I first need to say I LOVE Indy, when I was a kid, Harrison Ford/Indiana Jones was my hero, realy, he still is, but man, aside from TOD, this was my least favorite film from the Indy series. The alien stuff I proboly could of lived with, but the fact that the "beings" left at the end, and that the skeletons became a "being", that was bad. It just went to the next level, which is a bad thing. That, and the not-so-classic Indy getting a fridge after a nuclear explosion. That also was pooly played out. I felt the action never stopped, and although they had a great plot, it just felt like it went on and on with action. There was absoutly no rest. Fight Russians, escape. Fight crazy skeleton warriors. Fight Russians, escape. Get trapped in sand. Fight Russians. Escape, End. I don't like Lucas in the first place, and now I even like him less. Me thinks he needs to retire.....SOON.
Also, MUTT swinging with the monkeys? Come on....Even Disney's Tarzan is saying "come on". I wish they would of left that out. Also, after a while, don't ya think we got all the Marcus Brody hints? I would of rather of just seen the painting of him, and left it at that. In the Area 51 hangar, I totaly expected to see the Ark. And then *poof* there it is. Evrything I expected to see I did, and the "loose ends" where sorta tied up. I left thinking of some old sweaty fan boy writing a fan-fic at his mom's house, wanting to incoperate evrything Indy and 50's into a movie.
There where only like 15 people in the movie today when I whatched it, so it was realy like a private veiwing. Proboly one of my best theater experiences in a long while. Over all, it was Indy, and I realy like Indy. I had known most of the plot points, but not exactly how they would come into play, or be used, but I knew what was coming either way, just not in what order,etc. Its not going to stop me from liking, err, well, loving Indy, I just won't include this in MY Indy, sorta like how the Prequels and EU don't have anything to do with MY SW.
I've known about the skulls for a long time, I've even studied them at a couple points in time, and to the american public, I can honestly say proboly 90% of them are going to leave the theater wondering what kind of species or being the real-world skulls are based on.