Indy 4 Dossier: What We Know to Date
by Tom Burns

[Disclaimer: If you DON'T WANT TO KNOW anything about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, catch up to the already available online information, read any STORY SPOILERS or SPECULATION, see new theories on what might happen in the movie, or see SPOILERS OF ANY KIND concerning Indiana Jones IV, this article isn't for you and we urge you to TURN BACK NOW. You've been warned. Proceed at your own risk. This article isn't designed to spoil the new Indiana Jones movie for anyone, but instead aggregate all of the information to date into one place.]

THE MACGUFFIN:

You may be asking yourself - what is a crystal skull and what do they have to do with sci-fi? To answer your first question, they’re skulls made of crystal (duh!) and, to answer the second, some people believe that they were carved by alien gods. (And by "some people," we mean "hippies.") Strangely enough, these skulls of pure quartz DO exist, but there’s a continuous debate surrounding their origins. The most famous quartz skull is the Mitchell-Hedges "skull of doom" (now THAT sounds like an Indiana Jones movie), an artifact discovered by Anna Mitchell-Hedges and her father in the 1920s while on an archeological dig in Mayan ruins in Belize, where Anna’s father thought he might find the remains of Atlantis (again, very Indy-like). The Mitchell-Hedges quickly began building up a legend surrounding the skull, claiming that it could not have been carved by human tools, that it had supernatural powers, and that it made different vibrations due to the alignment of the planets. While many have stepped forward to debunk the Mitchell-Hedges’ claims, that didn’t stop the cult of the crystal skulls from growing.

More and more skulls - mostly from South America - began appearing around the globe, complete with a colorful history that ties the skulls to everything from the Knights Templar to the... wait for it... Ark of the Covenant. (Cool, eh?) According to organizations like IKA International (check out their website), there’s a legend surrounding 13 crystal skulls that were brought to our planet by extraterrestrials long ago and could potentially reveal the secrets of life, the universe, and everything. And if you don’t believe that Lucas is going full-on alien with this one, take a good hard look at the very-cool Drew Struzan-illustrated poster for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Is it just us or does that KINDA look like an alien face right between the skull’s eyes?

OUR OPINION: The archeological history and ties to the Ark definitely make the skull concept more palpable to Indy fans, but there’s just still something about acknowledging the existence of ETs that seems a bit too new-agey for a guy like Henry Jones Jr.

TIME PERIOD:

Since it was impossible to freeze Harrison Ford in carbonite after Last Crusade (dammit), the world of Indiana Jones did have to pull itself out of the 1930s to make allowances for Ford’s... well... "droopage." Producer Frank Marshall confirmed to USA Today that Indiana Jones 4 would be set at the height of the Cold War in 1957, and the big baddies would no longer be Nazis, but more era-appropriate evil operatives of the Soviet Union. (Expect lots of Sputnik references.) Marshall describes Indy’s 1950s existence as "teaching and having kind of a quiet life," until the John Williams soundtrack begins and he finds himself whisked off to New Mexico, Connecticut (ooh, exotic Connecticut!), Mexico City and the jungles of Peru.

OUR OPINION: You can’t really hide how old Harrison Ford is anymore, so having Indy age in real-time is probably a really good idea. We’ll miss the pure evil of evil Nazi stormtroopers, but, if our grandparents hated Commies, I guess we can too. The main thing that worries us is Indy interacting with certain elements of 50s culture, like hula-hoops, sock-hops, and greasers, which brings us to...

Indy 4 Dossier Page 3 - The Cast (CAUTION SPOILERS)