Harrison Ford Reflects on Disappointments of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Nearly 20 years after Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Harrison Ford returned to the franchise for 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the highly anticipated reunion between him, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas. Despite that excitement and anticipation, the film didn’t fare quite as well with audiences or critics as previous entries into the franchise, but Ford himself recently reflected on how those critical of the film were basing those opinions on their expectations of the sequel as opposed to the adventure that he, Spielberg, and Lucas wanted to tell. Ford has returned to the franchise for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which hits theaters on June 30th.

When asked by The Hollywood Reporter about the critics who had harsh reactions to the film, Ford joked, “Where are they now?”

He continued, “No. I mean, [the critics] were harsh on it, but what are they doing now? I understand. But those were their rules — not [director Steven Spielberg’s and co-writer George Lucas’] rules. They were imposing their rules on what the movie should be. I don’t feel it’s necessary to address those issues. I think that everyone has a right to their opinion. The film was not as successful as we wanted it to be, perhaps. But it didn’t create an attitude or a behavior that carried over into this film.”

Despite the consensus being that it’s the worst film out of the four, Rotten Tomatoes calculates that 78% of reviews are still positive, making it a relative success, though with the previous three films having scores of 96%, 83%, and 88% positive, it’s still technically the lowest-scoring. The sequel also had a strong performance at the box office, taking in $790.7 million worldwide.

Heading into that film, the casting of Shia LaBeouf led many to speculate that the actor would be taking on the mantle of the figure going forward, only for that film’s conclusion to confirm Ford wasn’t handing over his fedora quite yet. While LaBeouf might not be returning for this film, director of the upcoming movie James Mangold previously confirmed to Entertainment Weekly that we would “find out what happened” to LaBeouf’s Mutt Williams in Dial of Destiny.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny hits theaters on June 30th.  

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