We see a lot of rumors around here on a fairly regular basis. There are those that we wish would come true, but rarely do. Some you can just laugh off as obviously being fake. Others, you merely hope to be untrue. I don’t think I’ve ever wished for a rumor to be fake as much as I hope this one is, because if this one is true, there is almost no hope for the Indiana Jones franchise ever again. In fact, this one could screw up the franchise so badly, you may never want to go back and watch the originals again.
Because this is tied to such a prominent movie, I’m putting out a mild spoiler warning – don’t read any further unless you want to potentially be spoiled on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Again, hopefully this has no promise whatsoever. One would hope Spielberg would have more sense, but George Lucas is involved as well, and we know what that could mean.
Possible Spoiler Warning
Movieweb is running a bizarre story about a cameo for the fourth Indiana Jones flick. According to the rumor, Spielberg has dusted off the alien costumes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind for use in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Yes, that’s right. Indy is about to have an alien encounter.
The timing for such a thing makes sense – after all, it is the 30th anniversary for Close Encounters, and the Indiana Jones flicks have been known for referencing other Spielberg and Lucas pictures, from “Club Obi-Wan” to R2-D2 and C-3PO among the hieroglyphics in Indy’s adventures.
The bad news is that the story indicates that this wouldn’t just be a reference to Close Encounters but a full-fledged part of the plot. If this is true, the Crystal Skulls are tied to aliens and Indy’s going to have a run in with those aliens. I hate that idea. Hate with a capitol “H”. Indiana Jones may be many things, but an alien hunter isn’t one of those. Although I have very little doubt that Lucas probably built that into the famed timeline of Indiana Jones. This is the man who thought Jar-Jar was a good idea, after all.
No, I don’t like this idea at all. Background references to Spielberg and Lucas’s sci-fi pictures is one thing, but this simply isn’t acceptable. This isn’t just jumping the shark, but jumping entire franchises with something that helped define high-action for the modern viewer.
Don’t get me wrong – I won’t write the movie off until I see it. After all, this is rumor and could be completely mistaken. Maybe Spielberg is using the alien costumes as something else within the world of Indiana Jones – that would be okay. After all, Frank Darabont is still claiming a large part of the script could be the one he wrote. I can’t imagine Darabont would make such a massively huge mistake such as this, so that makes me pause and reconsider. Until Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull actually comes out, I’ll reserve judgment. For now, I’ll just pretend I never heard this rumor in order to stay hopeful.
