Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: The Case For Aliens (repost)

Yesterday I re-watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, because I hadn't seen it in a while, and it's just come to Netflix, so I figured "how bad could it be?" Perhaps related, the other day I re-watched another movie that didn't live up to it's potential after 20 years of waiting, The Last Jedi. Needless to say, neither of these movies were hat I had hoped they would be, but I don't like to whine and complain that someone else created something and it wasn't what I wanted. Instead, I'll just sigh and lament that whoever is doing these reboots of iconic movies from my youth doesn't have the same point of view as I do about them.

But I digress... back when the movie came out and I watched Indy on the big screen for the first time in decades, I had written something about it (elsewhere) that I think holds true. I'll re-post that here, edited a bit to clean it up and make sure it makes sense:

The first time I saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, when the movie came out, I kept thinking "... Aliens? Really!?!" 

Then I watched the movie again with my father, and between thinking about it for a week and watching it a second time, I liked it a whole lot better. Much like Star Wars: Episode 1, I was fairly disappointed in some of the silliness (like the blatant racial stereotypes, and Jar Jar's antics), but upon reflection I realized it was Not That Bad. Of course with a franchise like Star Wars (or Indiana Jones for that matter) - why would anyone want to settle for Not That Bad?

I still think it's clear that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull hasn't come close to Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Last Crusade, and I already liked it better than The Temple of Doom, but I definitely enjoyed KotCS more the second time around. Here's what I realized that improved the movie for me...

The Indiana Jones movies that were really good involved Indiana revealing some of the more famous, important, mysterious secrets one could conceive in Archeology - finds of biblical proportions: the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail. Obviously those have been used up, so what famous archaeological mystery remains for Indy to discover? Well, there are several things off the top of my head (which I assert is where the basic idea should come from, so it's recognizable to everyone)... Stonehenge, Easter Island, Egyptian Pyramids, Aztec/Mayan ruins, and maybe Atlantis. All of those are sometimes surrounded by rumors of aliens, and of them, the Mayan ruins come stock with legends of a city of gold. A city of gold seems highly appropriate for Indiana Jones to go after, and the alien bent not only makes sense, but fits perfectly with the pattern of IJ movies - a fantastical explanation of the real life mystery, and a spectacular, paranormal climax to the movie.

I was initially (and still am) disappointed in the process Jones took finding Akator. He did do some figuring and a (very) little research, he followed a clue to Peru, and another to the tomb of the conquistador explorer, sort of followed a clue to find the city of gold, and all the while had a back and forth fight with a ceaseless opponent. However, it seemed like this movie rushed that process compared to Raiders and Last Crusade, and the back and forth with the Russians seemed a lot less epic. In Raiders Indy and Marion were captured, escaped, captured again, rescued, etc. In the Last Crusade there was a constant struggle between Jones and the Nazis in which they key to the movie - information about the grail- was being passed back and forth. In KotCS, the entirety of the conflict was a game of keep away.

While that complaint sums up much of what was disappointing about the movie, it does not speak ill of the basic premise, which is that Indiana Jones uncovers one of the great archaeological mysteries of the world, which turns out to be that aliens were responsible for the hyper-advanced culture of ancient Mayans. They called them "Interdimensional Beings" instead of the perfectly plausible aliens from another planet which could very well exist and keep the mystery in the realm of reality - frankly I'm sorry they chose to go that route. I'm also not sure what was up with abnormally large and aggressive ants, or monkeys which attack Russians for no apparent reason. I'm not sure whether I can abide the whole idea of psychic warfare, but its not such a stretch that I couldn't live with it - after all, the Russians need some reason to be after the lost city of gold, and just money doesn't seem that exciting.

So see the movie, it's honest to god Indiana Jones. Though the character was so cool to begin with, I don't know that he needed to survive a ground zero nuclear explosion, or all of a sudden have ridden with Pancho Villa (incidentally when he was barely older than he was at the beginning of The Last Crusade). Really, it's not as bad as you might think at first.

And by all means, if you dislike the film, don't dislike it because of the aliens!

Edit: that Poncho Villa comment I have heard refers to things that happened in the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, which I never got around to watching.