Celebrating the late great Director Tony Scott on what would’ve been his 82nd Birthday
I still can’t believe he’s gone, almost 14 years and it still breaks my heart. Some fans had Spielberg, Scorsese or DePalma growing up, I had Tony Scott
I'm not saying this should change your opinion, but some people may be surprised to learn that Crystal Skull was not universally panned when it came out. Far from it, in fact.
Roger Ebert gave it three and a half stars out of four, and he had this to say about it, which I think is the exact right spirit in which to approach an Indiana Jones movie:
This shot from the Crystal Skull jungle chase, heavily featuring CGI foliage, is cooler and more memorable than a single thing that happened during any of the "back-to-basics" action sequences in Dial of Destiny.
After sitting on it, I love Disclosure Day. There's Weirdberg stuff that tests the limits of human sentimentality like the crying newscaster or girl singing Disney to aliens, but Spielberg is a man who lives inside of movies. He calls for empathy a bit too desperately because this is not a movie about aliens as much as it's the need for a 79 year old man to start writing the Happy Ending of his life's third and final act.
https://t.co/zAbyJ8bhvx
These character scenes between Indy and Mutt were the best and most interesting part of Crystal Skull. If George Lucas hadn't rejected Frank Darabont's script, the movie would have just been another Raiders clone, where the emotional core of the film would have been Indy and Marion once again reuniting after being estranged. Indy had no child in that draft. I'm sure a lot of people would have loved that, but Lucas has absolutely never had any interest in rehashing his old material.
Lucas wanted the film's emotional core to be about Indy discovering he had a child, and having to figure out how to relate to him despite their generational differences, the same way his own father had to do with him. If I have one criticism of the film, it's that I would have liked to have seen a little bit more of this dynamic. But we did see a fair bit of it nonetheless, and I personally thought it was quite interesting, and that Harrison Ford and Shia LaBeouf had the exact kind of chemistry required to sell that kind of relationship.
I don't think Crystal Skull should be immune from criticism, but I do think that the two most interesting aspects of the film were the flying saucer angle and the specific characterization of Mutt. And these were the two core ideas contributed by Lucas. As much as they complained, it didn't seem as if Spielberg or Ford had any better ideas of their own.
So I think it is true that Crystal Skull does at least deserve to be reevaluated, and that the consensus that it was George Lucas who was holding the film back is completely backwards.
Steven Spielberg’s #DisclosureDay (2026) is a synthesis of the thematic and narrative frameworks established in Signs (2002) and Man of Steel (2013), staging questions of faith, agency, and meaning amid the earth-shattering emergence of extraterrestrial reality and power.
Disclosure Day isn't a Spielberg movie, it's a Weirdberg movie. Weirdberg made Terminal, Hook, 1941, Always, Crystal Skull, War Horse. Weirdberg has all the skills of Spielberg, but is more sentimental and slapstick. I dig Weirdberg and love when he emerges to rile the natives.
Holy crap, this is probably the best-looking catalog title I've yet to see on 4K UHD. Totally revelatory viewing experience, completely flipped my perception of the movie. I am now 'Streets of Fire'-pilled. Walter Hill's lost masterpiece of the Eighties.
Very sad that Gray has disowned the movie because of the massive studio interference; it always hurts to see artists' visions get twisted by their corporate overlords
Makes me feel conflicted, as I believe the movie is an absolute masterpiece
I'd love to see his director's cut
#indianajones
It’s been 18 years since the premiere of *Kingdom of the Crystal Skull*. It’s no secret that everyone, from the screenwriter to the producers, expressed their disappointment at some point… but the truth is that they all worked hard then to deliver a great film.
Eric performing "Cocaine" from his show at @PalauSantJordi in Barcelona earlier this month.
Eric's US tour kicks off this September, tickets are available for purchase at the link below.
https://t.co/5DZS6ZoIxy