Sankara said:
Well, I'm still waiting for the interviews with Steven Spielberg, Frank Marshall, Robert Watts etc. confirming the switching between colleges...
Keep waiting. The fact that Barnett is not addressed in Indy4 is simply a goof on Spielberg and the writers' part. Nothing more. If asked about it in an interview, I wouldn't be surprised if Spielberg said, "Oh wow, I didn't even realize that!"
Since Spielberg shot the classroom scenes of Raiders and Crusade in the same set, I'd say it's probable he
intended for it to be the same college, but the fact that the exterior of the school is vastly different (for whatever reason...I still remember something about it being unavailable, but that piece quoted earlier in this thread contradicts this) necessitated that they call the college something else - Barnett, which
is referenced by name
in the movie, hard to see or not. Its
reappearance in Fate of Atlantis or in "Expanded Universe" work is
not the only proof we have of its existence. Last Crusade and FOA
confirm that Barnett is located in upstate New York, whereas Marshall is in Connecticut.
They are two different schools in two different locations that both appear in the Indiana Jones movies. This is fact. The conjecture comes in when trying to explain why there are two different schools. Maybe when Spielberg addresses it in that hypothetical interview you keep praying for he'll reveal that he simply screwed up. My guess is that Spielberg forgot that they called it a different college in Last Crusade (maybe it's even possible he never knew it to begin with, if it was just something the prop department did to explain the fact that the exterior was different), and reprised Marshall upon rewatching Raiders.
I do think it's kinda funny that they just stole the Marshall College establishing shot from Raiders in Crystal Skull. (Excellent detective work, Stoo!) Maybe they would have done that for Crusade too if there wasn't an actual scene that required Indy to be at the school's exterior. By the time Indy4 came around, Spielberg and everyone else probably forgot about this obscure little fact, and assumed they were doing fans a favor by showing us the college from Raiders of the Lost Ark. The most obvious explanation is that this is a simple flub, unless you really believe Lucas and Koepp and Spielberg and whoever conspiratorially penned this huge convoluted explanation for why he switched back and forth that they never felt like sharing. You can believe whatever the hell you want - it doesn't change the fact that Indy works at Barnett College in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and that sometimes an "M" is just an "M."