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Indiana Jones and the Glorious World of Pulp Fiction
12 August 2026

There’s something I consider to be an obvious element to the Indiana Jones movies that – like an artifact lost to the ages – seems to be overlooked by way too many people and I finally found a minute to jot it down, to pull it into the present.

Let’s set the stage: George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are on a beach, enjoying some time away from the pressures of Hollywood as Star Wars is heading toward theatres for the first time ever. They had no clue of what would be the movie’s historic impact would change the movie industry.

At one point, Spielberg says he’d like to make a James Bond movie. Lucas says he has something better. It’s an archaeologist named Indiana Smith. (Funny side note: in interviews for Disclosure Day, Spielberg has quipped that if the Bond folks came to him now, he’d tell them they can’t afford him. Love it.)

Go back to 1984. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Upon its release, it was widely criticized for its violence and dark tone, with the story centered on a cult of Kali worshipers led by a madman who could literally rip a person’s heart out and set it ablaze. (Couple Temple of Doom with Gremlins, released a few weeks later, and a whole new movie rating was created as a middle ground between PG and R, with Red Dawn being the first movie to receive the PG-13 rating later that summer.) People also railed against Marion’s absence (cleverly, Doom takes place before Raiders.) They also lamented the swapping out of Nazis for Thugees and some proudly displayed their ignorance about the group that really was real back in history. Lucas and Spielberg apologized for their misstep. Part of the apology revolved around George being in a bad mood as he worked through a divorce from Marcia, his wife of 14 years.

But now, Temple of Doom is beloved.

Years later, I still hear the scoffs and get the blank stares when I say I treasure all five Indy movies, including Crystal Skull (space aliens?!) and Dial of Destiny (time travel?!)

Jim Steranko’s Raiders concept art evokes the pulps.
Art: Lucasfilm Ltd. / IndianaJones.com

Yep. I say it time and again: those five movies are my cinematic comfort food.

I was a huge fan of Star Wars, until Kathleen Kennedy and J.J. Abrams betrayed the fan base (and, ultimately, George Lucas) by launching an absurd third trilogy to conclude the Skywalker Saga. They made a trilogy without a plan for a beginning, a middle and an end. That’s not the way to handle a series called the “Skywalker Saga” and it’s an about-face to how George had carefully mapped out the prior two trilogies. Kennedy and Abrams just wanted to – like some sort of Jurassic Park experiment – rebuild the DNA of the original trilogy, even packing enough hubris to dismiss George’s own outlines for the final three episodes, which by design featured a completely different tone and “feel” from the prior six. Disaster was inevitable.

That’s partly why I embrace the Indy movies so closely and dearly. There was never that betrayal. Instead, those movies, particularly Skull and Destiny, were bold. They had guts. (And I keep saying it: I wish George stuck with the title Indiana Jones and Saucer Men from Mars instead of changing it to Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. But that’s a marketing sleight-of-hand, not a complete scrubbing of an idea.)

Sure, I also appreciate the creative tensions that were behind Crystal Skull, across and between Lucas, Spielberg and Harrison Ford. That’s part of the business, too. The fact they forged ahead and we got Crystal Skull is something for which I am grateful.

And, while I was practically heartbroken to hear Spielberg would not direct Dial of Destiny, I was relieved to find out James Mangold was taking his place. And I deeply appreciate who they went to for the screenplay: Jez Butterworth. Not a typical screenwriter, by any stretch. He’s a playwright. He wrote an incredible stage play called Jerusalem, which I saw on Broadway. I even shot the breeze with Robert Englund as we waited to enter the theatre. We were both there to see a master actor, Mark Rylance, who starred in the show.

I was thrilled with Destiny. I was anxious as all get-out beforehand. How bad was it going to be? I do my best to avoid early reactions and click bait for any movie I intend to review, but even I couldn’t escape some of the stink coming out of Cannes while doom-scrolling through Apple News.

Then the movie began and by the time Indy and Wombat were independently heading out to the antiques auction, I was hooked. Fully. I laughed. I cheered. I stomped my feet. I applauded. I even started to tear up. (Okay. I cried. A bit.)

I also teared up while providing my initial reaction to the PR folks. I had to explain those characters – Indy, Marion, Sallah – mean so much to me and I was so nervous about how the movie was going to turn out.

It was magic. It took guts to stick with that storyline, which also embraced Indy as an aging adventurer forced to adapt to the seemingly shrinking world around him (physically both in his New York apartment and his lack of adventuring as well as mentally, with his unresponsive, uninterested students). One of the concepts here is he was never able to benefit from all the fortune and glory because the treasures were never his to keep. Until the Antikythera is seen on his nightstand at the movie’s whip-crackingly solid conclusion.

My biggest disappointment became the world around me. By and large, the world didn’t “get” it. I’ve gotten bored by the derisive looks, even horrified gasps, when I declare my fondness for Skull and Destiny.

So, that takes me to the “big reveal,” as it were.

I always expected more from Indy Jones than deserts and Nazis. Right out of the gate, Temple of Doom, with its evil cult, satisfied all that I was hoping for from the series.

And, of course, Last Crusade is a full-blown classic in its own right. Genius casting, there, with Sean Connery – the original official James Bond – as Indy’s father.

But Crystal Skull and Dial of Destiny go full tilt in what I describe as the pulp fiction aspects of the series. Beings from another dimension? Time travel? Heck yeah! Sign me up!

The Hate Genius, originally published as Violent Night in January 1945.

This is where the conversation typically goes something like this:

“Let’s talk about Doc Savage, from the pulp fiction days.”

“Doc Savage? Which character was he in Pulp Fiction? I don’t remember anybody by that name.”

“No. Not Pulp Fiction. I said ‘pulp fiction.’ The cheap dime novels of the 1920s, 1930s. Not the Quentin Tarantino thing.”

The massively popular publications, with titles like Weird Tales and Amazing Stories, hit their prime in the 1920s – 1940s, a source of entertainment before comic books were even a “thing.” Before Batman. Before Superman. Before James Bond.

There was Doc Savage.

Doc. Conan the Barbarian. Tarzan the Ape Man. The Shadow. Dick Tracy. Buck Rogers.

They are all part of that period. The “pulp” is a reference to the cheap paper their stories were printed on. Rough edged pages. Wild stories of action, science-fiction, horror, mystery. Muscular men. Hot babes. Megalomaniacal villains. Bleeding-edge technology. Leaps of the imagination. Exotic locations.

That’s right. Anything goes.

The books were massively popular. And this guy – Doc Savage – was a jack of all trades and master of all. He was a scientist, a Yoga sensei, a fitness guru. He lived in a Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic Circle. He used all sorts of gadgetry to confront his enemies and enable his globetrotting adventures.

Gosh. That’s crazy. He’s ripping off Superman and Batman! (And Buckaroo Banzai!)

Nope.

Doc made his first appearance in March 1933.

Superman: April 1938.

Batman: March 1939.

(Banzai: August 1984.)

Huh.

So, really, Superman and Batman would – quite likely – not exist were it not for Doc. The Man of Bronze. At least not as the same characters pop culture has embraced for decades. And, yeah, same goes for Marvel’s assembly of characters.

The Red Skull, originally published in August 1933.

So few people are aware of this. But that’s less of a surprise when considering most are so painfully ignorant of most of world history.

All that said, I also consider Doc as a progenitor to my own favorite “doctor,” Henry Jones, Jr.

Doc Savage pops into my consciousness every once in a while. I was introduced to him even before Luke Skywalker.

And so it is Doc’s popped back on my radar again. I recently came across a Doc Savage story, published in 2013, by Will Murray. Doc Savage: Skull Island. What’s this? Huh. It’s an awesome crossover storyline that follows Doc in the aftermath of King Kong’s demise at the Empire State Building. His enormous corpse, after all, was right outside Doc’s office when he showed up for work one morning. (The book is dedicated to Merian C. Cooper and based on a concept by Joe DeVito.)

Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about.

It’s all about the imagination.

It’s not about the science of time travel or the questionable existence of space creatures.

It’s about ideas. It’s about taking those ideas and going to wild places.

And it’s about – more than anything else – feeling something. Feeling a connection. Feeling emotions. And daydreaming about the possibilities for what comes next.

Doc Savage: The Land of Terror book cover

The Land of Terror, originally published in April 1933.

The beauty of the Indy series is that it also follows a logical, real-world timeline. With Crystal Skull set in 1955, it’s when the Red Scare was real and stories of UFOs and Area 51 were starting to make waves. It’s also when a guy could lose his change simply by mere allegations of keeping the wrong company, as happened to Indy with his involuntary work with the Russians.

And then Dial of Destiny, set in 1969, in my view, was a brilliant melding of fantasy and history. What is archaeology if not a form of time travel? And it’s Indy at his “pulpiest” as he actually goes back in time to a period of personal interest to him.

It’s so unfortunate so many other people were unable to that leap with me and George and Jez and James.

It’s a leap of faith.

Every now and then news pops up of a potential new Doc Savage movie (one released in 1975 was a big dud). One name typically associated with it gets me all the more excited: Shane Black. He shares writing credit on the original Lethal Weapon with Jeffrey Boam, the scribe behind Last Crusade. Black also wrote and directed Iron Man 3 and The Nice Guys.

In an October 2025 Hollywood Reporter interview, Black provided a disappointing update about Doc’s movie prospects:

“I’ve always loved Doc Savage. It’s based on ’30s pulp, and he was the OG superhero. His name was Clark [Savage Jr.], and he was literally described as a ‘super man.’ So the first Doc Savage [in 1933] was before Clark Kent/Superman [in 1938]. He was the inspiration behind a generation of comic books and pulps and wonderful shit. So I would love, at some point, to revisit that. The problem is that the IP is not a household name. It’s much easier to fund something at that level of expense if it has Batman or Superman attached, as opposed to something that is going to be just as expensive and is less of a household name.

“I don’t know. The problem is that it has to be someone that you can approach a studio with and say, ‘It’s going to be $150 million. Minimum.’ Doc Savage is about an entire world of adventure, and it’s a ‘30s period piece. I wouldn’t want to modernize it. So, yeah, I would look into finding a way to do that, but I still don’t have an actor in mind. It would have to be someone compelling enough to get the studio to loosen up those purse strings for us.”