Mary Sue and the Crystal Skull: Part Three

For the last two posts, I dove into the literary term Mary Sue: a seemingly perfect character who can perform tasks beyond the character’s experience or ability. I also mentioned two reasons why writers create a Mary Sue. One, wish fulfillment. Two, fear of making a certain type of character look bad. Jumping on the second reason, I said that Indiana Jones from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a Mary Sue, or the male equivalent, Gary Stu, because Lucas and Spielberg didn’t dare tarnish the Indiana Jones legacy. Last week, I addressed how the movie set up a character who had his world under control. Now, we venture on to my final points: Jones versus the big baddy mono e mono. 

To gain full background, let’s explore the first three movies where Jones faces this ultimate, big bad threat. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, it is the muscle bulging Nazi with a shaved head. He looks a lot like me. Breaking down that fight, how well did Jones fair? There are gobs of back and forth punches. Many of Jones’ first blows have little effect on the giant. As they fight, Marion jumps into a fighter plane, in order that she might shoot an advancing truck of Nazi soldiers. As Indy fights, he struggles to grab his gun, the plane circles, Marion is locked in, and a looming threat of fire beckons death. 



All in all, Jones endures a massive beating in the fight. But, does he win? Did Jones beat the hulking Nazi? No. The plane beats him. The propellers end the fight. Jones wins the day apart from shear brawn.

On to Temple of Doom. Jones’ next big baddy is the massive slave master who had whipped Jones earlier in the movie. Fun fact: this man was played by the same actor as the massive Nazi from Raiders. Meeting in the mines, the two face off. Again, they exchange blows. Most of Jones’ strikes seem to have even less effect than the Raiders’ baddy fight. As the fight continues, a kid king uses a voodoo doll to hinder Jones’ effort. Eventually, the fight ventures onto a rock-crushing conveyor belt. As they continue to brawl, Jones pulls out all the dirty tricks he can. Whacks the guy with a saw blade. Swings a sledge hammer at him. Grabs some rocks. Again, does Jones defeat this bad guy? Hmmmm. I guess ultimately, the rock crusher beat him. 

The big baddy from The Last Crusade was a bit different. An older, leaner German high-ranking Nazi. His ruthlessness stems from his willingness to do anything in order to achieve victory. A dirty fighter in the lines of Jones. A crafty cunning villain. A fights that leads to the top of a tank. A crazy set of obstacles block Jones. His father and Brody are trapped in the tank. Trucks of Nazi’s are surrounding him. At one point, he gets dangled from the barrel of the tank. Eventually, he has to fight the Nazi commander one on one. The fight is brutal. Tough, but again, Jones is fighting an older gentlemen. The fist fight is a back and forth bout. An even bout. The obstacles Jones faces are more about quantity as opposed to brawn. And, much of those victories are dependent on the actions of others. As the tank is headed toward the cliff, Jones does find victory with his fist fight, but it is believable. Or at least it feels earned. 

With all these fights, what does it matter? The main purpose of all these action heavy moments, is that you feel at any point Jones might actually lose. These are great tension building centerpieces. Now let's focus on Kingdom of the Crystal Skull's fisticuffs fight scene.

Surrounded by gobs of killer ants--which could have been a great background to a fight--Jones and the big Russian baddy go fist to fist. Eventually they're placed in the position where the ants are surrounding them, but the skull is stopping the ants from attacking (for some reason). Here is a great place where Jones could have used his wits, his old wisdom, or any other crafty or dirty trick in order to win the fight. However Lucas and Spielberg wanted the world to know how great he is, and thus Jones beats the big, young Russian guy out right. There was no tension, no believability, and nothing unique. Did the ants kill Jones’ foe? I guess, in one sense. But after Jones won the fight punching him in to the deadly swarm.

So what does it matter? Compelling art. That’s the key. Memorable characters. Lucas and Spielberg were so concerned with shouting at the audience, “Yeah! Jones is still Awesome,” they created a Mary Sue. Or Gary Stu. We were not shown, how great he is, we were lectured at about how we should just accept it as fact. In art, lectures are rarely compelling. This is why Mary Sues so often feel flat. People don’t like it when others tell them what they should think is great.