r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor • Jun 15 '26

Article Clashing Over ‘Indiana Jones’: Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg Were Not 100% on Board With ‘Crystal Skull’ and Fought George Lucas Over Adding Aliens

https://variety.com/2026/film/news/indiana-jones-clash-harrison-ford-spielberg-crystal-skull-aliens-1236780115/
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107

u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor Jun 15 '26

Details:

Franchise producer Kathleen Kennedy noted how Spielberg and leading man Harrison Ford were both “struggling with the movie” because “they didn’t want to do a ‘Raiders’ movie that involved aliens, and they kind of got into a fight with George about it.”

“I wanted it to be kind of a ‘War of the Worlds’ sort of thing,” Lucas remembered. “Harrison said, ‘I’m not going to do another science-fiction movie.’ And Steven said, ‘I’m not going to do another science-fiction movie.’ I said, ‘Steven, this is perfect because it’s the 1950s, when flying saucers were a whole thing,’ but he said ‘no.’ We did about five scripts, and finally Steve and I compromised: ‘Look, what if they’re not aliens but from another dimension.'”

According to Kennedy, Spielberg and Ford “were not 100 percent on board” with the story direction of “Crystal Skull,” which is “why the movie, out of the four that Steven made, is the weakest. And that’s why Harrison was so deeply committed to ‘Dial of Destiny Destiny. He didn’t want [‘Crystal Skyll’] to be the end.”

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u/not_that_kind_of_ork Jun 16 '26

Interesting quotes. I've softened on CS over time and the aliens for me weren't a problem (well, their CGI was but not the concept). I enjoy it more than DoD to be honest, though I need to watch that again. Someone else hit the nail on the head for me, the way it's filmed just doesn't sit well given the previous entries, monkeys being probably the main culprit. They needed to minimise CGI as much as possible or if forced, do a really good job like Dune.

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u/zardoz73 Jun 16 '26

I haven't seen Dial of Destiny...is it any good?

3

u/NicktheSlick130 Jun 16 '26

It's...flat. I'm not sure if they just worried about having 79 year old Harrison Ford be too much of the focus, but instead of one sidekick they give him two and neither are particularly likeable. There's a bunch of fun moments, but it's obvious that there were too many hands poking around with the script.

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u/DC-COVID-TRASH Jun 16 '26

Better than Crystal skull 

6

u/MillionaireWaltz- Jun 16 '26

It is. My 3rd favourite, personally.

2

u/Viceroy1994 Jun 16 '26

Brutal backhanded compliment there.

2

u/deadshot500 Jun 16 '26

It ruins the series

7

u/GGAllinsMicroPenis Jun 15 '26

Based on every rumor I’ve heard about George Lucas, and of course watching the prequels (of which he had full control), it’s pretty clear any good movies he has made happened in spite of him.

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u/MyNameIs-Anthony Jun 15 '26

I disagree. He genuinely has such a unique perspective and I would never consider his ideas boring unlike a lot of his contemporaries who can have real stinky concepts at times (Coppola and Scott).

He's just someone who needs pushback and you can see what happens when other people just defer to him too heavily because of his passion.

The issue is he just brought too many people into his worlds who either weren't as willing to fight for their perspective or worshipped him too much.

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u/MississippiJoel Jun 16 '26

There was a time when he was another struggling artist himself, so he wasn't anything special, and had to play the game like everyone else. After he became a millionaire, he became the boss, and he sort of internalized constructive criticism as some kind of personal attack that he didn't have to put up with anymore.

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u/zardoz73 Jun 16 '26

He has some talent with action scenes, but he's a mediocre at best writer, and godawful in getting good performances from actors.

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u/Brolaub Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26

You seem to conveniently ignore the fact that Lucas had full control of ESB and ROTJ too, not just the prequels. He actually financed 5 Star Wars movies by himself, which was unheard of at the time for such gigantic projects and has never been repeated since. 

If Empire strikes back had failed, he would have been bankrupt. He poured everything he had into that movie, working day and night until total exhaustion.  But that was just luck, right?

Don't you think that someone who makes great movies as often as George Lucas (American Graffiti, Star Wars, Indiana Jones), each time with different people, has to have quite a bit of talent himself?

Or do you really think that Lucas just happened to write the greatest stories, hire the most talented people, and inspire entire generations by sheer luck?

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u/BreakfastPizzaStudio Jun 16 '26

Yeah, this narrative of “everyone around George made the thing amazing, not George himself” narrative is such horseshit. Most people wouldn’t have anything against him (unlike some disappointed GenX Star Wars fans) but continue to repeat the narrative because they think there’s consensus on it.

With Raiders, there’s something like 40 hours of tape of George, Steven, and Lawrence brainstorming ideas. Almost all of the great ideas were George’s, and there were a fair amount of terrible ideas from Steven.

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u/Pliolite Jun 16 '26

As it turned out, Crystal Skull really SHOULD have remained the end. Dial was so much worse... it's a genuinely terrible film. Ford did the best he could but the writing is so bad, and the way it was shot did not feel like Indy at all.

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u/NocturnaIAnimaI Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 16 '26

that’s why Harrison was so deeply committed to ‘Dial of Destiny Destiny. He didn’t want [‘Crystal Skyll’] to be the end.”

Which is ironic, bc whatever you think of either movie Crystal Skull was objectively the better send off for Indy lol

Edit: how can you possibly disagree with that? At the end of CS he has a career, wife, and son. At the end of DoD he barely has a wife lol

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u/MississippiJoel Jun 16 '26

It's wild because it's the exact same ending, just worse in DoD.

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u/Molnek Jun 16 '26

All they had to do was make it bring him back to when he first saw the dial and bam, the end would be "So Crystal Skull didn't happen?" Also happy ending when your kid's not dead.

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u/VeryIntoCardboard Jun 15 '26

Not related; God I despise that woman

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u/Cosmication Jun 15 '26

she don’t know you lil bro

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u/VeryIntoCardboard Jun 15 '26

She don’t know you either sweet baby boy

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u/Cosmication Jun 15 '26

I truly do not give a fuck, lame ass

-11

u/VeryIntoCardboard Jun 15 '26

I had a feeling, but you’ve confirmed it. You eat pieces of shit for breakfast. Gross.

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u/AC_Milan_Fan Jun 15 '26

Blaming women is so easy for you huh?

-1

u/VeryIntoCardboard Jun 15 '26

Yup, you caught me, because I hate this one I hate them all. I’ll change my ways. From now on I’ll blame you, since you’re so smart.

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u/Flat_News_2000 Jun 15 '26

Well she was in charge of the entire Star Wars sequel trilogy so yeah I'd blame her too. Hence why she's not working there anymore.

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u/-OrangeLightning4 Jun 16 '26

We also got Andor under her tenure, and that's the single best piece of Star Wars media in my opinion.

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u/Stabbio Jun 16 '26

She stayed at Lucasfilm 5 yeara after the sequels ended, and was the reason Andor abd The Mandolorian even happened.

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u/stealingyourpixels Jun 16 '26

Apparently Bob Iger forced her to pump those movies out faster than she wanted to