Here's Hoping that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Doesn't Suck

First off, this is officially the first week that YDKS has had one or more posts everyday of the week. This is something that I and the other writers of YDKS hope to keep up in the future. Anyways, to celebrate this occasion, I'm going to keep this post on the shorter side. That and I'm really just tired and don't feel like writing. Anyways, here we go.

This upcoming week is a very important week in the world of cinema. The fourth Indiana Jones movie entitled Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is released to theaters world wide. Like most movie fans, I've had a special relationship with the Indiana Jones films since I was a child. I can remember watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade pretty much religiously. I have the opening sequence with River Phoenix as a young Indiana pretty much ingrained in my mind. When I was seven years old, I ordered an Indiana Jones hat from Star Wars Magazine. I still have that hat and I even featured it as a fedora in my latest movie, Miasma. Even though I grew up watching The Last Crusade first, I also watched Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Temple of Doom just as frequently. I remember the special effects of Nazis faces melting and the guy's heart being pulled out blew my mind as a young boy.

Now, in just a few days, a new Indiana Jones movie is going to be at my finger tips. I've never gotten to see an Indiana Jones film in the theater so this really will be a new experience for me. I should be really excited but, honestly, I'm really not. Don't get me wrong, I'm going to be there on opening night. However, nothing I've seen in the advertisements for this movie have excited me. The trailers were strangely lacking any bit of excitement or feeling of suspense. Then there's the casting of Shia LaBeouf. Personally, I just don't like the kid. And I really don't like his look from the trailers. What's with that lame stash he's trying to pull off? And how about him wearing all that leather? When we saw him pull up on a motorcycle in all that leather during the trailer before Iron Man, Caleb said aloud, "He looks like ... a gay." Not that there's anything wrong with that. But still, what were they thinking?

The other week a lot of early reviews for the movie came in. They were almost entirely negative. The word of mouth from the film's screening at the Cannes Film Festival is all extremely mixed. Things really aren't looking good. This film should be something I'm really excited about. But I'm not. It just looks like a train wreck that's about to happen. 

I hope that I'm wrong. I really really do. 

Then there's George Lucas. Apparently, the reason that this thing took so long to put together is that he's a completely stubborn little prick. He's just been obsessed with having Indy fighting aliens that he has seemed to have forgotten that they first need to make a good movie. Even Spielberg and Ford seem weary and tried of dealing with him. Frank Darabont, who apparently turned in a screenplay for the movie that Spielberg and Ford loved, thinks the man is a lunatic. If this movie ends up bad, I have a good feeling it will be due to Lucas' stubbornness. I simply do not trust the guy after the pretty horrible Star Wars prequels and the greedy nature that has come out of him in the past few years. If this movie is anything like Episode I, I might lose my mind.

Anyways, here's hoping that, by the end of the week, I can say that I really enjoyed the latest Indiana Jones film. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to say that I loved it. However, if I can just enjoy it for an hour and half, that will be just fine. I just want to be taken away and feel like a kid again. That's what these films have always done for me and I hope Spielberg and company haven't lost that ability. 

I need some Spielberg magic. Please don't let me down.