Given that Shia LaBeouf has been showing signs of insanity, I think it’s safe to assume that he will not be involved. (Surely they’d never get a completion guarantee with him starring in it.)
True, but be careful of extrapolating from a sample size of two.
For some people, it’s their favorite of the series. That baffles me, but it takes all kinds to make a world … more’s the pity. 
He essentially wouldn’t have “appeared” at all. It’s not like you’re going to see a “Where are they now?” show about that guy who had like two lines in American Graffiti. Still, he’s been reasonably entertaining over the years, and it’s not like he’s rated all that high anyway. He’s rated just about at the right level I think.
How about Sean Patrick Flanery returning to the role?
You heard it here first:
Alex O’Loughlin as the new Indy.
Thread closed. What do I win?
Stupid links didn’t work. Lets try this instead.
I agree with this. He can be funny and grumpy at the same time. Much like Indy.
Maybe he can appear as the real son of Indy. His identity was stolen by Shia and he didn’t find out till much later, because he was already exploring and stuff. When he did find out he killed Shia by tricking him into opening something that will melt his face while Nazi’s try to gather the ultimate device to win the war.
Bonus points for a cameo by Sean Connery in a scene where HF and KU phone him for help and he just says "sod off’.
I agree that of the three original movies, Temple of Doom is the weakest, but not by much. I hadn’t seen any of them since I was a kid, and watched all three about two weeks ago and was surprised a)how well they held up and b)the fact that all three maintained a fairly high level of quality.
Willie Scott lost me with the goofy seduction scene, and by the second time she broke a nail, I was kinda done with her. But I don’t think she ruined the movie or anything. And I definitely share her sentiments on insects.
His voice is too high.
Or at least, that’s how I remember him.
The good thing about Ford was he came off as more or less a regular guy. Nowadays, Indy would be cast as some muscle bound pretty boy. So pretty much just like every summer action film. No thanks.
I saw ToD in the theater the weekend it came out. I was 8.
I liked Short Round a lot! I also remember thinking Willie screamed far too much (I also though she was cute, but needed to calm down for a minute).
However, I remember being in class the next Monday and telling some friend that I saw it. I remember just not having much to say about it.
Now remember, this was the 8 year old me.
I also saw Raiders in the theater. I’m thinking it must have been a rerelease, since I was born in Oct. 1975, I doubt I would have seen that in 1981. Wasn’t it back in theaters in 1982?
Anyway, I was blown away by Raiders! I remember I was going to a private school at the time and wore khaki pants and leather shoes, almost like Indy! Anyway, it was all I could do for a about a month to not run down every grass hill I saw while pretending a swarm of natives were after me!
Seriously, that film left a mark on my impressionable mind! That really says a lot to Spielberg, Lucas and Ford.
And so, I have faith that they can pull it off one more time. (And actually, Last Crusade is my favorite of the franchise).
He seems to have grown out of it.
Nazi’s are always good at being bad, but I don’t agree that the last film needed to have Nazi’s in it. The communists were basically Nazi’s anyway, and it made perfect sense that an older Indy was now fighting against Communists who wanted to find some mystical weapon to fight the cold war.
The problem wasn’t the lack of Nazi’s, the problem was that it was just a shit film.
The apostrophe section of my brain just died. I think I had an apostroke.
There we go. Indiana Jones and the Nazi Yetis of Somethingorother.
As far as I’ve seen, a new Indiana Jones film is mostly just a pipe dream right now. I believe Disney bought the rights to it, but I also don’t think they know what to do with it, at least not enough to put the kind of resources behind it that it would require when they have other higher demand properties they clearly have visions for, Marvel and Star Wars.
As I see it, the biggest hurdle to Indiana Jones is that a sequel from where the last one left off just won’t work. Personally, I think that the Russians in the Cold War era could work, in theory, but there’s just something about the property that doesn’t work in the 50s. Such that Temple of Doom just seemed to work better, even if, from an American perspective, the Russians seem like more of a pure unadulterated evil like the Nazis than they did. The other problem is, I think they wanted to try to set up Shia Labeouf to take up the mantle, but the character was just intolerable, and Harrison Ford was already REALLY pushing it, so he’s definitely too old now.
I think the best approach would be a semi-reboot. By that, I mean they could recast Indiana Jones and make some new adventures during the late 30s or 40s, perhaps even right after Last Crusade. Give Harrison Ford a cameo, perhaps having him recalling an adventure, so he could give context and credibility to the new actor. I think a great place to start recasting for Indiana Jones would be Nathan Fillion. He has a similar enough look and presence and he’s slightly younger than Harrison Ford was after Last Crusade, so he could pick up in the continuity and still pull off two or three films.
As for plot devices, obviously religious artifacts work best. The one I would push for most would be the Spear of Destiny. It’s not as well known as the Ark or the Grail, but it’s still fairly well known, it’s already got some modern mythology related to Nazis, and apparently there was a comic miniseries by Dark Horse called Indiana Jones and the Spear of Destiny. I wouldn’t mind seeing some other artifacts from other major religions, perhaps Islam, but that would likely require villains other than the Nazis.
Actually I think they do know what to do with it. They want to turn it into a franchise, like James Bond or the Jason Bourne series. Even the recent Jack Ryan film is an attempt at building a new franchise.
The character AND the actor.
I can’t decide whether I love that or hate that but it’s definitely one of those. But I suspect any reboot will go younger than Fillion.
Wasn’t that the thingumabob from “Constantine”?
I think I’d avoid Christian artifacts. Nothing can compete with the Holy Grail. If the story is going to include Nazis then maybe incorporate a Norse/Wagnerian artifact? Hitler was pretty big on Wagner.
It’s kind of funny how Nazis make the perfect foil. They are the ultimate (human) evil and yet they are such a cliche that you can make jokes about them (“And this is how we say good bye in Germany…”).
Yes, but the use in that film/comic isn’t as in alignment with the myth I’m most familiar with. As the Grail gave immortality, it was called the Spear of Destiny because it supposedly allowed one to forge his own destiny. So where the Grail may have granted the Nazi leadership immortality, the Spear could have actually allowed the Nazis to win the war.
I think a big part of the reason why the first and third films are so successful is because almost everyone is familiar with those artifacts and the legends surrounding them. The stones in Temple of Doom, I don’t know whether they actually exist in real myth or were made up for the film, but even if they are based on real myth, no one knows it, and while the Crystal Skulls are real myth, no one is familiar with them, and the tie in with legends people did know, El Dorado, was downplayed and not in alignment with myth. I also think Crystal Skull failed because it left the whole pseudo-mythic realm the previous films were in.
So, I don’t think it has to be Judeo-Christian in origin, but I do think it’s important to try to find mythical artifacts that the general movie-going audience would be familiar with. Frankly, I can’t think of any other really well known non-Judeo-Christian artifacts. Maybe they could pick something from Atlantis, the artifact wouldn’t have to be well known if they really played up the story of Atlantis, make this artifact somehow responsible for the sinking of Atlantis and why it’s dangerous. I think pretty much anything Egyptian could work for similar reasons, some artifact that controls the path of life and death. Perhaps they could do something related to the Terracota Army in China, some Jade artifact that would resurrect them as an invincible fighting force. I think all of those have enough common knowledge that they could work well.
Hell, They could use all of that, or others, especially if they’re making it into a franchise, but I think if they do start a new set of films, they shouldn’t deliberately avoid Judeo-Christian artifacts. Do some stuff from other cultures to mix it up some, but I still feel like the franchise is most in it’s element, if for no other reason, because Raiders and Crusade are the best regarded films.
That, and the Nazis were notorious for being into the occult. This, I think, is part of why Temple of Doom still kind of works, because those worshippers of Kali is definitely in that occult realm. The Russians, while generally seen as evil, though not ultimate evil, there’s nothing remotely occult about them at all. I think the villain really needs to believe it has some kind of mythical power, not just all the sci-fi crap.
They should make it about Nazi Thule Society obsession with hollow earth theory and Vril power. It’s all spooky occult territory has been well-mined by Mike Mignola in the lesser-read Hellboy universe comics like Lobster Johnson, and Guillermo DelToro was fat fool to take the movies in the direction he did and ignore this goldmine.
Or yetis. Or both. Journey to the center of the hollow earth with vril powered yetis. I want to track down those old R.L. Stine books now.
And to make it really funny, have them snark about how Johann Schmidt keeps running around Norway looking for his magic cube.