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• "I know the critics are going to hate it," he says. "They already hate it. So there's nothing we can do about that. They hate the idea that we're making another one. They've already made up their minds."

  Have we? Granted, we think Harrison might be too old. Sure, we're not certain how this will do without familiars like Marcus Brody and Sallah. Yes, we love to playa-hate on things. But deep down we all hope this rocks and takes us back to that special place we were at when we saw Raiders for the first time. We don't want to hate this movie, we want to love it.

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• "The fans are all upset. They're always going to be upset. 'Why did he do it like this? And why didn't he do it like this?' They write their own movie, and then, if you don't do their movie, they get upset about it. So you just have to stand by for the bricks and the custard pies, because they're going to come flying your way."

  People at last year's Comic-Con were peeing in their pants when Karen Allen got introduced as Marion. Literally. The smell was overwhelming. Call me nuts, but I think the fans are excited about this thing.

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• Lucas didn't mention this one, but a potential reason we're already starting to dislike this film is the inclusion of Shia Lebeouf as "Mutt," and probably the offspring of Indy and Marion (Karen Allen), although no one is officially confirming that. He irritated the crap out of us in Transformers, and we have a really itchy feeling that he'll do the same here. However, we're willing to backpocket that and chalk it up to rampant speculation. For now. Mostly because of this picture of him (bleh) sitting in the massive warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark (rad).
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• 'And then (spoiler warning) Lucas gets a little more (spoiler alert) specific: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will apparently nudge our hero away from his usual milieu of spooky archaeology and into the realm of (spoiler Code Red) science fiction.'

  Sorry Georgie, but this sounds like a reason we'll love Indy IV. We're tired of him going after religious artifacts with supernatural powers. Give us Indy and something all science-y and steampunk-y and we'll love it. But the Area 51 aliens? Ouch.

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• Not that he mentions it, but another reason to like Indy IV is Cate Blanchett in this Russian dominatrix outfit. Me-yow.
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• The Vanity Fair author drops this quote from himself near the end of the piece: "No one outside of the filmmakers will know for sure until May 22, but it would be pretty cool if it turns out that Emperor Palpatine had dropped a crystal skull on Earth. Or maybe one was left behind by the skinny dudes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Or maybe it's, like, E.T.'s cell phone. :)"

  If it turns out that anything from the Star Wars universe had anything to do with the Indiana Jones world, then fans are going to march to George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch, burn it to the ground, and then piss into the ashes before trekking down the Spielberg's slightly harder to find domicile and chugging gallons of water on the way in hopes of repeating the process.

  This goes triple as Harrison Ford hops into a classic 1950s car and drives to an American Graffiti-esque diner in this movie.

• Keys to the Kingdom [Vanity Fair]

Famous names: John Carpenter, Jeff Bridges, Karen Allen

Crunchy goodness: 3

Sight you'll never unsee: Jeff Bridges' naked ass. Really, that's a super long shot of his ass, using only the flimsy excuse that aliens don't understand nudity.

Stunt casting: It was something of a stunt to put horror maven John Carpenter at the helm of what is essentially a quiet love story with a couple of aliens and a chase scene. The man who created Snake Plisskin and Michael Meyers manages to get it right, though, giving us an alien who is both recognizably lovable and impenetrably strange.

Copycat: In Contact, the aliens take the form of Jodie Foster's dead father in order to gain her trust and help her "understand" them.

In Depth Starman Review by Caroline & Gene O'Regon