{"id":409,"date":"2007-12-11T17:37:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-11T17:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stallioncornell.wordpress.com\/2007\/12\/11\/indiana-jones-and-the-dennys-senior-discount"},"modified":"2007-12-11T17:37:00","modified_gmt":"2007-12-11T17:37:00","slug":"indiana-jones-and-the-dennys-senior-discount","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/indiana-jones-and-the-dennys-senior-discount\/","title":{"rendered":"Indiana Jones and the Denny’s Senior Discount"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull\u00a0<\/span>opens in theatres on May 22 of next year, but all of the movie sites have been buzzing about it for what seems like decades. Before the title was announced, everyone was trying to come up with the cleverest new moniker for the film while at the same time mocking Harrison Ford\u2019s advanced age. (My favorite was Indiana Jones and the Confusing Bingo Card.<\/span>) But all the footage of Harrison\/Indy has been encouraging \u2013 he looks older and grayer, yes, but he\u2019s still fit and Indiana Jones-esque \u2013 so people have stopped making up geezer titles and everyone\u2019s getting excited.<\/p>\n

Except me.<\/p>\n

No, that\u2019s not quite true. I\u2019m pretty excited, and doubtless I\u2019ll be there on opening night. I just don\u2019t think I\u2019m going to appreciate where this thing is going to go.<\/p>\n

By the way, if you\u2019re scared of movie spoilers, read no further. I don\u2019t know the whole plot of the movie, but I know enough to be dangerous. If you want to be completely and utterly surprised, turn back now.<\/p>\n

Still here? Well, I warned you. Except now, you\u2019re probably expecting something really juicy, and I really don\u2019t know all that much. So you\u2019re probably going to be disappointed. (Just thought I\u2019d warn you about that, too.)<\/p>\n

Anyway\u2026<\/p>\n

The plot is centered around a crystal skull, which is presumably constructed by aliens. And that\u2019s what bugs me. Every other movie has focused on religious artifacts, requiring Indy to suppress his worldly skepticism and take a leap of faith. Each movie ends with a mystical denouement that is both unexplained and unexplainable. And that\u2019s the way I like it.<\/p>\n

Science can\u2019t give us the reasons why the Lost Ark melted off all the Nazis’ faces, or why the Shankara Stones burned through the bag and killed Mola Rum, or why the Last Crusader Knight lived for hundreds of years reading the Bible by himself with all those fake Grails. What\u2019s more, if there are scientific reasons, we don\u2019t want to know what they are. It\u2019s fun to watch the utterly rational Indiana Jones get his comeuppance as he encounters spiritual forces far greater than he is.<\/p>\n

So along comes this alien crystal skull, and suddenly everything is going to get explained. And that just plain sucks.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>From what I\u2019ve heard, the Lost Ark was tagged in a box and, according to this new movie, sent to a warehouse \u2013 in Area 51. That\u2019s just a rumor, but there\u2019s some indication that the Ark is going to figure prominently in the story. If you look at the teaser ad, you\u2019ll see Indiana Jones\u2019 hat and bullwhip resting atop a large wooden crate with the same number – 9906573 – as the crate they put the Ark in at the end of the first movie. In addition, John Hurt is going to be playing Abner Ravenwood \u2013 Marion\u2019s father and an Ark fanatic who was presumed dead in\u00a0Raiders<\/span>. Every indication is that the Ark and the Crystal Skull are going to be spending some quality time together.<\/p>\n

After reading the tea leaves, I\u2019ve concluded that we\u2019re going to be told that aliens dropped off the Ark to ancient Israel, and now they want it back. So it wasn\u2019t the power of God that fried the Nazis \u2013 it was some bug-eyed dudes from Alpha Centauri. And all of Judeo-Christian tradition was planted here by weirdos from another planet. Suddenly, Indy is vindicated \u2013 the world is rational after all. It\u2019s no fair, and it\u2019s no fun. I\u2019m not too thrilled about an Indiana Jones universe where there\u2019s no room for wonder.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say that I don\u2019t like the Chariots of the Gods<\/span> motif when done properly \u2013 I\u2019m a huge Battlestar Galactica<\/span> fan, which covered this ground well, and certainly elements of my own faith have been interpreted in a \u201cweirdos from another planet\u201d way. (I think we Mormons get a bad rap on this, though, but I digress.) The problem is that these ideas are being inflicted on established Indiana Jones continuity, and they\u2019re going to inform how we view the previous films. I don\u2019t think the Raiders<\/span> ending is as much fun if we learn that the Ark\u2019s \u201cunspeakable power\u201d comes from the planet Vordon. The series was built on a different premise, and KOTCS is coming along and changing the rules in the middle of the game.<\/p>\n

In the end, though, I\u2019ll still be cheering. There will surely be great action sequences, and it\u2019s going to be fun to see Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood again. I\u2019m not sure if I\u2019m as excited to see Shia TheBeef as Indy\u2019s son, but I\u2019ll reserve judgment. That\u2019s a plot change that could work. Aliens drinking out of the Holy Grail is not.<\/p>\n

Of course, all that could go out the window when they finally get around to making Indiana Jones and the Unpleasant Prostate Exam. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull\u00a0<\/span>opens in theatres on May 22 of next year, but all of the movie sites have been buzzing about it for what seems like decades. Before the title was announced, everyone was trying to come up with the cleverest new moniker for the film while at ... Read more<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}