In the wake of ‘Dial of Destiny,’ fans revisit ‘Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ ending with renewed appreciation

Now that Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny has released to lukewarm reactions, people online are predictably claiming another movie in the franchise that originally left people disappointed is actually much better than this new entry — at least in some respects.

In this case, it’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which drew much ire from fans upon release in 2008 for its green-screened heroics, limp villains, and alien-bating MacGuffin. Now, however, the fourth film is looking much better to folks who thought Dial of Destiny made Dr. Jones more miserable than necessary:

A few Twitter users are in agreeance:

There is some credence to the criticism that, in order to bring back beloved franchise characters decades later, writers essentially have to undo their well-earned happy endings to come up with a new story. This is true of Star Wars, and it’s true of Indiana Jones.

However, people seem to be overlooking that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull already bulldozed over the perfect (and perfectly happy) ending of 1989’s trilogy-capper Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. That’s one of the chief reasons people disliked Crystal Skull when it came out. Also, for our money, Crystal Skull is definitely inferior to Dial of Destiny, once you get past the latter’s uncanny valley nonsense in the opening sequence.

Dial presents a lost, emotionally hollow Indy because it actually has some character work for Harrison Ford to do this time around. This isn’t true for Crystal Skull, which simply herds our hero from point A to point B with very few emotional stakes except to protect the people in his party. Dial is about how someone may wish to escape into history when things in their real life haven’t turned out the way they hoped. Crystal Skull is about, uh, giving something back to aliens so they don’t fry your brain.

Neither sequel is essential, as Indiana Jones should have always been a trilogy. Let’s resist the temptation to act as if Crystal Skull is an acceptable epilogue where Dial isn’t.