One screenwriter after another kept trying to crack the riddle of a fourth Indiana Jones film and then, finally, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford decided to just do the movie anyway, perfect screenplay or no, insisting that they were doing it for the fans. And the fans were all, "But... um... you gave us a beloved franchise. Thanks, Steve! We didn't ASK for a geriatric reboot." Under the circumstances, with 19 years of built-up expectations after "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," could the end result have been anything other than a crushing disappointment? Well, it's all a matter of how you look at it. "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" made $786 million worldwide, so there are a number of people in Hollywood who would gladly tell you that the movie was a rousing success. But how many viewers who grew up on "Raiders," "Temple of Doom" and "Last Crusade" wanted our final adventures with Dr. Jones to be a stagnant, soulless endeavor more memorable for a nuclear attack-repelling refrigerator, Shia LaBeouf swinging with monkeys and freakin' aliens than the joyful abandon of the original trilogy? No matter how much richer it made some people, "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" is still a letdown because we can't un-see it and it requires willful denial to pretend that Indiana Jones is still just a trilogy.

-Dan Fienberg