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| By Kevin Bowden |
A lot can be said about
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and why it didn’t “work” as well as the original trilogy, and more specifically, the original intent of Spielberg and Lucas when they decided to make a film titled
Raiders of the Lost Ark. It was 1981’s highest grossing film, an action/adventure story that paid homage to the serials they watched growing up, inspiring them to become filmmakers, which in turn inspired young boys worldwide to dream of globetrotting around the world in the hopes of kissing girls and punching bad guys.
The character of Henry “Indiana” Jones (“
Junior”) forever stayed in our hearts until one day it was decided that Indy needed to “grow up” and men in their 30’s started a premature mid-life crisis that will only get worse after the rumored 5
th installment of the series is released.
The following is my proposal to fix this mess. But first, why did almost every man I know at some point in their life find inspiration through the adventures of the world’s worst archaeologist?
Welp, he was just plain cool…
Dr. Jones was everything every young man wanted to be. He was a smart, single, multilingual, world traveler that women (including his students) fell in love with because he looked like Han Solo. If you messed with him he could kill you with virtually no repercussions other than another guy would mess with you immediately after whom you could also kill. (Note: I am in no way condoning murder but you show me a guy that rips an innocent persons heart out then slowly lowers their still screaming body into lava and I’ll show you a guy that needs to survive a fall from a suspension bridge only to be torn apart by alligators.)
…..but he was just like us.
While we wanted to be like him, we couldn’t, especially during our awkward adolescent years, and that is where we secretly connected with the character. In
Raiders, from opening shot to ending credits he fails at EVERYTHING. Sure he gets the girl in the end but does he really seem happy about that? Their relationship was returned to sender yeeeeears ago. Indy only flew to Nepal to see if Marion knew where her dad kept his old jewelry. It wasn’t until she bribed him that he let her tag along to Cairo to get in the way of all his archaeology-ing. Sure he drank himself into oblivion when he thought she was dead, but only because the explosion that (seemingly) killed Marion was caused by shooting the driver of the truck that was trying to run him over. So, yeah, I’d probably get drunk too if I accidentally exploded an old flame (ha!) that was also my friends daughter (wait, what?).
As Dr. Jones he may have been a competent archaeology professor, but in the field as the government-contracted/relic-hunting/tomb-hater Indiana Jones, can you think of one ancient site that wasn’t crumbled, drowned, or fire-balled as he was leaving? Truth be told, I’ve never stolen gold from a tomb and sealed the entrance with a giant boulder, keeping out anyone that would like to study the few relics I didn’t destroy, but I’ve had to make a few hasty exits in my day that I’m not proud of.
Indy, being the worldy make-out king that he is, still never manages to do much of anything with grace. I mean he looks good for his age but he’s about as graceful as a newborn horse. Of all the times we’ve seen him use a whip, rope, or vine to swing from one place to another he never quite gets it right….and when he does his legs are usually flailing comically. In
Crystal Skull, his son Mutt (played by Shia LeBeouf) navigates a jungle by doing his best Johnny Weismuller impression and it appears that he’s done it a million times before. Totally unrealistic for a movie that kind of has to do with aliens, or the Bible, or nationalism.
So Indy was everything cool we wanted to be and as awkward and reckless as we were trying to avoid. That was the appeal of the character. In the most recent film he is older (fine), slower (fine), marries the woman he never wanted around in the first place (OR the second place), finds out he has a son (that turns out to be Shia Lebeouf), and doesn’t directly kill one bad guy. Sure people die
around him, but it’s usually in large groups accompanied by comical screaming and cartoony CGI. Not one bad guys’ face is shown in a close up as it is being shot, melted, diced up by a propeller, exploded, aged, smacking against the side of a cliff, or, I don’t know, racistly eating exotic animals. The closest thing we get in the last film are ants crawling into a dudes mouth (yes, ants!) and Jones blowing into the end of a dartgun, shooting the dart that was loaded incorrectly backwards into the mouth of the Peruvian guy targeting Mutt. Said Peruvian then comically rolls his eyes, grunts, and falls to the ground which only tells me that the dart may have just been a tranquilizer but we’ll give Jones a point for going for the throat.
The Proposal:
Stop making more Indiana Jones movies! This one is hard for even me to swallow because I was excited beyond belief when I heard the news of a 4
th installment and I will most likely look forward to the next one until it makes me regret ever considering purchasing a brown bomber jacket. If Hollywood wants to make more Indy films I propose a list of rules that cannot be deviated from.
Harrison Ford steps down as Indiana Jones:
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That’s right, I said it. I love Harrison Ford but it’s time to let someone else play the lead. And I don’t mean a spin-off movie based around the Mutt Williams character. Just like the James Bond films, a new actor takes over and breathes new life into the role. And for my money I cannot see anyone else playing Indiana Jones other than Josh Holloway. Yes, Sawyer from
Lost. For one, I think he’s a good actor. Second, he has the physical ability and rugged good looks to play the role. As my roommate looks over my shoulder accusing me of having a man-crush on Holloway, I can only picture him displaying impressive sword techniques so I can simply shoot him in front of countless witnesses in broad daylight and totally get away with it.
“But if Holloway plays Jones wouldn’t his age take the series back to the 1920’s or 30’s?”
Exactly:
The story of Indiana Jones has never been revealed to us in chronological order.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the 2
nd film in the series, takes place before the events in
Raiders. It’s not a sequel, it’s not a prequel, it is simply just another adventure that has no clear ties to the films before or after it. The first 20 minutes of
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade stars River Phoenix as a young Indy and bears the most resemblance to a prequel or origin story than anything we had seen before because it explains where the character acquired many of the traits we’d grown accustomed to over the years (his fear of snakes, the use of a bullwhip, that scar on his chin, the fedora, why plastic rhino’s look more realistic than CGI ants, etc). Shortly after the success of
Crusade we were given the television series
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. You can argue that the TV series “doesn’t count” or is “non-canon” but Harrison Ford appeared in one episode as a middle-aged Indiana Jones with a beard (he was filming
The Fugitive at the time) so to me that counts.
Indy is SINGLE:
New rule! Indiana has to kiss
at least 2 women in each film. He only kissed one in all the others but I think he could’ve done better than that. The damsel in distress kisses him for saving her life and, I don’t know, some female villain tries to seduce information out of him (and he’s totally not buying it and plays along for fun because he’s Josh Holloway and he could probably make out with Karen Allen, Kate Capshaw, and Alison Doody all in one day and still put on an earring and go home to Calista Flockhart like it ain’t no thing).
Indy kills a lot of people:
IN SELF DEFENSE. If you’re driving a truck with precious God stuff inside and Nazi’s are shooting at you then you have every right to ram their jeep off a cliff. When some dude with a penchant for child slavery is clearly dominating you in a fight and is wearing loose clothing around heavy machinery your best bet is to hand him a rope attached to a pulley so you can get up to a catwalk where other guys are waiting to die. If some guy shoots your dad you have no obligation to say, “Wait! Wrong magic cup!”
No returning characters or references to the other films:
No character from any other film in the series is allowed. I’ll make two exceptions only. Marcus Brody and Sallah. Denholm Elliot has passed away so someone else would have to play the Brody character. John Rhys-Davies can still play Sallah as long as make-up can make him look like he did (at least) in 1989. Also, we don’t see how Indy meets Marcus or Sallah. We don’t know and we don’t care. He just knows them.
Spielberg and Lucas are banned from the set:
I have tremendous respect for their work whether it be as a director, writer, or producer (
Close Encounters of the Third Kind, JAWS, Star Wars, Howard the Duck) but please keep your hands off this movie! We don’t mind if you help get it made but you will have no input on the story, plot, or characters. We will be using stuntmen, miniatures, old fashioned camera tricks, and no ants (none).
Kevin Bowden (or K-Bow) was born in Ohio and rushed to Massachusetts to be raised in a town with one traffic light and currently is squatting in Rhode Island. He is a Cancer ( astrologically speaking) and (still) uses the lessons learned from Remo Williams:The Adventure Begins
in daily life. If you talk smack about Prince, Ric Flair, or John Ritter's performance in Skin Deep
he get's visibly irate. He also thinks Jake Speed
is a "solid" film.
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