Revisiting "Indy 4" or: The Nightmare I Had That One Time That Didn't Actually Happen

We all felt like we needed a shower after this one!

It appears recent casting rumors for a proposed Indiana Jones reboot are untrue. Still, that brief prospect, as well as the fan ire it inspired online, caused me to look back at the moment when the whole franchise went to pot: the fourth entry, The Kingdom of the Krystal Skull. I didn’t actually watch the film again, mind you, but reminisced about the first and only time I saw it back in May 2008. I don’t remember much, because it was a midnight screening and I zoned out after about 20 minutes. I’m pretty sure I stayed awake through the whole thing, but I wasn’t taking much in. It was like when you’re up late watching TV because you don't have the energy to get up to go to bed, and you keep tuning in and out of whatever's on the screen. If you watch an episode of a show on DVR or Netflix this way, you’d want to re-watch it the next day to make sure you didn’t miss anything. So very little of the movie remained in my memory even days later, let alone after six years.

Here are a few pieces I do remember:

• I thought it was cool how they revealed that the warehouse from the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark was Area 51, and felt a ting of delight at the glimpse at the Ark of the Covenant when a crate was broken in a scuffle between Indy (Harrison Ford) and his nemeses. I thought maybe this was a sign of a strong plot that would integrate and explore the series’ greater mythology, instead of telling another standalone story. Those hopes were soon dashed, however (underwhelming return of Karen Allen notwithstanding), and these turned out to be nothing more than Easter Eggs to remind us of the series’ better entries.

• The part of the movie that seems to be most remembered (and most derided) is the sequence where Indy survives a nuclear bomb test in a refrigerator (watch at your own risk). I actually thought it was kind of cool at the time, embarrassing as that is to admit. Then again, this is the point where my memory gets a little murky. Maybe my incoherence wasn’t the result of viewing the film late at night. Maybe this moment was so dumb that my brain subconsciously slipped into a half-asleep trance to protect me from whatever came next.

• “I Like Ike.” Indy taunts his Soviet captors using the campaign slogan of our 34^th President. I caught the line while viewing the picture, though I soon forgot about it. The only reason I remember it is because I was reminded by my sister, who saw the film in Scotland and related how she was the only one in the theater who got the joke.

• I never saw Shia LaBeouf during his days on the Disney Channel. Prior to this movie, the only things I had seen him in were Holes, a solid adaptation of Louis Sachar’s bestselling children’s novel (which I love), and the first Transformers, which could have cast any actor alongside its CGI robots. I didn’t really have an opinion going in, but his casting as Indy’s sidekick seemed to be met with derision by everyone else. This was right in the middle of his push to become the next big star, only audiences weren’t really receptive (which might explain his weird antics of late). Anyway, I only recall three small moments from his role. The first was the revelation from Karen Allen (who seemed randomly thrown in) that he was Indy’s son. There was an audible groan from the packed theater, though with more a disappointed “I knew it!” tone than one of surprise. The last was when he tries to pick up Indy’s trademark fedora, the implication being a passing of the torch. This time the audience made a collective sound that’s hard to describe, but the feeling was highly negative, to put it mildly. The moment in between, and sadly the one that sticks out the most, was a jungle chase sequence where each of his legs was standing on a different vehicle, causing him to get hit in the groin by tree after tree, and yet never once shouting or even flinching in pain. I’ll let you imagine what immature jokes were running through my high school mind.

• During one scene in a diner, a group of well-dressed 1950s college boys and a pack of leather jacket-clad greasers stare each other down before getting in a fight, for some reason. Several school friends with whom I had shared classes for many years were also in the theater, and we all thought the same thing: The Outsiders, the young adult novel by S.E. Hinton we all read in seventh grade, along with countless other English classes. The book's film adaptation was directed by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg's colleague Francis Ford Coppola, so I wouldn't be surprised if this was intended as a nod to it. I'm not a fan of the movie or the book.

• Most of the action scenes are a blur to me, but one I do remember is when the bad guys are devoured by armies upon armies of fire ants. I remember it because right away it reminded me of the flesh-eating scarabs in the 1999 remake of The Mummy. I love that movie, but there’s no doubt you could argue it’s a knockoff of Indiana Jones. But in regards to the fire ants, when you’re ripping off something that arguably ripped you off in the first place, it pretty plainly says you’re out of ideas.

• After a bunch of action, story points, and character revelations I don’t recall much of, we get to the climax, in which the eponymous Crystal Skull grows into an alien, and a temple turns into a flying saucer. I thought they should have just gone all out and made the alien a Wookiee. Why not? The film already jumped the shark with the fridge scene (hell, there was talk for a while that “nuke the fridge” would replace “jump the shark” as an entertainment idiom), so it wouldn’t have been that much more ridiculous.

When the movie came out, it seemed like people saw it immediately, most of them hated it, and it was forgotten after a few weeks. Some apparently prefer to pretend like it never happened. For me, it really does seem that way. My entire recollection consists of only a few quick, fleeting images and scenes, nothing substantial or complete. It’s like a bad dream, and can be written off as such. And that’s a good thing. I’ll never be able to watch the original Star Wars Trilogy the same way again after the prequels (doesn’t help that Lucas continues to alter the films with every new release), but Indiana Jones remains untainted. I’ll probably never watch Crystal Skull again, and no matter who—if anyone—takes over the role in a reboot, I’m not sure I’ll see it. Why spoil a good thing?