Merrick here...
I know INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL is still a sore point for many Geeks / Indy fans, so I thought the following excerpts from Empire's continuing discussion with Steven Spielberg might conceivably be of interest.
I long ago said my peace about this film, so I submit the following without comment.
Per Mr. Spielberg:
"...I sympathise with people who didn't like the MacGuffin because I never liked the MacGuffin. George and I had big arguments about the MacGuffin. I didn't want these things to be either aliens or inter-dimensional beings. But I am loyal to my best friend. When he writes a story he believes in - even if I don't believe in it - I'm going to shoot the movie the way George envisaged it. I'll add my own touches, I'll bring my own cast in, I'll shoot the way I want to shoot it, but I will always defer to George as the storyteller of the Indy series. I will never fight him on that."
[EDIT]
"What people really jumped at was Indy climbing into a refrigerator and getting blown into the sky by an atom-bomb blast. Blame me. Don't blame George. That was my silly idea. People stopped saying "jump the shark". They now say, "nuked the fridge". I'm proud of that. I'm glad I was able to bring that into popular culture."
There's much more in the article, including brief allusions to INDY 5 and JURASSIC PARK 4 ("We have a better story for four than we had for three..."). CHECK IT OUT!
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