I recently purchased the latest Indiana Jones DVD. As expected it contains a couple of documentaries about the making of the movie containing interviews with the cast and crew.

In watching the interviews I spotted two red flags that indicate where the cancer began to eat away at this movies chances to reach its potential.

1. George Lucas said that he wanted to change the genre from the 1930’s serials to the 1950’s alien sci-fi’s. He thought that this would be a nice parallel since the originals took place in the 30’s and this one takes place in the 50’s.

Perhaps the next movie can be a 1960’s musical a la Mary Poppins. This would be the perfect parallel since it will take place in the 1960’s.

2. Stephen Spielberg said that he didn’t want to do anything new with this film as it should be a blood relative of the original trilogy. He just wanted to make a nice movie for the fans to relive the originals.

This apparently flies in the face of what George Lucas was trying to do with the genre switch (and the friction was evident in the interviews), but more importantly it makes it sound like Spielberg handcuffed himself going into the flick. The thing that made the originals great were that they captivated the imagination of the viewer, and this is due, in large part, to the creative genius of Stephen Spielberg. So if he goes into the movie with the mindset that he doesn’t want to do anything new, he is necessarily leaving the creative genius that made the first films great in the storage locker.