In a recent interview with MTV, George Lucas unveiled his thoughts about the progress of the upcoming Indiana Jones movie.

Lucas emphasized that “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” is shaping up to be the best Indy flick since the first one, even going so far as to call “Skulls” tonally most like “Raiders.” But whereas the Ark of the Covenant has very few historically ascribed powers, true believers attribute all sorts of abilities to the crystal skulls, ranging from the skulls being psychic amplifiers to tools of death to repositories of ancient knowledge (something like an Atlantian supercomputer).

As to the theory of the Crystal Skulls,

“The skulls themselves are real and a lot of the stuff in the movie is real, just like in the other movies. [...] We don’t base it on a lot of phony-baloney stuff. It’s all based on at least true mythology that exists today that … a certain amount of the population actually believes in.”