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The first 30 minutes of the movie were absolutely fine. It goes downwards as soon as they leave for South America.

Quest over! I think another weakness of so many sidekicks is that it prevents any one supporting character from really getting their due. You could have a movie whether the central dynamic is: - Indy and his shifty, British WWII pal - Indy and Marion reunited (the Darabont draft) - Indy and his old mentor turned Ben Gunn - Indy and the greaser kid whose mom's been kidnapped But instead of doing one or two of those and giving them enough attention, it does all of them poorly. Ray Winstone is given nothing substantial to after his treacherous turn in the prologue; Marion is given nothing substantial to do after a fun reveal (one dependent on shrouding her identity in a contrived, pointless way); Mutt stops being interesting once the court-mandated reveal that he's Indy's son occurs; John Hurt is just used as a device that turn problems Indy should be solving himself into foregone conclusions. In my opinion, it was a huge waste not to make Indy himself a gradual victim of the skull's power -- Nur-Ab-Sal style -- as it might have created some sense of jeopardy, or, say, a third act motor of any kind, both of which the movie lack. It's utterly baffling.

Another big problem I had with it was the sheer size of the ensemble. Having Indy on his own or at least with just one sidekick, makes everything feel much more dangerous. But if a group of four can make it through all the perils and traps, it probably wasn't too dangerous. And what the hell was the purpose of that crazy jungle cutter vehicle? Judging by Raiders' desert chase or Crusade's tank sequence, this thing would have been the perfect main element for an action sequence. Like Indy fighting bad guys on top of it, throwing them into the blades?

I was just going to suggest if you had time if you could see about making poster-quality work of those three concept art pieces. With them being sold off to lucky bidders years ago, I wondered if you could possibly give them a pass. And you did, and they are lovely! Thank you so much. I also just got time to read the nice article of you in Retro Gamer. Well deserved recognition. We can't thank you enough.