In Retrospect, The Writer Of ‘Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull’ Thinks The Aliens Were Probably A Mistake

uproxx ^ | 07122022 | josh kurp

[max americana]

It took awhile, but the Star Wars prequels are now considered cool. Will Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull get the same critical re-evaluation? It hasn’t happened yet, and maybe it shouldn’t considering the film features a scene where Shia LaBeouf swings through the jungle with a bunch of CGI monkeys, but… what was I talking about again? Oh yeah, the Indiana Jones movie with the aliens.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull writer David Koepp recently appeared on the Script Apart podcast, where he discussed the decision to add extra-terrestrials to the Indy canon. “I was never happy with the idea [of the aliens]. When I came on, I tried to convince [Spielberg and co-writer George Lucas] to change it. I had this other idea. They didn’t want to change it,” he said.

[D_Idaho]

The CGI stunts are what clinched it for me. No sense danger. Compare it to the truck chase in ROTLA. It just looks too safe!

[Rebelbase]

[SaveFerris]

Did you look at a silver pen and see a flash?

Wait, you wouldn’t remember that either.

[SaveFerris]

I think the whole country has been baracked since 2008.

Change my mind.

[Yo-Yo]

“But the frozen monkey brains were OK?”

They were CHILLED! Not frozen, CHILLED! :-P

I sit corrected!

[SaveFerris]

The aliens 👽👽👽 were backup dancers during “Anything Goes” - c’mon man!!

[Leep]

I remember something involving my nether regions..

[Rebelbase]

Something I learned from reading Peter Hopkirk's The Great Game was that in the later part of the 19th century there were isolated kingdoms in the high mountains of Central Asia much like what is portrayed in the Temple of Doom movie.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game_(Hopkirk_book)

The book is an excellent read.

[HamiltonJay]

Shia LaBeouf

[SaveFerris]

It was funny and super cheesey with the refrigerator.

The alien ending was super-lame.

[plain talk]

[Seruzawa]

Lol. Aliens were hardly more outlandish than the rest of the movie.

[SaveFerris]

You probably just got intercepted by Division 6 at the border

https://youtu.be/83LPlgKwlQ0

[Magnatron]

Tried those once in Mauritius.

Once.

[combat_boots]

Ok

I was hungry

[escapefromboston]

The Aliens weren’t a problem.
Commies instead of Nazis weren’t a problem
Indy having a son wasn’t a problem (though I didn’t like the actor)
it was awful cgi and idiotic action set pieces that were a problem.

[D Rider]

Killed the series, so could be considered a mistake.

[TheWriterTX]

The prequels will never be cool.

[conservativeimage]

Crystal Skulls felt like a Roger Corman movie.

[scott7278]

I honestly thought, in keeping with the religious nature of the first three movies, that the big reveal would be that the “aliens” were actually demons. I was expecting them to change form and go from blue to red, kind of like Raiders, and then the spaceship was revealed. I remember saying out loud in the theater, “Are you freaking kidding me?”

After the refrigerator scene, and swinging with the CGI monkeys, it was just too much.