About every six months for the last decade or so, some well-meaning acquaintance of mine has come rushing up, breathless with the news that there’s going to be a fourth Indiana Jones film. My reaction has always been something to the effect of, “I’ll believe it when I see the credits roll…”
Well, it looks like I might have to start believing. The news broke across the InterWebs a few days ago that the three men at the creative heart of the Indy franchise — George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Harrison Ford, for those who haven’t been paying attention — have finally found a script they all like and are ready to proceed. I’ve heard variants of that one before, though, so I still didn’t lend much credence to the story until I read that there’s been an official press release issued. According to it, the cameras are scheduled to roll in June of this year with a planned release date in May of ’08.
I should be enthused as all get-out for this project. After all, the Indy movies are among my top three all-time favorite entertainment properties (along with Star Wars and Star Trek, if you couldn’t guess), and they’ve all been very important to me at various points in my life. Even Temple of Doom, believe it or not. As I type this, Indy’s scruffy viasge is smiling down upon me from a framed Last Crusade one-sheet, and it is not a coincidence that in most of the photos taken of me in England 13 years ago, I’m wearing a fedora. Yes, Indy is one of my Main Men, right up there with Han Solo and Jim Kirk.
But I can’t help but think that making another movie about him is a really bad idea.
I’ve got many reasons, but they all ultimately boil down to two things: timing and faith. Time plays into the equation in a number of ways, most obviously in regards to Harrison Ford’s advancing age. He’s 65 years old, three years older than my dad, who just in the past year has suddenly started seeming rather elderly to me. Dad’s not frail, to be sure, but he’s having some problems and he doesn’t bounce back from them the way he used to. I certainly couldn’t imagine him out wailing on Nazis at his current stage of life, and I have a hard time picturing Harrison Ford doing the same. I have heard rumors that Lucas plans to use some kind of CGI trick to make Harrison appear younger, and also that the script will address Indy’s “mileage,” but I’m not terribly confident that either of these possibilities will pan out. That’s not to say that you couldn’t make an effective film about Indiana Jones, a man whose entire life has been defined by physical action, struggling to deal with the fact that he’s slowing down. A large part of why Star Trek II was such a special movie (and the best of that long-running series) is because it successfully blended action with a realistic treatment of Kirk’s own efforts to come to terms with his encroaching middle age. But I’m afraid Indy IV will be less like Star Trek II than Star Trek V, in which pretty much the entire cast embarrassed themselves by not acting their age. And that’s where faith comes into matter.
The sad fact is, I no longer have much faith that Lucas, Spielberg, or even Ford will make the right creative choices for this project. Ford’s last few films haven’t exactly been stellar, in part (I believe) because he’s been trying to continue doing the same old thing and he’s no longer believable in those parts. Spielberg seems to have lost his knack for making “popcorn pictures” in the wake of Schindler’s List; pretty much everything he’s touched since then has been slathered in a self-conscious longing to be Taken Seriously. And Lucas… well, we all know what we got when he decided to revisit that other beloved franchise that he created. The Fanboy Prequel Wars are still raging in some corners of the Internet, and even those who, like me, didn’t think the prequels were all that bad still can’t muster a lot of genuine love for them.
I am somewhat heartened to hear that the script is by David Koepp, who has written and/or directed a number of movies I’ve liked, including Secret Window, Spider-Man , the first Mission: Impossible, Carlito’s Way, and Jurassic Park. But my optimism is counterweighted with the knowledge that Lucas rides pretty heavily on his writers, bending their talents to fit his vision — a vision which, in recent years, has proven to have gotten somewhat cloudy. And filled with painfully unfunny jokes. Like farting space camels. Which leads us back to Star Trek V territory again. Ugh.
My big fear is that Harrison, George, and Steven will embarrass themselves and their fans by turning out an inferior film that will end the Indy franchise on a sour note. That people will be left thinking that they went to the well one too many times. And that raises the question of why they’re doing another Indy film at all. There is no creative or artistic reason for it. Last Crusade already ended the series with a perfect, satisfying, smile-inducing image: our heroes literally riding off into the sunset. Indy’s story was finished at that point. There may have been other adventures for him, but that didn’t mean we needed to see them.
If I’ve learned anything from the decline of my other two favorite franchises, it is that everything has its time and that this time inevitably passes. It’s been over ten years since Last Crusade. Everyone is used to the idea that Indy is over and done, so why are we disturbing the bones now? Why can’t the powers that be just leave well enough alone? Why can’t they let the story remain told instead of trying to squeeze one more chapter out of it?
As usual, complete agreement. Leave a good thing alone. If you’re so desperate to squeeze the last dollar out of the franchise, do special edition DVD set or something. I’ll buy it. But I just don’t see any other conceivable reason for a fourth film. You bastards.
I don’t know that the interest in doing a fourth Indy is purely for profit… I rather suspect it’s the desire of three guys who are past their prime to try and recapture some of their previous glory.
I have little confidence that they will succeed.
Actually, I wouldn’t mind seeing a fourth Indy movie that admitted the fact that he was 65 years old, and developed the story around that. Perhaps something based in a classroom or a museum, rather than some far-off jungle?
For example, I’d be interested to hear what Indy thinks of the young, rogue archeologist in his Advanced Archeology class who’s been reading Indy’s news clippings, and has decided to head off on some adventure to battle the natives for a long lost artifact. In such a scenario, Ford could get his action fix by getting himself pulled into the action by the new guy (much like Sean Connery got pulled in by Ford), but it wouldn’t be the focus.
All of that said, I think I’m probably in the minority here. Most people are probably hoping for another Raiders movie, and will complain retroactively when it comes off as unbelievable & cheesey.
Tarticle you linked to promises “plenty of action in store for the rogue archeologist,” which has me worried. We need to get Ford in a room with Shatner & Stewart and let them tell him how silly they felt “fighting” each other on a bunch of rocks at a combined age of >120.
Precisely my point, Brian – the Star Trek movies declined in a number of ways over the years, but the biggest problem was the insistence on continuing to stage the same kinds of action scenes that Shatner was doing in his 30s on the original TV show (and which Stewart never did on his show – TNG was very different from the original Trek, and the action stuff in the NG movies never felt “right” to me).
I had a big debate yesterday with one of my friends who thinks we need to “break our culture’s unhealthy fascination with youth” and says “what’s wrong with showing older people still leading active lives?” Well, nothing in principle, so long as you acknowledge that “active” at 65 is a very different thing from active at 35. I don’t want to see Indy in a wheelchair, but neither do I want to see an obviously retirement-age Ford getting dragged behind a truck, because it will embarass everyone involved: him, the audience, anyone who cares about this character and these movies…
Oh, and incidentally, Brian, your premise for an Indy movie sounds pretty good to me, and very much like some of the rumored plot lines for Indy IV that I’ve heard about over the years. Some of them involve Short Round from Temple of Doom, now grown to adulthood and trying to take after his old “foster dad”; others have speculated a long-lost son that Indy never knew he had, somewhat like Kirk’s situation in Trek II (hopefully Indy’s son would be a little more kick-ass than David Marcus was…)
The one rumored plot that scares the hell out of me surfaced a few years back. It had Indy getting involved in the Roswell UFO crash and fighting Communists who are trying to get the alien technology, or some damn thing. Completely out of tone with the rest of the series, and pretty silly-sounding. As I recall, that one emerged around the time that The X Files was so popular, so hopefully we’ll be spared it now that that whole alien conspiracy trope has (mostly) faded from the zeitgeist…
When will actors/directors learn that their overall “glory quotient” goes down when they try to recapture it? Witness the latest Rocky film: people will remember the absurd last-gasp version rather than the exciting original (and its one good sequel). I think the same would go for an installment in which Indy mentors a younger hero, as Rocky did in one of the more recent films (I have lost count and stopped watching, so maybe I’m assuming unfairly). Although true to circumstances, it would still leave me wondering why we need such a film. Personally, I’d rather just pop Raiders and Crusade (I can’t bear Temple of Doom) into the DVD player again and have a good time.
It’s all about vanity, Robert…
Curiously enough, my friend who is so adamant that older action heroes are just fine loved Rocky Balboa. Go figure.
(Even more curiously, I have never seen a Rocky movie. Not even the first one. Go figure again…)
You know, the age issue is the thing that everyone is getting worked up over, and it’s definitely a big factor, but I honestly think it’s more an issue of whether the film can be a creative success, i.e., if it’s still relevant to be making an Indy movie 25 years after the first one. I was reading an article earlier today about the filming of Warren Beatty’s Reds (which I’ve also never seen — go figure a third time) and it refers to a pivotal scene in which a character tells Beatty’s character that if he (Beatty) leaves now, he will “never be able to return to this moment in history.” Well, that’s exactly the issue I’ve got with trying to revive these beloved film series of the ’70s and ’80s — it isn’t just that the actors are older, as significant as that is — it’s that the moment has passed. The mood of the country is different; hell, even the film stock (now digital media) looks different.
As for Temple of Doom, yeah, I know it sucks, but believe it or not, it had a bigger impact on me when I was a kid than Raiders. I was so wrapped up in spaceship stories when Raiders came out, that it really didn’t make much of an impression on me. I don’t even recall seeing it when it first came out, although I’m certain I did. By TOD’s release, I was more open to the 1930s adventure thing and I remember being really wild about that movie throughout the summer of ’84. Now, of course, viewing them through adult eyes, I prefer Raiders to both of the other two, but we’re all about the childhood memories here at Simple Tricks…
I guess what I’m saying is I think it’s possible to tell a really good story using the Indiana Jones universe of characters. The extent to which they try to “recapture” anything will likely be the extent to which the movie sucks eggs.
I saw an interview with Harrison Ford years ago (probably pre-web), and the interviewer asked him if he’d ever want to play Han Solo again. He gave a very long, politically correct answer about how it was a great experience at the time, but his career had moved forward, and his acting skills had improved, and he was looking for more fully developed characters to play, blah, blah, blah.
Then the interviewer asked him if he would ever play Indiana Jones again. Without skipping a beat, Ford said, “In a second.”
Probably because the IJ movies were not ensembles like the SW movies were, the IJ character is a much more interesting guy. I’m not interested in him doing what he did before, but it’d be nice to catch up on what he’s doing now…