Steven Spielberg Proud of Fourth 'Indiana Jones' Movie Criticisms

The director reveals he was never a big fan of the aliens in "Crystal Skull" but is happy "nuked the fridge" has become a pop culture phrase.

2:38 PM PDT 10/26/2011 by THR staff

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Steven Spielberg says he's proud that the phrase "nuked the fridge" has replaced "jumped the shark" as the shorthand for saying a film series has taken a turn for the worse.

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Talking to Empire magazine about his career, the director of the upcoming Adventures of Tintin and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull says even though people blame producer George Lucas for the scene where Indy hides in a refrigerator to avoid a nuclear explosion, the idea was really his.

"Blame me. Don't blame George. That was my silly idea. People stopped saying 'jump the shark'. They now say, 'nuked the fridge'. I'm proud of that. I'm glad I was able to bring that into popular culture."

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However, Spielberg is not as proud of the aliens that appear at the end of the film.

"I sympathize with people who didn't like the MacGuffin because I never liked the MacGuffin. George and I had big arguments about the MacGuffin. I didn't want these things to be either aliens or inter-dimensional beings. But I am loyal to my best friend. When he writes a story he believes in -- even if I don't believe in it -- I'm going to shoot the movie the way George envisaged it. I'll add my own touches, I'll bring my own cast in, I'll shoot the way I want to shoot it, but I will always defer to George as the storyteller of the Indy series. I will never fight him on that."

Spielberg says he doesn't know the status of a possible fifth Indiana Jones movie. He's waiting to hear from Lucas, who has long had the task of figuring out the story before he approaches Spielberg.

"George is in charge of breaking the stories. He's done it on all four movies. Whether I like the stories or not, George has broken all the stories. He is working on Indy V. We haven't gone to screenplay yet, but he's working on the story. I'll leave it to George to come up with a good story."