Indiana Jones 5: 7 Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull Mistakes It Must Avoid

by Danny Meegan

1. Too Much CGI

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull CGI
Paramount

At best, computer generated effects can finely complement a practical stunt or build upon some great makeup and production design. At worst, they can completely remove the audience from a scene and break the suspension of disbelief that's vital to the success of an adventure movie. Sadly, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was firmly planted in the latter camp, and it was a dumb move for a franchise that fared so well back in the 80s, when CGI wasn€™t really a thing.

From ants and monkeys to prairie dogs and cartoony chase sequences, the special effects were poor across the board. Like the recent Hobbit trilogy, which succumbed to the special effects boom when the preceding Lord of the Rings series was a brilliant display of practical effects, Indiana Jones ditched a lot of what made the franchise special with Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Nowadays, the very best effects are the ones you don€™t notice - there€™s a reason Ex Machina won the Oscar over the more visual-heavy Star Wars, and there€™s a reason movies like The Revenant, Mad Max: Fury Road and The Martian were nominated alongside it. Hopefully, Indy 5 learns from this mistake and brings back a hefty dose of that practical sheen.

What do you want to see in Indiana Jones 5? What can that movie learn from previous entries in the series? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.