Before we even get to the alien stuff let me make one thing very clear: The Indiana Jones movies are nothing more than fun houses of spooks and horrors. These films were never intended to be some kind of religious propaganda, not even in the slightest sense. In no way are the filmmakers trying to impose their personal spiritual beliefs onto the audience. The basic idea of these films is to merely incorporate the sensationalism of the supernatural. However, “Supernatural” is a broad term and is open to virtually limitless ideas and interpretation. You could come up with just about anything involving ghost or magic or mystical forces in relation to any kind of folklore no matter how old or new. The only problem though, if you would even go so far as to call it that, is that because the ideas are limitless they sometimes tend to be rather arbitrary as well. This isn’t necessarily a set rule, just a frequently noted response from viewers.

So the filmmakers understood that if you come up with a piece of folklore that has had a lasting effect on society - that audiences are highly familiar with, then the better chance you have of baiting their interest. Religion and folklore, though categorically not the same, still go hand-in-hand together all too easily. So it’s only fitting to pull stories from religious beliefs and exploit them for their fanciful supernatural elements. The Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail were concepts that people generally clicked with and said “Hey, I’ve heard of that - I know that story!”. Yet as with Temple of Doom (A movie that I love by the way) it is also evident that the MacGuffin didn’t have to be as referential as what was seen in the other two films in order to serve as an intriguing plot device. So this might seem counter-argumentative as to what is stated above but, again, there is no definitive right and wrong way as to what kind of supernatural treasure you wish to implement into your story. Perhaps if the MacGuffin itself is not so well known then, as compensation, you could emphasize the general atmospheric folklore of the culture and setting that surrounds it. This, I think, is what they did well with the second film though many have debated otherwise.

However, this doesn’t mean the Indyverse is one that is solely constructed out of biblical or divine references. A lot of people are saying that aliens won’t work because “It doesn’t fit in with the Indy movies” or “It just doesn’t feel very Indy’ like”. Yet I would argue that if you start basing set parameters simply off what you have seen so far then you really have no parameters at all. Were talking art/entertainment not mathematics - Creative variables are seldom consistent let alone identical. Crystal Skulls themselves may be a bit esoteric but the overall concept of ancient alien civilizations or the idea that human beings are in one way or another connected with other worldly visitors is one of the most common most popular myths through out the entire world. And even if this fourth installment does infuse some sort of weirdly alien technology I wouldn’t jump the gun into thinking that the franchise will somehow go from supernatural to Star Trek. Because when we think aliens, especially in terms of movies, we automatically associate with what popular culture as offered us so far; modernized contemporary conspiracy thrillers with taciturn scientist waxing long strands of pseudo-scientific intellectual jargon about what they’ve just studied under a microscope. I seriously doubt Indy 4 will follow this genre. With enough imagination and originality (Which shouldn’t be a problem for Lucas) you can intermix the alien motif with just about any other kind of cultural-historical-religious motif one could think of. So yeah, the overall idea might be a little…”out there” but I think it is something new and refreshing as to what has been done in the previous films.

“Out there” or “Over the top” is fine with me. It’s a great way to wrap up this series.

The ONLY criticism of the prequels that can’t be levelled at the original trilogy is the lumbering pacing and excess exposition.
Everything else? From bad acting to lousy dialogue to plot holes large enough to drive an 18-wheeler through, they are ALL present in the beloved original films.

It’s time to get the hell over it already.

The newest ones are bad because Lucas refused to compromise his vision. The last act of RotJ is awful as well. Ewoks fighting stormtroopers = bad cinema.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Tim5nU3DwIE

I can’t do html. :-(

How could you all think Luca$ wouldn’t make an 2nd Indy trilogy?

I think the funny thing about Lucas critics is that those same critics would gladly pay their money to see anything Lucas stamps with a Star Wars. Vote with your pocket, gang.

If you would rather not see more Indiana Jones, don’t go.
Have fun.

Indy 3 was all the closure to this story I needed and wanted. I don’t want to see this film and will not go to see it because it wreaks of a dead horse. If you go see Indy4. Get ready for Indy 5 and 6 till its Mutt Skywalker making sad face at a dying Indyoda Jones before he fades away under a brown blanket.

This film is Unnecessary.

If someone the internet kids loved (like Joss Whedon, for example) had written this movie, with some Roswellian storyline, and Ford said that about the “central notion of it all”, every anti-Lucasite would be giving Joss the benefit of the doubt, rationalizing that it’s obvious Joss is a good writer with phenomenal talent because they’re all on the same page and he was able to shape the different plots and everything.

If the Lucas quote about “it’s not quite as wacky as I wanted” had come from some darling like Joss, people would be laughing and saying “oh, that Whedon guy is so funny and wacky — I’d like to see the movie he wanted to make!”.

Popularity shapes the perception of movie news on the internet. It’s 2008 so anything with “George Lucas” in the news is going to be riddled with venom and chants of raped childhoods. There’s no proof that any of the original three Indy films were preceded with instances where Lucas had to “compromise” his ideas, this exaggerated dispute between Ford and Lucas happened on Return of the Jedi, remember? Ford thought Solo should die. Lucas disagreed. If that had happened in 2005, the anti-Lucasites would’ve lambasted George but it happened in 1983 and the anti-Lucasites were 8 when they saw the movie, so they pretend the movie has no flaws and that the fate of Solo was a non-issue.

Nobody’s seen the new Indy movie yet but people are already pretty sure that they know how a movie about a character that they did not create should (and should not) go down. Interesting how that works out. I’m not talking about a technical analysis of direction or acting or visual effects — I’m saying people came out of the Prequels and will going into Crystal Skull thinking “the story SHOULD HAVE GONE THIS WAY…” when the word “should” implies a empirical right-and-wrong dichotomy when, in a narrative sense, everything is subjective and left up the creators. People feel like they own the characters and stories. You don’t. You never did. If Lucas (the man who helped create Indiana Jones) wanted something relating to aliens in his Indiana Jones movie, you — quite frankly — don’t have any right to suggest otherwise. You can choose not to go to the movie, of course, or you can say “I would have done it THIS WAY” or “I thought it was going to be like THIS” but don’t boycott the movie because you think you know what George’s made-up imaginary character should be doing in 1957 better than he does.

My comments were a bit sarcastic, as you may see. My intent was not to put Lucas on any sort of pedestal, but to counterbalance the general ‘anger’ directed at him by a minority of so-called film enthusiasts, which seem to dominate the fan landscape in recent years. Hell, Star Wars was hardly original. Just ask Kurosawa.
Sure, the plots are questionable, the dialogue laughable (and not conducive to acting, I agree). He translated Joseph Campbell for the lowest common denominator audience. He made some movies that are ‘fun’. I see no problem with that.

As for the internet/film critique comment…the more ‘news’ updates about ‘Transformers’ and ‘Cloverfield’, one can get a bit jaded. :)

I’m a big fan of Lucas, Speilberg, and Ford. I think we’d all like to see them do as we’ve seen them do in the past…we know what they’re capable of. Yes, I remember Hook. I remember Sabrina. Nobody’s perfect, eh?

And Captain Awesome, I agree about McQuarrie. If it weren’t for his vision and genius, we might not be having this conversation! :)

From what I’ve seen Indy 4 looks fantastic. We may all be grateful that, as always, Speilberg is taking the reins, at a relatively high point in his career.

After seeing the Star Wars prequels and hearing his responses over the last several years, I am even more convinced he is this way. Even in the same interview in Entertainment Weekly I referenced earlier, he talks about how he “invented digital editing.” Humility would place that in the context of the times and phrase it in a way that makes the same statement without making it sound ridiculous.

Star Wars is Shakespearean material hailing from and inspired by some of the greatest stories known to man, and his execution on the prequels were phenomenal from the perspective of action and effects, but on the level of drama and character they had less mature, grown up character development and emotion than I can find on an average cereal box. Please remember, Lucas succeeded, and Star Wars succeeded, primarily on what was then cutting edge special effects.

The man is clearly not an actor’s director, or if he ever was, he forgot how in his many years of managing his assets earned from the huge successes of the eighties. At least for Star Wars Episode III, he sat down with Spielberg and Spielberg gave him suggestions on his animatics for key scenes so a bit more emotion would be present - which is why it is the best of the prequels, although so much less than it could have been.

No one is prevented from liking Lucas or his recent work - this is not forbidden, but the things that Spielberg and Ford are saying here reveal almost exactly what I imagined going on among the trio after familiarizing myself with George Lucas over the last ten years, and the kinds of reactions and suggestions that were probably taking place as they tried to mold IJ IV.

One last thing. If you really think no one on the Internet knows anything about film, you should also stop coming to this site and reading or commenting on it.

Britney Spears and tons of shitty pop music sells by the assload. Your comparison doens’t hold any water with that example. Im glad Spielberg took the reigns in this project. As with the new SW films, Lucas can’t direct himself out of a wet paper bag. It’s amazing that he had some rather great actors in those films but yet they were running around speaking like Disneyland robots.

Also, I’d credit Ralph McQuarrie more with Star Wars beautiful look and memorable style than Lucas :)

I hope for his next film he lets ‘fans’ write the script, and then shows it to severalfocus groups to make sure they approve and enjoy it - after, of course, incorporating any notes from high-level movie execs that suggest needed changes. That would be great.

If we’re really fortunate, he’ll put a commentary track on the DVD where whiny know-it-all’s can gripe about every frame, since they know more about film-making than he ever will.

Oh, and Indy rocks.

it’s on simply scripts.