Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the 17th episode in Screen Junkies comedy series Honest Trailers. It was written by Andy Signore, Brett Weiner, Dan Perrault and Russell Eida. It was narrated by Jon Bailey as Epic Voice Guy. It parodies the 2008 action adventure sequel film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It was published on January 22, 2013. It is 3 minutes and 14 seconds long. It has been viewed over 7.2 million times.
Watch Honest Trailers - Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on YouTube
"From one of the greatest adventure franchises of all time comes a new installment that will make you wish you were watching The Mummy." ~ Honest Trailers - Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Script[]
He discovered the Lost Ark, he conquered a temple of doom, he defeated an army of evil, and now...he's looking at a gopher.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
From one of the greatest adventure franchises of all time comes a new installment that will make you wish you were watching The Mummy. Team up with Indiana Jones and the kid from Transformers (Shia LaBeouf) to track down the skull of a stupid alien that should never have been in this movie in the first place.
Witness Spielberg and Lucas take a giant, steaming dump on their own legacy by replacing scary Nazis with scary ants, mountains with molehills, and Karen Allen with a far less attractive Karen Allen. Be amazed that the director who built a franchise on amazing practical effects would approve terrible CGI, like these fake fighting monkeys (shows several CGI monkeys attacking Mutt in a jeep); this alien; this jungle sword fight (shows Mutt and Spalko sword-fighting on moving jeeps); this lumberjack car; not one, but three scenes with gophers; sets that look worse than Legends of the Hidden Temple; and this shot (shows Mutt swinging on CGI vines as several CGI monkeys swing around him). Geez, is this the same guy that made Jurassic Park fifteen years ago?
Prepare to feel old as you witness your favorite childhood hero be constantly reminded that he's now a senior citizen...
Stanforth: We seem to have reached the age where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away.
Mutt: Y'know, for an old man, you ain't bad in a fight...You're one crazy old man!...Hey, old man!...Get on, Gramps!...What are you, like, eighty?
...and discover the truth: that Lucas and Spielberg have become sappy old geezers.
Indiana Jones: Their treasure wasn't gold; it was knowledge. Knowledge was their treasure.
A film so lazy, it reuses the same over-the-top sound effect (shows clips of characters getting punched while the same sound is made); so boring, this backstory sounds more interesting...
Indiana Jones: He was MI6 when I was in O.S.S. We did twenty, thirty missions together in Europe and the Pacific.
...so disappointing, its best moments are the references to the previous movies (shows clips comparing Crystal Skull with the previous Indiana Jones films); and so cartoonish, it shows that a refrigerator will protect you from a nuclear bomb. (shows Indiana Jones getting inside a refrigerator, which goes flying when a nuclear bomb explodes, and then falling out of the fridge when it lands on its side; the narrator sighs) Are you f*cking kidding me?
Starring Harrison Bored (Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones), Gandalf (John Hurt as Harold Oxley), S**t the Bed (Shia LaBeouf as Mutt Williams), Vladimir Putin (Igor Jijikine as Antonin Dovchenko), Cat Blanket (Cate Blanchett as Irina Spalko), E.T. (alien), and Lucky to Be Here (Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood).
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Ughhh, five years later, and I still want a refund.
Trivia[]
- The Indiana Jones series has been mentioned in numerous other Honest Trailers, most notably the Honest Trailer for The Mummy (1999), which includes a side-by-side comparison of similar concepts and characters from both films.
- Screen Junkies would later make an Honest Trailer for the first three Indiana Jones movies.
- Screen Junkies have also produced Honest Trailers for several other Steven Spielberg films including Jaws, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Hook and Ready Player One.
- Screen Junkies have also made Honest Trailers for several other modern sequels to classic franchises, including Prometheus, Alien: Covenant, Halloween (2018), Independence Day: Resurgence, Ghostbusters (2016), Terminator Genisys, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Predator and many, many more. See list of Honest Trailers for more.
- An Honest Trailer Commentary for this episode was recorded and was available on the Screen Junkies Plus until the website/app was discontinued. Screen Junkies don't currently have any way of releasing the video.
Reception[]
Honest Trailers - Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has an 97.7% approval rating from YouTube viewers. Geek Tyrant wrote that the Honest Trailer was "extremely funny." io9 wrote that the Honest Trailer was "absolutely brutal" and "so dead on it kind of makes you cringe." The Mary Sue wrote that the Honest Trailer re-opened old wounds and that Screen Junkies pointed out all the film's flaws every single flaw via "keen observations that lay down the snark in spades."
Production credits[]
Series Created & Directed by Andy Signore & Brett Weiner
Executive Producer Mitch Rotter
Written by Andy Signore, Brett Weiner, Dan Perrault & Russell Eida
Edited by Max Dionne and Brett Weiner
Voiceover Narration by Jon Bailey
External links[]
- Honest trailer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is absolutely brutal - io9 article
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Honest Trailer Reminds Us How Bad It Really Was - The Mary Sue article
- An Honest Trailer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of The Crystal Skull - Flickering Myth
- Honest Trailer for INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL - Geek Tyrant article