by Mike Shea on 26 May 2008
Warning: This rant contains spoilers.
I may have given George Lucas $38 bucks yesterday to see "Crystal Skull" but it is the last $38 he's going to see from me. Why do we insist on giving this madman any more money after he crushed the thin skulls of our childhoods with the last three Star Wars movies? How many times must I return to this crazy old man, enabling him like an abused wife to an alcoholic husband? I will not take the abuse any longer. George Lucas is now there with Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay on the list of worst writers and directors of all time.
Crystal Skull could have been ok. The characters are who they are. Indiana is fine and yes, Marion Ravenwood is back. The young sidekick guy isn't so bad but Marcus Brody and Salah aren't in it and that sort of takes the fun out. Then we get into the story. It was bad enough having Indiana Jones survive a ground zero nuclear attack by hiding in a refrigerator but space aliens? I spent $38 for flying saucers? What is this, X-files? You have to be kidding me.
I could almost accept some sort of extra-terrestrial artifact worshipped by the Mayans that has some sort of strange telepathic power. I might even accept that it's an actual skull. But the minute you have a goddamned gray-skinned big-head thin armed alien glaring and skulking around; the minute you have a fucking flying saucer zip off into space, you just pissed over my hopes for a good Indiana Jones movie. What the hell happened. At some point someone must have said "are you sure you want to have fucking space aliens in an Indiana Jones movie? What about religious supernatural stuff?" and Lucas said "No way man, space aliens are cool. Besides we can use up all that old footage from ET and Close Encounters."
Give me a break.
I'd be willing to look over the shitty Russian rapier-wielding telepathic woman as horrifyingly cardboard as she was. I could get over the idea of two roads side by side in the middle of a jungle - even after they went through the trouble of showing a jungle eating machine that broke down a few miles back. I can get over the giant ants. I might, if I try REALLY hard, be able to get over the survival of a ground zero nuclear bomb strike. I cannot get over the bug-eyed alien and the flying saucer. I just can't.
In order to properly rank this movie I had to go back and watch Temple of Doom. Even with the annoying little kid and the whiny blonde, I still think Temple of Doom was better than Crystal Skull.
It's a damn shame too. We waited nearly twenty years for a new Indiana Jones movie and they had to fuck it up by making it about goddamn space aliens. What a bunch of shit.