Dr. Henry Walton “Indiana” Jones Jr. has accumulated a few neat archaeological knick-knacks over the years: a grail, an ark, a spoopy crystal skull, and now whatever the “Antikythera” is. It’s right there in the title of what’s apparently Indy’s final adventure, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, arriving in cinemas on June 28.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
If this is really Harrison Ford’s last time wielding a whip, then at least his legendary explorer is saying goodbye with guns blazing. Here’s 12 fun facts about the new and familiar faces in the fifth film, its setting, shadowy plot details, and even where you can watch all the other Indy movies in one handy spot.
1. The film got a five-minute-long standing ovation at its Cannes premiere
A big boulder chased the Dial of Destiny cast down the red carpet (jk) at the 76th Cannes Film Festival, where the new movie premiered out-of-competition and was rewarded with a wrist-aching five-minute standing O. Variety kinda sneers at this effort, saying that an ovation of only five mins is fairly muted for the festival, and reports that apparently an emotional Ford got a much more rapturous reception before the film screened. He even scooped up an honorary Palme d’Or at the fest for his lifetime achievements in cinema.
2. Harrison Ford and Mads Mikkelsen were both digitally de-aged for the opening sequence
When the first Dial of Destiny teaser dropped, fans were startled at the digital fountain-of-youth treatment displayed on Ford’s poreless, CG face. We now know that Dial of Destiny will begin with a cold open in 1944, showing a spry Indiana Jones battling against Nazi Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) for an Ancient Greek artefact that’ll come back into his life in a major way 25 years later.
Original series director Steven Spielberg has spoken out against digitally de-ageing Ford before, saying in 2012 that he wouldn’t want to use any of the tech in his then-new film The Adventures of Tin-Tin to deny Ford’s natural ageing via motion-capture. But perhaps we can excuse it for this brief, opening bit of movie magic, as Ford himself has said he finds the trick “a little spooky…but it works.” It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage.
3. Fleabag‘s Phoebe Waller-Bridge is Helena, Indy’s goddaughter and the “catalyst” for the film’s action
In that opening sequence, we’ll be introduced to Indy’s old ally Basil Shaw (Toby Jones): the lads must’ve been close, since he made the archaeology professor godfather to his daughter Helena, who’ll drag Indy right back into a hunt for the Antikythera more than two decades later.
Best known for being the creator and star of sardonic comedy series Fleabag, Waller-Bridge will bring a mischievous spitfire contrast to the grouchy winter of Indy’s life. Helena’s grifter lifestyle and “machine-gun dialogue” were inspired by screwball comedies of the 1940s, Empire reports: she should have no trouble keeping up with Indy, and getting him in and out of trouble.
4. Most of the film is set in 1969: 12 years after Crystal Skull
It can be easy to forget the proper chronological order of the Indiana Jones films: Temple of Doom is actually a prequel, with Raiders, Crusade, Crystal Skull and now Dial coming after. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull already showed Indy struggling to reconcile his historical interests with a rapidly-changing midcentury world—he got caught up in atomic testing and pesky biker rebels, remember?—and Dial of Destiny will only unsettle him further with its Space Race futurism.
Photos from the film’s set and clips in the trailer suggest that Indy will be chased through a parade welcoming the moon landing’s astronauts home, an era-defining event made only more awesome by his escape on horseback.
5. Nazis are back as the baddies, hiding amongst NASA to pull off an evil scheme
Some things never change in this series, and, as with in our real world, Nazis still suck. Dial of Destiny provocatively stars a somewhat-typecast Mads Mikkelsen as Voller, an ex-Nazi recruited by NASA to help beat the Soviets in the 1960’s race to land on the moon. Of course Voller’s actual desires are less scientific and more concerned with world domination: a giant leap backwards, say, for all mankind. Mikkelsen has said his villain is based on repatriated Nazi and aerospace engineer Werner Von Braun, and that he longs to “make the world a better place as he sees fit”. We can’t wait to see his face get melted by some mystical force or other.
6. Sallah (John Rhys-Davis) and Marion (Karen Allen) return
Two of Indy’s all-time greatest allies from way back in Raiders will reappear to help him nab his latest ancient MacGuffin. The first is his trusty Egyptian buddy Sallah, after actor John Rhys-Davies turned down a cameo appearance in Crystal Skull, and the second is Karen Allen’s steely love interest Marion Ravenwood, who finally got hitched to Indy in the franchise’s last instalment.
New faces include Antonio Banderas in a quick cameo as a burly boat captain, Shaunette Renée Wilson as a US government agent, and Boyd Holbrook as Voller’s “very crazy” right-hand man—the dude that pursues Indy on a motorbike in the trailer above.
7. Spielberg’s involved…but George Lucas didn’t come back for this fifth adventure
As you can imagine, Lucasfilm have knocked around countless ideas when it comes to crafting the next Indiana Jones entry. Back in 1979, Paramount Pictures signed both Spielberg and Lucas on for five movies in the series, but half-baked ideas based around Shia Labeouf’s (seemingly retired) Crystal Skull ingenue Mutt and an increasingly busy Spielberg meant that film no. five was stalled.
In February of 2020, Spielberg stepped down as director, with producer Kathleen Kennedy saying the legend was “off and on” about handing the property over to a new director, whilst still holding the reins as a “hands-on producer”. He flip-flopped on Lucas’s involvement, too, saying that it would be “insane” to make an Indiana Jones film without the Star Wars maestro in 2016 before Lucas’s departure was announced in 2018.
The script has had a few different sets of hands on it, too, with Jurassic Park scribe David Koepp penning an initial draft before departing so that new director James Mangold and his team, Jez and Nick Butterworth, could take over. Koepp still maintains a writing credit on the film, despite Mangold claiming that he had to “retool the existing script pretty aggressively, almost entirely”. Whew, too many cooks.
8. Director James Mangold already gave us another great farewell to another screen icon
Mangold is obviously not quite the huge name that Spielberg is, but he certainly has the franchise-building credentials to step into the master’s shoes. Acclaimed for Oscar-nominated biopics like Walk The Line and Ford v Ferrari, he’s probably best known for giving Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine a tear-jerking, awesome send-off in the bleak superhero sequel Logan. That might be the best possible combination going into Indiana Jones’ seemingly final adventure: a director who knows how to tell action-packed stories in a period setting, especially for characters who are constantly being told their days are numbered.
9. Ford tore his shoulder muscle while doing some of his own stunts
Dial of Destiny will of course feature much more CGI than the gritty practical effects and stunts of, say, the gnarly Temple of Doom—but Harrison Ford is still the greatest special effect of all, determined to do his own stunts even at age 80. Unfortunately, the film’s production had to be shuffled around to accomodate for a shoulder injury Ford received while filming a train-set fight sequence with Mads Mikkelsen. Esquire reports than when the star “pulled his hand back to demonstrate the punch—someone was in the way and he had to adjust mid-strike—Ford pulled the subscapularis muscle off his right shoulder”. It’s becoming a bit of a habit for the action movie legend, after his leg was painfully broken in a hydraulic door on the set of The Force Awakens. Yeowch.
10. It’s the most expensive Indy movie—and the 13th most expensive movie ever made
How much do you reckon the actual Dial of Destiny—an Ancient Greek mechanism from before 205 BC, now housed in an Athens museum—would set you back? It can’t be too much more expensive than Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, with its hefty budget of $300 million. Adjusted for inflation, it’s only number 35 on the list of most expensive Hollywood productions ever, costing another $50 million more than the last Indy movie.
11. Ford still doesn’t have time for your fanboy nonsense
An infamous Hollywood grouch, Harrison Ford has always just kinda grumbled at Comic Con questions about what colour Han Solo’s lightsaber would be if he had one. And yep, despite leaking out a few grateful tears at his Cannes reception, Ford is still as gruff and down-to-earth about his success as ever, spitting back at Esquire’s question about an all-time nerd query:
he somehow managed to respond in a way that is in character for han solo and indiana jones AND himself https://t.co/kG7uMIVI9V
— ems ✮ KENOBIVERSARY (@atotalposer) June 1, 2023
No time for geek culture hypothesising, Dr. Jones.
12. All four Indy movies (plus a Dial of Destiny special look!) are now on Disney+
Prepare to have that spirit-lifting daa da da daaa, daa da daaaa stuck in your head for the next month: in the lead-up to Dial of Destiny‘s release, you can now stream every previous Indy adventure on Uncle Walt’s streaming service. Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012 and have been spawning Star Wars spin-offs all over the place ever since, so it’s actually surprising that the man in the hat has taken such a long time to drop on their platform.
There’s a new #IndianaJones Dial of Destiny featurette on Disney+, and I started bawling when Ke Huy Quan appeared and started talking about Harrison Ford. 🥹 pic.twitter.com/q79xeCK7pD
— Justin | 4 WEEKS TILL INDY 5 (@JD822953) May 31, 2023
Unfortunately, 90s series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles remain very difficult to stream worldwide, meaning there’s no way to check out that one episode where a beardy Harrison Ford shows up as a 50-year-old Indy.
Still, with four globe-trotting feature length adventures ready to watch and a new one on the way, it can be said that Indy’s voyaged through time more than enough for our entertainment. He’s a bit of a priceless historical artefact himself.
