Legend of the Lost Art (8.10)

Rate, review & discuss the episodes from the eighth season

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How Would You Rate This Episode?

10 (Perfect!)
13
14%
9.5 (One of the Best)
4
4%
9.0 (Excellent)
20
22%
8.5 (Very Good)
8
9%
8.0 (Pretty Good)
10
11%
7.5 (Decent)
8
9%
7.0 (Average at Best)
3
3%
6.5 (Not So Good)
12
13%
6.0 (Pretty Bad)
6
7%
5.0 (Just Awful)
6
7%
 
Total votes: 90

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Doc Ibold
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Re: Legend of the Lost Art (8.10)

#71 Post by Doc Ibold »

Connie? Miss Northrup? Miss Connie Northrup!

I have no idea why that line delights me so much.

J. Rickley Schneider
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Re: Legend of the Lost Art (8.10)

#72 Post by J. Rickley Schneider »

I was highly anticipating watching this episode and it didn't disappoint.

As far as parodies go, it was a very clever one.

Did everyone recognize Margaret Colin from Independence Day?

SignGuyHPW
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Re: Legend of the Lost Art (8.10)

#73 Post by SignGuyHPW »

I just rewatched this one on the season 8 DVD set with the commentary. I thought that the commentary would distract me from a lot of what I disliked about the episode. I was wrong as the creative consultant had, seemingly, not watched much of the show in the 20 years or so they had been off of the air nor could he recall much of The Raiders of the Lost Ark which he used as material to spoof for this episode.

Jay Hugeley didn't seem to recall much about the series when he was trying to explain how different the series normally was compared to this episode. He was trying to recall things from a couple of decades previous which explains why he may have misrecalled things. For example, he didn't recall TC and Rick using guns which they did in a number of episodes, didn't recall Magnum having any casual relationships which he did in a handful of episodes, and didn't seem to recall the high body count there really was. He also referenced scenes coming up later in the episode that didn't play out exactly as he described. It was hard for me to listen to him and be thinking of the contradictions.

I found it interesting that the people involved in The Raiders of the Lost Ark, supposedly, were upset after the episode aired. It seemed clear to me that this was a spoof of it and not intended to infringe on intellectual property.

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Re:

#74 Post by StaveIsle »

J.J. Walters wrote:Bam! There it is!! The greatest Magnum episode of all-time!!! In my humble opinion, of course. ;)

This episode has everything that makes the show so great - action, comedy, mystery, excitement, zaniness, great lines, great locations, etc. - but times ten! This is really a two-hour movie crammed into a :46 minute episode! It's one fun, action-packed scene after another. It never lets up!

I just love the brilliant setup here - We're going to pay homage to Raiders of the Lost Ark (a film Selleck could have been in if not for his contractual obligation to MPI), but we are going to set it up so TM and the gang think the events might be based (staged) off other, unexpected (to the viewer) classic movies! And Jay Huguely does a GREAT job with the script. It's almost perfect. I can't wait to check out his commentary on the DVD.

Boy, Selleck sure must have had a lot of fun with this one. I'm sure they all did! What a great way to go into the final episodes..... with a bang!

And I really liked Margaret Colin here. She did a really great job.

"The Lost Art of the Ancients", I love it!

Image

Note to Self: Add Perils of Nyoka (1942) to your Netflix queue.

:D
I think I have to agree with you, JJ. The funny thing is, I NEVER saw this until a few days ago. 27 years after it was on TV, when I missed it, I just learned about it and found it. I am a huge Indy fan and Magnum fan. This show was pitch perfect with having fun with the whole idea. Higgins handing him the coat and saying Magnum should put it on when he gets back on the trail...and later handing him both the coat and hat...all the tongue in cheek references, scene stealing and subtle Indy music found within it, perfect. I laughed the entire way through.

Before I saw this, when I thought of favorite episodes, I thought of Laura, Did You See The Sunrise?, Home From the Sea, Paper War... but this is the one I will now think of as my favorite.

They held that Indy role for a full month for Selleck in hopes he could take it. Spielberg wrote him a letter saying he was really sorry it had not worked out and that it should have. What might have been if Selleck played Indy?

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Re: Legend of the Lost Art (8.10)

#75 Post by StaveIsle »

Did folks notice in some followup episodes that Magnum had the Indy fedora hanging up near the door?

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Re: Legend of the Lost Art (8.10)

#76 Post by eagle »

I'm watching this episode today too -- almost at the end of my first cycle through my DVDs -- and I really enjoyed this ep. I laughed at many places throughout.

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Re: Legend of the Lost Art (8.10)

#77 Post by K Hale »

DarCA wrote:I watched this episode again last night and had a smile on my face the entire time. I just love the way they did the spoof of Raiders of the Lost Ark - especially when Magnum kept naming the movie that Ridley-Smyth was acting out - and he never got the movie right. It's a 10 in my book.
I was a huge Indy fan as a kid (OK, and adult). I used to dislike this one a lot, but recently I've done a 180 and come to love it. Everyone is having such a great time, the dialogue is hilarious, the situations everyone gets into are so over the top, and finding all the little homages/spoofs is a lot of fun. So many small delights here. Rick in the Bogey outfit. Higgins in the trenchcoat and hat. Magnum's missing shoe. Magnum refusing to wear the hat and coat, then finally wearing them. All the fights. Rick on the rack. TC trying to catch up to the truck. Magnum and Connie walking into the frame after the big battle, then Higgins walking into the frame still holding his shoes. Just all of it. The whole thing is a lot of fun... it's now in my top 10 episodes. Seems like people either love this or hate it!
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Re:

#78 Post by Nifty911 »

dick butkus wrote:I am sorry, but I really didn't enjoy this episode very much. Maybe I had expected it to be more like the real Indiana Jones and Selleck would be more like Harrison Ford. I havenät seen this episode for years though, but I recall I didn't particularly liked it.
Wasn't it to much humour, too funny? Or am I wrong? I my memory deceived me?
But I do beleive though that Tom Selleck would have been an excellent Indiana Jones if he was to play that role like Spielberg wanted at first.
It's watchable but a little too outlandish. First time I saw this I was waiting for Magnum to wake up from a dream. Some of the lines from many characters seems intentionally "overly-dramatic".

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Re: Re:

#79 Post by Kevster »

Nifty911 wrote:
dick butkus wrote:I am sorry, but I really didn't enjoy this episode very much. Maybe I had expected it to be more like the real Indiana Jones and Selleck would be more like Harrison Ford. I havenät seen this episode for years though, but I recall I didn't particularly liked it.
Wasn't it to much humour, too funny? Or am I wrong? I my memory deceived me?
But I do beleive though that Tom Selleck would have been an excellent Indiana Jones if he was to play that role like Spielberg wanted at first.
It's watchable but a little too outlandish. First time I saw this I was waiting for Magnum to wake up from a dream. Some of the lines from many characters seems intentionally "overly-dramatic".
Have to agree a bit. It was supposed to be outlandish fantasy and fun, but it got a little too close to trite...


I think that Selleck may have been "less famous" and there would have been fewer sequels if he'd played Indiana Jones. I think the movie would have been successful, though maybe less so, but HF had the synergy of IJ and Star Wars that helped propel Raiders forward. That helped the movie. I doubt that MPI would have gone on all that long with TS having been in a hit movie like ROTLA. I also think that Spielberg's vision evolved with HF in the role, which likely helped the movie. I know I still have trouble watching the second one, which tells me that if Spielberg moved back a little towarrd the original vision with IJ&TOD, then the change of actor helped refine ROTLA...
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Re: Legend of the Lost Art (8.10)

#80 Post by brianw »

I remember hating this episode when I watched it originally. Watched some of it again this morning and still don't like it. They were really reaching by the time the show ended a few episodes later. I get the whole Raiders parody thing, but its just not funny to me. Also, there is only one Indiana Jones, and it isn't Tom Selleck. Sorry.

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Re: Legend of the Lost Art (8.10)

#81 Post by brianw »

Oh, also, I kept trying to remember where I had seen Margret Colin before, she was a hottie... I had to look it up though. She was in Independence Day!

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Re: Legend of the Lost Art (8.10)

#82 Post by terryfromkerry »

Short video re TS & the Indiana Jones role that was almost his. We know the story of course but interesting comments from Stephen Spielberg & George Lucas, among others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgTJbHjClMI
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Re: Legend of the Lost Art (8.10)

#83 Post by T.Q. »

An absurd episode.

I find it so cringeworthy.

Not even Magnum/Higgins interactions could save this episode.

Margaret Colin comes close though. :lol:

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What would have been great was have Thomas deliver Connie to the airport in his Indy clothes and have Harrison Ford make a cameo walking through HNL airport and say nice outfit... Then a little 4th Wall action.
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Re: Legend of the Lost Art (8.10)

#84 Post by LZeitgeist »

Finally got to this episode in my rewatch of the series.

Absolutely horrid. And Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of my favorite films ever.

So very glad that TS was not cast as Indiana Jones - the films would have been comedies and would not have worked at all. Yes, TS can do serious acting, but Harrison Ford was so much better.

I'm glad they had fun, but I wish they had made a Magnum PI episode instead of some fanboy recreation that falls flat at every turn.

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Re: Legend of the Lost Art (8.10)

#85 Post by Bes »

I wouldn't blame Tom Selleck for the silliness of this episode (which I wasn't a fan of either on my lone watch so far). His Indy screentest is actually dead serious (arguably more so than Ford's take) and he is equally adept at drama as he is at comedy, as he had already proven countless times in Magnum PI itself.

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