Enid and I went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull tonight and took Ora 5. I wasn’t planning on taking Ora, but he has been begging to go and I remember doing the same to my mom and dad when Temple of Doom came out. They gave in to my begging/whining, so nostalgia took hold and forced me to take Ora.

The movie was fun, but Last Crusade is still my favorite. I’ve seen a couple of comments on why Temple of Doom was not as big a hit as Raiders of the Lost Ark and it got me to thinking. Lucas says that fans did not like Temple because it was darker. IGN’s reviewer said it was “because the core of the story…has little or nothing to do with the historical, intellectual or emotional journey of Henry Jones Jr.” I disagree with both these assessments.

Indiana Jones movies are about Indy’s journey from non-believer to converted. In each movie Indy is presented with an historical item that has a belief system attached to it: the Ark is Jewish, the Sankara stones are Hindu, the Holy Grail is Christian. (I won’t spoil the 4th movie, but it also has a belief system.) He does not believe in any of these belief systems at the beginning of each movie. In fact in all 4 movies he (or another character) refers to them as bedtime stories or fairy tales. During the course of the movies, Indy witnesses events that cause him to believe that the belief system is true.

The reason that Radiers and Last Crusade are the most popular is because as a Judeo-Christian-based culture, the belief systems presented in those 2 movies are most closely aligned to our own belief systems and therefore easier to accept. Temple and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull are further from the beliefs of our own culture and therefore it is more difficult to join Indy on his journey toward belief.