@ZachWeinersmith we suspect this is what happened recently at the British Museum

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/08/22/reports-claim-close-to-2000-artefacts-were-stolen-from-british-museum-according-to-internal-investigation

@ZachWeinersmith

Now, if you replace the Vatican with the British Museum...

The protagonist with an activist that wants to reclaim stolen cultural goods...

And present western culture and ideology in all their weirdness...

That would make a good film or even franchise.

Director: "They have stolen the priceless MacGuffin."
Police Officer: "But didn't we steal it first?"
Director: "Exactly. That's why I want it back."

@ZachWeinersmith the monkey paw curse is that the tribe will be led by a Chosen white guy (see fern gully, avatar et al)

@ZachWeinersmith And an Inverse Indiana Jones film where doctor Jones places an artifact in a temple, and tells the Nazis where to go pick it up.

@ZachWeinersmith try Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

@ZachWeinersmith I'm in!!!

@ZachWeinersmith
"CRUDUX CRUO!"

@ZachWeinersmith Interesting! Beats the same old formulaic plot in every Indiana Jones film. These franchises need something different. https://shannoncuthrell.substack.com/p/entertainments-nostalgia-addiction

@ZachWeinersmith alternatively also the British Museum, and on the getaway men in pompous brit outfits shout an unintelligible slew of Britishisms at the getaway vehicle.

“Oi rightio chaps crisps jellied eel queen wanker lift torch innit!”

@ZachWeinersmith I love the 1920's era-ish exploration genre, and I've been really curious if there's way to do them in a way that is modern/not problematic, and unfortunately I think the answer is sadly probably not, but I would watch this movie.

@ZachWeinersmith there's a game for that! It doesn't have a South American tribe, but it does feature reverse-Indiana Jones aka Pennsylvania Smith!
https://games.digipen.edu/games/it-belongs-in-an-ancient-ruin

@ZachWeinersmith I have NO sympathy for them. Four & a half centuries ago they had done worse than the first world to the third. Read about Clergy Bartolome de las Casas. Now the fight is to preserve our climate before it worsens. New reality is a myth and things may turn worse that they are now. Use and promote green energy.

@ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.sociaI would be satisfied with wqtching a Greek archeologist raiding British Museum as Beefeaters are shaking their moustaches at him shouting in a strange language (cockney rhyming slang)...

@ZachWeinersmith Alternatively, you can have him steal from the British 'collections' and have beefeaters and strange rituals.

' this belongs not in this museum!'

@ZachWeinersmith The sequel would be a bunch of South Pacific Islanders team up to tunnel under the British Museum and steal back their mega-ton Moai stone statues.

https://www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/british-museum-story/contested-objects-collection/moai

@ZachWeinersmith there was this Brazilian writer, Ariano Suassuna, who at least once gave a speech (recorded, shared) alerting to the absurd of this scene

Perhaps YouTube will autotranslate?

https://youtu.be/Dz5u1lhHFYM

@ZachWeinersmith I'd watch it.

@ZachWeinersmith Yessssss!

@ZachWeinersmith the new archer season has a mini version of this, in episode 3: “plaque removal”, even has a version of short round helping out.

@ZachWeinersmith Don't forget the Swiss Guard.

@ZachWeinersmith I'd pay way more to see that movie!!

@ZachWeinersmith Not gonna lie, I would get tons of entertainment watching reactionaries crying about the movies.

@ZachWeinersmith I would 1000% watch that movie.

OMG please make it happen.

@ZachWeinersmith holy fuck I need this in my life.

@ZachWeinersmith 💯💯 would watch.

@ZachWeinersmith somewhat related, are you familiar with Spirit Island?

@ZachWeinersmith

I work as a data analyst in the movie industry and sometimes work with indie filmmakers looking to find investors. One of the business plans I worked on was basically this, but with Greeks going after the British Museum.

@ZachWeinersmith

Lexi Alexander had a great plot similar to this.

@ZachWeinersmith Raiders of the Elgin Marbles (could be a very long-running franchise).

@ZachWeinersmith
I'd watch it!

@ZachWeinersmith

Great suggestion--thanks!

@ZachWeinersmith One for each nation colonized. Definitely featuring those cannibals who eat the flesh and drink the blood of their dead god. Gross!

@ZachWeinersmith have you seen any films made in African Countries? I am sure I saw that some where. Def Cable Access vibes from 1990s.

@ZachWeinersmith

Confused as to why no-one in the comments has mentioned Black Panther.

This scene in particular: https://youtu.be/tc2iC7iMc_g

Also, Indiana Jones 4, itself, involves him returning an artefact to where it was found.

In principle, though, I agree. More of this!

@ZachWeinersmith Gotta have a scene where a devious but cowardly white guy steals the relic from the hero but then gets caught in some fiendish Vatican man trap.

@ZachWeinersmith sure, excepts Indigenous people can't "steal" relics, more like "return"

@ZachWeinersmith that sounds really good tbh

@ZachWeinersmith @static And the sequel can feature the British Library.

@ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social

Oceans 57 where the crew is one person from each of their former colonies executing a heist on the British Museum.

@ZachWeinersmith The trouble is, their gold usually got melted down. And a lot of it is in Spain, not the Vatican.

@ZachWeinersmith and pray to their desert sky god for help

@ZachWeinersmith https://www.bedetheque.com/BD-Inanna-Djoun-Inanna-Djoun-au-pays-des-Francais-397753.html

@ZachWeinersmith This would be so, so good

@ZachWeinersmith Brilliant actually. Give it a pitch.

@ZachWeinersmith
For the full "make them look more primitive than they actually were" effect, the Swiss Guard could angrily shake halberds at them.

@ZachWeinersmith or just then taking back what's theirs

@ZachWeinersmith That's such a good idea

@ZachWeinersmith I'd watch

@ZachWeinersmith I'd pay to see that

@ZachWeinersmith gotta be honest a “reverse Indiana jones” sounds like a real cooky sex act.

@ZachWeinersmith “This doesn’t belong in a museum”

@ZachWeinersmith I want an entire movie that is an extended version of that one scene in Black Panther where Killmonger liberates stolen artefacts from a museum. Except without the figleaf of the protagonist being from 'Wakanda'.

@ZachWeinersmith

We could launch the pope down a slope, to become the boulder. :ablobcatheadbang:

@ZachWeinersmith

Yes, please!

@ZachWeinersmith I'd watch that.

@ZachWeinersmith I think his son should be the more culturally aware version of him, same skills but now taking things his dad stole and returning them. Whole new franchise

@ZachWeinersmith I can pinpoint one of the biggest leaps I personally took from "easy and clean childhood thinking" to "messy and complicated adult thinking" as the time I realised "wait, tfym 'it belongs in a museum'? why?! it belongs to the people who own it!"

@ZachWeinersmith Ke Huy Quan as a grown up short round that goes around liberating all the artifacts Indiana stole, and returns them to the people he stole them from. Indy is a museum curator and they run into each other at a swanky function while Short Round cases the museum. As it dawns on Indy what's happening, Short Round leaves in a hurry and calls over his shoulder "No time for love, Dr. Jones."

@ZachWeinersmith So, like a heist version of the scene in Black Panther where Killmonger takes back an item from the British Museum, but just add "Italian Job" or similar?

Although I suppose it would make sense to do that, but crossover it with "Night at the Museum" twist to turn the museum itself into an Indiana Jones situation?*

@ZachWeinersmith one of the episodes of the last season of archer was about this.

@ZachWeinersmith take my money

@ZachWeinersmith or perhaps one where an African high school professor and her handsome young assistant braves the moors of Yorkshire and is forced to eat black pudding by a local Rotary Club?

That's kind of heading in a Goodness Gracious Me direction...

https://youtu.be/H-uEx_hEXAM?si=aiPu3uxY5bBnuX95

@ZachWeinersmith José and the Small Kingdom Raiders?

@ZachWeinersmith Of course the South Americans will have to shout "Vamos!" loudly all the time....

@ZachWeinersmith I want the same as a video game - where Lara Croft breaks into famous museums to steal artefacts and return them to their rightful owners.

@ZachWeinersmith I like the idea, but since all Indiana Jones movies happen anywhere else besides South America, a reverse movie would require a different kind of tribe.

Raiders of the Lost Ark - France/Hawaii/Tunisia
The Temple of Doom - Macau/Sri-Lanka/USA
The Last Crusade - Jordan/Spain

@ZachWeinersmith

@ZachWeinersmith super Idee!

@ZachWeinersmith en vrai ce serait une bonne idée

@ZachWeinersmith Now I want this so bad!

@ZachWeinersmith there's a great parodic comic book called "Inanna Djoun au pays des français", basically this but with a babylonian archeologist bringing civilization to France. Direct spoof of Tintin for the characters and storytelling.

https://www.bdtheque.com/series/19568/inanna-djoun

@ZachWeinersmith and then they have to dodge a huge doughnut sign that rolls their way.

@ZachWeinersmith That sounds like a script, once the strike is over.
https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/en/2023/05/the-darkest-day-in-the-history-of-the-swiss-guard/

@ZachWeinersmith

I mean...how does this not exist...it would be amazing!

@ZachWeinersmith All the people responding that it should be the British Museum can stuff it; the Vatican would have _much_ better traps

@ZachWeinersmith who's the nazis in this version? typically the story isn't that indiana gets away, it's that the nazis appear just when he has the relic secured to take it from him

@ZachWeinersmith Oceans 11 style museum heist film only they're a bunch of angry Greeks wanting to repatriate the Pantheon marbles.

@ZachWeinersmith Twist: The relics are as fake as the Dumbarton Oaks figure probably is.

@BorrisInABox @ZachWeinersmith Wasn't that Da Vinci Code?

@ZachWeinersmith

I'm imagining a plot where a bunch of out of work teens and 20yos on native land hear about on the internet artifacts from their tribe at the local university. All of them jump in their rez runner and have a road trip/indy type movie.

Plot twist: the entire department at the university is on their side and helps them in the climactic police chase through the desert with ATVs, horses, and choppers.

@ZachWeinersmith In that case they'll just be taking back their stolen relics.

@ZachWeinersmith its called Jindiana Iones