Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny Trailer Breakdown: If I Could Turn Back Time
At the end of Steven Spielberg's 1989 film "Indiana Jone and the Last Crusade," Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr. (Harrison Ford), his father (Sean Connery), Sallah (John Rhys-Davis), and Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott) have escaped the now-collapsed temple where the Holy Grail rests. Breathing a sigh of relief, they mount horses and choose to simply go home, literally riding off into the sunset. It seemed that was going to be the final word on Indiana Jones; it was his last Crusade. But, just like "Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare," "Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter," "Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday," "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier," and "The Final Destination," the promise of "Crusade" being Indy's final adventure was broken. In 2008, Spielberg returned for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," a film that the director seemed painfully uninterested in.
Because that film wasn't widely beloved, and because it had a weird premise (aliens), it felt like a whimper rather than a grand finale. It was sad that "Skull" was to be Indy's encore, and it simply underwhelmed.
Hence James Mangold's 2023 film "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny," out in theaters on June 30. Ford, now 80, has returned to play the titular role, and, because of how time works, will be set in 1969. As seen in the new trailer, "Dial" will be a proper grand finale. The new film will contain a lot of familiar Indy iconography including Nazi bad guys, the return of Sallah, ancient stone tombs, and a plucky younger sidekick, this time played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
The Old Indiana Jones Chronicles
Like "Star Trek: Picard," the preview for "Dial" will catch up with familiar pop culture heroes as they round old age when they are ready to retire, but still have energy left for one final adventure. Indy is seen waking in a cluttered New York apartment, complete with a reclining chair and a small TV set. He takes the subway to work, utterly wearied by the colorful modern world around him. Some viewers may have been left feeling off-balance by seeing Indy in the 1950s in "Crystal Skull," and that cognitive dissonance will only increase with "Dial." Indiana Jones and the Rolling Stones are an odd mix; "Sympathy for the Devil" plays over the whole of the preview. The "hoo hoo" part will eventually be mixed into John Williams' famed Indiana Jones theme. If the makers of the trailer had chosen "Gimme Shelter" instead, one would be forgiven for thinking this was a Martin Scorsese movie.
Then, of course, the adventure plot is teased. The Waller-Bridge character, Helena, is revealed to be Indy's goddaughter, and she mentions that Indy had once "found something on a train during the war" that made her father go mad years before. That "something" is the titular Dial of Destiny, a device that doesn't look unlike the widget from "The Golden Compass." Using state-of-the-art de-aging effects, audiences can see a younger Indy in flashback, punching a Nazi (Mads Mikkelsen) in the face. The technology has improved, as it certainly looks like a younger Harrison Ford. How it looks in the final film remains to be seen.
Aren't you glad you use Dial?
Also like "Picard," a lot of the more exciting action seems to have been passed off to the newer, younger cast, and it's Helena who will be seen running across rooftops and behaving recklessly. Although Harrison Ford may be 80, it wouldn't be an Indiana Jones film without him doing a lot of fleeing, and "Dial" promises a scene where Ford, on horseback, outruns a subway. I've seen a helicopter chase a train through the Chunnel, and a hovercraft chase Jackie Chan, but a horse in a subway is a new one to me. Naturally, a very stern-looking possible Nazi also pursues Jones on a police motorcycle.
The old-world pulp texture of the earlier Indiana Jones movies is clearly trying to be recaptured with these action sequences. The shots of Indy in an old, dusty archive certainly capture the worldly mysteries of matinee serials from the '30s and '40s. It's worth remembering that Spielberg and producer George Lucas used Indiana Jones as an updated version of said serials, films they watched as boys. It's also worth remembering that Ford was already a professional actor by 1969, Spielberg was directing his first episode of "Night Gallery," and Lucas was already directing shorts like "Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB" and co-founding American Zoetrope with Francis Ford Coppola. To have the reality of the filmmakers overlap with Indiana Jones is ... well, it feels a little off. The "Dial of Destiny" preview, with its subways and New York streets, simply feels too modern.
If I could turn back time
The Mikkelsen character, named Jürgen Voller, gravely intones that "Hitler made mistakes" and with the Dial of Destiny, he will be able to "correct them all." Fitting that a film based largely on nostalgia should be explicitly about a device that can turn back time. Indeed, "Dial" is a nostalgia piece of a nostalgia piece. The 1981 film "Raiders of the Lost Ark" was a look back at childhood cinema by men born in the 1940s. "Dial" was directed by a man born in the 1960s. "Raiders" now serves the same function to a new generation as adventure serials did to the makers of "Raiders." It's an intergenerational loop.
However, Mutt (Shia LeBeouf), Indy's son from "Crystal Skull," is not present, so the legacy character has been transformed into an adult goddaughter.
The trailer then speeds into quick snippets of various action shots, and — glory of glories — that trademarked Indiana Jones punch sound effect is back. Indiana Jones' punches do not sound like punches, but like a side of beef dropped from a great height, landing on the surface of a swimming pool filled with gelatin. It's a sound effect that exists deep within the brains of several generations of filmgoers. At this moment, nostalgia works.
There is also a small vehicle chase, a midair plane battle, and several shots of booby-trapped tombs. These elements have appeared in each of the previous Indiana Jones movies, so they fell a little perfunctory here. Helena enthusiastically declares that Indy needs "a final triumph." "Dial" is, more or less, being sold as a feature-length curtain call.
Tomb Raider
The preview ends with Indiana Jones shouting a litany of "greatest hits," saying that three times in his life he's "seen things." I guess one of the four previous movies doesn't count, perhaps "Raiders," as he deliberately kept his eyes shut for that film's violent finale (the one where a bunch of Nazis are wasted by the power of God). He also mentions that he's been shot multiple times and was once tortured by voodoo (detailed in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom").
Indy then declares that he had been looking for something — presumably the Dial of Destiny — his whole life. It's a little presumptuous of the filmmakers to put the importance of their own widget above the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail.
The actual plot of "Dial" is not described in the preview, although back in December, Empire revealed the premise to involve former Nazis working for NASA, as the U.S. requires their help to beat the Soviets to the moon. There are no shots in the preview of characters walking around on the moon's surface ... but we cannot discount the possibility.
To briefly speculate: perhaps Indy will indeed find a connection between the Dial of Destiny and the surface of the moon. Which would put Indy back into the realm of sci-fi, as he was in "Crystal Skull." This means the aliens from the previous film will, perhaps, have been Moon Men all along. But then, "Indiana Jones vs. the Moon Men" might sound too silly for some audiences expecting grandeur and mysticism.
It's not too silly for me, though.