I used to work at a job where I had to watch cable TV all day. (It sounds more fun than it was.) One of the networks I had to watch would often replay the same movies over and over again. At that time I was studying screenwriting and wanted to write movies myself, so it was instructive to watch a single movie multiple times to deconstruct it and figure out what the filmmakers did right or wrong, how and why. I tend to avoid rewatching movies unless it’s one of my absolute favorites, and even then, only years later when I don’t remember it too well. But for this job, I wound up seeing the same movie multiple times in a single day, or two days in a row, or several times over the course of a week/month/year. I saw both good movies and bad movies this way—and some movies that I thought were good when I first saw them, but by the fifth or tenth time realized it wasn’t very good in the first place. One movie (or group of movies) that I repeatedly watched at my job was the Indiana Jones franchise. 

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) was always one of my favorite movies. Seeing it as a kid¹ made me want to be an explorer/adventurer/archeologist.² The amazing thing about Raiders is that no matter how many times I saw it at work (well into the double digits), I still loved it. It just kept getting better (or remained as great). I never got sick of re-watching the movie, which is extremely rare. Even a movie I genuinely liked, for instance the James Bond film Casino Royale, became annoying after the 15th time.³ All the flaws I initially ignored became pronounced. That is how you know a movie is truly great—if after seeing it over a dozen times you still love it. This was exactly the case with Raiders of the Lost Ark.⁴ Some movies aren’t meant to be re-watched and overanalyzed, but great movies become greater the more times you watch them. Often I didn’t appreciate a great movie the first time I saw it, such as 2001 or Blade Runner, because I was too young at the time to fully understand it. Only after rewatching those movies years later did I recognize their genius. But Raiders of the Lost Ark was a rare great movie I instantly loved as a child and continue to love as an adult.⁵

The general consensus among both critics and fans is that the second Indiana Jones movie, Temple of Doom (1984), was not as good as the first. I agree, though Temple is still enjoyable and entertaining to watch. There are scenes and set-pieces⁶ as great as Raiders, but you wouldn’t really want to watch the entire movie as often. Certain scenes and characters become grating over time, such as Indy’s child sidekick Short Round and his female love interest Willie. They were annoying to some viewers the first time around, and only grow more so if you watch the film too many times in too short a timeframe. Those characters were the weakest links, though I do still enjoy Temple of Doom. Ironically, as a child I was turned off by the dark horror aspects of the movie, preferring the big action scenes and comedic moments with Short Round and Willie, but now I enjoy the darker horror elements while some of the action⁷ and comedy get on my nerves. 

Ultimately, Temple of Doom was good but not great. The third Indy film, The Last Crusade (1989) was generally seen as a return to form for the franchise. Some people even say it’s better than Raiders, thanks to the addition of Sean Connery as Indy’s father. Last Crusade returned to the formula of the original where Indy was battling Nazis while searching for a supernaturally powerful Biblical artifact. The result is a great movie that holds up upon multiple rewatches, but for me The Last Crusade is still a step below Raiders of the Lost Ark, an all-time masterpiece.

Then there is the fourth film, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). As a huge fan of the Indiana Jones trilogy, I had been highly anticipating this movie but was left disappointed after seeing it in the theater. I was frustrated that they went the “ancient aliens” route (though now I find those theories fascinating). It just didn’t seem like aliens belonged in an Indiana Jones movie. Not to mention all the other absurd scenes that have been repeatedly mocked and criticized, such as Mutt swinging on vines with monkeys, CGI prairie dogs, and the “nuke the fridge” moment that has since become synonymous with “jump the shark,” indicating when a formerly respected tv/movie franchise has gone too far into absurdity. Indy literally survives a nuclear bomb by hiding inside a refrigerator. 

Rewatching Kingdom of the Crystal Skull a dozen-plus times at work only reiterated how disappointing the movie was. I was let down the first time and became increasingly annoyed the more times I saw it. Often times while sitting bored at my job, to help pass the time I would think about ideas for my own stories to write. So it was while watching Kingdom of the Crystal Skull for the umpteenth time that I had the idea of what I would have done if I was writing an Indiana Jones movie. How could I have made it better? That’s when I was struck with the idea that eventually became “The Cult of Snake Island.”

I came up with the original idea, some scenes, and set-pieces about ten years ago and developed a brief one-page outline but never took it any further than that. In the back of my mind I dreamed that if I ever made it big as a screenwriter in Hollywood, I could pitch my idea for a new Indiana Jones movie to George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. When I left Los Angeles and shifted my focus from screenplays to novels, I figured that was the end of my Indiana Jones story.

Then came Time Zone Weird, my substack where I started doing a recurring series of “fake movie reviews.” So when the actual fifth Indiana Jones movie was announced to be released this summer, I decided to dig out my old notes and flesh out a full story for a “movie review from an alternate universe.” The final product is more like a treatment for a movie or a long recap. “The Cult of Snake Island” is what I would have done with Indiana Jones if LucasFilm hired me. Instead of the missteps from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull where they went the ancient aliens route, I returned to the formula of the first and third movies by making Nazis the main villains, with Aaron’s Rod (inside the stolen Ark of the Covenant) as the MacGuffin. But I also returned to the roots of the second movie by including Indian/Hindu mythology, a human sacrifice cult, and darker horror elements. Plus snakes. There’s always got to be snakes.

Like all good Indiana Jones stories, I included research from actual history (and some conspiracy theories). Many of the people and places from the original trilogy returned, such as Club Obi Wan, Short Round, Belloq, and the Ark of the Covenant. I also retained Shia LeBeouf’s character as Indy’s son. Even though Mutt wasn’t great in Indy4, I don’t think that was Shia’s fault. I’ve always liked him as an actor, and with a better role/script, he could have made a fine heir-apparent to Indiana Jones once Harrison Ford hung up his whip. They wrote Shia out of Indy5, but I included him in my Indy5. I have yet to see The Dial of Destiny, so I cannot say whether my potential version of the fifth Indiana Jones movie is better, but I had fun writing it (and storyboarding it with help from DALL-E).

Indiana Jones and the Cult of Snake Island: A Movie Review from the Multiverse

1. And the live show in Disney World. ↩︎
2. Until Jurassic Park made me want to be a paleontologist…until Independence Day made me want to be a fighter pilot…until Men In Black made me want to be an FBI agent…until Goldeneye made me want to be a spy…until The Matrix made me want to be a computer hacker…until I realized what I really wanted to do all along was write those movies. ↩︎
3. And a movie like Quantum of Solace that I didn’t like the first time, I came to absolutely loathe. ↩︎
4. Other movies from my job that held up after 10+ views: Adaptation, Blade Runner, Children of Men, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Fight Club, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Goodfellas, Groundhog Day, Little Miss Sunshine, The Matrix (#1 only), No Country for Old Men, The Prestige, The Silence of the Lambs, Starship Troopers, Terminator 2, and Total Recall. (There are many more movies that could be on this list, but I didn’t control what movies the network aired while I was at work.) ↩︎
5. Jurassic Park also fits this description. ↩︎
6. Such as the room with the spiked walls closing in and the rope bridge over the river. ↩︎
7. Such as Indy surviving a fall from an airplane inside a raft and the miniature mine-cart chase. ↩︎