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Of the four Steven Spielberg-directed “Indiana Jones” films, there’s little debate that 2009’s “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” is the weakest.
Scoring mixed reviews, the film still managed to gross over $800 million worldwide even as it was seen as a disappointment compared to the original. James Mangold took a shot in 2024 with “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” which was also met with a shrug along with a much more disappointing $384 million worldwide.
With “Disclosure Day” hitting cinemas this week, there have been lots of interviews with Spielberg, along with feature pieces exploring his works across a six-decade filmography.
A rather in-depth one over at Vulture has gone into the “Indiana Jones” films and spoke with ex-Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy, who spoke about the issues with ‘Crystal Skull’ in particular.
She says it was a result of multiple issues during production, calling it a “tough production” for cinematographer Janusz Kamiński, who struggled to recreate the look of original cinematographer Douglas Slocombe’s work on the first three films. Kaminski says:
“It’s the only movie where I was trying to copy another look, and I don’t think I succeeded, because Douglas Slocombe who did the other Indiana Jones movies was just brilliant, and I’m not Douglas.”
Kennedy says it also came down to a disagreement between George Lucas who originally envisioned the film as a 1950s-style alien invasion story, and both Harrison Ford and Spielberg were reluctant to make another sci-fi movie:
“Steven was struggling with that movie. Harrison was struggling with the movie. They didn’t want to do a ‘Raiders’ movie that involved aliens, and they kind of got into a fight with George [Lucas] about it”
Lucas himself also weighed in, saying that was a fair assessement:
“I wanted it to be kind of a War of the Worlds sort of thing. 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.’”
That compromise essentially undermined the creative process with Kennedy saying it impacted the final result on screen:
“They ended up all of them doing what George wanted to do, which was probably the right thing. But Harrison and Steven were not 100% onboard. That’s why the movie, out of the four that Steven made, is the weakest. And that’s why Harrison was so deeply committed to Destiny. He didn’t want that to be the end.”
Spielberg, Kaminski and writer David Koepp all reunite on “Disclosure Day” which is now in cinemas.
The post Why “Crystal Skull” Was Spielberg’s ‘Weakest’ Indiana Jones appeared first on Dark Horizons.
