What went wrong with ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’?
Picture the scene: it’s 2008, George W. Bush is still the US president, Elon Musk is merely an obscure businessman, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a mere twinkle in the eye of Kevin Feige. Fueled on memories of your parents saying how great the original Indiana Jones movies were in the cinema, you’re about to watch Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and witness one of the worst slip-ups in modern Hollywood history.
Never has your mind been so numbed by a movie. Did Indiana Jones just survive an atomic bomb? Did I just see Shia LaBeouf swing from vine to vine like a CGI monkey? Do aliens have to be canon? Somehow, despite having made three successful Indiana Jones films throughout the 1980s, director Steven Spielberg made a movie that proved to be one of the most disappointing movies of all time.
So, how exactly was this dumpster fire created? Well, it was actually George Lucas who first proposed that aliens be a plot device in the fourth Indiana Jones movie, bringing the idea up during the production of the TV series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. “No way am I being in a Steven Spielberg movie like that,” series star Harrison Ford stated, with the iconic director in question adding, “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know,” regarding his thoughts about bringing extraterrestrials into the series.
Eventually, many years later, Lucas managed to convince Spielberg of the alien plotline, and the duo sought M. Night Shyamalan to pen the script, with The Last Airbender director thankfully passing on the project. Lucas then decided to take on writing duties, with the script focusing on the Russians as the enemy, seeing as Spielberg wasn’t keen on returning to Nazi villains following his work on 1993’s Schindler’s List.
For the first time in the series’ history, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull didn’t film anywhere but America, with Spielberg wishing to be close to his family during the duration of the shoot, a factor that means much of the film looks like a set.
In addition, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was released during a time of flux in contemporary cinema, where CGI reigned supreme and became a mainstay in each and every blockbuster. Spielberg had stated before production that very little CGI would be used. However, far more computer effects were used in the end, being far more practical and cheaper than relying on clever camera techniques and other physical means of effects. Overall, the film featured a staggering 450 shots containing CGI.
“I feel like I dropped the ball on the legacy that people loved and cherished,” LaBeouf said when reflecting on Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Hinting that Spielberg and Lucas might be at fault for the movie, he adds: “You get to monkey-swinging, and things like that, and you can blame it on the writer, and you can blame it on Steven [Spielberg]. But the actor’s job is to make it come alive and make it work, and I couldn’t do it. So that’s my fault. Simple.”
Continuing, he added: “We [Harrison Ford and LaBeouf] had major discussions. He wasn’t happy with it either. Look, the movie could have been updated. There was a reason it wasn’t universally accepted.”
Trying to be both a classic Hollywood adventure flick and a modern, progressive sci-fi adventure that fit in with the bombastic narratives of superhero movies that were rising to popularity at the start of the new millennium, Spielberg and Lucas made something betwixt two identities. Over a decade after its release, it’s a lame, goofy and corporate exercise that fails to capture what made Indiana Jones so beloved in the first place.
