Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
part of Indiana Jones

This is the first film in the Indiana Jones franchise, and pits Indiana Jones against the Nazis, who search for the Ark of the Covenant, in an attempt to make their army invincible.

Set in 1935, a year before Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones narrowly escapes the clutches of a Shanghai crime boss. At the nearby Nang Tao airport, with nightclub singer Willie Scott and his ten-year-old sidekick Short Round, Indiana escapes from Shanghai. En route to India, their plane crashes in the mountains. After a dangerous ride down the Himalayan mountains and a raging river, the trio eventually come to a desolate village in India. After arriving in India, Indiana Jones is asked by a desperate village to find a mystical stone. He agrees, stumbling upon a Kali Thuggee religious cult plotting child slavery, black magic and ritual human sacrifice.

The prologue depicts a young Indiana Jones in 1912 as a Boy Scout in Utah, battling grave robbers for the Cross of Coronado, an ornamental cross belonging to Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. As the foiled grave robbers give chase, Indiana hides in a circus train, in the process using a whip, scarring his chin, and gaining a fear of snakes. Although he rescues the cross, the robbers tell the Sheriff that Indiana was the thief, and he is forced to return it, while his oblivious father, Henry, is working on his research into the Holy Grail, keeping meticulous notes in a diary. The leader of the hired robbers, dressed very similarly to the future Indiana and impressed by the young man's tenacity, gives him his fedora and some encouraging words. In 1938, Indiana manages to recover the cross from the robbers' ship, and donates to Marcus Brody's museum.