Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Lore & Background

Lucas chose Soviet villains and psychic-powered aliens after learning that Stalin had been interested in psychic warfare. Spalko believes the skull's power can be used to project Soviet propaganda into the minds of Americans.

Reader's Guide

In 1957, Soviet agents led by Irina Spalko kidnap Jones and his partner George "Mac" McHale and use him to find a mummified alien from the Roswell incident in Hangar 51 in Nevada. Double-crossed by Mac, Jones escapes into a model town at the Nevada Test Site minutes before an atomic test and survives the blast in a lead-lined refrigerator. Placed on leave by Marshall College, he is approached by the greaser Mutt Williams, who tells him that Harold "Ox" Oxley found a crystal skull in Peru in search of the city of Akator.

In Peru they follow Ox's carvings to the grave of Francisco de Orellana and its elongated crystal skull, are captured by the Soviets and reunited with Mac, Spalko, an addled Ox and Mutt's mother, Marion Ravenwood, who reveals that Mutt is Indy's son. Escaping with the skull, they reach Akator, where it is revealed that the skull belonged to one of thirteen "interdimensional beings". Spalko returns it to its skeleton, the beings combine into a reanimated alien that floods her mind with knowledge and vaporizes her, a portal takes Mac, and the others escape as a flying saucer rises from the ruins. Back home, Jones becomes associate dean at Marshall College and marries Marion.

Did You Know?

• Lucas and Spielberg acknowledged that the 1950s setting could not ignore the Cold War, and the Soviets were more plausible villains.
• Stan Winston helped supervise the special effects for the interdimensional beings.
• Mutt Williams is revealed to be the son of Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood, tying the story directly to the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
• The real crystal skulls the film's title evokes are quartz carvings claimed to be pre-Columbian; studies concluded they were made in 19th-century Germany.