"Don't look, Marion! Keep your eyes shut!"

Well, at least the new movie sees the return of Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood. So, that's a huge plus. And she still looks fantastic.

But really, the more production stills I see from the fourth Indiana Jones movie, the more I feel like it's just going to be a slap-dash passing of the torch movie, where Indiana Jones becomes wacky comic relief in his own movie.

I consider Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark to be one of the most perfect movies ever made.

Indiana Jones has become a cinema archetype and even when he was forced to suffer the indignity of eating chilled monkey brains, he never played second fiddle in his own movie.

So, the fact that this movie is supposed to kick off a revitalization of the franchise, following the son of Indiana Jones...gah!

The idea of an old, befuddled Indy clinging to his son Fonzie on the back of a motor bike, taking a back seat to the action so younger audiences can fawn over their new slicked-hair teen heartthrob...I can't look. I don't want to look. People who look should have their faces melt off.

I know I sound like a curmudgeonly old man, shaking my fist and screaming at kids to get off my lawn. But, this is Indiana Jones we're talking about here.

Does every single thing I loved as a child have to be dug up like a relic from one of Indy's archaeological digs? Does every fond memory, every scrap of nostalgia, every shred of something good have to be recycled, rehashed, and regurgitated until there's nothing left but a cracked, hollow shell of what was once a pristine and beautiful treasure?

The fools. The bureaucratic fools.

sigh.

I'll still be there opening day. Spielberg and Lucas win again.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.


At least it's better than the original working title:

Indiana Jones and the Rape of the Lost Childhood.