6. Russians Make Good Nazis (this needs context and another T-shirt)
In my
recent article about obscure films, I talked about how Nazis have become a staple of movie villainy, specifically in relation to
The Boys from Brazil. They can be truly intimidating and life-threatening, as in
Schindlers List or
The Pianist, or they can be used as pantomime cannon fodder, as is the case with
Indiana Jones. But since
Crystal Skull is set in the 1950s, when the only Nazis still around were (supposedly) hiding out in South America, we have to turn to the Russians as our pantomime bad guys. Ill talk about Cate Blanchetts performance a little later, but on a basic level the Russians do exactly what the Nazis did in
Raiders and
Last Crusade: provide a easily identifiable series of antagonists, with very different means and aims to our heroes, and who are large enough in number to sacrifice a lot of them in action scenes designed to make our heroes look brave. And whereas many of the actors in the original trilogy were just pretending to be German (Ron Lacey, for instance), Spielberg actually hired Russian extras to play the majority of the soldiers.
Indiana Jones has never been about historical accuracy, but thats a nice little touch.