveling forward in time at the rate of 1 second per second. :)

Add to cart

F.A.Q.

Which is the screen accurate size?
- That’s debatable. If you watch the film and extra features, they made and used several different sizes during production. If you, person reading this, have the definitive (not Disney World prop) production sizes please send them to me and I will be forever in your debt.

Is it 100% screen accurate?
- It is pretty close. Some liberties were taken to facilitate printing. The screen-used props were expertly weathered and made from different materials.

Those prices seem steep. Why so much?
A few things went into my pricing considerations. First: I’m sort of a stickler on quality. My Dad drilled in me to work hard and over-deliver when possible and let the pricing reflect the work. I have spent some effort refining processes to try to bring prices into a more accessible range and my processes are pretty efficient. I like making these for people and these prices cover my maker supplies and parts.

Charities? How do we go about getting a Dial for Charity purposes?
No red tape. Just write up a few sentences on what you have in mind and we’ll work it out.

I heard something about a free-alternative?
My 3d Print model files up to Mark 5 are completely free and open source and I highly encourage folks to make the builds themselves, it is a gratifying project to complete. People even use them commercially and that’s cool. With the right tools (multi-color capable fdm printer, large resin printer) the build can even be pretty easy. It does involve about 30 parts, 50+ print hours, sanding, priming, paint, assembly, trimming, etc.

*the anniversary edition files are not available for download (not yet, anyway - I’m re-evaluating this)

Can you still make the FDM-style dials?
- Sure thing. Depending on my filament-stock-levels I may need to source the particular filament I used for the main body but the deliverable time should be about the same.

Do you sell kits?
- I have. It isn’t going to be any cheaper because I’l likely be printing extra parts for kit-builds but I certainly can send you an unpainted and unassembled kit-form of either build type.

Do you sell parts?
- Sure.
If you purchased a Dial from me and part of it broke, you have my contact info - just reach out and I’ll get you squared away; either with replacement parts or a complete replacement Dial. I’ll make every reasonable effort so long as I still have the parts, material and printers to do so.

If you are trying to print your own Dial and need the white parts printed, I’ve sent a few of those multicolor-parts-only kits out by request. There should be little or no charge for this outside of shipping & handling unless I get behind or inundated.

eBay Store

I may, from time-to-time have some pre-built and available for purchase on eBay - you can find that storefront here:
https://www.ebay.com/usr/visi0n9

Awesome / Humbling Buyer Feedback

Build Process Overview

Below is my general build process. I tend to have more than one dial in one of these phases at any given time and these days are not contiguous, they rely on my work schedule, humidity and other factors.

Day One
The printers print parts. For the main body I use an Elegoo Jupiter, for the compass assemblies I use an Elegoo Saturn 3 Ultra. For the remainder I use 2 Bambu X1Cs, and a Bambu P1S

Day Two
UV Curing for MSLA parts, additional printing for FDM parts.

Day Three
Prep. I remove supports, sand and clean parts and paint them with a Black Primer

Day Four
I paint the parts. The gold is a Krylon Gold Leaf, available in liquid and aerosol form from Hobby Lobby, Michaels, Lowes and Amazon. I use a mixture of airbrush, aerosol and physical brush.

Day Five
Assembly Day. More light sanding and surface prep, then I glue any parts that need to be glued, reprint anything that was missing, lost or doesn’t meet quality standards.

Day Six
I test them for loose parts, glue, fix, touch and photography the finished model. Since each model is a little different, I give the model an internal grade in terms of qualities and setbacks and I use this grade to pick a price from an established price-range.

Want to Make your Own?

Want one but would prefer to make it yourself? You got this!

You can find the model files on Printables and on Bambu Maker World
and an assembly video here: https://arcadeshenanigans.com/blog/2023/8/5/dial-of-destiny-mark-4-conversion-instructions

Quick Prop Build: IJ Antidote Vial

After picking up a nice version of the Nurhachi’s Urn, I also wanted one of the antidote vials but felt like the average going rate of $75.00 was a bit excessive for the vial.

I started by ordering these from Amazon: 30ml Clear Small Glass Vials

I used this for the blue liquid

For the blue liquid, I originally attempted a mixture of food dye and various clear liquids. Eventually I ended up with a $10 bottle of bottom-shelf vodka. I painted the lid with the same Krylon Gold Leaf spray paint I used for the Dial of Destiny.

Here are the print files for the gold rings:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/3aq2nl70qm3o8jup8vcel/h?rlkey=62lfizbud55nw61s6z7a23772&dl=0

Building a Prime Radiant

Foundation on AppleTV is an outstanding and wildly ambitious adaptation of Asimov’s books and stories. If you haven’t checked it out yet - go ahead and watch it. I’ll wait here.

Welcome back! Season 2 was a real banger and it is going to feel like a lifetime before Season 3 is available to be blasted into our eyeballs. So, maybe a cool prop can help the time go by more quickly?

While the pinball and arcade hobby already had me dabbling with 3D Printing, the Dial of Destiny Prop project really got me interested in building myself more film and television props.

I’ve started a few: An Iron Man Arc Reactor, a Johnny-Five SAINT robot, a few Halloween related things.

In this post we’re going to talk about The Prime Radiant from Apple TV’s Foundation.

The Prime Radiant

src: https://foundation.fandom.com/wiki/Prime_Radiant

In the Foundation Series, the Prime Radiant is an object built by Hari Seldon as part of his research in and development of Psychohistory. It gives people the ability to view the trajectory of cosmic-scale events in the past, present and future. A tool used to determine specific points in the timeline that can be influenced to drive humanity into a brighter future and shorten the dark ages that follow the fall of an Empire.

The book(s) make the object seem rather ordinary but the on-screen imagining of the Prime Radiant is something else entirely. Is it an atomic ash tray? Is it a quantum computer? Is it a tesseract? Maybe it is all of these things, I’m still not sure. I am sure, though - it is extremely cool looking.

Feeling a little bolstered from my Dial of Destiny experience, I set out in Shapr3d to start designing the Radiant.

About halfway to something close during a search session, I found a 3D model for sale that looks really good and is cheap. So $10 shortcut, engage!

I’ve had a few false starts at trying to design the model.

Resin Time

I attempted several FDM prints of the internal latticework using Bambu’s CF-PLA materials but the bridging work is extreme for that setup and the need for supports is going to introduce a challenge. Besides, the tetradecahedron outer shell needs to be clear, so I’m going to have to get into Resin for this project or get really good at cutting acrylics or outsource that part to a glassblower. For this project, I’m using an Elegoo Saturn 3 Ultra. For the clear acrylic, I’ve been seeing buzz regarding AnyCubic’s High Clear Resin, so I ordered a case of it work with.

Attempt Number One

This model is divided into the tri-lattice, the quad-lattice, a central core and two shell parts. The lattice is extremely delicate at 100% scale and support removal was a real P.I.T.A.

Attempt 1 Conclusion

Attempt 1 was a 100% scale attempt using AnyCubic’s High Clear resin. It did indeed come out pretty clear following the manufacturer’s instructions but with one giant trade-off. You can never touch it. AnyCubic’s resin is indeed clear and the material properties are pretty good for this application. However, they instruct you to varnish the cleaned and cured model with their resin and a quick cure to bring back the clarity that is lost during cleaning. This varnish step makes the object EXTREMELY tacky and you basically can’t handle the model.

If you ask me that’s a pretty giant omission by all of the shill youtube and 3d print blogs out there gushing about this resin.

As for the $10 model files, it was nice though I’m still inclined to build my own to potentially give myself the chance of breaking the shell components up differently. Maybe in a future attempt as these files are good enough for now.

Attempt Two

In this attempt, I increased the scale of the model to simplify support removals from the lattice. I’m still using the AnyCubic High Clear Resin, I have ten bottles left after all. Instead of the resin-as-varnish process provided by the manufacturer I decided to post-process the shell components in a way that is similar to headlight restoration.

Stepped wet sanding from 200 up to 1500 grit, then automotive clear coat.

Attempt Three

On the third attempt, I scaled the model back down to 110% of the original model. The size gives the internal latticework more substance for easier support removal and feels good as a size. Still fighting clarity issues I thought it might be interesting to pour the model solid with clear resin. That was sort of a trainwreck, actually.

I drilled a small hole in the completed assembly, brushed on some resin and uv cleared it to fuse the shell halves together. I used a ketchup squeeze bottle and a process of fill-flash-fill-flash to try to pour the shell full of resin.

This resulted in a comedy of errors. First was that my resin-sealed shell seems leaked, creating a mess to clean up and borrowing future Dremel processing problems. The other issue was the heat exchange of the resin curing process blasted some of the latticework paint off the lattice.

Attempt Four

On attempt 4, I kept with the scale of above but opted for a different varnish solution. I think Automotive Clear Coat “should” be the best choice but the high humidity of the Alabama summer and doing this in my garage is making for poor results.

This time I used Liquitex Gloss Varnish, available from Amazon, Michaels and Hobby Lobby. It seemed to be a bit more forgiving when applying in multiple coats.

The results were not perfectly clear but by far the best balance of clear but not-sticky and evidently UV resistant to yellowing.

Resin and your Lungs

I did a fair amount of sanding and stripping on the shell halves. At first, to get support marks out and bring out clarity but later using Citris Strip to try to removed failed coats of clear that had surface flaws.

When sanding, I wore a mask and used gloves with the majority that being wet-sanding inside a bucket of water. Some sanding underwater and some sanding above water to observe the high spots and know where to apply pressure.

Note the white residue on the bucket.

This bucket was only ever used when sanding resin (not clear) and this is after it was rinsed with a degreaser and fresh water.

It persists through an industrial degreaser and high pressure water so imagine what it could do in your lungs. Acetone or Naphtha can certainly clean it off the bucket but I wanted to highlight the persistence and long term health considerations of fine resin dust. Be careful sanding! Work in a well-ventilated area, wear a mask or painting respirator and use water to keep the dust down.

DO NOT sand (or any process, really) resin in your kitchen sink or anywhere you may later use for food prep.

Buying a Prime Radiant

Sometimes my own Griswold-esque OCD out strips my own skill and this is one of those times. To get the Prime Radiant I was most happy with, I reached out to a skilled creator on TheRPF forums.

The maker who made this one was extremely fair with his price and did a phenomenal job. He added additional detail to the inside latticework, managed to get a clear poured-solid resin to get the weight right and even had designs laser-etched on the outside. On top of all this he was just a really good guy to talk with.

Dial of Destiny Mark 4 Conversion Instructions

Want to buy one? Click here for ordering options.

Already have one? Welcome! Hopefully the video and resources below cover the bases but if you have any questions, just drop a comment and I’m happy to help.

If your Compass Mount Looks like this:

Then, You can carefully unscrew the compass mount like this illustration.

The following video also shows how this assembly can be separated at the 10:20 mark)

(If you’d just like to see how to convert between split and assembled configs, jump to about 10:20 in this video)

If your Compass Mount Looks like this:

Then your conversion operates like this:

Lift the compass mount off.

Unscrew the center plug

Re-orient the dial parts for the desired split configuration.
Screw the center plug back in to create enough pinching force to hold the halves together.
Re-Install the Magnetic Compass Mount

Model Files, Download from Printables:
https://www.printables.com/model/468260-indiana-jones-dial-of-destiny

Legacy Parts (and commit history):
https://github.com/graffitilogic/3dPrintStuff/tree/main/Indy

Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny Review

Mild spoilers follow.. you’ve been warned.
TLDR: I liked it, I’ll of course preorder it as soon as I can and I’ll probably see it in Theater one more time. It isn’t perfect, though and as they say: I have notes.

Just to level-set and address the most common comparison: I hated Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; until I didn’t. In recent re-watches Crystal Skull actually changed my mind about that film. I rather enjoy it, now. Crusade and Raiders battle for my number 1 ranking and the rest vary by mood, including this new installment, I suspect.

Driving home from seeing Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny, I had a smile on my face. That is: right up until we found the Wallace Tunnel on I-10 in Mobile, Alabama was closed forcing a detour through downtown Mobile. In my opinion the downtown Mobile street layouts are more “gardened” than “engineered.” They just sort of happened over time, less as a result of planning and more out of a protracted timeline of necessity, repair and expansion.

This, I think might be an apt metaphor for about my first impressions of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

Mobile isn’t my favorite place to visit. In many ways it is like its sister city, New Orleans. Parking is a pain, traffic is a consistent problem. There are million dollar homes with historical marker plates within a block of derelict shanty flop-houses. On any given night you have equal odds of an adventurous good time with colorful characters or becoming a crime statistic. In fact, you could almost imagine finding Indy in a back alley brawl or Delta River boat chase over information leading to some ancient relic from early Spanish occupation..

Right before we came onto the tunnel, still smiling, I told my wife:

“You know, that might be my least favorite Indiana Jones movie.”

I need to see it again to settle on a final ranking but just because Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny isn’t my favorite Indy movie doesn’t make it a bad film or even a bad final outing for Indy. From my top 5 flavors of Ice Cream, even the fifth ranked Ice Cream can hit the spot on a hot summer day. So did this last outing with Harrison Ford once again donning the fedora and whip in search of fortune and glory (or perhaps just closure and reconciliation).

As an Indy fan I’m inclined to defend this movie from the click-bait troll reviews that apparently make a living throwing shade at Lucasfilm and Disney leadership and made their collective minds up about this film a year ago before it was even in the can. By contrast, I write here from my phone in meeting-boredom and in organization of my own thoughts and could care less if another human ever reads it. These people don’t need me to defend their choices, so I’m honest and my opinions are my own.

I like the Archimedes prop (alot, obviously) and the fetch-quest was cool. I even like Archimedes as a historical truth-finder similar in some ways to Indy. The Leads were fine. Indy was: Old-Ass ropey-but-strong and still-very laconic and wry Indy. Helena was a perfectly fine roguish co star, maybe a little hyperactive but a fine reflection of modern audiences in contrast to Indy’s pre-adderall generation.

Mild Spoilers

Ford is always great as Indy, even at this age. I suspect this is more that Indy is a facet of Harrison Ford’s personality than a character he’s actually playing. The horseback scene shown in the trailers is thrilling and the de-aged Indy sequence at the beginning is great. The de-aging tech still isn’t perfect but it also isn’t distracting, though don’t look too closely at the eyes. Eyes are still hard: being the window to the soul and all.

Mads Mikkelsen was great, liked seeing Antonio Banderas too.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge and not-Short-Round were fine ensemble cast members.

Though, I don’t think the film does a great job of making either character like-able. Early in the film Helena leaves old-man Indy in a way that earlier films would have rewarded with an insta-Karma booby-trap to the face. For the Teddy defenders out there: How would you feel if Short-Round killed people? Teddy murders a fool. Dude was a nazi and had it coming but still!? The modern story aesthetic Vis-à-vis the quality of human life doesn’t really map well here, in my opinion. I want my kid side-kicks to be edgy lovable scoundrels but Teddy? This makes Teddy too hardcore as a sidekick in my view. I’m just sayin’ that if Teddy’s hanging around my NYC apartment, I’m not leaving him alone with the pets.

FWIW: My daughter really liked Helena’s character and style, so this might just be curmudgeonly 44 year old values talking.

If I’m honest most of the things that make this a good film and not a great film probably happened in the editing bay or might be the result of a last-minute restructure to the original script despite conflicting rumors on the subject. There are some odd ADR lines where a character is talking but apparently via ventriloquist skills because their mouth isn’t moving. The story structure is a little muddied too in that Archimedes’ Dial comes in three parts and you’d expect those parts to map cleanly over a three-act story structure. Instead, the final part - the little compass-like-whatcha-ma-call-it in the center of the dial just sort of “happens” without detailed explanation or much in the way of fanfare.

Mangold and the DP borrowed enough of the Indy style in terms of color palette and set-design and John Williams score does plenty to make this feel like a real Indiana Jones movie but some of the classic Spielberg hip-shots, shadows and framing are missing. ( Level-set, again: I’m not a Spielberg-only Stan - I hate what he did to Ready Player One) Some of the shadows and silhouettes are there but they aren’t allowed to breath. The camera pans and transitions also fail to evoke the old-timey Republic serials that are hallmarks of the franchise. There is a travel sequence. It was updated and probably shouldn’t have been.

Mostly, the pacing is a little odd. The middle of the movie had my eyes wandering from the screen. I feel like the transition through the third act resolution to the finale was rushed and left me a bit disoriented. It wasn’t a fatal flaw but I think in time this transition from the third act pinnacle to the finale will be divisive, maybe even an object lesson. The “Nuke the fridge” of story transitions.

Ultimately I like where they left it, the final scene was touching and nostalgic and worked for the characters.. and I’m happy to get one more outing from Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. Go see the movie.