The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: Why It's Spielberg's 'Weakest'

The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is considered by most fans to be the worst Indiana Jones movie, and based on comments from former Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy, we now know why it turned out the way it did.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, directed by Steven Spielberg with a story worked on by Star Wars creator George Lucas, sees Harrison Ford reprise his role as the iconic adventuring archeologist in a search for a telepathic crystal skull located in Peru in 1957. Helped by Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), and their son, Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf), Jones eventually witnesses otherworldly beings leave our dimension in what very much looks like a flying saucer, giving the impression it was about aliens all along.

In a feature on Spielberg and his movies by Vulture (paywall), Kennedy and Lucas discuss the difficulties they and others faced making the movie. First up, cinematographer Janusz Kamiński admitted he failed to recreate the look of the previous Indiana Jones movies established by Douglas Slocombe, calling The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull "by far was the hardest movie I’ve ever done in my life."

Kennedy said The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a tough production not just for Kamiński, but for Spielberg and Ford, who she said were "struggling" with it because they didn’t want to do a "Raiders movie that involved aliens," and "kind of got into a fight" with George Lucas about it.