Filmmaker George Lucas recently admitted in a video clip by MTV
News that he has been obsessed with these antique crystal skulls
ever since he began doing research for The Young Indiana Jones
Chronicles TV-series that premiered in 1992. Here follows an
excerpt from the MTV News article:
"We did The Young Indiana Jones
Chronicles, and in the process of that, one of the scripts
we were working on was about a crystal skull. I became fascinated
with it there," Lucas revealed Wednesday on the red
carpet for the American Film Institute's 40th anniversary at the
ArcLight. "We've been through lots
of different versions the last 14 years, with five different writers.
There's just a lot of aspects that seem to fit into our kind of
a movie."
"I think this is actually better,
it's up there with the Ark of the Covenant," he declared
of the fourth film's "McGuffin" (a term coined by Alfred
Hitchcock to describe an object which drives a film's plot). "Sankara
Stones and the Holy Grail were a little tough, but I think this
time we've really got a great one."
Lucas emphasized that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is
shaping up to be the best Indy flick since the first one, even
going so far as to call Skulls tonally most like Raiders.
Believers of the crystal skulls attribute all sorts of abilities
to them; ranging from the skulls being psychic amplifiers to tools
of death to repositories of ancient knowledge. MTV
News of course asked George Lucas which theory will be in the
fourth Indy film. Here is one of MTV's two
video clips with George Lucas:
Extra trivia: 'DisneySea' at Tokyo, Japan, already
has an Indiana Jones roller coaster ride named Temple
of the Crystal Skull! This roller coaster opened to the public
on September 4th, 2001. More info on this crystal skull attraction
can be found here.
