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Blogs by Gary Val Tenuta
Movie Review: Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull 5/28/2008 8:21:52 PM
Just got back from Indy-4! I read so many negative reviews I was prepared for a possible disappointment. But for me, personally, I can only say this:
HOLY MOLY! THAT WAS THE ADVENTURE THRILL RIDE OF A LIFE TIME!!!
The most common complaint I kept hearing was that they took a great archaeology adventure story and turned it into a sci-fi movie. What most people don't realize is:
(1) there are such things as crystal skulls. As Indy says in the movie, most of them are carved artifacts and there is not much mystery about them. The so-called "Mitchell-Hedges" crystal skull, on the other hand (and mentioned in the movie) is a different case. Discovered around 1924 by Anna Mitchell-Hedges, it is an anatomically perfect rendition of a human skull, complete with a moving lower jaw, and modern science is at a loss to explain how it could have been created. Analysis shows that it cannot have been carved and there is no known way that it could have been molded.
(2) the Mayan cosmology (like the cosmologies of most ancient cultures) does involve beings from "elsewhere", such as the Nine Lords of Time and what writer/researcher, Jose Arguelles, calls "the Galactic Masters" of which the plumed serpent god, Quetalcoatl, was one.
So what Lucas/Spielberg did was to take (a) the modern lore about the alleged crashed extraterrestrial craft near Roswell, NM, in 1947, (b) the possibility that some of the technology as well as the alien bodies retrieved from the craft were taken to the top secret Area-51 in Nevada, (c) the Mayan cosmology, (d) the crystal skulls, and (e) the currently touted theory that some ETs are not so much extraterrestrials as they are extradimensionals (making them EDs then, I suppose) and blended it all seamlessly into one heck of a rousing thrill ride that I will definitely watch again. I give it 6 out of 5 stars. But hey - that's just me. :-)
Oh, by the way - watch carefully when they are in the huge warehouse. The camera pans ever so quickly across a bunch of crates. One of them is partially opened and there is a brief glimpse of a golden cherub wing. That's about all you see but it is the lid of the Ark of the Covenant from Raiders! If you blink you'll miss it. :-)
