indy aliens

So... I'm a big Indiana Jones fan. Have been since I was a kid. I even bought a bull whip when my family was vacationing in Texas. Indiana Jones was the adventurous academic. He was smart, respected, intelligent, but had kind of a wild side and love for adventure that I resonated with. I watched our VHS copy of Raiders of the Lost Ark that we had taped off of TV one time until those little fuzzies would appear on the screen so often that we had to throw the tape away.

So, as you can imagine, when the new installment of the Indiana Jones series came out--The Legend of the Crystal Skull--I was there. In fact, my dad is a huge Indiana Jones fan, and so we went together this past Sunday afternoon for a matinée.

Now, I hadn't really read any of the reviews, nor did I talk to very many people who had went to see it. I went in, just expecting another good ol' fashioned Jones butt kicking of some communist or facist power.

What I found instead were various not-so-subtle political, philosophical, and even religious statements throughout the movie.

Here's the premise (and stop reading right now if you haven't seen the movie, and don't want it to be spoiled): the crystal skull is actually the skull of an alien--1 of 13 aliens, actually--who visited the earth's ancient civilizations, and passed on their knowledge and technological principles to the Mayans, Egyptians, Aztecs, etc.

Now, one might say that this whole alien thing shouldn't be a surprise; after all, the movie was produced by the same guy who brought us all of the Star Wars movies. But it's striking to me... not only because it is somewhat of a marked departure from the previous Indiana Jones movies, but also because of one of the last movies I saw in the theater, Expelled. Expelled is Ben Stein's mocumentary on how he believes that the proponents and/or associates of the intelligent design theory are being aggresively but secretively silenced by the scientific community at large. At the end of the mocumentary, Ben Stein is interviewing one of the leading atheist evolutionists, Richard Dawkins. When Stein presses Dawkins to come up with a theory of origin, Dawkins posits that some of his colleagues believe that aliens might have been the first cause of setting things in motion in our galaxy. Dawkins does not come right out and say that he believes that is the case, but he does seem to think that an alien theory of origin is at least plausible.

Aliens. Never have I thought of aliens in any way other than kind of a fun, imaginary thing to think about as I watch movies like Star Wars. Now I am beginning to wonder: is there some sort of philosophical or even religious aspect to a belief in extra terrestrials? Could it be tied to a Darwinistic evolutionary view? Was Lucas trying to make a statement in his movie that goes beyond the imaginary and into the philosophical or religious realm?

A couple of other parts of the movie move me to think that yes, he was. Now, we all know that movies are sensational--no way could a man or woman experience what he or she did in the movies and survive. But a good movie makes the sensationalism seem plausible--you watch it and end up thinking, "Wow, what are the odds of that actually happening?" It's Mythbusters material. By contrast, there are movies that take sensationalism way too far, causing you to immediately react or even vocalize, "No way could that ever happen." One of these such scenes in this movie was an extended scene where Indiana Jones' son Mutt (yep, as it turns out, he got Miriam knocked up somewhere in Raiders of the Lost Ark... maybe that part was in the Director's Cut DVD) gets hung up in some vines during a jeep chase through the South American jungle. He is immediately surrounded by monkeys. So, taking his cue from his evolutionary ancestors, Mutt climbs up a vine, and then swings his way, along with the monkeys, right back into the jeep chase, landing squarely on the noggin or the evil Russian driver. Seriously, you watch Mutt swing for like 2 minutes.

In another somewhat philosophically charged scene, as Indiana returns the skull by placing it atop the alien's skeleton, he sets in motion a process that reveals that the whole lost city is built on a flying saucer, which eventually destroys all of the treasure as it takes off for the inter-dimension. As this happens, the Russian lady who wants to use the power of the aliens for evil is destroyed, presumably because she was greedy and impure in her lust for knowledge... a theme that Lucas wove throughout his first three Indiana Jones movies. Indiana makes the comment that "For the aliens, knowledge was their treasure. " Of course, this prompts Mutt, the greaser dropout, to clean up his act and go back to school. Indiana Jones gets a promotion at his university, after getting fired due to pressure by the Feds because of his association with the Russians (oh yeah: Indiana Jones survives the atomic testing in Roswell in a lead-lined refrigerator that gets blasted to kingdom come while being chased by the Russians). The point: true knowledge reigns supreme over and against conservative pressure and ignorance, and has the power to change lives.

But what is the content of that knowledge? What are the propositions that are so transformational? I don't know that Lucas fully reveals that in his movie. But, he sure gives some pretty good hints.