Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Harrison Ford was adamant that he got to wield Indiana's famous whip. Paramount executives wanted the weapon to be computer generated because of new movie safety rules, but Ford branded the rule "ridiculous."

In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Henry Jones drank from the cup of Christ, which was reported to give eternal life. In this movie he is said to have died. This is because he passed the seal on the floor where the grail was located. Once you cross the seal, you are no longer immortal.

The movie begins with the Lucasfilm logo, followed by the 1954 Paramount "VistaVision" logo (with the text "PARAMOUNT" instead of "A PARAMOUNT PICTURE" and "A Viacom Company" instead of "A Gulf+Western Company" below "PARAMOUNT"). Gulf+Western became Paramount Communications in 1989, then merged with Viacom in 1994. The Paramount logo then dissolves into a gopher mound. (The static version of the current Paramount logo is seen at the end of the movie.)

For those interested in the most arcane aspects of viewing this film, or simply skipped the theatrical and DVD releases, there is a detailed discussion of the differences between the original showing, and the broadcast premier on NBC TV, which may be found on movie-censorship.com. To summarize these differences, they mostly consist of differences in the aspect ratio of the film, a small amount of zooming the screen in order to tone down the most violent scenes, the dubbing in of less offensive language for a couple of 'four-letter' words, and, of course, the usual practice of broadcast television to de-emphasize the end credits in the name of advertising another program.

Featured in Siskel & Ebert: Made of Honor/Son of Rambow/Then She Found Me/Iron Man/Redbelt/Standard Operating Procedure (2008)