George Lucas: Indy 4 is "Just a Movie"

George Lucas, having learned from the high-expectations of his Star Wars prequel trilogy, has accepted a realistic, even defeatist, attitude toward the coming critical and fan reaction to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. He told USAToday:

When you do a movie like this, a sequel that's very, very anticipated, people anticipate ultimately that it's going to be the Second Coming. And it's not. It's just a movie. Just like the other movies. You probably have fond memories of the other movies. But if you went back and looked at them, they might not hold up the same way your memory holds up.

When people approach the new (Indiana Jones), much like they did with Phantom Menace, they have a tendency to be a little harder on it. You're not going to get a lot of accolades doing a movie like this. All you can do is lose.

Geez, hang in there, George Lucas. Life is still worth living. After all, box office analysts are expecting it to make well over double its $125 million budget.

We came back to do (Indy) because we wanted to have fun. It's not going to make much money for us in the end. We all have some money. … It would make a lot of money if you weren't rich. But we're not doing it for the money.

It's astonishing just how jaded he can be about his own wealth. It would also be nice if he just admitted that he did a sub-par job on the Star Wars prequels and stopped blaming fans for being disappointed. If Indy 4 is well-done and entertaining, it will be accepted. If it isn't, it will not be the fault of the audience.