This image has been floating around the ‘webs for a couple of weeks now, so it’s not a scoop for Simple Tricks or anything like that. I just happen to like the picture. It amuses me. The look on Indy Jr.’s face (I remain convinced Shia’s character is going to turn out to be Indy and Marion’s love child, until I see otherwise in the finished movie!) is so alarmed, so clearly saying, “Holy crap, what’re you going to do with that?!”, whereas Marion’s expression is more, “Oh, God, I know exactly what he’s going to do with that, and isn’t it just like him?” I suspect this whole scene — whatever may be actually going on, plot-wise — is designed as a nod back to one of the most memorable moments of Raiders of the Lost Ark, when Sallah asks Indy what’re they going to do next, and Indy replies, “I don’t know, I’m making this up as I go.” It’s the possibility of that sort of thing — fun little gifts to the fans who’ve been quoting lines and scenes from Raiders and the others for 27 years(!), and a warm reunion with characters we grew up loving — that’s been driving much of my interest in this film.

However, other recent insights into The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull have revived my reservations about the project, and whether it’s ultimately going to be an embarrassingly lame epilogue for one of my favorite movie series

There was, for instance, a photo that showed Indy standing atop a pile of wooden crates in a familiar-looking warehouse. And not only is the warehouse familiar, but if you look closely at the crate on the left side of the pic, you’ll see part of an inscription:

CRET
30203
PEN!

I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to suggest that this crate could be the one that contains the Ark of the Covenant, which, as any good movie fan will recall, was stamped “TOP SECRET, ARMY INTEL #BLAH BLAH, DO NOT OPEN!” before being shoved off into a corner of a vast government facility and, presumably, forgotten about. If that is the Ark crate, then there’s the possibility that Indy is going to rediscover the Ark during the course of Crystal Skull, and I think that could be really, well, lame.

It’s certainly an established element of Indy’s character that he would have stubbornly continued trying to find out what the government did with the Ark — remember in Last Crusade that he spent twenty-some-odd years tracking down the Cross of Coronado — but I don’t know that he should actually be allowed to find it. Again. What purpose would it serve? Some have suggested he’ll need the Ark for some reason pertaining to the specific plot of Crystal Skull. There could be, I suppose, a nice bit of symmetry (assuming that Crystal Skull is going to be the actual final final Indiana Jones flick) in him recovering his greatest discovery, a coming-full-circle thing. But the idea of it just feels >wrong to me, for several reasons.

For one thing, the previous three Indy movies have all been pretty self-contained — one movie, one macguffin (that little gag about the Ark in the Venice catacombs in Last Crusade notwithstanding). This film, obviously, will be more interconnected with at least Raiders because of Marion’s presence, but I still think it’d be wrong to reintroduce an artifact from the previous installments in the series. If for no other reason then I just like the cynical idea of the Ark gathering dust in a secret storage facility somewhere, never to be seen by human eyes again. Having Indy recover it would really undermine the power of that final scene in Raiders, just as letting Sarah Connor change history in Terminator 2 undercut the conclusion of the original Terminator, at least in my opinion.

I’d be okay with the Ark being in Crystal Skull if it’s another of those little nods to the fans, like if Indy gets into The Warehouse for some other reason and walks past the Ark crate without realizing what it is, while everyone in the audience is grinning and nudging each other in the ribs. But somehow I doubt that’s how it’ll be. If the Ark really is in the movie, it’s most likely going to be significant. (Of course, I assuming that the photo of Indy in The Warehouse is for real, and not just intended to screw with the fanboys’ heads. I wouldn’t put it past Uncle George to be having a bit of fun at our expense.)

The other thing that’s come out recently which gives me pause is a photo of the titular artifact, the Crystal Skull itself. This shot was apparently leaked before the studio was ready for anyone to see it, and it’s since been removed from every site that I know of; however, I did get a look at it before it vanished, and I didn’t like what I saw. The skull doesn’t appear to be human — it’s too elongated, and the eye sockets are huge and almond-shaped, which suggests that the long-rumored premise of Indiana Jones somehow encountering the Roswell aliens might be for real. Uncle George added fuel to this fire when he mentioned in a recent interview that the original three films were set in the 1930s and reflected one of the more popular film genres of that period — cliffhanger serials — whereas this new flick is set in the ’50s and will thus reflect what was popular then. And what was big in the ’50s? Sci-fi movies, specifically alien-invasion movies. Arg.

I loathed this high-concept Indy-meets-The X Files crap when I first head about it back in the mid-’90s, and it still seems too ludicrous to believe, like a bad fanfic. Aliens are just wrong for an Indiana Jones movie, I think; Indy’s always been about mystical objects, not extra-terrestrial technology.

The trailer is supposed to be released tomorrow, airing first on Good Morning, America and then hitting the web shortly thereafter. With any luck, it’ll ease some of these concerns…