Because that one wanted to go back and had been to the city of teh kingdom of the Crystal Skull whereas the other came from the Roswell crash and had no idea about the location of the ancient city.
Wait So does that mean she did have psychic powers?
Yeah, I really kind of loved that she seemed totally balls to the wall nuts. 
ETA - perhaps I am unfair. Recall that when we first met her, she was winning drinking contests with hefty Sherpa dudes. One suspects I just expect more decorum from older ladies who wear vests and blouses.
But they needed Ox and Indy to find that location - not just the skull. They could have used the one from their corpse and Ox to find it - it was just a key, right?
Why do I feel like we’re at the Storyboard meeting for the movie?
They needed to return the skull to akatora, to where it was taken from. Then they would be granted its power (in this case, a fried brain).
The 13 skeletons in the temple were probably elders, telepathics, the skeleton from the wreckage was noticably smaller, and therefore just a grunt; no addition to the commies.
But that does shoot down my own theory that the skulls are, even when dead, active with telepathic energy, drawing things to them at will. Which means, now that the council of 13 have gotten on their spaceship/ inerdimensional portal and fucked off, it still leaves one lonely little dead alien guy on earth (the one from the start of the movie). Maybe this will inspire spielberg to write a movie about how this one lonely alien, who was left on earth when all his species fled, who must now try to communicate with them so that he too can go home.
Nah, people would never buy it.
No. Mindless entertainment requires a good deal of thought on the production end to work right. This movie had plenty of expertise in everything except the script, which is the most important part.
Not only that, but we see that the fridge has an old-fashioned latching door that is able to withstand a nuclear blast and a crushing blow on the ground without springing, yet Indy is able to push it open from the inside? A monkey army is one thing, but that is just f*ckin ridiculous.
Excellent- I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks this way!
I enjoyed it in a mindless, suspend disbelief sort of way. Harrison Ford was watchable enough and I didn’t find myself thinking he was too old.
I agree with many of the observations and criticisms in this thread, and would like to add mine:
Would it have been too much to get the geographical/historical/archaeological details a little closer to fact? Pancho Villa was Mexican and I seriously doubt that Quechua speakers, who come from the Andean region, were part of his forces. The action takes place in Peru and Brazil which are in South America, many thousands of miles from Mexico and Central America, where the Mayans hail from. So what were all those pyramids and allusions to Mayan language and symbolism doing there?
I know what I’d call it: spreading ignorance.
Hey, we’re supposed to fight that! Who’s with me?
Against a force that large and powerful??? :eek:
You still packing that broken sword?
Ah, screw it. I am with you, my captain!
Did they say Indy learned Quechua while riding with Pancho Villa?
OK, this makes less sense (unless we’re meant to pretend an alien-inspired culture spread out from Peru to influence the Maya, Aztec, and other Mesoamerican cultures.) On the other hand, there seem to be pyramids at Caral and Túcume , so it’s not completely off-base.
The wife and I watched it today. Or yesterday, since it’s after midnight now. We both enjoyed it very much. I still remember the thrill of the original movie. Back in Texas, I’d be standing in line somewhere, like at a fast-food joint, and I’d hear people asking each other: “Have you seen Raiders of the Lost Ark yet?” And the answer was often something like: “Yeah, watched it three times already.” I was thinking: “What IS this movie?” But I think I ended up seeing it three or four times myself!
This is the sort of movie where the flaws can be glossed over to some extent. I had guessed the parentage of the kid right away, even though I know Shia LeBeouf had said his mother’s name was Mary Williams. That was probably because I knew that Karen Allen was in it. (But in Thai, the subtitles in the trailers gave it away. The wife thankfully never told me, but in the trailers, Shia LaBeouf addresses Karen Allen as “Mother” in the subtitles, even though he does not in English, because to speak to one’s mother in Thai and NOT call her “Mother” in almost every sentence would be the height of crassness, so the subtitler just threw it in.)
My question (and sorry if this has been asked and answered, but I’ve not read the entire thread): Has Shia LaBeouf been tagged to take over the Indiana Jones series? With maybe Harrison Ford with him in the next film or two? I thought the “passing the hat” scene, so to speak, at the end was an indication of that. He seems like he’d be good.
I’ve read interviews with Lucas and Spielberg where they say they’d like this to happen, but nothing is confirmed yet.
Indy says it, early on in the market scene in “Nazca” after he speaks to two men in ponchos. Mutt asks what language they were using and Indy tells him that he learned Quechua from a couple of Pancho Villa’s men.
At a push, maybe, at a push. They mentioned the Maya people and language more than once, the round floor that Indy almost falls through is similar to the Maya Calendar, and the murals are Maya in style, as well as the totally Mayan architectural structures. I can imagine people coming out of the movie with the impression that the Maya were a South American (as opposed to Central American) culture.
How does that give it away? We know she is his mother, we don’t know Indy is his father.
And why aren’t there any damn elephants in this movie?
I honestly did not know beforehand that Shia LaBeouf was Karen Allen’s son. I guessed it as soon as he told Indy his mother’s name was Mary Williams. Then I realized it was Marion and that Indy was the father. Before that, I had no idea how the kid would fit into the film. There’s not been a big advertising blitz for it here, and I’ve avoided reading about it so as to save the surprises. But if I’d read the Thai subtitles and saw him calling her “Mother” in every sentence, I would have figured out the paternity issue.
I can’t answer for the elephants. 
Maybe I’m confused about actors vs. characters. He tells Indy he’s talking about his Mother at least as soon as they are in the restaurant and he is stealing food from the other diners. BTW, the drink he dips his comb has been drunk from in the next shot.
Yes, he tells Indy about his mother in the restaurant, and that’s the moment when I figured it out. But in the previews, at least the ones we saw, there was no indication that he was either one’s son, except for the Thai subtitles having him call Karen Allen “Mother.” And I never read anything that said he was the son of either one or both. I’m glad I did not know that before the movie started. The previews simply showed this punk kid who had somehow hooked up with Indy, but no explanation as to how.
Ah, I misread your post.