This is the 6th installment of a 5,257 part series on the Spew: ‘In Defense of:’. This series is meant to defend the helpless, the meek, and the bullied in our pop culture.

When the fourth installment of the Indiana Jones series was announced to be released in 2008, it was met with great anticipation. I mean we all loved the first and third one, and even the second one had its moments. And we have been waiting since 1989 for a new adventure for Indy.

Then this Crystal Skull thing came out and laid a big turd in front of all of us.

Or did it??????

Yeah, unfortunately it did. It is clearly the worst of the tetrad of films in the series.

But it wasn’t THAT bad.

Some of the criticisms I hear about it are sort of unfair. Granted, there are plenty of things to squawk about in this film. Shia LeBeouf’s off-putting performance as Indiana Jones’s kid, the fact that there was an Indiana Jones’s son, the entire journey to South America (I had no idea where they where relative to other landmarks, like when they fell down that waterfall……and were the hell did those ants come from?), and the bad guys were simply….bad (I hate to see Galadriel with a Russian accent).

But again, it wasn’t THAT bad.

One of the biggest criticisms is the fact there were aliens in it. Sort of a ‘jumping the shark’ argument. But I say ‘WHOA’ to that. I mean let’s look a bit closer at Raiders of the Lost Ark. The Ark of the Covenant, when opened, released ghosts that melted the faces of onlookers. Remember that part in the Bible where Moses said ‘don’t open ye Ark of thy Covenant or else thee shalt not haveth a face after thine eyes lay upon thee ghosts of…’ whatever….it’s not in there!!! Just trust me on that. And when the Jones’s boys found the Holy Grail, where in the world does it say that when drinking out of the wrong chalice, you age extremely poorly? Of course no where. And I won’t even get into the ‘grabbing of the heart’ in Temple of Doom. Why are all of those acceptable yet aliens is soooooo out there?

Another critique is that when Indy is saved by being inside a refrigerator after an atomic blast. Yeah, that was dumb, but again not any more dumb than some of the previous shenanigans Spielberg introduced in the previous films (See ‘melting faces’ and ‘grabbing heart through chest’). Having a bit of whimsy and fun is all part of the Indiana Jones experience, so some of these outlandish things that were torn apart is a bit unfair.

But the movie did sort of suck.

I know, I know, I am supposed to defend the movie in this post, and I don’t think I am doing a very good job of this. But are you expecting me to die on that hill? The hill that says ‘Crystal Skull is just as good as the other 3’? No way! Give me some credit here.

I just don’t think this film ruins the entire Indiana Jones series, of should be completely ignored; defining Indiana Jones as a trilogy and NOT a quadrilogy. Sure, it was not as good, but we had the same director, the same lead actor, the lead heroine from Raiders, and overall the adventure is as ridiculous and fantaciful as any of the other installments.

I mean, it wasn’t THAT bad, was it?