As divisive as the online film community can be, I think an overwhelming majority would agree that Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls was an experience akin to being forcefed Mountain Dew only to have your bladder punched by an ape wearing Hulk hands for hours on end. As horribly random as that all sounds, it’s still better thought-out than the abomination George Lucas unfurled upon us from his Macbook Pro.
And yet still, whenever talk of a followup is brought forth, we in the blogosphere get all antsy in the pantsy. Producer Frank Marshall (Goonies, Back to the Future, Gremlins, E.T.) spoke to Collider on the subject while he was promoting the new Bourne film. If you can’t read the enthusiasm oozing from these words, it’s probably because it isn’t there:
“I say, for me, [Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is] the last hurrah. I know that yes, we talk about it, but there’s no idea, there’s no MacGuffin.”
And in regards to Lucas writing a new Indy script: “Yeah, no he isn’t [hungry to do another Indiana Jones].”
Harrison Ford turned 70 this month. George Lucas is a recluse making “experimental home movies” in his garage. Spielberg rebounded just fine, with War Horse and Tintin serving as adequate-enough films to suggest he still has gas in the tank (Lincoln could be a return to form). But more importantly than whether they decide they do have more Indy and Mutt Williams (!) stories to tell, do we as a movie-loving populace care?
Indiana Jones received a much-deserved happy ending when he married Marion Ravenwood at the end of Skulls, even if it didn’t feel like it amid the backdrop of such a shitty movie. Let’s leave Indy be and pray, pray that Lucas and his cohorts don’t see fit to spinoff Mutt Williams and his vine-swinging, monkey-commanding hijinks into his own adventures.
The threat lays dormant, if only for the time being.
