Indiana Jones
9 years ago, as Indiana Jones road off into the sunset in the Last Crusade, it seemed the fanmous whip and fedora would be locked away forever... we had seen the last of Indiana Jones.
Assuming you haven't been living on a desert Island the past few months you'll know Indiana Jones is back!
The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull is the 4th installment in the Indiana Jones series.
The plot has been surrounded in such secracy, it would seem a shame to give it away now (how often do you get a chance to go to the cinema these days and not know what's coming!)
So all we'll say is...
Indy is called back into action when he becomes entangled in a Soviet plot to uncover the secret behind mysterious artifacts known as the Crystal Skulls.
You may not know...
The film has been a long time coming. A number of scripts and ideas have come and gone over the years. Here are some interesting facts you may not know about the film...
Titles
Before ‘The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ was chosen as the title, several other titles were considered and even registered, including...
- The City of Gods
- The Destroyer of Worlds
- The Fourth Corner of the Earth
- The Lost City of Gold
- The Quest for the Covenant
Indy's brother - Kevin Costner!
In April 2004, George Lucas rejected the script by Frank Darabont. Reportedly, Lucas did not like Darabont's handling of the storyline between Indy and his brother, a role for which Kevin Costner was rumored to be considered
No Sean Connery?
Sean Connery was approached for a cameo appearance as Henry Jones Sr., Indiana's father, but he turned it down, finding retirement too enjoyable. George Lucas later stated that in retrospect it was good that Jones Sr. did not appear, as it would disappoint the audience when he would not come along for the adventure. Harrison Ford also joked that he was getting old enough to play his own father, so Sean wasn't needed anymore.
Auf Wiedersehen Pet
This is the first Indiana Jones film without Pat "Bomber" Roach, who had a role in the first three films. Roach died in 2004.
He's not getting any younger
To reprise his role as the legendary explorer Indiana Jones, the 64-year-old Harrison Ford spent three hours a day at the gym, and subsisted on a high-protein diet of fish and vegetables, thus building his body into a condition where he could perform his own stunts (he always kept himself fit anyway, as he hoped to complete all the five Indiana Jones films that were originally planned in the 1980s). Steven Spielberg later stated he was so impressed with Ford's form that he could not tell the difference between the shoots for the third and fourth films.
Crystal Skulls!!??
George Lucas cultivated an interest towards crystal skulls while producing "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" (1992), specifically during the episode with Harrison Ford's cameo. He felt the skulls, then an idea in an unused script, were as strong a plot device as the Ark of the Covenant from Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford were sceptical, thinking the concept of crystal skulls too similar to the previous films, and two years were spent reworking it into something more acceptable.
A subtle prompt
In 2006, Harrison Ford declared that if this film was not made by 2008, then the filmmakers should drop the idea altogether. This got Steven Spielberg looking for a good script immediately.