USA Today has been covering George Lucas's attempts to help the Earth's population contain itself in the face of the imminent release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. "When you do a movie like this," says George, " 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." The paper's Scott Bowles suggests that "The remarks appear to be part of a larger strategy to build interest yet temper expectations for the fourth installment of the Indiana Jones franchise. Only one trailer is playing, and when director Steven Spielberg shows up for talk shows, he doesn't bring footage." Longtime George watchers may find it hard to resist speculation that Lucas is actually trying to help himself prepare to deal with the backlash — the bad reviews and moos of disappointment — that might conceivably be waiting to greet him at the end of Indy's latest dig. As if to confirm this, he went on to compare the new movie to The Phantom Menace, a movie that he regards as having suffered unfairly from too-high expectations among the groundlings, even as some of us think of it as proof that if you're packing enough hype, you can get away with anything.
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