Indiana Jones and the Linguistics of Doom

With all the fanfare and, dare I say it: buzz, surrounding the new Indiana Jones movie, I was confounded by a few facts after I started talking with friends about the series.

My friends and I (and I suspect most fans) refer to the IJ movies thusly:

Raiders of the Lost Ark: "Raiders"
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: "Temple"
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: "Crusade"

Up until recently, we called the new film (Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) Indy 4. We will likely refer to as "Kingdom" from now on.

This presents an interesting question - how do people choose short reference names for books and films (and art?)?

My intuition would generate the sentences in 1 (with weird/bad sentences being marked by ?/*, as in the usual method in my field) for talking about Raiders of the Lost Ark.

1.
I rewatched "Raiders" last night for the tenth time.
?I rewatched "Ark" last night for the tenth time.
*I rewatched "Lost" last night for the tenth time.


It is apparent to me that "Raiders" works much better than "Ark", and "Lost" doesn't work at all. I try the same technique in 2, 3, and 4 for the respective second, third, and fourth film. As a side note, it would probably be fine to refer to any of the films as "Indiana Jones" but such a use invariably leads to the question: "Which one?"

2.
I rewatched "Temple" last night for the tenth time.
?I rewatched "Doom" last night for the tenth time.
**I rewatched "of" last night for the tenth time.

3.
I rewatched "Crusade" last night for the tenth time.
*?I rewatched "Last" last night for the tenth time.
**I rewatched "and the last" last night for the tenth time.

4.
My family is going to see "Kingdom" tomorrow, do you want to come?
*??My family is going to see "Crystal" tomorrow, do you want to come?
?My family is going to see "Skulls" tomorrow, do you want to come?
My family is going to see "Crystal Skulls" tomorrow, do you want to come?


Of course these are only my intuitions, others may be much more accepting of "Doom" or "Skulls" than I am. What intrigues me is that it seems, at first glance, that all the nicknames must be noun phrases (NPs). Stranded articles and adjectives (even nouns acting as adjectives such as "Crystal") don't work.

This is born out by how people reference the second and third movies in the original Star Wars trilogy:

The Empire Strikes Back: "Empire"
The Return of the Jedi: "Return/Jedi"

In the second case, I personally prefer "Jedi" to "Return" but given a declared context, I am fine with it. 5 and 6 provide some examples but also raise interesting points themselves.

5.
My favorite Star Wars movie is "Empire."
*My favorite Star Wars movie is "Strikes."
*My favorite Star Wars movie is "Back."
?My favorite Star Wars movie is "Strikes Back"

6.
I prefer "Jedi."
*?I prefer "the Jedi."
I prefer "Return."
*?I prefer "the Return."
**I prefer "the Return of the."
**I prefer "of the Jedi."


The last entry in 5, "Strikes Back", is weird for me, but not grossly unacceptable. What is very interesting is oddity of including the article in the NP. This suggests a further restriction on film nicknames.

I could also hypothesize a general rule of economy (shorter is better) and what could be called an obligatory semantic context (frame?): using the nicknames for the films without having established the context lends itself to confusion, as per the conversation in 7.

7.
What are you doing tonight?
Gonna watch "crusade."
Is that a new movie? I don't think I've heard of it.
No, Indiana Jones.
Oh, that "crusade."


This idea of contextual framing is something I've very interested in. John Lawler and Charles J. Fillmore have both done tremendous work in the field. It seems clear to me that there exists a tremendous number of frames that are required in order to understand most of daily conversation. Being able to discuss a particular entertainment form (or set of entries in the form) requires particular frames.

The use nicknames for films (and books and art and who knows what else) seems to follow some basic rules; nouns are preferred, articles and prepositions are dispreferred, and adjectives (if used) must be attached to a noun. Verbs are a little harder to pin down. As a last exercise, consider the examples in 8 and see what you would choose as a one or two word nickname for the piece/film/song. My choices are provided in 9.

8.
Nude Descending A Staircase.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
I Know What You Did Last Summer
All Things Must Pass
Carry That Weight
Do You Want to Know A Secret?

9.
Staircase
Roger Rabbit
Last Summer
All Things
Weight
Secret

As a final point, none of these piece/films/songs have nicknames for me. I don't talk about any of them enough to warrant them. Nor do I think a normal conversation between average people would include the use of nicknames for these. The use of any of the entries in 9 would require a specific frame, respectively: best Duchamp piece, famous movies that mix real life and animation, silly camp horror movies from the 1990's, or Beatles songs. Once one of these frames is established, then (given an understanding between the speakers as to the reference of the nickname) the nicknames in 9 can be used.

Maybe.