Cacique-Borja, Crystal as Bonus

Crystal as Bonus

Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls was set in 1949; eleven years after The Last Crusades, where we last see Indy establishing a healthy relationship with his father. Interestingly enough, Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls is also about remedying a son to father relationship only this time Indy is the father and his son has been unknown to him for quite a while. In this movie, we see an older Indy who is not as muscular (because the camera no longer focuses on his arms nor are his sleeves rolled up like in The Temple of Doom) or agile but definitely a wiser Indy who waits before he whips out his whip. (Interestingly enough, Indy looks about 20 plus years older.) Just as in the previous movies, the audience does not get to witness Indy’s full facial profile until it is established that he is a figure who demands attention and diligence. Indy’s legendary fedora shadowy figure puts the soldiers at arms as he is thrown into the concrete and his impossible journey through death staring obstacles begins.

The introduction of the female villain in the opening scene revives thoughts of Gretta Von Grimm from The Last Crusaders when she sparked a sexual tension between her and Dr. Jones. The new villain, Dr. Irina Spalko does not prove to be the temptress Gretta was but she does manage to be a pain the way Belloq, the “French archeologists in league with the Nazi” was (Pfeiffer 117).  As Indy is escaping from Dr. Spalko in the military warehouse he drives through a cluster of wooden boxes. In one of the crashed and opened wooden boxes resides the lost Ark where “the Ten Commandments were placed by Moses” and Indy had risked his life to rescue from the Nazi in Raiders of the Lost Ark (Pfeiffer 117). The Ark represents the belief Indy had had on authority, the USA government, to recover artifacts for the better of humanity. Indy went into the mission believing that if he found and retrieved the Ark before the Nazi did and gave it to the government he would further human knowledge. As it is seen in the last scene of Raider’s, Indy is told that the “top guys” were on the Ark when it was actually being taken into storage in a military warehouse not to be laid an eye upon by humans as Indy had hoped. The revival of the Ark, parodies the grim chapter in Indy’s life when he loses the opportunity to study the Ark only to have him literally drive through it. Ironically, Indy’s obsessions with artifacts, which lead him to the Arckat one point, once again lead him away from it.