Yesterday, the first trailer for the long-developing fifth Indiana Jones movie, now titled Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, was released. Even after having been burned by the last entry in the series, I am not opposed, in principle, to one last Indiana Jones movie.
Of late, there have been many sequels to films released decades prior. See this year’s Top Gun: Maverick, or 2015’s Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens, the latter also starring Harrison Ford. Their track record is mixed; they often so overdose on nostalgia that they fail to contribute anything original, or so compromise the story they claim to continue that the very existence of a follow-up can seem, at best, dubious. But this doesn’t have to happen, as Top Gun: Maverick proved.
Whether Dial of Destiny can justify its existence remains to be seen. Steven Spielberg, who directed the first four movies in this series, and George Lucas, who (with Spielberg) originated the character and had some involvement in the scripts of all prior entries, do not occupy such roles in this film, having been kicked upstairs as executive producers. Filling these roles instead are director James Mangold (Logan, Ford v Ferrari), who also co-wrote the script with some of his Ford v Ferrari screenwriters. Some of the obvious hurdles that the story will need to overcome include Ford’s age (like our current president, he’s now 80), and the gut-level incongruity of having the character of Indiana Jones inhabiting the world of the late 1960s. It is a pleasant surprise to discover that Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) will be returning to help the story through these challenges.
What will Dial of Destiny be about? What little we know so far suggests it will involve the Space Race and American efforts to recruit ex-Nazis to help in it (which really did happen). It’s difficult to speculate from trailers, but one brief clip may have depicted some kind of time travel. And unless my many years of watching the sort of shows on the History Channel that Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) complains about have failed me, it looked to me like Dr. Jones might have been lecturing about “Die Glocke,” an alleged time-traveling bell-shaped craft that the finest late-night TV speculations have theorized the Nazis once developed. (Some versions of the tale then have it showing up 20 years later, having vanished into some kind of wormhole, and crashing in rural Pennsylvania.) This is pure conjecture on my part, though I would find it somewhat amusing if this is what the movie is about — even as I agree with the YouTuber Critical Drinker that time travel could easily ruin this movie.
Regardless, this better be the last real Indiana Jones movie. The trailer proves what other reports have revealed: that we will have a “de-aged” Harrison Ford as Indy in some parts of the movie. But Disney/Lucasfilm better not get any ideas with that. Ford himself has said, “I’m Indiana Jones. When I’m gone, he’s gone.” This is undoubtedly true. But it shouldn’t rule out the possibility of telling other interesting stories in the world of Indiana Jones. As Jim Geraghty wrote back in 2014, this would be eminently possible for a creative screenwriter (if there are any left in Hollywood). Jim offered two options: “Tell a 1930s-1940s-1950s pulp adventure story featuring another adventurer, perhaps someone who’s heard of Indiana Jones or mentions him as a rival”; or “tell a story that takes place in the modern day” centered on “a descendant of Indy’s, or just some young archeologist who’s uncovered Indy’s personal papers.” Both could be interesting, though Jim preferred the latter.
At any rate, we’ll get to see next summer whether Ford’s last go-round as one of his most famous characters will have been worth another sequel — or whether they’ll nuke the fridge once more.