My Pitch for Indiana Jones 5: Fixing Dial of Destiny

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

To be clear, I do not believe a fifth Indiana Jones movie was necessary at all. There are three Indiana Jones movies and they are fantastic. The rest are not up to standard and can be skipped.

At the same time, I wanted to challenge myself with a hypothetical scenario: the fifth movie has already been green-lit and I have been tasked with preparing the script. It is to be a finale and farewell to the character, for Harrison Ford and a great conclusion to the franchise.

Before we begin, the Indiana Jones franchise is episodic, not an epic or a saga with a multi-movie story arc. The movies do not connect to one another. On a basic format and storytelling level, neither a farewell nor a conclusion is necessary. It is for this reason, and Harrison Ford’s lack of credibility as an action star at his age, that I say without hesitation that a fifth movie should not have been made.

Anyway, back to the hypothetical:

To me there are a few options. (1) you do what LucasFilm did and cast an eighty year old as an action hero for one final movie; (2) recast Indiana Jones and treat it as another adventure with no attempt at continuity, think of movies where actor playing James Bond changes; (3) a handing of the torch to Indiana’s successor to have new adventures in new eras; (4) a final movie but with Harrison Ford playing a not-so-active or physical role.

We know (1) doesn’t work. Harrison Ford has not been a credible action star for well over a decade. His finale was supposed to be Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls. Making a fifth movie feels like a soulless, joyless cash grab or something that is shamefully self-indulgent for the people involved in the franchise. Since neither Spielberg nor Lucas were involved, that leaves only Ford and Kennedy as guilty.

This approach has the same feel as fan fiction, something that doesn’t serve the character, story, franchise, or the audience but does satisfy a very small group of people who wanted to see it.

Going with (2) is problematic because Harrison Ford was born to play Indy. Who could replace him? Chris Pine, Bradley Cooper, Tom Hiddleston, and Henry Cavill come to mind but there are reasons to be skeptical they can fill the role.

Chris Pine is charming and certainly can do action and be funny, but it is hard to see him as an archeology professor. He simply isn’t as strong in serious roles.

Tom Hiddleston is nearly the complete package but would need a really good American accent. I also don’t know if he is a true action star at this stage of his career, if he ever was.

Henry Cavill isn’t credible as an archeology professor. He’s simply too beautiful. He was born to play James Bond, not Indiana Jones.

Then there’s Bradley Cooper, the only one who I think could do it. He has a stature near equal to Harrison Ford. He is definitely talented, has the acting range to be both a professor and adventurer, is charming and funny, and most definitely looks the part.

Still, as someone who grew up with the first three movies, I just can’t see anyone else as Indiana Jones. No offense to the actors above but there’s just no way. Indiana Jones is not the same as James Bond.

Option (3) is possible but feels unnecessary. Indiana Jones movies aren’t really serial, despite it being based on a serial comic. It has three great movies and one underwhelming one that largely tied things up for the character. If there was going to be a handing of the torch it happened in Crystal Skulls to Shia Lebouf.

Option (4) is also possible. I believe a blending of (3) and (4) is the strongest approach. If you absolutely have to do another Indiana Jones movie, I believe Harrison Ford must fill the role. If he does, you cannot expect him to be an action star at his age. Luckily, we have a model for the role he could play… Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

The Last Crusade as a Model

Sean Connery plays Indiana’s father and joins him on his last great adventure (thought to be the last at that time). The two characters are near complete mirrors of one another. They have the same expertise, the same charm, the same cleverness, and the same principles. Instead of Ford being Junior, perhaps Indy’s son, is the Junior and Ford takes on the role of Sean Connery from the third movie. He is important to the plot, is intelligent and knows how to get past a lot of the ancient puzzles and traps, and contributes a little to the action. However, the son must be doing the bulk of the heavy-lifting on the action side.

Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones could be part of a team, one of two, perhaps three. Introduce either his son or a protege of some kind as the character to do the stunts and physical challenges of the adventure, with Indy coming in from time to time. Indy would best be used to provide the guile, the cleverness and to take enemies by surprise with a sucker punch of blindside rather than going toe-to-toe.

A third character could fill the Sallah or Brody role. This would be a supporting character, perhaps a love interest of the protege. What I would do differently than LucasFilm is to not have the female character be an insufferable, know-it-all, shameless tomb raiding jack ass who somehow overshadows the titular character and becomes the true protagonist. No, for this movie, it would be a supporting role. You could always give her her own movie later.

The three engage on an adventure in a region of the world that has not been covered yet. We’ve covered the Holy Land, India, and Peru. That leaves all of North America, Africa, and East Asia.

There’s Atlantis of course, which I believe might be the best one. In North America, there is the golden city of El Dorado as one possibility. Asian locations would be a tough sell given that archeologists seldom have expertise on multiple continents. Of course, Indiana Jones has already done that, although I would say Indy fell into the Temple of Doom situation. He wasn’t selected because of his expertise in Hindu artifacts.

Atlantis

The best option is the search for Atlantis. This is a myth close in proximity to the areas of expertise Jones is known to possess. It is within the Western tradition, predating Christianity so it would not be too much of a stretch to have him become an expert in this field.

To bring to new locations, you could locate it in the Bahamas near Bimini, in the Atlantic Ocean, in Spain, or in the Greek Isles. Anywhere you want that has some loose connection to an existing theory on the lost city. You could play with why its lost, why others want to find it, etc., etc.

The villains shouldn’t be Nazis. That is too easy. Perhaps it is a race to find Atlantis, someone putting up a vast amount of money, maybe the Soviets or someone in Europe wishes to find it. Or maybe it is located in a hostile land, perhaps in the midst of one of the wars for the holy land. A Muslim country, or within the Soviet bloc, for example, but no Nazis.

The Ending

The proper ending for Indiana Jones was in Crystal Skulls, for better or worse. If you have to extend the story, the only logical next step in the characters story is his death and the succession of someone else to carry on his legacy. I don’t know if I’d ever want to see it but I know that Dial of Destiny delivered a largely unsatisfying ending, one that felt completely pointless.

When a story has a great ending, forcing another chapter onto the end doesn’t make the story any better. It cheapens everything and is almost always a joyless cash-grab.

So, the end of Indiana Jones must come with a semblance of hope for the future, something to show his legacy will outlive him through his son or protege, or more than one person. I like the idea of more than one person personally so will go with that.

The ending has to be a sacrifice, one where Indy gives his life for the discovery and to save his protege. Perhaps this sacrifice convinces his protege to change his ways, to commit to saving and preserving history, not selling it or finding ways to profit, or using it for political ends. Indy is honored with some kind of honorary statue, plaque, or a department named after him at a university.

The artifact, which unfortunately did get recovered by the wrong people is up for auction. His protege and love interest steal it, replacing it with a fake and return it to a museum where it belongs. When they drop it off, the professor or researcher recognizes the name and asks if they know Doctor Jones. Once he hears that, he wants to tell the story of how he met Doctor Jones with the line “I have a story you wouldn’t believe!”

Also, Short Round needs to be integrated into the story, either as a supporting character, someone who shows up to Doctor Jones’s memorial and gives a hint or maybe shares other pieces of history entrusted to him until they could be safely delivered to the right people (after Soviet bloc fell). Ke Huy Quan not being in the last Indiana Jones movie is a crime against humanity.

So that’s it. That’s my idea for a fifth Indiana Jones movie. I think it would go vastly better than Dial of Destiny but still I would strongly prefer that there be no fifth movie at all. I don’t want a series, like James Bond, I don’t want a new Indy, and I don’t want the style and legacy of the first three films watered-down with 21st century mediocrity.

This is my best attempt but my heart says to let it be.