I'm honestly excited and it's specifically BECAUSE Spielberg isn't directing.
Don't get me wrong, Spielberg rocks and I think the first three Indy films are fantastic. But he only seemed half-invested in the last one - largely because Lucas & Ford were pushing hard to do it - and it ultimately showed on screen. Given that he kept pushing this one back over and over again, repeatedly tossing script after script, it always felt like he was only even considering making it because Ford really wanted to do another one and had worked it into his new Star Wars deal.
Whether you love James Mangold's body of work or not, he's not going to phone this in. Which means, whether the final product is great or not, there's some passion behind the camera on an Indy film again for the first time since the '80s. I'm not expecting it to be as good as those first three, but I suspect it will at least be a marked improvement on Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and that's all I really need here.
(Well, that and for them to nail recasting when an inevitable Indy 6 happens, because we all know Disney didn't buy Paramount out of their option on the series to only make one movie. They're gonna do more and I want a new actor in the role when that happens, instead of some uncanny valley CGI deepfake nonsense version of Ford continuing to star in them. Blech.)
