Indiana Jones follow-up

A few thoughts that didn't make it into my sloppy and rambling (but heartfelt) previous post about the latest Indiana Jones movie:

<> Frank Darabont wrote a screenplay for Indy 4, which supposedly both he and Steven Spielberg were very enthusiastic about. Internet rumors claim that George Lucas put the kaibosh on it. I would love to see this script, and would bet anything that it's much better than the script that went in front of the lenses.
<> The "son of Indiana Jones" plot point did not ruin the movie for me, though I thought it was cliched and unnecessary. I'd also bet anything that it was the product of Mr. Lucas- and potentially the most profound conceptual change to Darabont's draft (assuming Darabont's script did not contain young Indiana III, which is an assumption I am happy to make).
<> There were no memorable additions to the score. This point has been mentioned by others (as have many of my other points), but it's a big one. John Williams brought back the Ark and Marion cues to nice nostalgic effect, but didn't really add anything new. The motorcycle chase theme from The Last Crusade is one of my favorite bits of Indiana Jones music, so it's not like all the good stuff came from the first film.
<> The gopher coming out of the mole hill in the first shot was cute. The other gophers were unnecessary and reminded me of George Lucas "creaturing up" the Star Wars "Special Editions". But I'd have taken a million more gophers, happily, if that would have persuaded the filmmakers to cut the Shia LaBeouf Tarzan scene.

When I got home from work tonight, I slipped Raiders of the Lost Ark into my DVD player and sat down "just to watch the first few minutes" and then "skip to the end so I can get another look at the warehouse with the Ark".

Needless to say, I watched the whole movie straight through, for the first time in probably 5 years or so.

Blown away. It's a masterpiece. It's got magic pouring out all over the place.