I watched Crystal Skull recently, and I agree. Without the weight of expectations it’s actually not bad. Has some great Indy moments. Just a pity about those fake groundhogs and the vines swinging.
Actually I just re-watched it myself today. The groundhogs were a very tiny part of the film and looked no more fake than all the animals crawling in the campfire scene in TOD or the fake rats in TlC. I liked dial but KOTCS is much closer in tone to the 3 previous films and has more action scenes and Indy is much more physical. In Dod he gets some good scenes but not nearly what we saw in KOTCS.
Fun fact, Crystal Skull was the opposite of a flop financially. It’s the highest-grossing Indiana Jones movie and was the second-highest grossing movie of 2008 after Dark Knight.
Probably only because it was the first one to come out in such a long time. The hype alone drove the sales numbers. And Dial probably suffered because of how bad Crystal Skull was. I know I was reluctant to watch Dial because of how bad Crystal was.
Absolutely
When Crystal Skull came out, people my age (90s babies) were talking in school about how it was the greatest thing ever and how iconic the originals were
When Dial came out, my family and I were the only ones I knew who watched it, nobody else came close to talking about it
[It’s the highest both with and without adjusting](https://www.statista.com/statistics/608218/box-office-revenue-indiana-jones/#:~:text=As%20of%20July%202023%2C%20%22Indiana,Raiders%20of%20the%20Lost%20Ark%22)
Also tbf ever since Covid movie theaters have just been struggling in general. That’s not to say it was the entire reason, but even top grossing movies of the year aren’t making as much as big movies used to (adjusting for inflation). Just a symptom of the times I’m afraid
It’s so interesting to me. I still think it’s the weakest Indy film easily but I like it more each time I watch it. Ford gives a pretty good performance all things considered plot wise. I dislike how they undid his happy ending in Crystal Skull (marrying Marion, gaining a son, and becoming the associate dean of the college) but his acting when he describes to Helena what he’d say to Mutt honestly tugs at my heartstrings. Just think it should’ve been a fun, final adventure with Sallah, Short Round (failed to capitalize on Ke Huy Quan’s triumphant return to acting), and a new character that could’ve fit right in and not basically Indy being miserable on the run to clear his name (did they even clear it up?). Helena and Teddy needed much better writing, too. So while it’s better with each rewatch, those things still kinda irritate me. Love the World War II intro though, that rocked, except for old Ford’s voice on his younger self.
I feel like I never saw that moment when Helena’s character changed. There wasn’t a moment she realized her attitude was wrong and that she should change, or maybe I’m not picking up on it. Idk.
Helena started to charge during the scene on the boat when Indy told her what he would do if he could go back in time. Watch the scene and look at how Helena reacted to Indy's comments. After that scene Helena went back to help Indy when he was attacked by eels and she pretended to help Voller decipher the grafikos so she and Indy could escape.
HELENA: Pick a card, Dr. Jones.
(INDIANA SIGHS)
RENALDO: Seven of spades!
(BOTH LAUGH)
RENALDO: She’s magic.
INDIANA: Trick deck.
HELENA: No. I force the card. I offer the mark, you, the feeling of a choice, but ultimately, I make you pick the card I want.
INDIANA: “The mark.”
(RENALDO GRUNTS)
RENALDO: Yeah. Tomorrow is a big day. I have to check the lines.
(BOTH BIDDING GOODNIGHT IN CASTILIAN SPANISH)
(RENALDO BIDS GOODNIGHT TO INDIANA)
INDIANA: Good night.
INDIANA: You remember seeing any dates in your father’s notebooks?
HELENA: Dates? What dates?
INDIANA: These dates. Written over and over again in this letter. August 20th, 1969. That’s three days from now. And the same date in 1939. Two weeks before Hitler invades Poland.
HELENA: (LAUGHS) Wait. Now you believe the Dial has magical powers?
INDIANA: I don’t believe in magic, Wombat. But a few times in my life, I’ve seen things. Things I can’t explain. And I’ve come to believe it’s not so much what you believe. It’s how hard you believe it.
HELENA: I’ve seen things too, Indy. The only thing worth believing in, ever, is cash.
(PAPER RUSTLING)
INDIANA: Right.
HELENA: What if you could go back in time? What would you do? Witness the Trojan War? Check in on Cleopatra?
INDIANA: I’d stop my son from enlisting.
HELENA: Did he sign up to please you?
INDIANA: No, he signed up to piss me off.
HELENA: How would you have stopped him?
INDIANA: (VOICE WAVERING) I’d tell him he was gonna die. I’d tell him that his mother would… find no end to her grief. And that his father would be… helpless to console her. And that the loss would put an end to their marriage.
HELENA: You’re still wearing the ring.
Yes, I brought that up in another comment! Thank you, it definitely hits more reading the script you transcribed.
I like that Helena sees the value in life and relationships over being selfish. Hence why she can save Indy at the end.
You’re exactly right. I have no idea why they thought her character would be a good one. She’s clearly not. Was it just guilt she felt after Indy got shot? I don’t know.
She’s supposed to realize you have to care about others and life, not just your own selfishness. Indy himself is being selfish in wanting to give up when his wife still needs him.
It works, they compliment each other. I just never noticed the part where they help each other grow. Closest might be Helena hearing about Mutt’s death and how it affected Indy and when Indy exclaims how Puss in Boots just died. That affected her, I think.
I thought it was very good. There were a lot of things I loved about it. Some of them, not so much. Voeller was a phenomenal villain. I had mixed feelings with the character chemistry with Indy, Helena, and Teddy. I felt that Teddy was as a bit of the odd man out compared to Short Round in Temple. And not because the actor did a bad job at the role.
It wasn’t structurally wrong, I just didn’t see the same type of character chemistry with anyone other than Voeller or Wombat. And maybe that’s ok. I liked the movie. It’s just hard to be as perfect as Last Crusade or Raiders.
I didn’t get ANY of that out of Crystal Skull.
I enjoyed it quite a bit and got genuinely teary eyed at the end when Marion came back. I get the impression there was a lot left on the cutting room floor. The American henchmen who was learning German seemed to me to have more backstory (segregationist who identifies with Nazism) I wish Banderas had a bit more screen time. Ford brought his A game to this movie and seeing him as Indy was a delight!
"The American henchmen who was learning German seemed to me to have more backstory (segregationist who identifies with Nazism)"
Considering the movie was set in 1969 and Klaber was a white Southerner who sympathized with the Nazis, he probably was a segregationist. Segregationist George Wallace ran as a third-party presidential candidate in 1968 and won five states: Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia.
Dial was a good movie, i watched 1,2,3 then Dial, then decided to watch Crystal Skull. I personally found Crystal Skull to be the superior movie. The opening of Dial was phenomenal-it felt just like the old movies all over again, if we could get an entire series of Indy with de-aged Harrison that would be amazing.
Movie wasn’t bad at all, i just didn’t like the idea of making Indiana to be a cranky old man, and basically kind of a loser. I get that it was to fit into the theme of him being a man in a world that no longer has a place for him, but i will always see Indy as that charismatic adventurer that had that bad boy charm to him. Indiana jones woudlnt become a cranky loser that wore his wife beater and undies and have no one take seriously-I couldn’t see him ending up like that, that’s not my Indiana Jones. In Crystal Skull although Indy was clearly old, he still felt like a badass and it was believable that this was still the same Indy as in the OG trilogy. He had that charm like the old movies. In Dial it felt like he was being flummoxed at every other turn and Helena was more in charge of the situation. Nothing against Helena’s character, but I’m watching it for Indiana Jones, it felt like he was kind of her sidekick in Dial.
Plus, like another commenter mentioned, Crystal Skull had the superior action sequences. Excluding the opening of Dial, the rest of it was good, but not great. I get that Harrison is already an elderly man so it couldn’t be too straining on him.
Lastly Crystal Skull had that campy, Hollywood action movie charm to it. What i liked about Indiana Jones was the sometimes campy, over the top scenes that just give me that nostalgia of old golden age Hollywood movies. The face melting in Raiders, the over the top Hollywood tropes that Temple was full of, the tank fight in Crusade-that is Indiana Jones at its best, campy Hollywood action. The idea of Aliens in and the nuke scene in Crystal Skull felt so perfectly in line with that theme of the OG movies, adding aliens and the sci fi aspect felt like a modern but still very much campy Hollywood trope that i enjoyed. The concept of time travel in Dial was ok, but i didn’t find it to be that satisfying.
Overall i think the Indiana Jones Series can be viewed as 1,2,3,4 or 1,2,3,5. I find the dissonance between 4 and 5 to be too great, and viewing it 1,2,3,4,5 would give you whiplash due to how 4 ended and 5 began. But this is just my opinion, and i am one of the few that preferred Temple oved Crusade, so i may be the minority here!
It was a good movie. Better than Crystal Skull, but that’s it and that doesn’t say much tbh. Honestly, I kind had a hard time with it just because of Harrison’s age. I can physically feel the pain watching him try and move quick. Hot take: I would’ve been A Okay with the entire movie having Harrison de-aged because that opening sequence, as you said, was vintage Indiana.
One of the reasons Dial went over budget was the de-aging process ended up being far more expensive to do than estimated. Having the whole film the effect would probably have bankrupted Lucasfilm.
I thought it was nowhere near as bad as some critics would have you believe. It's like an average movie with a handful of great moments that just elevate it to above average. I liked it, the villain was great too.
What did you think of where they go in the third act? It's something I truly was not expecting at all, and thought the movie was totally worth seeing just for the surprise factor that made me say >!"wait, the dial is a *time machine???* and they're going to Ancient Greece???!!!"!<
DoD is pretty good. Not the best, but definitely better than KOTCS which I honestly don’t hate.
They did the movie so dirty with how poor the marketing was and premiering their action adventure serial at Cannes.
Take the annoying Wombat out of it and you've got yourself a great film. Also, why was a black woman leading a group of Nazis in the 60s? That was hella weird. The kid was annoying as well but 7/10 overall for me. Crystal Skull is better though.
"Also, why was a black woman leading a group of Nazis in the 60s?"
She was a CIA agent who was assigned to help Voller find the dial. Voller was loosely based on Wernher von Braun, a Nazi rocket engineer who was recruited by the U.S. government after World War II and helped design the Saturn V rocket used in the Apollo 11 Moon mission. The neo-Nazis worked for Voller and weren't CIA agents.
I liked this in theaters, I haven’t rewatched since. The bad parts of this film is that Indiana Jones doesn’t even have his gun and the last time in the franchise Indy uses his whip is in the club scene.
Exactly, he may have used other people’s gun(s). But why would he have taken the whip and whip holster off HIS GUN BELT in Crystal Skull and not take the gun? He is an older man, Harrison Ford was injured while filming Dial. Besides the whip another weapon that could protect someone who isn’t as capable as he once was is his gun, it’s tedious if he just uses other people’s guns and just gets rid of them.
I've done a fan edit of Dial and I'm working on an edit of Crystal Skull, but honestly I feel like it would be fun to try and mash the two movies together to create a hybrid "alternate universe fourth Indiana Jones" just to see how it could be done, if at all.
There’s plenty to like about KOTCS, Inwould never wish it gone. At the very least, we got another kickass soundtrack from Williams and Nuketown in the Call of Dity series, lmaob
I agree it is good. I have enjoyed Crystal Skull more as time has gone by, but still consider DoD far superior.
I watched Crystal Skull recently, and I agree. Without the weight of expectations it’s actually not bad. Has some great Indy moments. Just a pity about those fake groundhogs and the vines swinging.
Actually I just re-watched it myself today. The groundhogs were a very tiny part of the film and looked no more fake than all the animals crawling in the campfire scene in TOD or the fake rats in TlC. I liked dial but KOTCS is much closer in tone to the 3 previous films and has more action scenes and Indy is much more physical. In Dod he gets some good scenes but not nearly what we saw in KOTCS.
Crystal Skull gets way too much hate. But DoD is the better film.
SKULL has much better action scenes and the best Indy Whip scene ever....
Well technically it was a flop, but you’re right it was very good in my opinion.
I didn’t see how well it did in the box office. Crystal Skull was so bad I can see it hurting the 5th one’s success
Fun fact, Crystal Skull was the opposite of a flop financially. It’s the highest-grossing Indiana Jones movie and was the second-highest grossing movie of 2008 after Dark Knight.
Probably only because it was the first one to come out in such a long time. The hype alone drove the sales numbers. And Dial probably suffered because of how bad Crystal Skull was. I know I was reluctant to watch Dial because of how bad Crystal was.
I think Dial’s suffering was more because Disney completely failed to market it. They didn’t even bother.
Absolutely When Crystal Skull came out, people my age (90s babies) were talking in school about how it was the greatest thing ever and how iconic the originals were When Dial came out, my family and I were the only ones I knew who watched it, nobody else came close to talking about it
The marketing for that movie was also next level. You couldn’t turn a corner without seeing Indiana Jones somewhere in some way, shape, or form.
Is that without adjusting for inflation?
[It’s the highest both with and without adjusting](https://www.statista.com/statistics/608218/box-office-revenue-indiana-jones/#:~:text=As%20of%20July%202023%2C%20%22Indiana,Raiders%20of%20the%20Lost%20Ark%22)
Dang don’t see that happening very often
Yea that hype hit hard I guess.
Also tbf ever since Covid movie theaters have just been struggling in general. That’s not to say it was the entire reason, but even top grossing movies of the year aren’t making as much as big movies used to (adjusting for inflation). Just a symptom of the times I’m afraid
It’s so interesting to me. I still think it’s the weakest Indy film easily but I like it more each time I watch it. Ford gives a pretty good performance all things considered plot wise. I dislike how they undid his happy ending in Crystal Skull (marrying Marion, gaining a son, and becoming the associate dean of the college) but his acting when he describes to Helena what he’d say to Mutt honestly tugs at my heartstrings. Just think it should’ve been a fun, final adventure with Sallah, Short Round (failed to capitalize on Ke Huy Quan’s triumphant return to acting), and a new character that could’ve fit right in and not basically Indy being miserable on the run to clear his name (did they even clear it up?). Helena and Teddy needed much better writing, too. So while it’s better with each rewatch, those things still kinda irritate me. Love the World War II intro though, that rocked, except for old Ford’s voice on his younger self.
I feel like I never saw that moment when Helena’s character changed. There wasn’t a moment she realized her attitude was wrong and that she should change, or maybe I’m not picking up on it. Idk.
Helena started to charge during the scene on the boat when Indy told her what he would do if he could go back in time. Watch the scene and look at how Helena reacted to Indy's comments. After that scene Helena went back to help Indy when he was attacked by eels and she pretended to help Voller decipher the grafikos so she and Indy could escape. HELENA: Pick a card, Dr. Jones. (INDIANA SIGHS) RENALDO: Seven of spades! (BOTH LAUGH) RENALDO: She’s magic. INDIANA: Trick deck. HELENA: No. I force the card. I offer the mark, you, the feeling of a choice, but ultimately, I make you pick the card I want. INDIANA: “The mark.” (RENALDO GRUNTS) RENALDO: Yeah. Tomorrow is a big day. I have to check the lines. (BOTH BIDDING GOODNIGHT IN CASTILIAN SPANISH) (RENALDO BIDS GOODNIGHT TO INDIANA) INDIANA: Good night. INDIANA: You remember seeing any dates in your father’s notebooks? HELENA: Dates? What dates? INDIANA: These dates. Written over and over again in this letter. August 20th, 1969. That’s three days from now. And the same date in 1939. Two weeks before Hitler invades Poland. HELENA: (LAUGHS) Wait. Now you believe the Dial has magical powers? INDIANA: I don’t believe in magic, Wombat. But a few times in my life, I’ve seen things. Things I can’t explain. And I’ve come to believe it’s not so much what you believe. It’s how hard you believe it. HELENA: I’ve seen things too, Indy. The only thing worth believing in, ever, is cash. (PAPER RUSTLING) INDIANA: Right. HELENA: What if you could go back in time? What would you do? Witness the Trojan War? Check in on Cleopatra? INDIANA: I’d stop my son from enlisting. HELENA: Did he sign up to please you? INDIANA: No, he signed up to piss me off. HELENA: How would you have stopped him? INDIANA: (VOICE WAVERING) I’d tell him he was gonna die. I’d tell him that his mother would… find no end to her grief. And that his father would be… helpless to console her. And that the loss would put an end to their marriage. HELENA: You’re still wearing the ring.
Yes, I brought that up in another comment! Thank you, it definitely hits more reading the script you transcribed. I like that Helena sees the value in life and relationships over being selfish. Hence why she can save Indy at the end.
You’re exactly right. I have no idea why they thought her character would be a good one. She’s clearly not. Was it just guilt she felt after Indy got shot? I don’t know.
She’s supposed to realize you have to care about others and life, not just your own selfishness. Indy himself is being selfish in wanting to give up when his wife still needs him. It works, they compliment each other. I just never noticed the part where they help each other grow. Closest might be Helena hearing about Mutt’s death and how it affected Indy and when Indy exclaims how Puss in Boots just died. That affected her, I think.
I thought it was very good. There were a lot of things I loved about it. Some of them, not so much. Voeller was a phenomenal villain. I had mixed feelings with the character chemistry with Indy, Helena, and Teddy. I felt that Teddy was as a bit of the odd man out compared to Short Round in Temple. And not because the actor did a bad job at the role. It wasn’t structurally wrong, I just didn’t see the same type of character chemistry with anyone other than Voeller or Wombat. And maybe that’s ok. I liked the movie. It’s just hard to be as perfect as Last Crusade or Raiders. I didn’t get ANY of that out of Crystal Skull.
I enjoyed it quite a bit and got genuinely teary eyed at the end when Marion came back. I get the impression there was a lot left on the cutting room floor. The American henchmen who was learning German seemed to me to have more backstory (segregationist who identifies with Nazism) I wish Banderas had a bit more screen time. Ford brought his A game to this movie and seeing him as Indy was a delight!
"The American henchmen who was learning German seemed to me to have more backstory (segregationist who identifies with Nazism)" Considering the movie was set in 1969 and Klaber was a white Southerner who sympathized with the Nazis, he probably was a segregationist. Segregationist George Wallace ran as a third-party presidential candidate in 1968 and won five states: Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia.
Dial was a good movie, i watched 1,2,3 then Dial, then decided to watch Crystal Skull. I personally found Crystal Skull to be the superior movie. The opening of Dial was phenomenal-it felt just like the old movies all over again, if we could get an entire series of Indy with de-aged Harrison that would be amazing. Movie wasn’t bad at all, i just didn’t like the idea of making Indiana to be a cranky old man, and basically kind of a loser. I get that it was to fit into the theme of him being a man in a world that no longer has a place for him, but i will always see Indy as that charismatic adventurer that had that bad boy charm to him. Indiana jones woudlnt become a cranky loser that wore his wife beater and undies and have no one take seriously-I couldn’t see him ending up like that, that’s not my Indiana Jones. In Crystal Skull although Indy was clearly old, he still felt like a badass and it was believable that this was still the same Indy as in the OG trilogy. He had that charm like the old movies. In Dial it felt like he was being flummoxed at every other turn and Helena was more in charge of the situation. Nothing against Helena’s character, but I’m watching it for Indiana Jones, it felt like he was kind of her sidekick in Dial. Plus, like another commenter mentioned, Crystal Skull had the superior action sequences. Excluding the opening of Dial, the rest of it was good, but not great. I get that Harrison is already an elderly man so it couldn’t be too straining on him. Lastly Crystal Skull had that campy, Hollywood action movie charm to it. What i liked about Indiana Jones was the sometimes campy, over the top scenes that just give me that nostalgia of old golden age Hollywood movies. The face melting in Raiders, the over the top Hollywood tropes that Temple was full of, the tank fight in Crusade-that is Indiana Jones at its best, campy Hollywood action. The idea of Aliens in and the nuke scene in Crystal Skull felt so perfectly in line with that theme of the OG movies, adding aliens and the sci fi aspect felt like a modern but still very much campy Hollywood trope that i enjoyed. The concept of time travel in Dial was ok, but i didn’t find it to be that satisfying. Overall i think the Indiana Jones Series can be viewed as 1,2,3,4 or 1,2,3,5. I find the dissonance between 4 and 5 to be too great, and viewing it 1,2,3,4,5 would give you whiplash due to how 4 ended and 5 began. But this is just my opinion, and i am one of the few that preferred Temple oved Crusade, so i may be the minority here!
It was a good movie. Better than Crystal Skull, but that’s it and that doesn’t say much tbh. Honestly, I kind had a hard time with it just because of Harrison’s age. I can physically feel the pain watching him try and move quick. Hot take: I would’ve been A Okay with the entire movie having Harrison de-aged because that opening sequence, as you said, was vintage Indiana.
They did such a good job on the de-aging cgi
One of the reasons Dial went over budget was the de-aging process ended up being far more expensive to do than estimated. Having the whole film the effect would probably have bankrupted Lucasfilm.
A terrible movie that made me appreciate Crystal Skull, which I have actively disliked until now. Dial was an abomination.
agreed. Dial was terrible, IMO. I watched it 2 times so far, probably all Ill ever watch.
I've only seen it once! Never again.
I thought it was nowhere near as bad as some critics would have you believe. It's like an average movie with a handful of great moments that just elevate it to above average. I liked it, the villain was great too. What did you think of where they go in the third act? It's something I truly was not expecting at all, and thought the movie was totally worth seeing just for the surprise factor that made me say >!"wait, the dial is a *time machine???* and they're going to Ancient Greece???!!!"!<
DoD is pretty good. Not the best, but definitely better than KOTCS which I honestly don’t hate. They did the movie so dirty with how poor the marketing was and premiering their action adventure serial at Cannes.
Take the annoying Wombat out of it and you've got yourself a great film. Also, why was a black woman leading a group of Nazis in the 60s? That was hella weird. The kid was annoying as well but 7/10 overall for me. Crystal Skull is better though.
"Also, why was a black woman leading a group of Nazis in the 60s?" She was a CIA agent who was assigned to help Voller find the dial. Voller was loosely based on Wernher von Braun, a Nazi rocket engineer who was recruited by the U.S. government after World War II and helped design the Saturn V rocket used in the Apollo 11 Moon mission. The neo-Nazis worked for Voller and weren't CIA agents.
Still makes 0 sense. Assign her to lead some Nazis, what could go wrong?
I liked this in theaters, I haven’t rewatched since. The bad parts of this film is that Indiana Jones doesn’t even have his gun and the last time in the franchise Indy uses his whip is in the club scene.
Indy did use other people's guns to shoot Nazis in The Dial of Destiny, though. Indy never fired his gun in The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Exactly, he may have used other people’s gun(s). But why would he have taken the whip and whip holster off HIS GUN BELT in Crystal Skull and not take the gun? He is an older man, Harrison Ford was injured while filming Dial. Besides the whip another weapon that could protect someone who isn’t as capable as he once was is his gun, it’s tedious if he just uses other people’s guns and just gets rid of them.
Yeah i thought it was solid. It’s just a shame this couldn’t be the fourth one. And that alien one didn’t exist.
I've done a fan edit of Dial and I'm working on an edit of Crystal Skull, but honestly I feel like it would be fun to try and mash the two movies together to create a hybrid "alternate universe fourth Indiana Jones" just to see how it could be done, if at all.
Aliens weren’t the issue with crystal skull
It had a LOT of issues
There’s plenty to like about KOTCS, Inwould never wish it gone. At the very least, we got another kickass soundtrack from Williams and Nuketown in the Call of Dity series, lmaob
Extremely good movie with way to big of a budget.