Several years ago Harrison Ford, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas had a little reunion. That reunion resulted in the near destruction of one of our best loved movie franchises! Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was nothing short of a tragedy that simply left fans asking...why? Why aliens? Why CGI ants? Why cast the great John Hurt as a babbling nut? Why is Marion back? Why are they getting married? Why, instead of Sean Connery or Short Round do we get Shia LaBeouf? Why even bother?
I imagine it happened much like the plot of "The Hangover". Bunch of blokes get together, get wasted, wake up the next day with no memory and while trying to find out what happened discover they made a really bad movie. The only good thing that came of Crystal Skull was the South Park episode about it.
Now they're doing it again. It has been announced that Indiana Jones and the Sequel of Doom (not the official title) will be released in July 2019. Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg are returning but it's unknown whether George Lucas is involved. Recently, both Ford and Spielberg have seen success with follow ups to their previous work. Ford starred in The Force Awakens and is set to star in Blade Runner 2049 later this year. Spielberg was Executive Producer on Jurassic World, both box office hits. Has this success encouraged them to try again with Indy? Or are they trying to make up for what South Park called the rape of Indiana Jones (with disturbing Deliverance style imagery)? George Lucas was disappointed with The Force Awakens and even more so with his lack of involvement, maybe it's for these reasons he hasn't announced any involvement in Indy 5. Maybe between Crystal Skull and the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Lucas is looking to avoid further criticism.
At this point we don't know if any other characters are returning or if the story will maintain continuity. It's possible that Crystal Skull will be ignored, or that the story will be written in a way that doesn't require other characters to return. Raiders, Temple and Last Crusade are as much stand alone movies as they are connected. It has been asked whether Shia LaBeouf will return, I personally ask should he return? His character - Mutt - was just irritating. In fact, if you're going to bring back anybody bring back Sallah, and no one else! Unless you can convince Connery to come out of retirement.
Without any plot details it's impossible to say if Indy 5 has any good prospects, and with two years until the release we've got a while to wait before we see any. Having seen and very much enjoyed Ford's return as Han Solo I'm not worried about him putting on the fedora again, but even Ford's acting ability couldn't save the very terrible Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. On the one hand Crystal Skull is a black cloud over a really great trilogy (regardless of what you think of Temple of Doom), but on the other, it does set the bar very low!
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
I imagine it happened much like the plot of "The Hangover". Bunch of blokes get together, get wasted, wake up the next day with no memory and while trying to find out what happened discover they made a really bad movie. The only good thing that came of Crystal Skull was the South Park episode about it.
"Our situation has not improved!"
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