...It's How Hard You Believe It

December 3, 2022 2:22 PM

Indiana Jones & the Dial of Destiny [Official Trailer]

‘Indiana Jones 5’ Trailer Unveils De-Aged Harrison Ford and New Title: ‘Dial of Destiny’ [Variety]
‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’ Trailer Breakdown: Indy Is Back One More Time [Collider]
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny [IMDB]
Previously

posted by chavenet (69 comments total)

This is apparently going to be John Williams' last film score before retirement, from what I understand. Nearly 70 years of steady, defining work in the business. Truly the swan song of a composing giant.
posted by hippybear at 2:40 PM on December 3, 2022 [20 favorites]

Indiana Jones 4 was pretty terrible, but hopefully this one is better. Let's hope someone stood there with a cattle prod and zapped Spielberg every time he tried to add aliens... The franchise has done well on the odd-numbered ones with Nazis, so fingers crossed!
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 2:49 PM on December 3, 2022 [9 favorites]

"Truly the swan song of a composing giant."

Indeed. And I think it's safe to assume that the music in the trailer is not composed by John Williams. Inspired by, definitely, but not written by. (the people who write trailer music are writing for the trailer, and they're generally to the people who write the movie's score).
posted by jonathanhughes at 2:54 PM on December 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

Some of my friends are discussing why Harrison Ford is still playing Indiana Jones but honestly, having an 80-year-old professor not retire is like the most accurate part of the franchise

posted by octothorpe at 2:54 PM on December 3, 2022 [133 favorites]

I think Indy is written as being around 70 in this movie. It's apparently taking place mostly in 1969 and involves Nazis within NASA.

Don't read that previous sentence if you didn't want to know that.
posted by hippybear at 2:56 PM on December 3, 2022 [14 favorites]

Raiders was set in 1936 and was made in 1981 so this film should be set in 1977 and Indy could go watch Star Wars.
posted by octothorpe at 3:04 PM on December 3, 2022 [63 favorites]

Nope. Not after the last one.
posted by rikschell at 3:06 PM on December 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

I feel sorry for Dr Jones, always chasing after the glory days of his youth. Ark of the Covenant, literal holy grail, saved a bunch of slaves from a murder cult... Confusing a vodka bottle with an artifact and now the switch of ultimate selection
posted by Jacen at 3:09 PM on December 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

There's a brief spot at about 1:09 in the trailer that pretty much looks like the cockpit view from the millennium falcon.
posted by kaibutsu at 3:09 PM on December 3, 2022 [14 favorites]

"It's not so much what you believe, it's how hard you believe it"? I preferred "Nazis, I hate these guys."
posted by Sing Or Swim at 3:19 PM on December 3, 2022 [31 favorites]

I don't care if the fourth one wasn't good (I enjoyed it anyway), I'm in. If you don't like it, more for me, and more for you of whatever you like.

I've also seen some hand-wringing about why Indiana Jones isn't doing X or Y or Z thing (like incorporating 21st century discussions about artifact repatriation). Indy is clearly a Lucas/Spielberg/Ford labor of love connected to those pulp serials of the 30s and 40s. And yes, those serials are flawed; they're all about the "exotic", which is an inherently racist lens on the world that the Indy movies adopted whole-hog; they're about stealing stuff from tombs and disrespecting indigenous culture. I respect those for whom those flaws are dealbreakers but my fave is problematic and I accept that.

Two things I do wonder about with this being the last one, supposedly. First, everybody has seen the reunion photo of Ford and Ke Huy Quan, I hope, and I wonder whether they have anything to incorporate him into this film. (I'd watch the Disney adventures of Short Round in a heartbeat.) And second, it looks like we're going back to the Nazi well, which certainly could fit in 1969, but Spielberg said he wasn't doing any more cartoon Nazis after Schindler's List and that's why we got the 1950s story we got in the fourth Indy movie. I haven't heard that Spielberg changed his mind, but on the other hand, this is certainly a good moment to reinforce that Nazis are Bad in pop culture one more time.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 3:21 PM on December 3, 2022 [17 favorites]

From the Trivia page of the IMDB link:

Rumors of Chris Pratt and even Bradley Cooper possibly assuming the titular role of Indiana Jones were laid to rest as of October 27, 2015 with confirmation from the studios attached that Harrison Ford would be reprising the role of Indy. Ford subsequently stated in 2019 that he didn't want his character to be recast, saying "When I'm gone, he's gone. It's easy". He later confirmed in 2022 that the fifth film would be his last time playing the character.

Ford is one of five actors to have played the role to date onscreen (or seven, if you count appearances as an infant or toddler). Oh, and there is also this.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:25 PM on December 3, 2022 [3 favorites]

For what it's worth, no one involved in the forth one or any previous ones is working on this other than John Williams. This is directed by James Mangold who did Logan, 3:10 to Yuma and Ford v. Ferrari.
posted by octothorpe at 3:25 PM on December 3, 2022 [7 favorites]

I don't care. I don't care. I don't care.....

Sallah's back!

This morning for fun, I watched the clip of Marion kissing Sallah before she and Indy left on the boat. I forgot the love Indy had for Sallah and Sallah's love for Indy. It's such a beautiful scene with healthy amounts of love, menace and humor.

I thought it was strange, as for me, it is so unlike a Spielberg scene in that it is quick, efficient and also has great depth. Buckminster Fuller once said that poetry in the maximum of information said in the minimum amount of words.

That's what the Marion, Indy, Sallah scene reminds me of.

I'll probably cry when Sallah enters the scene again.
posted by goalyeehah at 3:45 PM on December 3, 2022 [9 favorites]

I will probably see this but mostly because I’m Mad About Mads
posted by showbiz_liz at 4:03 PM on December 3, 2022 [5 favorites]

I’ll watch it just to see Sallah.

I love every one of the movies, even the bad ones.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 4:08 PM on December 3, 2022 [4 favorites]

I think Indy is written as being around 70 in this movie. It's apparently taking place mostly in 1969 and involves Nazis within NASA.

Holy Cow - what happened in 1969? THE MOON LANDING! What's on the Moon?!

NAZIS!
posted by alex_skazat at 4:11 PM on December 3, 2022 [8 favorites]

I was hoping at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade that drinking from the Holy Grail had made Indy eternally young.
Still, I'm looking forward to this. I'm not saying Spielberg is without mistakes but he does learn from his mistakes (number 4).
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 4:44 PM on December 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

"When I'm gone, he's gone. It's easy".

Sure. That sounds like Hollywood. They'll just quit cashing giant checks.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:44 PM on December 3, 2022 [7 favorites]

Best comment:
"... but honestly, having an 80-year-old professor not retire is like the most accurate part of the franchise"
posted by mbo at 5:05 PM on December 3, 2022 [12 favorites]

"I don't care if the fourth one wasn't good (I enjoyed it anyway), I'm in. If you don't like it, more for me, and more for you of whatever you like."

Same here. I'm going to watch the shit out of this movie. And we need more movies about college professors who are also action heroes (who preferably also beat the shit out of nazis) on the side.

It looks far better in the trailer than the fourth one did in its trailer, so hopefully that plays out in the final product.
posted by jonathanhughes at 5:05 PM on December 3, 2022 [7 favorites]

Just a note: in The Last Crusade, Indy's dad was presented as a comically ancient geezer. Harrison Ford is currently more than twenty years older than Sean Connery was when he made that movie.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:16 PM on December 3, 2022 [48 favorites]

I still say there's an alternate universe where the 4th one was a passing of the torch.

Instead of the 30s and 40s, the 50's and 60's. Instead of the whip and the hat, the switchblade and the greasy comb. Instead of relics and artifacts, cryptids and 'monsters'.

Mutt Williams and the Vampire's Castle
(Feds: "We're sending you behind the Iron Curtain. Stalin wants to dig up Dracula and live forever.")
Mutt Williams and the Mountain of the Yeti (Lhasa Uprising?)
Mutt Williams and the Werewolves of London (Carnaby Street cultists)
Mutt Williams and the Dragon of Kowloon Bay (what really sunk the RMS Queen Elizabeth)

Unfortunately, that ends up with a lot of Shia LaBeouf, and a lot of red star wearing "Commies. I hate these guys." trying to get there first.
posted by bartleby at 5:59 PM on December 3, 2022 [13 favorites]

I am not going to see this in theaters because I really don't care, but I will watch it because of Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who is not in this teaser enough (and while it's vaguely claimed she's the co-lead, I'll believe it when I see it).

At least it doesn't look terrible.
posted by edencosmic at 6:14 PM on December 3, 2022 [5 favorites]

It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage.
posted by credulous at 6:16 PM on December 3, 2022 [9 favorites]

Phoebe Waller-Bridge (as the daughter of Marcus Brody perhaps?) makes me already want a Last Crusade type sequel, where Harrison Ford:Phoebe Waller-Bridge::Sean Connery:Fiona Shaw.
posted by bartleby at 6:28 PM on December 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

For a while now, I've been filing this under "If the Fanbros Hate It This Much, I'm Probably Going to Love It," right between The Last Jedi and Thor: Love and Thunder.

And Short Round? Don't get me started on Short Round. I loved him; he was my audience insert character, but for forty goddamn years I've heard nothing but complaints about him from male fans. Now, all of a sudden, because the alternative is a woman, all I hear is demands to bring Short Round back. Make up your damn minds.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:52 PM on December 3, 2022 [6 favorites]

I still say there's an alternate universe where the 4th one was a passing of the torch.

Er... in this other timeline, is Shia LaBeouf still a thing?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:06 PM on December 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

‘Cause I really thought we were in the darkest timeline here.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:07 PM on December 3, 2022 [3 favorites]

I would prefer 'son of Indy and Marion Ravenwood' not to have been LaBeef in the first place.

I'm scrolling through actors born the same year to narrow down the casting. How would Jamie Bell look, in a motorcycle jacket and Elvis haircut?
posted by bartleby at 7:22 PM on December 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

I really thought the fourth Die Hard movie was going to be a handoff from Bruce Willis doing more old school action movie stuff to Justin Long doing more modern cyber action movie stuff. But then they went and made a fifth Die Hard and ruined that chance for a hand-off.

I would have approved of that much more than LeBeouf continuing the Indy series.
posted by hippybear at 7:24 PM on December 3, 2022 [3 favorites]

Now, all of a sudden, because the alternative is a woman, all I hear is demands to bring Short Round back. Make up your damn minds.

Both.gif
posted by gentlyepigrams at 7:28 PM on December 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

I have forgotten how to search through my own comment history, but to paraphrase,
The Die Hard Handoff should have been to his daughter, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, with Justin Long as her fiancee / 'guy in the chair on the radio'.
MEW, crawling through an air duct using her phone as a flashlight, talking to herself: "Come visit your parents for the holidays, we'll have a few laughs!"
JL: 'what was that, I didnt catch it'
MEW: "nothing. oh God, I'm starting to sound just like my dad."
posted by bartleby at 7:39 PM on December 3, 2022 [18 favorites]

I thought Kevin Smith was the guy in the chair on the radio? Or am I misremembering the movie entirely?
posted by hippybear at 7:42 PM on December 3, 2022 [3 favorites]

Set it in 2022. Some kids find a mysterious ancient technology and take it to an 80yo professor of archaeology, who identifies it as a rotary phone. Dial of destiny!
posted by adept256 at 7:52 PM on December 3, 2022 [7 favorites]

I miss River Phoenix.
posted by gwint at 8:10 PM on December 3, 2022 [10 favorites]

River Phoenix: another victim of the western drought.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:14 PM on December 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

hippybear, re Die Hard,
A continuing of the series, but with

Winstead as Lucy McClane, action gal
Long as her stay at home fiancee
Willis and Bedelia, in a cameo, calling from the couch, bugging them about granddchildren
No Smith

1st: Die Hard, but it's I was going to propose on top of the Eiffel Tower and we got taken hostage
2nd: Die Hard, but it's we have to get through a Die Hard passing a baby (toddler?) back and forth
3rd: Die Hard, but it's no-lawsuits-definitely-not-a-Disney-theme-park family vacation.
MEW: "Honey, I want you to take Molly and hand me my bag."
JL: 'Huh, for a second there you were doing that thing with your voice. Wait, you are doing that..Here? Again?'
MEW: "I dunno, but that's the fourth person I've seen at Wally World this morning who's carrying a machine pistol. Molly, go with Daddy on the Jungle Boats, mommy's going to look for one of those biiig pretzels, OK?"
Molly: I'm nine and know some spy shit's going down and want to be involved!
posted by bartleby at 8:31 PM on December 3, 2022 [9 favorites]

Er... in this other timeline, is Shia LaBeouf still a thing?

Actual cannibal Shia LeBeouf?

(I was in a production of Julius Caesar when this song was at its peak. We used to have dance party on stage every night in between fight call and opening the house, and "Shia LeBeouf" came up a couple of times in rotation. So, it always brings back warm and fuzzy memories.)
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:34 PM on December 3, 2022 [4 favorites]

...this is certainly a good moment to reinforce that Nazis are Bad in pop culture one more time.

Conrad Veidt approves.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:39 PM on December 3, 2022 [5 favorites]

rotary phone. Dial of destiny!
when it rang, they had to answer it!!
ancient peoples and their inscrutable folkways
posted by bartleby at 8:56 PM on December 3, 2022 [9 favorites]

It's as if the Pharaohs have returned.
posted by credulous at 9:11 PM on December 3, 2022 [3 favorites]

“…it’s how hard you believe it.”

INDIANA JONES DOES NOT WAX PHILOSOPHICAL.
HE WHACKS NAZIS.
posted by TangoCharlie at 10:17 PM on December 3, 2022 [11 favorites]

DIE HARD 6: It's how hard you diet.
posted by adept256 at 10:43 PM on December 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

Hmm, 'it's how hard you believe it' is uncomfortably close to 'say what you will about the tenets of national socialism, at least it's an ethos.' Look, Indy, just stick to punching the Nazis, okay?
posted by kaibutsu at 10:47 PM on December 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

Eh, I’m OK with a bit of vague philosophizing. Never met an elderly academic who didn’t indulge in it from time to time.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:00 PM on December 3, 2022 [3 favorites]

No Karen Allen?
posted by Marky at 11:32 PM on December 3, 2022 [3 favorites]

I found this tweet to be an eerily accurate summary of my experience:

”Let me watch this bullshit new Indiana Jones trailer... hm just as a I suspected it looks... [John Williams score plays] 😭😭😭”

Raiders of the Lost Ark is hands down my absolute favorite movie of all time, and after that Crystal Skull debacle I was completely against them making a fifth one but… ugh… this looks like it might be good? Please don’t let me down again. My old heart can’t take it.

At least if nothing else, it looks like there’s gonna be a lot of Nazi punching, and for that alone I’m gonna have to see it.
posted by Aznable at 6:03 AM on December 4, 2022 [4 favorites]

Let's hope someone stood there with a cattle prod and zapped Spielberg every time he tried to add aliens...

My understanding is that was George’s hobbyhorse and they acquiesced to him when it became clear he wasn’t going to change his mind.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 6:44 AM on December 4, 2022 [3 favorites]

Folks, if they replaced Darren on Bewitched, they can surely replace Shia LeBouf as Indy’s son.

They could also make another Die Hard movie casting whoever they want and pretend any of the prior ones never happened. They aren’t laws, they’re movies.

Just don’t cast Alden Ehrenreich as Han Solo — that was unbelievable.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 6:59 AM on December 4, 2022 [2 favorites]

was hoping at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade that drinking from the Holy Grail had made Indy eternally young.

Indy and the entire franchise is my husband's defining fandom (he can tell you about all of the different hats Indy wears), therefore I have seen these movies dozens of times and participated in a few fun things. The knight in the temple said that the grail couldn't be taken past the seal in the ground, which meant that the price of immortality would be staying in the crypt forever. The Jones Boys would never.

We both like the trailer, but find it a little melancholy. That might be middle age talking. I'm not really keen on seeing Indy killed off but I get why that would need to happen. Here are 2 alternative Kim-written endings that would get the same result but with fewer tears from House Russell.

Ending 1: Indy returns from this adventure, exhausted and happy. Door opens, surprise Marion (Karen Allen) reveal as she says, "Come on in, I'll make you a drink. You know, a drink?"

Ending 2: Or, Indy is older, in a comfy chair, finishing a letter from Phoebe Waller-Bridge. He smiles, folds the letter, places it on his lap and closes his eyes. The camera slow pans across his walls filled with photos and map fragments and finally a whip & hat hung on a peg, where we fade to black. He may be dead, he may be sleeping.
posted by kimberussell at 7:22 AM on December 4, 2022 [9 favorites]

Let's hope someone stood there with a cattle prod and zapped Spielberg every time he tried to add aliens...


Spielberg has zero involvement in this movie.
posted by octothorpe at 7:22 AM on December 4, 2022 [1 favorite]

My understanding is that was George’s hobbyhorse

It's why the fourth one wasn't made for years, Spielberg and Ford hated Lucas' stupid aliens plot, but George apparently wouldn't budge and so they finally acquiesced just to get the thing made at all. This one is directed by James Mangold, and written by Mangold, Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth, so it's the first Indy movie we've seen with no Lucas mucking up the script, so fingers crossed.

Whatever happens in the plot, I'm betting that this movie will end with either a new Indiana Jones (via fountain-of-youth-type shenanigans) or a new character to whom Indy directly passes on the whip and the hat (maybe Waller-Bridge's character?), because Ford is done but the franchise must abide.
posted by LooseFilter at 7:26 AM on December 4, 2022 [5 favorites]

Indy gets a lot of credit for killing like five Nazis in Raiders, but Marion machine-guns a whole truck full of them backwards in heels.

Allen was so vibrant and physical. I think she is underappreciated in that movie.
posted by fleacircus at 10:41 AM on December 4, 2022 [20 favorites]

Allen was so vibrant and physical. I think she is underappreciated in that movie.

One of the things I hated most about the fourth movie was what they did to her character. Marion Ravenwood was a certified badass in Raiders.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 2:51 PM on December 4, 2022 [4 favorites]

I was sorta hoping that PWB would have been responsible for some of the writing, or even just tuning up the dialog but damn this movie still looks like everything else I had hoped for. My money, take it.
posted by Ber at 3:00 PM on December 4, 2022 [1 favorite]

One of the things I hated most about the fourth movie was what they did to her character.

THIS.

The first thing Marion should have done when Indy showed up was punch him in the goddamn face! Just like the first movie, and like he deserved for leaving her at the altar. It would have been in character, and a perfect call-back. It was, in fact, necessary.

They did her wrong, and I'll never forgive it.

Also, I thought it was ridiculous they stole a plotline from a lesser Stargate SG-1 episode for that movie.
posted by suelac at 4:32 PM on December 4, 2022 [5 favorites]

if they replaced Darren on Bewitched, they can surely replace Shia LeBouf as Indy’s son.

Where are they gonna find another actor named Shia tho?
posted by solotoro at 4:43 PM on December 4, 2022 [6 favorites]

We live in the bad reality where Ford never got to hand the role of Adult Indy off to River Phoenix allowing us to keep having 20s-40s pulp adventures. So now we’re stuck with Indiana Jones searching for the magical sword of Le Loi for Robert McNamara who wants to harness the power of the occult against the NVA.
posted by MarchHare at 5:05 PM on December 4, 2022 [4 favorites]

I kind of like that the Indiana Jones timeframe is catching up to those goofy 1980s MacGyver treasure hunt episodes that were not-so-subtle riffs/ripoffs of it, like the one that literally begins with a Marion expy engaged in a dice game with the locals instead of a drinking contest. I think there's another one where instead of John Rhys-Davies they got BRIAN BLESSED to be MacGyver's sidekick.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:13 PM on December 4, 2022 [3 favorites]

The problem with continuing Indiana Jones is that so much hangs on Harrison Fors being Indy it’s really hard to go anywhere else. Star Wars has a much more developed universe to play with and more than one main character.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 5:32 PM on December 4, 2022 [2 favorites]

Dial H for Hero!
posted by vrakatar at 7:56 PM on December 4, 2022 [2 favorites]

We live in the bad reality where Ford never got to hand the role of Adult Indy off to River Phoenix allowing us to keep having 20s-40s pulp adventures.

Sean Patrick Flanery's still around.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:59 PM on December 4, 2022 [5 favorites]

I totally forgot it wasn’t Phoenix in the Young Indy series! In my memory it didn’t run for long after Last Crusade, but I’m quite wrong about that. Of course, I also totally forgot that Young Indy wound up as one of the Boondock Saints, which seems like a weird inflection point in his career toward pulp (as distinct from something attempting to honour but transcend a pulp tradition). I mean it’s not Ibsen, sure, but he seems to get a lot of work.
posted by MarchHare at 1:49 AM on December 5, 2022 [2 favorites]

Ugh. Seeing Sallah again is great, but I didn't realize how deplorable John Rhys-Davis has become.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:01 AM on December 5, 2022 [2 favorites]

how deplorable John Rhys-Davis has become

Sounds like he’s morphing into real-life Maximilian Arturo.

(Hey universe, still waiting on that Sliders reboot…)
posted by LooseFilter at 5:48 AM on December 5, 2022 [2 favorites]

I am soooo fucking here for this thread - and the handoff is Phoebe, who will be the new IJ - rather obviously.
posted by dbiedny at 2:29 PM on December 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

> I think there's another one where instead of John Rhys-Davies they got BRIAN BLESSED to be MacGyver's sidekick.

BRIAN BLESSED's name should always be capitalized, shouldn't it.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:33 PM on December 6, 2022 [7 favorites]

The problem with continuing Indiana Jones is that so much hangs on Harrison Fors being Indy it’s really hard to go anywhere else. Star Wars has a much more developed universe to play with and more than one main character.

This was an issue with the tabletop role-playing games of both these properties some 35 years ago. One was always an ensemble piece; the other was always centred on one and only one character. Guess which game setting has been steadily developed and rebooted and passed from publisher to publisher while the other remains a weird, half-forgotten curiosity.

I think it is the social nature of how TTRPGs work. The same dynamic is there with a couple other licensed games from the eighties: Victory Games published a James Bond game that spluttered out after a few years, while FASA’s Star Trek game was one of maybe a half-dozen different games in that setting to come out in the last forty years, each with a plethora of support.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:34 AM on December 8, 2022 [1 favorite]