 |
 |
|
The Indiana Jones ‘Quadrilogy’: From God to Aliens By: Kevin Vaughan This summer saw the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the final – we can only hope! – instalment of Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones franchise. And with the DVD release this October, I’m sure there are more than a few Indy fans out there preparing an Indy marathon, a privilege not exclusive to LOTR and Star Wars devotees. But will they remain fans when they finish their marathon, or will their enthusiasm, like the ancient Greek Pheidippides, flop down and die? This latest instalment begs the question, for it forces fans to contend with a shift in genre, a shift from Action & Adventure to Sci-Fi, a shift that has seismic consequences for the franchise as a whole. The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has many of the elements that made the earlier movies so popular. It’s what Marcus Brodie would call, “rollicking good fun,” and features the return of Marion, Indy’s old love – and hate? – interest from Raiders. It also has its shortcomings, like a goofball Tarzan scene with monkeys, and a disgruntled youth on a motorcycle – yawn. Its most distinguishing feature is the introduction of aliens. Not to give it away, but Indy’s archaeological skills are put to use in tracking down mysterious crystal skulls of a rather cosmic origin. The focus on aliens is a departure from the earlier films. If one recalls, the objects of archaeological interest in each of the first three movies were religious, having to do respectively with the religions of Judaism, Hinduism, and Christianity. The mystery behind these films was not extraterrestrial intelligence, but religious belief. By moving from the religious to the extraterrestrial, Spielberg has made a radical shift in genre. The difference is obscured by the common flare for the fantastic shared by all four of the movies – lightning bolts shooting from the Ark or from alien skulls, what’s the difference? The difference is that one is human, the other is not. Religion, for all its myths and legends, zealots and fanatics, is a real part of human life. Even the most ardent atheist has to admit as much. Despite what he may think of the irrationality of religions and the harm they have wrought upon humanity, legions profess them and profess them as good. Belief in aliens, no matter how ardent the belief or conclusive the evidence, historically and demographically at least, has not been so much a part of human life as has religious belief. There is, of course, nothing wrong with choosing to make a movie about aliens over religion. Many of my favourite movies, some of them by Spielberg himself, are about travellers from outer space. But by choosing to do so for the fourth instalment of the Indiana Jones films, Spielberg has excluded any appeal to the religious as an explanation for the entire franchise. The viewer is invited to look back on the first three films with a kind of sci-fi hermeneutic of suspicion. Perhaps the Ark from Raiders, the Sacred Stones from The Temple of Doom, or the Chalice from The Last Crusade, were alien artefacts as in the fourth? But it doesn’t work in the other direction. Viewers are not allowed to watch the fourth in light of the first three. One can’t reasonably ask of the fourth movie whether it was religious, for it was about aliens, and in our cultural imagination gods may be aliens, but aliens may not be gods. Audiences are still free to pick and choose the Indy movies they like best, but, for better or for worse, Spielberg has restricted the meaning of the franchise as a whole. With the move away from religion, the place of Indiana Jones in our cultural pantheon is no longer clear. Prior to this latest instalment, he served as a metaphor for a possible harmony between two conflicting currents of human life: modern science and ancient religion. Indy was at the top of his field in the budding science of archaeology, the science posing the greatest threat to the traditions of most world religions. But it was in the practice of his science, not despite it, that he found respect for what lay beyond the confines of his own discipline, beyond his own way of life. Indy never converted to the religions he encountered, but he did make room for them. In this way he served as a cultural metaphor for the mutual harmony that can exist between science and religion, between the secular humanist and religious believer – a helpful alternative to the polarising options so prevalent today. Indy can no longer serve this function anymore, or at least not with the same gusto. For there will always be the nagging doubt that he, like the religions he encountered, was duped by a cosmic hoax. |