Like many fanboys, I was a bit disappointed with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Sure, it was fun to see Harrison Ford back in action, a treat to see Bowie’s own Karen Allen again, and the stunts and effects were predictably swell. But as my pal Bill O’Leary observed, the film had no heart. The culprit was a convoluted mess of a script.

So, hoping to clear the pallet, I picked up a copy of Indiana Jones and the Philosopher’s Stone, a 1995 Lucas Books tie-in written (on instructions from Mr. Lucas, of course) by Max McCoy. The prologue finds Dr. Jones sweating in British Honduras of 1933, searching through the rain forest for the Lost City of Cozán. By page 12, he’s in an underground Sacred Well, surrounded by century-old skeletons and watching a shaft of light reveal his prey:

“Still holding his revolver, he ducked, letting the light pass over him, illuminating a skull of pure crystal set in an altar in a niche that would otherwise have remained hidden in shadows.”

Did you catch that? Yes, Indy was hunting a crystal skull. A skull made of crystal. With magical powers. And of course it is instantly stolen by a Nazi, who puts the item in a cloth sack and escapes into future chapters, which I have yet to read.

Much has been made of George Lucas‘ demand that the fourth Raiders film have a particular “MacGuffin,” which we now know was the crystal skull. But it was exactly that element that doomed the movie with incoherent sci-fi/metaphysical gibberish.

I don’t know if Lucas stuck his MacGuffin here out of frustration over the lengthy process of creating the fourth film, but the 1995 book proved prophetic. The prologue ends with Indy asking his Alfred Molina-esque sidekick Barnabé, “Tell me truly. What is the curse of the Crystal Skull?”

“Don’t you know, boss?” Barnabé asked. “You will kill what you love.”

True. First, those midi-chlorians ruined Star Wars, Now, Lucas has mucked up Indiana Jones.

It must also be noted that both Crystal Skull and Philosopher’s Stone share more than a passing resemblance to the 1917 Tom Swift book, Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders. That story finds the boy inventor traipsing through, why, Honduras, to the “lost city of Kurzon.” True, Tom is searching for a golden idol, not a crystal one, but this excerpt could easily work as a Raiders treatment:

Undoubtedly it was the chief temple, or place of worship, of the long-dead race which the explorers now entered. It was a building beautiful in its barbaric style, and yet simple. There were massive walls, and a great inner court, at the end of which seemed to be some sort of altar. And then, as they lighted fresh torches, and pressed forward with them and their electric lights, they saw that which caused a cry of satisfaction to burst from all of them.

“The idol of gold!”

Yes, there it squatted, an ugly, misshapen, figure, a cross between a toad and a gila monster, half man, half beast, with big red eyes — rubies probably — that gleamed in the repulsive golden face. And the whole figure, weighing many pounds, seemed to be of solid gold!

Eagerly the others followed Professor Bumper up the altar steps to the very throne of the golden idol. The scientist touched it, tried to raise it and make sure of its solidity and material.

“This is it!” he cried. “It is the idol of gold! I have found — We have found it, for it belongs to all of us!”

I’m hoping Indiana Jones and the Philosopher’s Stone turns out better than the film. I still wanna believe in Indy—and in the Force. But I’m starting to think that perhaps Howard the Duck was no accident.

UPDATE: I heard from author Max McCoy, who says that the crystal skull idea was his alone, as was the plot. “I wasn’t writing to any script or idea that was given to me — part of the deal is that I would be able to come up with my own adventures,” he e-mails. “I had also been long fascinated by crystal skulls, especially the Mitchell-Hedges skull.” Consider us now also fascinated by crystal skulls. Woah.

McCoy is a fan of the “dark and brooding Indy” of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and so set his novels in the years prior that 1936 adventure. “I have long believed that an Indy adventure would not work after World War II. Indy belongs to the 1930s,” he says. I agree. Similarly, the only way to make a proper James Bond movie today is as a period piece. Which the French did to brilliant effect with OSS 117: Cairo—Nest of Spies. And here’s a great mashup retrofitting Raiders as a ’30s serial.

So apologies to Mr. McCoy for impugning his originality. I assumed that he was like many contract writers, especially those who cranked out Tom Swift and Hardy Boy books for the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Here’s an MP3 recording of the NPR story I did on the Hardys and ol’ man Stratemeyer.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 29th, 2008 at 2:28 am and is filed under Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.