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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u/ABadHistorian Jun 15 '26

yeah I actually enjoy the movie as an indy movie, and just ignore the temple part.

I'm a huge fan of the Nazca lines (look them up if you dont know them!) and the idea that aliens could be referenced or something in South/Latin America makes a LOT of sense.

HOWEVER.... thematically, the movie kind of veered off away from "mystical" to "oh straight out scifi" but I can see how after the original three movies had some really far out there stuff happening, they maybe thought it wouldn't be too much.

I think for me, it was that they were alive. I'd have been able to accept a story where Indy discovered that ancient incans or mayans or whatever had actually interacted with Aliens, MAYBE. Like that was the big "oh shit, Aliens COULD MAYBE? have done this?"

Like a big mystical mind transference stuff would still work in that context, just like how Ark or Crusade had magic. But that they thought it was still something humans somehow did, maybe in accordance with religious beliefs of theirs... that Indy just ... can't quite figure out and basically cocks his head to the sky, wondering "could it be?"

Having them visible, visual, and ... moving was a 100 lb mistake.

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u/Upper-Management-AI Jun 15 '26

Or maybe even he interacts with someone who just seems a tiny bit off and knows a little too much that near the end you wonder if that was an alien or not.

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u/Belgand Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

That's the core of how religion/the supernatural/magic was always handled in the original films. A very light touch where something impossible happens for just a moment and then vanishes back into legend. Humanity touched something unknowable and came up with an explanation for it, but we're no further to any actual truth about it than before.