Conveniently linked from starwars.com (!) is a ridiculous piece that originated on Film.com on how the Indiana Jones series can be "saved."
Naturally, its salvation can only come from a bunch of changes suggested by some random person on the internet. What are these changes? Reduce Ford's role to cameo status, fix up Shia LeBeouf with a chick, fix LeBeouf up with a dude (no, not THAT way), "scrap the mythology" (which the author really means is "no more sci-fi"), and make it darker and more cynical to please today's fanboys.
First of all, if you shove Harrison Ford into the corner, it ceases to be Indiana Jones. It's something else. I liked Mutt but a movie starring him would be a Mutt Williams movie. I think you either bring Ford back for one last outing or you go the route of the Young Indiana Jones series. Or you don't do it at all. It doesn't make any sense at all to advocate expanding Shia LeBeouf's role then say he's overexposed, so he needs current darlings like Rachel McAdams or John Krasinski to help balance him out.
Every Indiana Jones movie has its mythical McGuffin: the Ark of the Covenant, those funky stones, the Holy Grail, and the Crystal Skull. All of those items not only have real world archaeological value, they also have those eerie powers that doom those who mess with them. KOTCS isn't any different from the previous IJ flicks in this respect. KOTCS differs significantly in two ways: it doesn't take place in the 1930s and instead of supernaturalism, there are aliens instead. There's nothing you can do about the former since Ford can't fake being 20 years younger. As for the latter, so what? I'll never understand why people insist you have to strictly follow a formula to the letter every time or it's ur doing it wrong.
As for the last big on advocating Indy go dark and cynical, it has so many contradictory points, I'l have to quote it here:
The original films were silly, a bit campy in their simplistic views of good and evil, but that's what made them great in that time and that place. Things are different now. We're far too cynical as a nation to look upon Indiana Jones with the wide-eyed fervor and adoration that we once mustered. We've given up on ever getting to know our neighbors, and films like that are long departed from our national lexicon. Even James Bond has been forced to streamline and lose the campy factor in favor of a darker Bond. The new Bond is more in touch with our times and the modern mind, something that Crystal Skull failed at miserably. There is a way to reinvent without losing sight of the things that made Indiana Jones great, without destroying the joy and the thrilling adventure of it all, but Crystal Skull felt stuck. They've got to lose the CGI, get back to the basics, and make a film that can stand with the rest of them. Go dark, early and often, Temple of Doom or people's heads on fire (Raiders of the Lost Arc) style. It's the only way to make the light and grinning end worthwhile.
The sort of people who live on the internet ARE too cynical to look upon Indiana Jones with wide-eyed adoration. But they're not the only people in the world who go to the movies. If everyone is so cynical, why did Indy IV do so well? What about movies like Pirates of the Caribbean that was for the most part campy as all get-out? All people want is a good time at these kinds of movies. There's nothing wrong with that.
So Indiana Jones is too old -fashioned. Yet there's also the call to "lose the CGI" and "get back to the basics" (with no specifics). So does the author want an '80s throwback or what?
If there was anything I didn't like about KOTCS it was its anti-anti-Communism but I don't think it deserves the flames it gets from the usual quarters. If you ask me, it has everything to do with a knee-jerk anti-Lucas campaign waged over the past 10 years and nothing much more.
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