Opening Sequence Analysis

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

At the beginning of the film we briefly hear some eerie music, which is closely followed by a shot of a car driving through the desert, while the passengers in the car are very happy and can be heard laughing. The eerie music will have been used to keep the viewer guessing on what the tone of the film will be. The car looks like an old ford car, and there is an elvis presley song playing in the background. It is unclear whether the sound is diegetic and coming from the car or is non-diegetic. Either way, the song and model of the car tells the viewer that the film is set in the past. The titles are superimposed over the film, rather than having a separate title sequence. You then see the car in the desert pull into a road, alongside a set of army trucks. The way the people in the car are having a great time and the army trucks are really serious again keeps the viewer wondering what the tone of the film will be. We then see the car drive alongside a car driven by an army person. We see a close up of the driver of the army cars face in his wing mirror, from the black cars perspective. The driver of the army car is smiling, showing he isn’t deathly serious about his job. The people in the black car challenge him to a race and he accepts and off they race, again showing he isn’t serious about his job. Or possibly, he could be highly ranked in the army and thinks because of that he can do what he wants. We then see a medium-longshot of all the cars and trucks from the army. Later on in the scene we see the army vehicles drive into an army base and the words “Nevada 1957” appear on screen. The people in the army car that was racing are told by army men at the gate to the army base that they aren’t allowed into the base due to weapons testing. We then see the people that are guarding the gate turn to salute somebody. Just as they tell “colonel” what’s happening, the colonel that they soluted crouches down while his men kills all the guards. We see a close up of the colonel’s face and we instantly know he’s a bad guy. The colonel then walks back to his car while his men clear the dead bodies aside. We then see a sign saying “restricted area” and the army vehicles carry on through the gate. We immediately know after seeing the closeup of that sign that these army people are up to no good.

http://fairyshare.com/watch-5e1c0ff14e485c4bf#