[...] I mentioned this before: that the Crystal Skull itself was used prominently in the movie’s marketing where no artifact had had such prominence before. [...]

[...] Indiana Jones Trilogy in Animated Gif Format – Movies - … 1 0 1 Just how many copywriters were harmed in the creation of the Indiana Jones one-sheet? [...]

It does feel a little too similar to the Last Crusade one-sheet…for me to be totally blown away by it.

I think that’s pretty much what I’ve been feeling about Crystal Skull all along. I’m excited for it, jazzed to see it, want it to be great – but ultimately it all feels like similar stuff, ground already covered, fun but nothing new.

I agree that even the corny taglines can be fun and that some movies certainly don’t need them. I’m just fascinated that this one doesn’t have them, when all the rest DID, and made the tactical marketing decision to include them previously. Really, by the standards you’ve suggested, the second and third Indy movies shouldn’t have needed them, either.

Secondly, I’ve always been fascinated by taglines. The concept of summing up an entire film into one or two sentences is intriguing to me. Personally speaking, I tend to enjoy most of taglines (even the bad ones) and appreciate when a film has one. I can also appreciate, however, when a it is felt that a film just doesn’t need one. I’ve always liked, for example, that the posters for Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ didn’t have anything like “You will believe” plastered on them. I think it would just have been unnecessary and corny. Likewise, I’m not sure the fourth Indiana Jones film (like the Star Wars prequels) even needs a tagline. It’s a film that, As I’ve said before, essentially sells itself.

Finally, if I can engage in a bit shameless self-promotion for a second, I’ve had opportunities to create a few taglines myself for theatrical shows that I was involved in. A little over a year ago I directed a production of Dracula for which I designed most of the publicity and I came up with the tagline “Evil never dies… it only sleeps.” to put on the posters. Not a brilliant tagline I admit, but I liked it. I’ve also always been rather proud of the one I conceived for a production of Father of the Bride (based on the same source material as the Spencer Tracy film and its Steve Martin remake). It read: “A comedy about love, marriage and other expenses.”

[...] is that it doesn’t use a tagline. Now, not every poster has to have a tagline. And in fact a look at the taglines for a few upcoming movies will show that many of them are not very good or helpful. But I think that the trailer itself has [...]

No, not really. Truth is, all three of the other Indiana Jones one-sheets featured the Big Head Indy as well as the Smaller Action Indy, so in that way this sheet is following the convention yet again.

James: the Indy/Shia father/son hook is still, as far as I’m concerned, a plot rumor. It may very well turn out to be true, but even if it is there’s no way in hell Spielberg and Lucas would want to give that away on the poster.

And I never said that I thought this marketing was lazy. If anything it’s simply following the established rulebook for this series. That’s not necessarily a bad idea and the upcoming DVD release will go much farther toward “getting the people with no prior knowledge of the material wanting to see it.”