Indiana Jones and the Perils of the Magic Kingdom

Today, Indiana Jones faces his greatest cliffhanger: the Disney era of the franchise

Last month concluded Disney’s 14th bi-annual D23 Expo since they acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, marking yet another missed opportunity to reveal the studio’s long-term creative strategy for one of the most valuable franchises in the world: Indiana Jones.

A widely publicized 2015 poll named Indiana Jones as the greatest film character of all time, ahead of James Bond, Batman and Han Solo. But since their acquisition of Lucasfilm, Disney has remained tight-lipped about plans for the character’s future aside from announcing (and twice shifting) a release date for the fifth installment in the series, which is now set for July of 2021. Disney head Bob Iger, when asked to describe the studio’s plans for the Indiana Jones franchise, seemed uncharacteristically at a loss for words, saying, “It’s not really a reboot. It’s a boot – a reboot. I don’t know.” 

The greatest challenge with Disney’s next film will not only be to boot– er, reboot the Indiana Jones franchise, which has been out of our pop culture consciousness for more than a decade, but to provide a creatively satisfying answer for how the character’s journey will end — and how the films will continue after Harrison Ford, inevitably, hangs up his fedora.

The original Indiana Jones trilogy ends on what could be considered the franchise’s creative and cultural high note in 1989’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, a film that teams Indy with his father in search of the Holy Grail. A cleverly staged opening prologue featuring a younger Indy learning lessons he later employs in the field as a professor and archeologist, along with scenes examining his broken relationship to his father and their ultimate reconciliation, all help to ground Indy as a real person, a flesh and blood hero. Indy bleeds; Indy has flaws. Before Indy rides off into the literal and figurative sunset, we know a great deal more about his character – who he is, how he got there, and where he is going. 

“Hey guys, think we should just call it a franchise?” [Image credit: Disney/ Lucasfilm]

The previous installment, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was technically a prequel which took place before Raiders of the Lost Ark, helping to explain how Indy grew from a self-centered fortune hunter into a moralistic academic who believed ancient relics ‘belong in a museum.’

By the time the creative architects behind Indiana Jones reconvened for the first new film in nearly two decades, 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, they must have quickly realized audiences wanted more than just another episode of escalating cliffhangers starring a whip-toting, fedora-wearing icon; fans wanted to see a deepening of the themes for this character they had come to care about. And so we got an older but still death-defying Indiana Jones adventuring alongside his long-lost son, Mutt and, finally, settling down and marrying his sweetheart, Marion.

We already know Disney’s next sequel will need to untie some of those tidy ‘happily ever after’ knots. Mutt, we’ve been assured, will not be returning to carry the torch. Creatively, though, the filmmakers will still have to explain what happened to Mutt and Marion in the intervening years since Indy and Marion were last seen leaving the chapel as husband and wife.


Given the decade-plus between productions and the fact the last movie was set in 1957, I would anticipate the next film takes place in the late 1960s, an era rife with socio-political drama from which to mine the storyline including Vietnam. Maybe Mutt was drafted into the war and Indy’s next adventure takes him to Southeast Asia in search of his son, who is MIA? This feels like one possible direction that would present new facets of Indy’s character.

So then, where else might the Indiana Jones character be in the late 1960s, and how might we see the older version of the character grow onscreen in this new Disney era in a more profound, relatable way? 

Just as Crystal Skull took its inspiration from sci-fi b-movies from the 1950s, I expect the next Indy storyline to borrow some of its stylings from the political thrillers of the late 1960s like The Manchurian Candidate. This style of film could still pack the thrills fans have come to expect from the franchise, but wouldn’t have to be as heavy on action and stunts.

The late 1960s is also when audiences were first introduced to James Bond, the character said to have most inspired Steven Spielberg when he and George Lucas were hatching the idea for Indiana Jones. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Indy engaging in espionage and using his brains more than his brawn in the next installment of the series, matching wits against a devious British agent in search of an ancient artifact that threatens to alter the balance of power throughout the fraught political landscape of the era.

For OG fans like me, it’s nearly impossible to imagine anyone wearing the famous fedora other than Harrison Ford. He is Indiana Jones. And yet, it’s also impossible to avoid the fact Harrison Ford will be almost 80-years old when the next movie opens, well beyond the age one might realistically be expected to out-run a boulder. In fact, Harrison Ford will be the same age Robert Eddison was during the filming of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade; Eddison, you’ll recall, played the hundreds-of-years-old Grail Knight. Which means for the first time in the series, the next Indiana Jones movie will have to address Indy’s age in an honest way. 

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull treated its version of an older Indy with contempt by having Mutt spew an endless stream of throwaway insults, calling Indy ‘gramps’ and ‘old man’ whenever he struggled to keep up with his younger progeny. This approach agreed with the overall heightened reality of the movie, which had Indy crash landing through an Army truck windshield as it sped through a warehouse, and falling down an impossibly huge series of waterfalls in an amphibious convertible, and even (gasp!) surviving an atomic blast while stored away inside a lead-lined fridge. Yes, the filmmakers seemed to be saying, we acknowledge Indy is older, but we’re making light of his advancing age by pretending he’s a superhero rather than adhering to any laws of physics which could explain how he’s doing… this.

Infographic credit: The Geek Twins

It’s possible Ford and the filmmakers were in denial about their own advancing ages and thus used the opportunity of their last Indiana Jones feature together to live vicariously through the character, to defy Father Time yet again by manifesting more bygone fantasies from their youth. 

But as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and even Harrison Ford must eventually admit, they are getting older, and now their own legacies are being encroached upon and reevaluated by generations of up-and-coming filmmakers and performers whose youthful energies and political ideologies are more closely aligned with the cultural moment we live in now. We know Disney already sidelined George Lucas on both Star Wars and Indiana Jones, the two projects that make up the majority of his creative legacy. What if the older Indiana Jones we meet in the next movie is dealing with similar issues to do with his own legacy?

I predict Harrison Ford’s final Indiana Jones movie will deal with weighty themes such as legacy, mortality, identity, wisdom and faith, and I think the most interesting creative possibility for the character at this stage of his life would be to craft a meta-narrative paralleling the undeniable real-life drama playing out behind the scenes on Disney’s franchise reboot. 

What if Indiana Jones has his legacy undermined by cultural forces outside of his control? Imagine, for example, if Indiana Jones confronts ageism when the Marshall College Dean threatens to replace him with a younger professor (played by Chris Pratt). Or, if his academic legacy is tarnished after a colleague publicly excoriates him as a racist after his long career spent appropriating the treasures of indigenous cultures. (This critic already sort of did.) Maybe Marion passed away and now Indy is forced to sell off his entire legacy of research and artifacts at a museum auction, much like Lucasfilm’s intellectual properties were sold off in 2012. How will Indy escape that cliffhanger?

One possibility would be for our octogenarian Indiana Jones to be established as a wise older professor whose college class has become a launching pad for the best of the best in archeology and other related fields – a Hogwarts for Relic Hunters, with Indy as the resident Dumbledore. Maybe we meet some of Indy’s star students (“The Raiders”) who accompany him on his next adventure. This has a Disney gloss to it, right? 

One can imagine a powerful scene when Indy delivers his final lecture before retiring as a Professor, set to a melancholy minor-key composition from the great John Williams. If this is indeed Harrison Ford’s final turn in his most iconic role, it would be moving to see him deliver an emotional meta-commentary about some of the hardest won wisdom he gleaned from a life spent chasing fortune and glory. And I’m sure Oscar voters wouldn’t miss a chance to reward one of Hollywood’s biggest stars for his most enduring and personal performance.

Image credit: Unknown

Finally, there’s the little matter of who might replace Indiana Jones himself, Harrison Ford…

One common refrain amongst OG fans who grew up with Star Wars is how the Disney reboot felt like a remake of the first movie for a new generation, reissuing many of the same plot beats and character archetypes and dressing them up with modern, state-of-the-art effects. I don’t think Disney can afford to do the same with Indiana Jones expecting the same results. Star Wars is a genre unto itself, whereas Indiana Jones has always relied on Harrison Ford’s dynamic performance to transcend the pulpy serials which inspired his character. 

As Harrison Ford has bluntly stated in recent interviews, he has no intention of handing off Indiana Jones’ trademark whip and fedora to a younger actor. But what about a younger actress?

Consider how Disney’s reboot of Star Wars has mostly focused on female heroines, and how Lucasfilm is now being run by Kathleen Kennedy, who started her career as an Associate Producer on Raiders of the Lost Ark. Even Steven Spielberg himself has hinted that we might see an ‘Indiana Joan’ soon. 

Like Marion, who acted as Indy’s strong and alluring partner in Raiders, a whipsmart (ha) female character could act as a complementary counterpart and equal to Indiana Jones, instead of merely trying to unseat him as the hero of the franchise. 

Hey, does Jennifer Lawrence have a franchise these days? I’m just saying.

My final prediction for Disney’s Indiana Jones film in 2021 is that a female character will be introduced to carry the franchise forward. Whether that character is Indy’s long-lost daughter, a former student, a Jane Goodall-type anthropologist, or some amalgam of all the aforementioned possibilities, I’d be willing to wager all the golden chalices in the Grail Knight’s chamber on it. 

“Excuse me, Mr. Knight, sir? I seem to have won a bet.” [Image credit: Disney/ Lucasfilm]

It’s possible that given all the creative hurdles the filmmakers are facing, the next Indiana Jones film will continue being pushed until it is no longer feasible for Harrison Ford to crack the whip. Perhaps Disney’s real plan for rebooting Indiana Jones is to launch a new franchise inspired by the character starring today’s most popular actors. Disney’s most recent D23 Expo didn’t include any Indiana Jones updates, but it did introduce the studio’s upcoming adaptation of Jungle Cruise, an action adventure film featuring a khaki-shirted The Rock teaming up with a butt-kicking Emily Blunt in search of the Tree of Life from the Garden of Eden. All of which looks and sounds suspiciously like a discarded draft of an Indiana Jones movie to me.

If and when Disney does release a fifth Indiana Jones movie in 2021, audiences will be hoping to experience a fitting sendoff for one of the most beloved characters of all time. The setting and the era in which the storyline takes place will offer rich creative and thematic opportunities to explore that could restore the character as a more emotionally grounded, relatable hero. And the behind the scenes drama related to the development of Disney’s franchise reboot could provide excellent material for Harrison Ford and the filmmakers to draw upon, crafting a meta-narrative about the perils and the promise each of us face when we confront our own mortality and our own legacy. 

Here’s hoping they choose wisely…