Indiana Jones 5 Will De-Age Harrison Ford For Its Opening Scene
Nostalgia is usually a surefire way to get an audience excited. After all, we're all getting older and the world is changing fast. Films are becoming an escape again fast, and what better world to escape into than one we already know well — which is why the news that our very own Indiana Jones, also known as the great Harrison Ford, will be de-aged in the opening sequence of "Indiana Jones 5" is so exciting.
"This is the first time I've seen it where I believe it," Ford told Empire about the young version of himself during an interview published in November 2022. "It's a little spooky. I don't think I even want to know how it works, but it works. Doesn't make me want to be young, though. I'm glad to have earned my age."
Naturally, the biggest challenge in a major film like this is to make sure the effect is believable. It's great that Ford is on board with it, but the filmmakers need the wider audience to go along with it as well. Producer Kathleen Kennedy seems fairly confident that the scene will play as if it was plucked directly from the halcyon days of the "Indiana Jones" franchise—which, if you're a longtime fan, could
"My hope is that, although it will be talked about in terms of technology, you just watch it and go, 'Oh my God, they just found footage. This was a thing they shot 40 years ago,'" the producer told Empire. "We're dropping you into an adventure, something Indy is looking for, and instantly you have that feeling, 'I'm in an 'Indiana Jones' movie.'"
What we know about the Indiana Jones 5 opening sequence
We all know that an action-packed, adrenaline-rush of an opening scene is crucial to setting the tone of an "Indiana Jones" movie. The new film's director, James Mangold — who is perhaps best known for his successful turns as a writer-director, including "Girl, Interrupted," "Walk The Line," and "Logan" — revealed how he plans to give this new film that same classic edge by setting the opening in 1944 amid a castle full of Nazis. No surprises there, as Indy has always been one to smash fascism at its knees wherever possible.
"I wanted the chance to dive into this kind of full-on George-and-Steven old picture and give the audience an adrenaline blast" by going back to the "Raiders"-era we know so well and giving us our beloved hero as he once was, the director told Empire. "And then we fall out, and you find yourself in 1969. So that the audience doesn't experience the change between the '40s and '60s as an intellectual conceit, but literally experiences the buccaneering spirit of those early days ... and then the beginning of now."
Naturally, the choice will be pointedly juxtaposing, and, with the right mixture of nostalgia and action, should get us right in the heart with the way it highlights young Indy as a harbinger of the old man our favorite hero was always going to become.
"Indiana Jones 5," which is still untitled, arrives in theaters on June 30, 2023.