Column

Once upon a time, many years ago, my friend and I drew a moustache over our adolescent upper lip and sauntered into the neighbourhood theatre to watch an “Adults Only” film. No, not South Indian semi-porn! But an action adventure blockbuster where an archeologist survives booby traps, snakes, spiders, sword – wielding Arab assassins and nasty Nazis in his quest for the Ark of the Covenant.

Raiders of the Lost Ark changed my life – along with my perception of cinema – as it dazzled me with its fantastic blend of style and substance.It’s my all-time favourite film, ahead of every other masterpiece and classic ever made. Two sequels and 19 years later, I was still thirsting for another swashbuckling adventure of Dr Indiana Jones. But it never occurred to me that the feisty fella can survive every danger in this world except the passage of time!

That brings us to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, a film weighed down by the expectations of an entire generation, clones ranging from Romancing the Stone to The Mummy that imitated but never equaled the Indy trilogy, and an incomprehensible story about a skull that suspiciously looks like it belongs to ET. The bottomline – I was hugely disappointed!

These are days when Spiderman and Superman tackle complex issues in their personal lives while saving the world. I wish Steven Spielberg and George Lucas had done the same with the ageing archeologist. I mean, it would have been interesting to see Indiana Jones suffering an asthma attack while blowing the dust off a prehistoric artefact at an archeological site.

I wonder why Spielberg never thought of giving Indy a popular movie disease like Alzheimer’s! Imagine opening the film with the archeologist finding himself in the South American jungles and not remembering why or how – and ending up asking for directions from the same savage tribals from whom he was running away a moment ago!
And why was it so difficult for George Lucas to come up with a storyline where Indiana Jones discovers that it’s not just the Nazis and Russians who want him dead? The clue is a wedding ring! And the search leads him to all his ex-wives and the many one-night stands he’d had at excavation sites around the world!

Well, until Lucas and Spielberg come up with Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Hearing Aid, I will cherish the original trilogy!