There is a way to do it, to make more Indiana Jones movies. There have been at least seven different people who have played Indiana Jones at some point in time, everyone from George Hall, to Corey Carrier, to Sean Patrick Flanery—even River Phoenix. Then, of course, there are all the video games and commercial appearances where an Indiana Jones-like character is seen doing something, from amusement park rides and Coke commercials to cameos in other movies. Unlike other franchise characters, however, Indiana Jones is different in that Harrison Ford created a particular kind of character with a timeline expectation that society will hold Disney to. There is a nice period in the character’s timeline, from age 25 to 35, where a new actor who resembles Harrison Ford could tell all-new stories that the public would love. Most of the best Indiana Jones movies take place within a specific 3-4 year timeline that centers on Harrison Ford playing Indiana Jones in the iconic movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, a film that revolutionized the way stories are told and movies are presented. I personally think it was the best movie ever made and that changed the value of the character created for the public forever. The chances of doing something like that again with the same character but a different actor is impossible. I think it’s possible to make more movies after seeing how Disney and Bethesda, the video game maker, produced the latest Indiana Jones video game, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. It was a great game and a lot of fun, and it didn’t try to “reboot” Indiana Jones; it respected the timeline that people had come to know and trust. And many actors contributed to that effort, and those are the rules of engagement. There is a lot of talk now, halfway through 2025, that Disney wants to reboot the Indiana Jones movies. They own the property and want to make money from it. However, there are rules they must follow; otherwise, they will cause all kinds of social problems, just as they did with the Star Wars movies. If they want Indiana Jones to remain valuable to the public, they’ll listen and stay respectful.
But if they think they are going to retell Raiders of the Lost Ark with a woke actor like Pedro Pascal, or even a woman, then they are out of their minds, and another Indiana Jones movie would be a disaster. Indiana Jones is not something that can be ruined in the way that studios often do with Batman movies or James Bond stories. There has been over 40 years of story telling from books, television, comics, video games that for that entire time held to a stringent canon timeline, and that trust has been built across many generations of fans, from kids today to their grandparents who saw the movies in the theater when they were kids. I love the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular in Orlando, Florida, the stunt show that has been performed for years at Hollywood Studios. It has featured several different actors portraying Indiana Jones in that stage play. However, the difference was that all content creators were very respectful of the original idea. During the period I mentioned, numerous exciting stories could be told about a younger Indiana Jones as he establishes his excellent and famous reputation, which people would love to see depicted in movies. However, those movies would require directors, producers, and musical talent as passionate about making the movies as were Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and John Williams, originally. Disney thought they would get away with a reboot of Star Wars by ignoring the story canon and essentially retelling A New Hope with TheForce Awakens, and people have never forgiven them for it. They might have made some short-term cash, but they destroyed the brand, and that has cost Disney a lot.
This is important because the character of Indiana Jones has likely been the single most valuable narrative device that has advanced the arts and sciences in the world today. There are many people who have become scientists because of Indiana Jones and the inspiration they received from him as children, which has been very beneficial. The value of the Indiana Jones property lies in this social motivation. And unless Disney respects that sentiment, it will harm them in very detrimental ways, and erode the character it currently holds socially. Indiana Jones is more than just Harrison Ford, and unless a new production is presented with the same level of commitment as those original films were, it will be rejected at the box office, just as the Star Wars movies have been. There is an arrogance that comes from the consultant class in society, who often con their way into the motion picture studios, never figuring these things out. And those are the voices at Disney who think they could make a movie as good as the originals were, without understanding the social consequences of destroying the public’s love of the property. The Indiana Jones timeline is unique in that it spans from his infancy in TheYoung Indiana Jones Chronicles to his portrayal by a 93-94-year-old man with an eye patch. Within that timeline, there is room to make movies just as exciting as Temple of Doom and Raiders of the Lost Ark, if the stories deal with the post-college years. However, suppose they recast and retell the stories for modern audiences with music by different composers, cinematography that fails to capture the spirit, and scripts that don’t adhere to the formula. In that case, the project will be a disaster.
I think Disney should leave it all alone and let it be what it is. They’ll make more money off Indiana Jones if they allow it to stay valuable in people’s consciousness. However, Disney is not filled with creative people; it is essentially run by consultants who choose to live by copying what they think is successful and trying to pass it off as their own. And it never works well, and it certainly won’t work with Indiana Jones. So, with all the talk about Disney developing another actor to play Indiana Jones in a new movie, I would advise them to proceed with great caution. I’d see the film if they were respectful to the established timeline. But if they want to put a minority character in the role instead of a white guy, and change elements of Indiana Jones for a more modern audience, then it will be a disaster. And I’m only writing this now in the hope of keeping them from making that big mistake. But I don’t have much faith that they’ll listen, and will destroy this as they have so many other things in life, and the impact of that in the world is very significant. It matters more than people think it does; we’re talking about the way that humans create reality for themselves through story and narrative devices, and Indiana Jones emerged as a necessity for human consciousness that was more than entertaining. Disney has been warned, so we’ll see what they do. I’d like to see it work. I think there is an actor out there who could carry the torch of Indiana Jones during an exciting period that audiences would accept. However, short of that, it would be best to leave it alone, as the social impact of changing the value with new content would be devastating in ways that most people cannot measure. What I have said is the only way that it could be done because all other methods would be very destructive and unnecessary. People are pretty forgiving as long as they know they can trust a story not to change on them. And that’s true with everything in life. People can come and go, but people want to know that the story stays the same.
I really loved the book about Howard Kazanjian called A Producer’s Life. I’ve referenced it many times over the last several weeks because it was an enjoyable book. It’s the most fun I’ve had reading a book in a while, and it is one that I promised myself I’d read if Trump was re-elected into the White House. I wouldn’t let myself think about these kinds of things as what is in Howard’s book prior, even if I do love the topic. For a large part of my life, I wanted to be a filmmaker, and Hollywood producers like Howard Kazanjian were the kind of people who inspired me. He produced most of my favorite movies from a key period, when he was on top of the Hollywood pile with Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and many others, with films from 1975 until 1982. Howard was always good, but if you are trending good movies and who made them over the entire history of Hollywood, this specific period set the stage for what the industry would become, and mean to the world as a whole regarding entertainment. So, I find it very interesting to study what went right and wrong during this period. Ironically, learning these things is precisely why understanding DEI policies and why they failed is important. Because currently, after the Trump election and his spectacular victory, the world is giving up on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, and rightfully so. We’re not talking about a Republican versus Democrat position here; Howard Kazanjian, I would say, probably leans toward Hollywood liberalism and likely wanted Kamala Harris to win the election. But with Trump back in office, the world is a lot better, and I have more tolerance for people who are not so bright on political matters. Which is why I couldn’t let myself read a book like this before the election.
In that book, I read a good illustrative example of why DEI failed and why companies needed to get rid of it for the sake of everyone. Picking employees based on their skin color or assuming they are equal to other people and that they should be included in something just because they exist was always ridiculous. Some people are better than others, and if you want something to be good, you have to find the best people and put them in place; that’s good management. And in the movie business, good people are few and far between. But Howard Kazanjian, during that period I mentioned, found a way to be around the best people in the business, and specifically, a conversation I had never heard about regarding the famous swordsman scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, being filmed in 1980 for a 1981 release. Everyone, no matter who they are, knows the scene. Indiana Jones is looking for his lost girlfriend, Marian, who the Nazis have captured on the streets of Cairo. And he has to stop them with a glorious shootout with lots of explosions and good stuff. Along the way, Indiana Jones is stopped by an Arab swordsman who wants to fight. But the hero doesn’t have time for it. What does he do? People remember with great recollection that Indy pulls out his gun, shoots the villain on the spot with no fanfare, and gets back to looking for his girlfriend. In all the documentaries of how that movie was made, we learned that Harrison Ford was sick that day and just did the scene as a joke because there was supposed to be a fight with bullwhips that was very elaborate, and the whole crew was sick of filming take after take. When Spielberg saw what Harrison Ford did, he wanted to keep it as a new version and print it for the film. But there was more to the story I heard in this book on Howard Kazanjian for the first time.
George Lucas still wanted his bullwhip fight scene. One of the reasons he was making Raiders of the Lost Ark as the executive producer was to create a modern version of the kind of movies he liked as a kid, and he wanted a classic bullwhip fight like might have been in Don Q Son of Zorro, or Zorro’s Fighting Legion. And he wasn’t convinced that just having Indiana Jones shoot the bad guy and get on with his business was the right thing to do. So, here were the most talented filmmakers in movie-making history who disagreed with this famous scene. So what were they going to do? George Lucas decided to run two film versions by a test audience, one Spielberg’s way, the other with the bullwhip fight. They were going to let market desire determine the film’s final version. So they played George’s version first to a test audience. People came out of the movie liking it, and Paramount Pictures felt they had a hit. It was a good movie. But when Spielberg’s version was seen, people applauded when Indiana Jones shot the swordsman. And it became everyone’s favorite moment in the movie, even after all these years. They made 5 Indiana Jones films over the next 40 years, but none would ever have a better moment than that one to mass audiences.
Ultimately, even with all the talent of all these people involved, it was the marketplace that picked the scene. The filmmakers came up with ideas, but to determine the success of the enterprise, they tested the waters with market analysis. The audience clearly picked one version over the other, and the rest is filmmaking history. Presently, they are test-screening the new Captain America movie for Disney, and it is going through all kinds of trouble because nothing is working. The film is filled with a bunch of woke politics, and people don’t like it. It’s going to bomb when it hits theaters in February. Ultimately, that is why DEI programs destroyed market share and value for all companies, from cookie makers to high-tech offerings. DEI was an imposed value put on the marketplace that would have been similar to George Lucas keeping his whip fight in the movie because he wanted it, to force the audience to like it because he did. Instead of listening to them, which is what happened. When companies try to impose themselves on the public and force values on them that they don’t have, failure is almost assured. However, when products appeal to the audience’s sentiment, great success is possible. It is rare because good ideas are complex, and companies often hang on to them even if the market pressure rejects them. Only to plot an enterprise to its doom. But when we say that getting rid of DEI suits all businesses everywhere, this is what we mean and why. In capitalism, value serves the marketplace. In authoritarian governments, values are imposed, and a monopoly status is sought that limits the viability of options. And the world is far worse off because of it. The best example of why some ideas work over other ideas can sometimes come from interesting places, which is undoubtedly the case with a movie most people agree has some value to them over time, and that is how Indiana Jones was created in that old classic movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The movie Raider’s of the Lost Ark turned 40 as of June 12th, 2021, and I have to say, it has been one of the most impactful films ever produced. Not just for me, but science in general. More happened well in science as a result of that movie than anything ever has done for any field of endeavor. But it’s a shame; even this movie has come under criticism from wokeness, as I talk about in the video above. Back in the 80s, they made three Indiana Jones films in 10 years. Then it took over 20 years to make another one. Then since Disney bought the franchise under the roof of Lucasfilm, even with all the money and talent in the world, they can’t get a script that everyone likes that is woke enough for modern Hollywood. We went from a culture that made great movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark then to not to do anything close with no prospects on the horizon in such a short period. And that is because of wokeness. I will have to say that Indiana Jones 5 did start shooting this week in London. It took a long time to get there, and I don’t have high hopes for it. But you never know.
“It turns out to be true now, that the Department of Justice and the FBI, under President Obama, rigged the investigation for Hillary and really turned the screws on Trump, and now it looks like in a corrupt & illegal way. The facts are out now. Whole Hoax exposed. @JesseBWatters
What we are seeing isn’t specific to a particular political party or even a specific point in time. I can say that it’s always been something I have been keenly aware of. I remember as a little kid staying up way too late to watch the Academy Awards in 1983 to see if E.T. The Extraterrestrial would win Best Picture and feeling terribly deflated when Gandhi won instead. That’s when I learned the hard way that institutions are not in pursuit of goodness, but the status quo in almost every category because it allows the people working within those organizational frameworks to live modest, safe lives seldom challenged by any exceptional expectations. I was actually blown away and physically sick that E.T. failed to win Best Picture. Clearly there wasn’t any justice in the world as at that time I only ever wanted to be a film director when I grew up. In the year prior, I had gone through the same ceremonial castigation, Raiders of the Lost Ark was poised to win Best Picture and lost to the film Chariots of Fire. Something was very wrong and now almost 40 years later I sat watching the Academy Awards knowing full well there was a major liberal spin to the whole show, which is why I wasn’t a film director and no longer had a desire to be, when The Shape of Water won best picture essentially because it featured a female hero, she had nude scenes in it including masturbation, but in most other respects was a modern update to E.T. It was a stunning revelation that remained consistently bad, and points to a much deeper, darker problem.
And in so many ways, even in the serious world of politics, we are seeing the same thing that went on with E.T. at the Academy Awards in 1982 and 1983, happening now with the FBI and Justice Departments of the Obama Administration playing the same role. Even though I would argue that The Shape of Water could have easily have been made without the sex and nudity, or the F words in a film that children would have benefited from seeing in the theaters, the government agent in the film was wonderfully representative of the kind of parasitic order for which those modern institutions function. Richard Strickland in that film epitomized the ambitions of institutional control and in maintaining an order where the exceptional are locked away and tortured so that the stagnant expectations of below the line thinking could remain unchallenged. In that way The Trump administration under the direction of the FBI and DOJ were treated as the amphibious creature from The Shape of Water, tortured just for being there and seeking to be destroyed because the potential for life changing inspiration was something that institutions couldn’t allow to happen otherwise, they’d all be expected to increase their expectations for their own lives by default.
The crimes against not only Trump but against his supporters, most of whom are just as innocent as my 13-year-old self-staying up on a school night to hope beyond hope that justice would give the movie E.T. The Extraterrestrial the Best Picture award, are profound. There is so much more to the story than just the sad attempts at using the law as a weapon to beat down inspiring change, but in the abundant mechanisms for which all institutions function to preserve their salty ambitions anchored to the ground well below any above the line expectations. The corruption in society as a whole was deeper than any ocean on earth and the hopes and dreams of all mankind had been tossed to the bottom and kept their by the hostile depths too hard to dive by any mechanical means, or even the yearnings of the superhuman efforts, because sharks of every kind protect that bar from ever being raised to a level where the masses might ever be expected to perform from the merits of goodness.
A world where an Academy Award is given to a film that features a woman masturbating in a bathtub “a lot” is the same world castigating Trump for wanting to build a border wall, to create a dividing line between value and a lack of value, between a capitalist culture that has expectations of performance and a socialist one that informs people to not stick their heads up too high otherwise they will be beat down in response. That same world looks at Melania Trump and endlessly criticizes everything she wears and how she wears it but when Michelle Obama wears boots on national television that would make the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz blush, she is hailed as an expert on fashion. The reason is that the static order doesn’t want little girls to grow up to be like Melania, a woman who is as close to a perfect “10” as anybody might find in our current culture. But to be like Michelle Obama, an average looking woman filled with personality flaws and genetic mutations. Melania is attacked because she is too good, she as a change agent has raised the level of expectation among the voting population and the institutions are not happy about it.
Many years later I realized that instead of trying to make things work as a film director in a liberal town that certainly didn’t want to deal with a midwestern conservative that I’d turn toward business. When I was paid a salary instead of an hourly wage to officially announce that I was no longer just a floor worker, the expectations were quite severe on me to work within the parameters of a static order. I typically had always worked 12 hours a day or more but now that I was working with as a salaried member of management—and this was many years ago—but I was supposed to assume a certain order of conduct understanding that I work only what I was paid for. And salary people were only paid for 8.5 hours of their work day. So at precisely 5 PM I was expected to drop everything and go home. But when I didn’t do that and instead continued to work as I always had, until 7 PM or even 8 PM the other salaried staff were very angry with me. They would watch closely what time I clocked in and when I clocked out and eventually built up the courage to ask me why I was trying to make them look bad. My answer of course that I wasn’t, and that if they looked bad it’s because they weren’t willing to fulfill the parameters of expectation for which production required. Well, those were fighting words and long rivalries filled with animosity percolated from that time on, yet I never changed my behavior because I was simply not going to surrender my capability to the Academies out there that would pick Gandhi over E.T. or the FBI over President Trump. Those were simply not options.
The case against Trump isn’t about justice, or even politics—its about expectation. Trump as a change agent is being attacked to preserve the right of below the line thinking that has defined Washington D.C. culture in general and politics specifically. Much the way the sea creature in The Shape of Water was tortured and abused just for existing, Trump represents a raising of the bar for all future expectation, and the static order has demanded his destruction with all the animated ambition as Richard Strickland. The world cannot hold both characters, and traditionally the good have been beat down so that the bad do not have to rise to any occasions. And that is a dark little secret that continues to permeate all our lives, and the yearning to change it is certainly there. Even the Academy of Arts and Sciences can be touched by such hopes even if the medicine to make it go down are sex scenes and nudity. But the showdown between Trump and the FBI is not about legalisms, it’s about the hopes and dreams of all mankind, and that battle is happening right now. And for the first time in history, hope is winning out over stagnation, and that is very interesting to watch for me. I am rooting for hope and increased expectations, perhaps this time the villains won’t win.
Another one of my most treasured books is a little thing that has old yellow worn pages and a paper back cover that has been looked through so many times that the pages are constantly trying to fall out of their binding. It’s a little book my mother gave me during an intensely hot Liberty Township summer in 1981. Our home had no air conditioning and I had to sit in front of a fan to read the flapping pages in order to stay cool enough to comprehend the text. I have read the book dozens and dozens of times since 1981 but never more than that summer and its contents have stayed with me my entire life. The book is called The Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark by Derek Taylor and was written as a fly-on-the wall reporter from the set of the famous film, which George Lucas knew was going to make movie history. He knew then what millions all over world soon discover—that Raiders of the Lost Ark as a traditional throw-back to the kind of films that Hollywood used to make in the 1920s, through the 1950s was special so he allowed Derek Taylor to write a book about the making as they went along. As much as I loved the movie, which I saw 6 times in a two month period during that hot summer of 1981, I loved reading about how they made the film. And of all my reasons for loving the film, from the story, to the special effects which are still fantastic to this very day, to the acting, to the set design, to the incredibly good music, it was the stunts which most captured my imagination. More specifically, the stunt co-ordination by Glenn Randall, which had a very distinct look that all films since have been measured against. Randall was and is simply the very best in his field of occupation and his work never shined brighter than it did in Raiders where Steven Spielberg as the director and George Lucas as the executive producer knew enough about film to stay out of Glenn’s way and let him make movie magic with some of the best stunts that would ever be done on film.
This brings me to the present day where at Hollywood Studios in Florida they have a live stage show called The Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular which is personally directed by Glenn Randall, and has nearly the exact same feel as the stunts from the film performed live 5 times a day every day of the week, year after year since 1989. The stage show is impressive; the stunt gags are some of the absolute best there is of its kind, and it is the closest that one can get to the magnificent stunt co-ordination of Glenn Randall anywhere. His trademark style is all over the production and the show is for me a kind of recalibration to my senses. I absolutely adore it.
The show is getting old, even though it’s still wonderful, there is talk at Hollywood Studios that Disney is going to expand the park to include more Star Wars themed attractions with a $200 million dollar Star Wars land, which will be the largest expansion in the history of the Disney parks. Even though I cannot imagine Hollywood Studios without The Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular there is a danger that it might be cancelled to incorporate the new Star Wars expansion as the theater is currently right across from the Star Wars: Star Tours exhibit that is technically one of the coolest rides of its kind. The Star Wars expansion is being viewed by Disney as their version of what Universal Studios did with Harry Potter. It will be an all-encompassing experience that will be built in conjunction with the new films also produced by Disney, and will be the newest hot thing in Florida going into 2015 and 2016. So Hollywood Studios is going to be changing, which ignited in my mind a strong desire to take my family to Hollywood Studios to see The Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular while it’s still there.
There is a raging debate about which movie themed park is better in Orlando, Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, or Hollywood Studios, and for me, its Hollywood Studios. I can see where people, who are into the latest and greatest–the most hip, might be bored at Hollywood Studios, as that particular park focuses on the kind of Hollywood that George Lucas was trying to pay tribute to in his Raiders of the Lost Ark film. That Hollywood is the cinema experience of Walt Disney, Gary Cooper, John Wayne, and screen writers like Ayn Rand as the entire park is dedicated to that era. I love the Universal Studio parks immensely, but personally, nothing touches Hollywood Studios as they have went to the extra trouble of performing massive live stage plays like The Indiana Jones StuntSpectacular and Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show while providing the feel of strolling down the city streets that built Hollywood in the first place. It is that extra touch of detail that put Hollywood Studios over the top of places like Universal which says a lot, given how much I feel for those parks.
I was not disappointed. The Indiana Jones Stunt Show was spectacular, the fight at the flying wing was there, the temple scene from the beginning of Raiders was there, and the epic fight in the streets of Cairo were done to the live perfection of a dance number. It was wonderful to share in that experience with my family before things change dramatically at Hollywood Studios forever. I’m not against the Star Wars expansion by any means. Star Wars is my very close second favorite film series ever just a hair behind Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Movie stunts often get overlooked in movies, but in Raiders, it was impossible to ignore them. Glenn Randall and his friend Terry Leonard did some of their best work on that film, which is why I still love it more than any other movie done. Of course I enjoy the work of Harrison Ford and the direction of Steven Spielberg, but for me, it has always been about the stuntmen in Hollywood that I love so much about the type of films that are celebrated at Hollywood Studios in Florida.
Watching The Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular for me is like going home to that old book my mother gave me as she wanted to encourage me to read how my favorite movie was made, hoping I would fall in love with reading. It worked as I have read thousands of books since. I have often thought of becoming a stunt man myself, including playing the character of Indiana Jones at Hollywood Studios when I almost moved there with my family in the early part of the 21st Century. I have a few friends in Hollywood who are stunt co-coordinators on current film and television projects and I have thought often of taking them up on their offer to work in pictures. I won’t name their names here as I am taboo among the entertainment labor unions for good reason – as I don’t support any collective endeavor like labor unions. To me, it is the labor unions that have put the clamps on the kind of Hollywood I love, the kind that Hollywood Studios in Florida celebrates — the kind of Hollywood that Raiders paid tribute to in 1981. But my brain power is needed elsewhere even though I love the feeling of an achy body that has bounced off the pavement a few times and leaped from high places into an airbag at the bottom. There are times when I think the best job in the world would be to live in a tent in Florida and report to work every day at Hollywood Studios to play out stunts as Indiana Jones. Watching the actor who currently plays Indiana Jones at The Stunt Spectacular may have the best job in the entire world in my opinion. I would be inclined to do such a job untill I was 60 or 70 years old and never tire of it.
But I have too many hobbies as it is, and of course my brain is involved in a complex web of activity that reaches into an all-encompassing strategy that is epic in its own modern-day scope. A lot of people count on me to do the things I do, and my adventures are over-the-top in ways that are a bit different from Indiana Jones, but perilous in less obvious ways. However, deep in my mind, I do think often of the stunt work by Glenn Randall as it was communicated to me in the great Derek Taylor book from years ago. In that way, I feel more attuned to the actors on the stage at the Indiana Jones StuntSpectacular than just about any other place I vacation anywhere in the world. There is a piece of my very soul that is on that stage and it is wonderful to visit during the scorching hot summers of Florida that remind me so vividly of reading The Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark by Derek Taylor as a little boy sitting in front of a fan at a home that did not have air conditioning in the blistering August month of 1981.
It was reported to me that the Indiana Jones booth at COMIC CON in San Diago July 11th through July 15th will have a recreation of the famous Well of Souls scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark complete with live snakes to celebrate the release of all four Indiana Jones films to Blu-Ray. For those who need a map and want to know where to go, the Indiana Jones booth is 2913 at the Lucasfilm pavilion on the show floor. In the spirit of this exciting push to keep the name of Indiana Jones alive I am going to spend a moment to defend the last film, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull from the scrutiny it has received, which I have been thinking about for 4 years now.
To me all the Indiana Jones films are innovative fun escapades into the deepest questions of our times. Few people know it but George Lucas originally wanted to be an anthropologist but since he settled into a job as a “filmmaker,” the character of Indiana Jones allowed him to explore aspects of archeology that he could have only dreamed of as a field scientist. However, I will say this; George Lucas should go down in history as one of the greatest archeologists who ever have lived for the simple fact that many of today’s current world explorers, scientists, physics geeks, treasure hunters, mercenaries, and authors have been profoundly inspired by George Lucas’ creation of the character Indiana Jones. Because of Indiana Jones hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars have been invested in archeological research that would have never happened in the field of that scientific endeavor if not for the first Indiana Jones movie, the greatest movie in the history of the world in my opinion, Raiders of the Lost Ark.
I would have come to use a bullwhip anyway, since my grandfather passed on to me the love of it which predated Raiders. He and his father were deeply inspired by old Zorro films like Don Q Son of Zorro from the silent era, so he was going to teach me whether I liked it or not. But when Raiders of the Lost Ark came out, which was a tribute to those old Saturday Matinees it allowed my generation to understand what my grandfather’s generation had loved so much. From the early film era of the 1940’s it was Zorro’s Fighting Legion that I love the most, and Indiana Jones was the modern mythic tale of those old adventures. So I took to the study of the bullwhip which has personally led me on many unique adventures and has given me a view of the world few get to see through that martial art weapon.
Some die hard film critics will say that Temple of Doom was the worst Indiana Jones film. Even Steven Spielberg has said he isn’t proud of that movie. Yet, the film is one of the most beloved movies in the history of film. It invented the PG13 rating because the film was too violent to be simply rated PG and was too family oriented to be rated R. Temple of Doom is the ultimate adventure film and studios have been trying unsuccessfully to tap into the magic of that particular movie for many, many years. I’ve seen it at the movie theater over 15 times that I can remember, the most exciting time was when I was on a high adventure camp excursion deep in the hills of Kentucky within one week of Temple of Doom’s release. I was only 15 at the time so I was under the care of adult supervisors. After a day of intense backwoods hiking and spelunking the members of our camp went to bed around 9 PM. Two of my friends in the same tent waited patiently with me for everyone to go to sleep since everyone was exhausted and covered in dirt and sweat. When we no longer heard voices speaking from the many tents, we quietly escaped and ran 5 miles into a nearby college town to catch the last showing of Temple of Doom for the day at 11:15 PM. With sweat pouring down our faces and backs we bought our tickets and sat down in the wonderfully air-conditioned theater just as Indiana Jones came into the Club Obi Wan with his white tuxedo. I have raised my children to the movie Temple of Doom. It played on our television every day for about 8 years. I raised my niece and nephews on the movie since my wife and I helped raise them as children. To this day, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom brings them found memories that they cherish from their childhoods. It is the story of good and evil and even though Indiana Jones gets stabbed, burnt, tortured, poisoned, possessed, and beat up in countless ways he somehow comes out heroically in the end facing all the dangers by stating, “It’s a long way to Deli,” meaning anything can happen, and we’ll deal with it as it comes. To this day my wife and I say that to each other whenever a series of bad things happen, and it brings comic relief.
(This is a personal friend of mine, Gery Deer in Jamestown, Ohio performing at the Murphey Theater in Wilmington.)
When Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade came out, I took my oldest nephew who was 5 at the time out of school to the premier. We saw the movie on opening day for the very first screening. I figured he would learn a lot more at that movie than he would in school, which I was of course right. In Last Crusade the archeology follows along the lines of the typically Christian pursuit of archeological relics. Made just 8 years after the first film in Raiders, Last Crusade had not yet experienced the changes in archeology that would come as a result of the massive amount of money that was flowing into the science because of Indiana Jones. Last Crusade was about the legend of the Holy Grail which is an item that runs deep into Christian religions. This film took Indiana Jones back to his childhood so audiences could see what kind of events helped shape the kind of person that Indiana Jones would become as a man. The concept was so successful that George Lucas started a television show called The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles that would be geared to teaching people about the events of world history taking place from 1900 to around 1919. (Yes, I have every one of them on DVD and my kids have watched them all with me many, many, many times.)
For many fans, The Last Crusade would be their last impression of Indiana Jones. Archeology to them would be biblical in scope, and the adventures of Indiana Jones would end. Life would move on. To the rest of society, people get old, and they put away the items of childhood, which Indiana Jones was. The television show was enjoyed by people like me who naturally loved history, but was not geared to the swashbuckling action of the movies. Instead it centered on the character development of Indiana Jones as a young man.
Over the years many things happened in popular culture. Thousands of archeologists who went to college and pursued their dream of working in that business because of Indiana Jones were doing investigations of their own. Private investors who loved the Indiana Jones movies poured millions of dollars into college research projects giving archeology a lot of money that it didn’t have prior to 1981 when Raiders of the Lost Ark hit theaters. In the 1990’s archeology were doing some big things—but the revelations being discovered with all this new money was not more of the Christian based study that many would have thought it to be. The evidence being discovered was that human existence on planet earth was much more complex than we previously thought and it appears that mankind had help getting started. So when Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull came out, audiences who did not know of these developments were a bit mystified to see what had happened.
My oldest daughter asked me how I managed years ahead of the film’s release to make many of the statements about human society that Crystal Skull was making. I explained to her that George Lucas was following the Robert Pirsig “quality rule” as he was in front of the train yet again while the rest of society was well in the back. Crystal Skull offered an explanation to the advanced societies all over the planet that were obviously connected in some way. This science was revealed in part by Indiana Jones films, so it was up to Indiana Jones to offer the difficult reality that other beings played a part in human evolution, and not just beings from outer space, but “interdimensional” creatures. I had come to this same conclusion years ago after my own studies, which is why my daughter was amazed that Crystal Skull was right on target with what I had been saying for nearly 10 years, that earth was seeded from another civilization that did not originate on earth and that the idea of God had suddenly become much larger.
After 20 years of not seeing Indiana Jones on the big screen audiences were suddenly confronted with an Indiana Jones who was 70 years old who was still in fist fights, romancing women, and performing unbelievable stunts. This is a difficult reality to a society of people who cast senior citizens into disregard past age 65. Seeing a film icon like Harrison Ford looking quite good as a 70 year old man shattered perceptions of what the elderly could do, and opened up the possibility that aging didn’t have to be a degrading process. The second thing that audiences had trouble with was that Indiana Jones survived a nuclear explosion by climbing into a lead lined refrigerator. Many fans did not know that the only objects to survive nuclear explosions in the many tests done were lead lined refrigerators, so Indiana Jones true to his past exploits of always finding a way to survive climbed into the only thing that would have saved him from a nuclear blast, a lead lined refrigerator.
Fans were mixed on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It wasn’t what they thought it should have been. Indiana Jones as a character had evolved over the years through the television show, which was incorporated into the new film and it served as a kind of bridge to merge the films and the television show together. The abandonment of typically Christian relics also caused some anxiety as the plot of Crystal Skull centered on the ancient alien oriented plot complete with flying saucers and little green men. And of course people had a hard time accepting Indiana Jones as an older person with a society that thinks age 30 is the end of life as they know it. But, society will catch up to the vision of George Lucas. They are doing it already. The current show on the History Channel Ancient Aliens would have never become possible if not for the mass audience exposure to the kind of information that has been coming in from archeological research. The mainstream audience was confronting for the first time in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull the possibility that mankind’s Gods were in fact beings from another world, and possibility from another dimensional reality which really messed with the stereotypes many had formed over the years through their religious studies.
Before seeing Crystal Skull I had already read several books by Zecharia Sitchin and of course the great Forbidden Archeology by Cremo and Thompson so I could almost see George Lucas smiling from behind the movie screen as I watched the events of the latest Indiana Jones movie play out. I knew exactly what he was doing, and slowly, four years after the release of that very innovative movie, people are beginning to catch up to Lucas’ vision. In the years to come, it will be Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull that will be known for changing the way human beings see themselves as science is only now starting to admit that the discoveries of Indiana Jones in The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull film are turning out to be more of a reality than they ever dared to admit.
I personally loved Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and I place it somewhere in quality to being between Last Crusade and Temple of Doom. To this very day it is Raiders of the Lost Ark that is my favorite movie of all time. So much so that the CD soundtrack has been played in my home and to my family well over a thousand times—my oldest daughter actually used to sleep to it. When she was married, it took her about 6 months to finally learn to sleep without listening to the Raiders of the Lost Ark soundtrack. My favorite song on that soundtrack is called “Desert Chase” which I listen to almost every day at least once. In fact yesterday as I cleaned my motorcycle, I listened to that part of the soundtrack on my iPOD.
For my birthday several years back, my family bought me a leather flight jacket from U.S.Wings that was made from the same roll of leather that created the leather jacket for Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I have put that jacket through absolute hell. It’s been drug in the dirt, pelted with rain, snow, ice, and had just about every kind of living creature crawling on it. It has been to the top of mountains and touched the breath of foreign countries. It has seen 30,000 miles of torture from a motorcycle. I said to my family just the other day that the jacket was just now starting to get the look of “character” that I like. In another 15 years, it should look just about right. Indiana Jones is known for his period style hat, his beat up leather jacket and his whip. Many of those things are part of my personal attire as they are of many science lovers coming out of the 1980’s who found magic and hope in Indiana Jones. Indiana Jones for millions has set the bar high for not only what we expect in our movies, but also in what we expect out of ourselves.
People often wonder how I have done and survived many of the things I have, and why I am not content to just drift off into the sunset on a sail boat. Well, I spent a lot of time watching Indiana Jones and raising my family on those films, and it just wouldn’t be right if I didn’t give them the closest thing in reality to that dynamic character. The magic of Indiana Jones is in saying “yes” to life, to not allowing convention to rule the day. If Indiana Jones is anything, he is probably the most tenacious character ever to appear in film, and he is a survivor to such an extent that not even a nuclear blast can stop him. He’s not a superhero from some other planet, or a multi millionaire who can afford to build the machines of his dreams to combat crime. Indiana Jones is just an ordinary man with an extraordinary sense of wonder and hope, which has never learned the word can’t, and that is why fans will flock to the Indiana Jones booth at COMIC CON and take pictures of themselves next to the live snake exhibit. They’ll do it because there’s a little bit of Indiana Jones in each of them, thanks to George Lucas who decided to make his kind of movie from the front of the social train while the rest of society watched from the back.
Yes, I will buy the new Blu-Ray set of the Indiana Jones films. I have a grandchild coming and I can promise that his first images, his first sounds, his very first impressions will be of Indiana Jones punching a bunch of maniacal Thuggee in the face from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. My grandchild has a lot to learn from me, and to prepare his mind for what his life will be like, he had better start thinking the way Indiana Jones does—that nothing is impossible, that life is a never-ending adventure, and even when the worst that can possibly happen happens—there is always a way out so long as your mind can dream and adapt.
The Overmanwarrior 