I’ve got a much longer entry in the works about what I did over the weekend, but I’m in the middle of a crushingly busy week, so I don’t know when I’ll be able to finish it. In the meantime, here’s a quick note about yesterday’s big announcement. If you didn’t hear, Shia LaBeouf revealed the title of the upcoming fourth Indiana Jones movie at the MTV Video Music Awards. It is — are you ready? — Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
The reactions I’ve heard thus far have been luke-warm at best, with many people saying that the title is too long. I’ll admit, it’s a bit ungainly — it would be better if Uncle George shortened it to Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull — but I’m generally fine with it. It has an appropriately pulpish sound, and crystal skulls — which do exist and have long been rumored to possess occult or mystical powers — are far more the sort of thing you’d expect an Indiana Jones story to pivot around than Area 51 and the Roswell aliens. (One of the rumored plotlines from a couple years ago had our favorite fedora-wearing whipcracker uncovering the truth that Mulder never seemed to get to the bottom of, an utterly ridiculous idea that would make a disastrous movie, in my not-so-humble opinion.)
Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think I like the title. I’m starting to think that maybe George, Steven, and Harrison might be making a for-real Indy movie, instead of the lame and pointless mess that everyone fears…
I like the title, for what my vote is worth. 🙂
Well, that’s two, then…
It could be that I’m against the very idea of this movie, but I don’t like it. I’ve never heard of the darn crystal skulls, much less the kingdom where they do their skullish things in all their crystaline skullishness. Not that the macguffin really matters, but I can’t help noticing that the two good Indy films dealt with western religious icons that everyone recognized.
And what about the bad guys? When does the new Indy film take place? One of the compelling plot drivers in the first and third movies is that you didn’t want to see the Nazis get their grubby hands on the Ark or the Grail.
Robert, I think you’ve made it quite clear that you are against this flick on principle. 🙂 Which is okay. I certainly agree with you that was no need to make another one. But as I’ve said before, I’m willing to give it a chance.
RE: the skulls vs. some other artifact, the crystal skulls should be reasonably familiar to fans of either the old pulps which inspired Indy in the first place, or New Age-y types, if not a general audience. It seems like I remember hearing about them back in the ’70s, when the pseudoscience/mysticism stuff like the Bermuda Triangle and von Daniken (oh, no! There’re those aliens again!) were so much in the popular consciousness.
As for using another western religious icon, what’s left after the Ark and the Grail? Maybe the Lance of Longinus (the spear that supposedly pierced Christ’s side during the crucifixation and is said to have conferred a cursed form of immortality upon the soldier who threw it), but I don’t know that it’s any better known to the general moviegoer than crystal skulls, and anyway we’ve already dealt with immortality in an Indy movie. Why invite more comparisons to the previous adventures than are probably inevitable anyway? (There was also a comic book tie-in in the early ’90s that used the Lance as a macguffin; I don’t know if Lucasfilm considers that story “canon,” but if it does, the artifact might have been considered off-limits for having been dealt with previously.)
The movie is set in the mid-1950s, so my hunch is that instead of dirty Nazis, we’ll be dealing with dirty Commies. Hey, one set of generic cartoon bad guys is as good as any other, right?
I’m just being cranky. I will, of course, see the film and judge it on its merits. It could be amazing.
But probably not…
(Hey, I’m optimistic, I’m not naive!)