Indiana Jones and your favorite movie

I read a blog post, over on tor.com, about which is the best Indiana Jones movie.

I’m not going to get into that here because I know which one is the best so I don’t really need to discuss it.  What I want to talk about is “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”.  I know that a lot of people don’t want to talk about that movie, but that’s the point.

There are many complaints about that movie but not all of them are deserved.  It’s not a perfect movie; it certainly has its flaws.  But I think a lot of people missed some things about that movie.

Let’s take one complaint that I have seen several times: the refrigerator scene.  I’m not going to worry about spoilers since the movie has been out for years.  In this scene Indy survives a nuclear explosion by taking refuge inside a lead-lined refrigerator.  Yes, it’s silly.  It’s supposed to be.

The movie was deliberately set the same number of movie years after the last movie as had elapsed in real life.  You can see that it’s made to look like a movie from that time period.  “Raiders of the Lost Ark” is largely in the style of adventure movies of the ‘30s – not a perfect replica, but inspired by them.  In the same way Crystal Skull is made in the style of movies from the ‘50s.

So, yeah, the bad guys are Russian and there are aliens and psychic powers and even a lead-lined refrigerator.  Not everything was serious.  You did notice them drive by the Atomic Café in the beginning, right?  It was 1950s atom bomb levity, just like Mickey Rooney surviving by eating the right peanut butter.

We also got a reintroduction to an older Indiana Jones with some more history, a near miss at being reunited with the Ark of the Covenant and the actual return of Marion.  I’m not up on the series but I think there was also a nod to the Young Indiana Jones TV series in there.  It had been a long time since the last story and they did a decent job of getting things back up to speed and also giving us some idea of what had happened in those intervening years. 

Now they just need to do it again and go out on a high note.

Yes, I want another Indiana Jones movie.  I have no idea what he should be going after this time.  What sort of adventure movie was popular in the early ‘60s?