FAQ

When archeology professor Dr Henry "Indiana" Jones (Harrison Ford) receives a cryptic message from former colleague Harold Oxley (John Hurt), Indy and the message-bearer, young Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf), travel to Peru to find a legendary crystal skull from an interdimensional life-form. Meanwhile, Soviet agents led by the treacherous Colonel Doctor Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) are hot on his trail, knowing that the skull is rumored to bestow great psychic powers on whomever returns it to its rightful place.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the fourth movie in the Indiana Jones series, preceded by Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). Crystal Skull is based on a story conceived by American filmmaker George Lucas and screenwriter Jeff Nathanson. The screenplay for The Crystal Skull was written by American screenwriter David Koepp. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) has been announced.

Nineteen years, the same as the real-life gap between the two films' releases. Crystal Skull is set in 1957.

Most notably, there are, as Indy puts it, "big damn ants" that chase the heroes and villains as they fight one another through the jungle. Indy identifies the ants as "siafu," which are native to East Africa and do not move as rapidly as seen in the film. They are commonly known as army ants. Mutt has a run-in with scorpions, which recalls the tarantulas that covered Sapito (a minor character) in the opening of 'Raiders'. And of course, there is a snake. Finally, there is a troop of monkeys (possibly enhanced by encounters with the crystal skulls) that help Mutt attack the Russians.

There is nothing in the film concerning the Fountain of Youth, although the fabled "City of Gold" plays a major role in the film, as it is the location where the titular crystal skull must be returned. However, the gold is not actual gold. As Indy states at the end of the film, the word for "gold" also translates as "treasure," that treasure being the knowledge the inter-dimensional beings collected.

They filmed in the US, most filming was shot in Hawaii, New Mexico, Connecticut, Mexico City and the jungles of Peru. See here for more details.

Mutt was probably conceived in 1936, which is the year Raiders of the Lost Ark takes place, meaning that he was born in 1937, making him around 20 years old in Crystal Skull (though it is not necessarily evidence of details in the film, actor Shia LeBeouf was 21 at the time the film was made). It is unlikely that Mutt was conceived any later than 1938 as Marion was not around at the time of Last Crusade which took place that year. Indy actually introduced Marion to Mutt's future stepfather, who was an RAF pilot killed in World War II shortly after they were married. There is a scene in Crystal Skull in which Marion and Indiana argue over Mutt on issues such as fatherly absence, paternity and step-parenthood. It is likely Marion's pregnancy was unplanned, and she discovered her pregnancy after she and Indiana had broken off their relationship.

Indy teaches at the fictional Marshall College, named after co-producer Frank Marshall. Marshall stated that "had my last name been Yale, it would have been called Yale College!"

Professor Henry Jones: Nineteen years have passed since Indy and his father (Sean Connery) embarked on their adventure together in Last Crusade. In the interim, Professor Jones has passed away. The real-world reason is that Sean Connery had retired from acting by the time the film was greenlit, and while expressing some regret, he still chose to remain retired, stating that "retirement is just too damned much fun."

Marcus Brody: In the film, Indy states that Brody (Denholm Elliott), like Indy's father, died some time prior. Elliott, in fact, is deceased. However, most likely as a reference to Marcus, "Brody's Barbershop" has been identified in a production shot of a set for the fourth film. Additionally, a portrait of Brody hangs in the hall of the archeology department at Marshall College. There is also a large statue in the university grounds of Brody, which is rammed into and unfortunately beheaded by the Soviets.

Sallah: John Rhys-Davies, who played Sallah, had stated that he would've loved to return but was informed by George Lucas that, as the adventure does not see Jones go to the Middle East, Sallah isn't needed in this film.

In Last Crusade, both Indiana and his father drink from the grail, an act which is supposed to grant immortality. However, in Crystal Skull, it is revealed that Henry Sr. died, presumably of old age, between films, and Indiana is noticeably older than he was in the previous film. The reason for this was explained in Last Crusade. After they drink from the grail, the grail knight explains to them that the grail grants ever-lasting life, but the grail itself could not pass the holy seal in the cavern, which implies that drinking from the grail once wouldn't grant you immortality, but may keep you from aging. You'd have to keep drinking from the grail to stay immortal. Since both Indy and Henry left the temple soon after drinking, they would have lost the benefit of immortality. In the TV show, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, which aired in the mid-1990s after Last Crusade was released, Indy was still alive in the present day, which would have made him 90-something years old. It was hinted at the time that the grail had contributed to his longevity. However, even there, Jones was depicted as aging more or less normally (indeed, Harrison Ford himself appeared in an episode taking place partly in the 1950s and wore makeup to appear older). It's clear in Crystal Skull that neither Indy nor his father is immortal.

According to director Steven Spielberg here, "...the effects work was approximately 70% practical and 30% CGI, although the computer-generated work will be obvious." CGI was mostly used to enhance the look of the jungle-sequence, simulate backgrounds (done by matte paintings in the previous films) and the ending sequence with the flying saucer.

Despite many rumors concerning a CG whip (such as here), the DVD features make it clear that Harrison Ford wielded an actual whip, just as he had done on the original three films. On the other hand, Lucasfilm is no stranger to designing physical props and shooting with them, only to use CG substitutes afterward anyway; an approach which has merit in that the animators can better match the CG elements to the recorded props, costumes, sets, miniatures or other elements.

Indy cracked his whip about as much as in previous films. He used it twice in the warehouse: once to disarm one of Spalko's men and once to swing from a light fixture. Indy also used it to try and save the life of his friend/enemy Mac, but ultimately failed at the task.

Despite what has sometimes been claimed elsewhere, such as here, the snake Mutt uses to pull Marion and Indy from the sand pit was not a CGI effect. The DVD behind-the-scenes features show the filming of this scene with a real python, and Shia LaBeouf describes the difficulty in hitting a mark with a live snake.

No; he never really gets the chance. The only time is when he's outside the tomb with the blow-dart assailants, but they are too agile and run away. He is never really in a fight where it is economic to use his gun as a weapon, he's almost always held at gunpoint or in a close-quarters fight, using his fists or a shovel. He does use a RPG to destroy a Russian vehicle, which could have killed dozens of people.

Indy states that the aliens were archeologists. The likely explanation is that the extraterrestrial beings were time-travelers, traveling through the time-space continuum to acquire the "priceless" artifacts. i.e., widely diverse statues, jewelery, pottery, and structure artworks ranging from Sumerian to Early Egyptian to Roman to Early Chinese, so on and so forth. Extraterrestrial beings are presumed to be always curious, hence visiting Earth to investigate organic life and gain knowledge by contact with the human race in ancient times as well as to acquire artifacts as gifts or by theft.

"Nuke the fridge" is a phrase coined from a scene in Crystal Skull where Indy survives a nuclear explosion by hiding inside a refrigerator. It refers to the point in a movie where the plausible has crossed over into the absurd, forcing the audience to suspend their belief in any supposed reality presented by the movie.

Though it's no more absurd than parachuting out of a plane in a life raft or surviving a trip in the ocean while hanging off the periscope of a submarine. These films are never meant to be realistic and frequently portray fantastical action sequences.

As depicted in the film, surviving a nuclear blast inside a refrigerator is theoretically possible, according to two physicists on the web series Reel Physics, as explained here. Of the main questions concerning the general scenario, the only event in the specific depiction that broke the laws of physics was when the fridge was flung past the car before the blast-wave hit; in reality, the blast would have traveled much faster than the fridge. An important thing to note is that given the design of the specific fridge, no matter how strong the materials, the door on it most likely would have popped open right upon being blown away, flinging the occupant out of it. (Some fridges/freezers, of much older designs, do have locking mechanisms, but the lock can only be accessed from the outside.) George Lucas himself claimed that he pitched the idea to several physicists while writing the screenplay, and some of them rated the chances of survival as "50/50". Indiana Jones is known to have beaten odds much worse than that.

The Indiana Jones films are modeled after old matinee serials of the 1930s and '40s. The adventurers in the old serials sometimes survived impossible situations because the medium was created for entertainment, and as a result, reality took a backseat. The Indiana Jones films have all taken liberties with what's possible and impossible in return for entertaining action and adventure. Some of the more outlandish examples include Indy and friends jumping from a plane and landing safely with a rubber boat, making a jump in a mine cart and landing precisely on the tracks again (without the cart overturning or spinning in mid-air), and outrunning a flood in the caves (which has magically "skipped" a giant chasm in the ground several hundred yards back) in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Steven Spielberg himself has said in an interview that he wanted to include a nuclear explosion in the movie, since it takes place in the nineteen fifties, when the threat of nuclear war was an ever-present fear. The type of serial-like adventure that the films portray is not everyone's cup of tea, but they do hark back to a more innocent time in filmmaking.

In the order of release they are Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), and this movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). In the order in which they occur, however, the chronology is as follows: 1935 - Temple of Doom, 1936 - Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1938 - Last Crusade, and 1957 - Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Lucas came up with the plot device (the crystal skull), and is credited with writing the story. He also served as Executive Producer. According to Spielberg, Lucas was on set for a total of nine days. Although Lucas suggested that Spielberg shoot the movie with digital, Spielberg used film, as he has on all of his previous movies. Read here. There are also a few nods to the Lucas-created television series Young Indiana Jones, as well as the many period references within the scenes and dialogue which call to mind Lucas's early film American Graffiti.

It is from the soundtrack to "Children of Dune" by Brian Tyler, and it is track number 4, called "The Revolution."

The film has mostly received positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 77% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 245 reviews (the average rating being 6.9/10), with a 61% (US) rating from selected notable critics.

Apparently there were some minor adjustments that the studio company made to the US general trailer (approved for all audiences by the Motion Picture Association of America [MPAA]), whereby some weapons were removed and just about every threatening use of a weapon was altered to be at ease. See here and here for stacked screen-captures in comparison. The French language video here describes all the differences between the US and international versions as well.