This month, the fifth and final instalment of the Indiana Jones franchise, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, hits our screens in what promises to be another classic Indy adventure, with Harrison Ford reprising his titular role – but questions surrounding the 80-year-old’s efficacy as his legendary character have surfaced amid continued dependency on AI and de-aging technology.
Over the last four decades, the profound impact Indiana Jones has had on popular culture is undeniable, as movie-goers everywhere donned their brown and tan fedoras with a whip in tow, to join their favourite abrasive archaeologist for another unpredictable – sometimes unbelievable – adventure into the unknown.
In a genre dominated by the toughest on-screen action heroes of the time, such as Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Conan the Barbarian, Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones and his professional CV as an unassuming archaeology professor always seemed to make him more relatable to his adoring fans.
We suspended belief that somehow, this everyday hero could find himself traversing through a dense Peruvian jungle in Raiders Of The Lost Ark, denying Shiva a human sacrifice in Temple of Doom or falling forwards through the backstreets of Venice in The Last Crusade, all in an effort to save the day and preserve the past. As Indy says: “if you want to be a good archaeologist, you gotta get out of the library.”
But the real question now is this: can we still suspend our belief in the face of a radically de-aged Harrison Ford? Many fans are already divided by the de-aging before the film has even properly hit cinemas…
WATCH the trailer for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny below.
How did they de-age Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones 5?
For Indiana Jones’ final adventure, George Lucas and James Mangold reversed the direction of the never-to-be-mentioned Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and brought the story back to the start. As revealed in the trailer, Indiana Jones 5 opens with a nearly 25-minute scene set in 1944 in the middle of another Indy adventure, with 80-year-old Harrison Ford playing himself, aged 35.
The team behind the magic revealed that new visual effects technology had to be created in order to de-age Ford for the opening sequence. Using a whole archive of footage containing Harrison Ford’s entire Lucasfilm works, artificial intelligence was deployed to mine the video library searching for specific frames that matched Ford’s present-day portrayal of Indiana Jones. As Ford says: “I know that is my face.”
“We had hundreds of hours of footage of him in close-ups, in mediums, in wides, in every kind of lighting, night and day.”
James Mangold, Indiana Jones director and co-writer
The team are then able to superimpose Ford’s younger version of himself over his face to transport the audience back in time to Indy’s early days.
Why didn’t they use a younger actor to play the role?
Ford has defended the use of de-aging technology in the recent Indiana Jones flick, citing the fact that “that’s what I looked like 35 years ago.” He acknowledges that without the substance of story, de-aging his face would be “just a trick” without a place to progress the plot, but in doing so has reminded the audience of the lost adventures that allowed them to suspend belief in the first place, all those years ago.
Frankly, the resemblance is uncanny and, unsurprisingly, Harrison Ford’s timeless portrayal of Indiana Jones is second to none. Suggestions that a younger actor could be chosen to carry the weighty burden of Indy’s signature whip in place of this AI technology, would surely be met with protest from the many movie-goers who are turning up to see their relatable hero for one last time.
Whilst it may be distracting to see a digitally generated Indiana stopping the Nazis in his thirties, it’d be far less derailing to the story if, in the tense climax of the scene, the hood is dramatically raised to reveal Ryan Gosling or Chris Hemsworth staring back at you, perplexed by the situation they find themselves in.
Harrison Ford’s depiction of one of cinema’s great characters deserves its triumphant ending, and a continued dependency on groundbreaking new tech might just allow the audience to suspend their belief one last time and revel in Indiana Jones’ final adventure.