So, as long as we’re dwelling in Lucasland today, here’s the latest stuff I’ve heard about Indiana Jones IV:

The big news is, of course, the confirmation a couple weeks back that an up-and-coming young actor named Shia LaBeouf will co-star with Harrison Ford. So far, everyone involved is playing coy about exactly what role Shia will be playing, but it seems pretty likely he’ll be Indy’s son. The movie — which some sources are claiming will be called Indiana Jones and the City of Gods — is supposedly going to be set in the 1950s, to help explain the title character’s, ahem, advancing age. Given that little bit of data, Shia’s own age (a tender 21 years old in June), and the persistent rumor that Karen Allen may turn in a cameo appearance, I think we can surmise that Shia will be a kid Indy conceived with Marion Ravenwood some time after (or perhaps during?) the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark, which, as all us good fanboys recall, was set in 1936.

Given that Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was set just two years later, 1938, but included mention of neither Marion nor any Jones offspring, my guess would be that Indy IV will include a sub-plot similar to that of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, wherein Admiral Kirk meets the adult son he’s never known. Marion was depicted as strong-willed and extremely independent, and her relationship with Indy was problematic at best, so I would further guess that she went away before Indy knew about the pregnancy and never told him (unlike Kirk, who did know that David Marcus existed, but stayed away at the mother’s request).

On the one hand, this all sounds like fairly cliche’d, soap-opera stuff, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I find it rather intriguing. After all, Wrath of Kahn and, to a lesser extent, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock pulled some pretty deep emotional resonance out of this hoary old plotline. We learned in Last Crusade that the Jones family is pretty dysfunctional, and this plot, if properly handled, could be an extension and further exploration of that theme. And it could be damn entertaining to watch Harrison Ford “become his father,” i.e., find himself in the same position that Sean Connery occupied in Last Crusade. It would, of course, be even more entertaining if Henry, Sr., was in the mix as well, but I still haven’t heard any confirmation that Sir Sean will be involved.

But then, I haven’t heard for sure that Karen Allen will be there, either — supposedly she and Spielberg did not get along at all during the filming of the original Indy movie 27 years ago — and what I’m envisioning might not work without her.

It’s equally possible, of course, that Shia’s character won’t be any relation to Indy at all, that he could be a student of Indy’s or just a sidekick that gets picked up along the way. But I sure am having fun speculating about all this!

Filming is supposed to commence in June, with a planned release date of May 22, 2008. Uncle George does love his May releases, doesn’t he?

Oh, in a somewhat-related note (depending on whether you believe The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles television series bears any relationship to the movies), TV Shows on DVD reported a couple days ago that we can expect the Young Indy DVDs just in time for the Christmas shopping season…