These are what we call the 'YMMV items.' Things that some people find in this work. We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way. This starts discussions in the trope lists, a thing we don't want. Please use the discussion page if you'd like to discuss any of these items.
Alternative Character Interpretation: Is Indy a true-blue hero? Is he a Blood Knight trying to break out of the humdrum existence of a university professor? Or is he a underdeveloped manchild trying to live out the adolescent fantasies of youth with a "secret identity"?
Most likely all three.
A good number of fans take Marcus Brody's deterioration in competence and death before the start of the fourth movie as evidence that he had a condition (say, Alzheimer's) chipping away at his cognitive abilities.
And the Fandom Rejoiced: If there's one thing just about every fan agrees on, it's that bringing back Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood was awesome.
Angst? What Angst?: In The Last Crusade, Elsa is severely traumatized, screaming her head off, as Donovan dies right in front of her eyes, from something she delibarately did to him no less, and yet in the next scene she acts as if nothing happened.
Big Lipped Alligator Moment: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has Mutt swinging with hundreds of CGI monkeys. Also counts as Narm.
Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. Some people say it is total crap, others say it was fun but not up to Indiana Jones standards, some liked the acting and characters but not the writing, some liked it all except for the Gainax Ending, Shia LaBeouf blames himself and his monkey-swinging Tarzan act, and then there are those that hold it as being better than Temple of Doom but not up to the standards of the "Nazi" movies. Really, it isn't broken so much as shattered into thousands of pieces.
Temple of Doom gets this, too. It mostly comes down to whether Kate Capshaw was too annoying for the movie to be enjoyable.
It also comes down to whether the Gorn was too much.
What with kidnapping countless Indian children, working them both literally and figuratively to death, and eventually brainwashing them into the cult of Kali, Mola Ram is easily the most evil villain in the series. A series where most of the villains areNazis.
Donovan from The Last Crusade has no hesitation to send many "volunteers" the death traps in order to get the Holy Grail or shooting Henry Sr to convince Indy to get the Holy Grail for him.
And Toht from Raiders.
Contested Sequel: Crystal Skull. Temple of Doom, on a lesser extent.
Critical Dissonance: A different case than usual: Critics generally gave Crystal Skull good to great reviews, while the fans were the ones that hated it.
Unless it's The Last Crusade, because of the quest for the Grail and Sean Connery as Henry Jones Sr. But having said that, Crusade is the most well-remembered of the sequels largely because of its faithfulness in tone to the original.
The scene in Last Crusade where Henry Sr. subdues a Nazi soldier by spraying his face with ink from his pen, leading Marcus to say "The pen is mightier than the sword!", is funnier in light of the Saturday Night Live "Celebrity Jeopardy!" sketch where Sean Connery*
The "no ticket" scene is much funnier now that something similar happened in 2011. It counts double when you realize that Indy tried to pass himself as a Scottish Lord earlier in the film. "How dare he?"
Special Effect Failure: Prevented by, of all people, the MPAA in Raiders. The model of Belloq's head which explodes during the film's climax can be seen in the behind-the-scenes footage of the DVD, and was laughably unconvincing. However, the MPAA objected to the blood and brain fragments that could be seen after the explosion, and so the film makers obscured the sequence by superimposing flames over the footage... which had the side-effect of covering up the model's deficiencies and making the scene look pretty convincing!
Visual Effects of Awesome: That bridge in The Last Crusade, the leap of faith. You don't even see it until the camera pans and throws it off kilter!
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Temple of Doom, along with Gremlins, which was produced by Spielberg, were dark enough to lead to the creation of the PG-13 rating.
