You would have to be hiding under a rock somewhere to have missed the heavily hyped release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull last weekend. The film is the fourth in the immensely popular Indiana Jones series, and the first to be created since 1989’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Indiana Jones has become a true cultural icon, and there are few who are not familiar with his story, including his infamous phobia of snakes. In celebration of the new film, the DVD box set of the first three movies was rereleased earlier this month. This rerelease includes hours of new bonus footage, including director Steven Spielberg’s explanation of how Indy got his famous phobia.

Apparently, a phobia of some sort was required in order to flesh out Indiana’s character. Spielberg consulted a list of the most prevalent phobias, on which snakes were third. The top two, death and public speaking, were too difficult to incorporate into the film, so snakes were chosen. This choice truly helped to shape both the character and the scripts, as well as providing us with one of moviedom’s most famous quotes, “Snakes! Why did it have to be snakes?”

If you haven’t yet had the chance to check out the new film, all I can say is, Go! You won’t be disappointed.