Past Their Prime

It’s always a disappointment when our nostalgia trips turn into guilt trips.

This latest turn took place while watching the latest Indiana Jones—Indiana Jone and the Dial of Destiny. While I had hoped for a feeling of adventure and fun, it evoked a sense of frustration. During the two hour and thirty-four minute runtime, questions worthy of a famed archeologist arose: Was another one really necessary? How did it lose its charm? Why wasn’t there more care and attention to the story? When will we realize we’re too old for this shit?

Let’s be clear upfront. The studios and filmmakers tapping into historical IP does not ruin the franchise or take away from what has come before it, even if its latest chapter is a misfire. The previous entries mythology and legacy can live on on its own accord.

First and foremost, this is a business decision. And it’s going to happen. Nothing said here, before, or after, will change that. But it’s worth laying out critiques when they happen, to start a discussion on finding a better was forward. Because using existing characters offers a built-in baseline for audience turnout. As much as people complain about nothing original being made, they really have shown to love the familiar. The executives and filmmakers are giving them what they turn out for.

On top of these comfort plays, there is a creative opportunity to come out of resurrecting story or character, with a chance to be a part of and add to a cultural legacy. But that potential is narrow and the risks are high.

The greatest difficulty in reviving an existing property is matching the tone of the original while instilling it with (or restraining from) modern sensibilities and craftsmanship that will engage both legacy and fresh fans.

Unfortunately for the latest Indy entry, they push too much into the modern techniques that is looses the spirit of the originals.

In the era of the original Jones movies, they used practical everything— sets, props, lighting, effects, and most importantly, settings. On many metrics, they were just better, even with techniques that employed optical illusions that varied in effectiveness, with a warmth and texture to the movies because of them.

It was a visceral sense.

For this new Jones film, the glaring issue, that is at once obvious yet subtle, is the extraordinarily heavy use of CGI throughout. This has been an issue in movies for the past twenty years, but is readily apparent when the film has a direct comparison to its former self of 40 years ago. You don’t even need to do a side by side split screen to see the difference (New York never looked that clean). But more than that, you inherently feel the difference.

Even with the drastic advancement over the past few years of digital sets, most digital backgrounds still feel cold and emotionless. From the chase scene in New York, to the fight sequences throughout, to the siege of Syracuse, it didn’t feel like Indiana Jones because it didn’t look like Indian Jones.

The original film’s practical effects made the connection with the character real. What made Indiana Jones so captivating, so exciting, was the palpable way he escaped danger and traps. You felt the sweat, the dirt, the crack of the whip. The character, and by extension the film, felt rugged, unpolished, true.

Even when it straddled the edge of cartoonish violence, his struggle in these moments felt genuine and realistic, not a hallucination of rainbow streaks and blurs masquerading as a fight between people in tights.

The past two Jone’s movies don’t have the same richness and texture of the originals. These digital paintings are supposed to expand the scale of a film, place us in recreated worlds with detail and precision. But it’s fake…

…and we can tell.

But for all my lamenting of CGI overload, there’s a larger problem vexing this series…nostalgia fatigue. When the film was being released, my mom asked if I was excited to see the new Indiana Jones (I loved Indy as a kid), which caught me off guard, as it didn’t even register with me to see it in the theater. I just wasn’t interested.

This revival/retelling trend peaked late in the last two or three years, when it went into overdrive with the glut of streaming services coming online.

There are circumstances where continuing on the story from decades past is interesting and lends itself to pulling the thread more. Yet for many others they struggle under the weight of expectations. Or were never made to continue on.

Harrison Ford has stated that the desire was always to make five films. But the challenge is, the original Dr. Jones movies, were all designed in episodic form, without a narrative through line. There wasn’t closure needed or an over arching storyline not completed. These were adventures of a character, whose myth was built by those anecdotal stories. Almost campfire tales if you will.

What we’ve gotten in the last two installments are stories that are muddled visions of what feels like a caricature of Indiana Jones, rather than a deep understanding of the character. It’s one of those things that’s difficult to put your finger on, but you know something is off. That something is missing.

It’s not what I remember of the character, and all together I just don’t care.

But this is the point that I have to consider that I’m part of the problem. My memory, my feelings are experiential to a certain time in my life, much more open to wonder, illusion, and suspension of disbelief. With a few decades of watching movies under my belt, I am seemingly harder to please, especially with beloved characters from my youth. But pulling that thread more, I have two thoughts.

First, I feel the same way about modern movies when the sequels don’t match the loving connection of earlier entires. Wonder Woman is an example of the sequel losing the charm of the first. So this is not a disconnect over a bygone era.

The other thought is that all the audience's emotional affection has to be considered when deciding how to or whether to move forward with a film. Any property with a legacy is clearly making a nostalgia play on some level.

I'm not offended by the rebooting of an old series, especially with the original actors telling a new chapter. But there is a limit. The story has to work. It has to fit the vibe, tone, and essence while bringing something new and intriguing to the table. A tall order, undoubtedly.

This Indy entry misses the mark.

Which is a shame because he is still cool…as the myth of Indiana Jones. He made geeky areas, like antiquities and archeology, interesting. I at one point in my childhood wanted to be an archeologist because of him. (Which may have been a better career choice than being a writer. 😬)

The thing is, the originals still hold up today, some forty years later. All of it (even The Temple of Doom). The adventures, the man, the stories, the feel.

The twenty-first century entries felt outdated as you watched them. A CGI watercolor painting of the memory of Indiana Jones. Ill-defined and forgettable.

There are moments of familiar enjoyment, where the thrill of a rush surfaces, but it’s fleeting and at random. The creative team— Ford, Lucas, Spielberg, Mangold— they took a swing and it whiffed. It’s hard and it happens, even to the best. I just hope other’s take note when the idea of rebooting, reimagine, or revving a fan favorite franchise.

There are many failed properties with good bones that are ripe for a redo anyway. Look at Oceans Eleven blueprint.

But the thing is we are just as much to blame. We get caught up in the nostalgia high, searching for that comfort of what brought us joy and happiness in the past. The studios are all to willing to oblige, enabling our fix, but it’s not what we need. At least not anymore.

While I’m not a fan of either of the last two Indiana Jones movies, their existence doesn’t mar the spirit of the other films, which has stood the test of time. And in time, this disappointment could fade and become just another Indiana Jones campfire story.

But it’s time for something new. Indiana has earned his retirement.