Why James Mangold Couldn't Give Indiana Jones The Same Morbid Outcome As Logan
When James Mangold took the adventuring archaeologist reins from Steven Spielberg on "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny," fans were wary for a couple of reasons. One was the simple fact that, aside from ABC's "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles," Spielberg was the series' sole director. As the "Jaws" sequels and the "Jurassic World" series proved, no one can match The Beard when it comes to terrifying and elating audiences, sometimes in the same scene. The other fear had to do with legacy. When Harrison Ford announced at September 2022's D23 expo that this was his last go-round in the fedora ("I'm not falling down for you again"), we took him at his word. He turned 81 this year, and has incurred all manner of injuries via stunts and aviation mishaps.
Given that Mangold had earned an Oscar nomination for co-writing the death of Hugh Jackman's "Wolverine" in the superb "Logan," perhaps he'd been hired to do what Spielberg couldn't: kill a legend.
For many Indiana Jones fans, this was unthinkable, especially because Spielberg had originally intended to have the hero he created with George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan literally ride off into the sunset for good in 1989's "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." The general consensus on 2008's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" was that Spielberg should've let our hero keep on riding. Now that Indy's fate was out of Spielberg's hands, fans feared the worst. We know how it played out, now that "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" has been released, and there's a reason Mangold couldn't bring himself to give Dr. Henry Jones Jr. the same farewell as Logan.
Why you kill a Wolverine and spare an archaeologist
We now know that Indy's wish to be left to die in 212 BC with Archimedes at the Siege of Syracuse was denied by his goddaughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge). She knocked him out and returned him to his New York City apartment, where he reconciles with the estranged Marion (Karen Allen). It's a lovely finale, one that more than makes up for the film's limp first act. But as moviegoers glided out of the theater to John Williams' classic fanfare, many were left wondering if Mangold considered leaving Indy in Syracuse.
Mangold told Entertainment Weekly he was both aware of and amused by these fears. "I think everyone, particularly, because I made 'Logan' and wrote it as well, there was a lot of anxiety that I was just going to turn into the icon executioner."
But "Logan" was a different beast. As he explained to EW:
"Honestly, I enjoy that people were so atwitter about it, because to me, there really is no attraction to just getting thousands of people in a theater and hitting them in a head with a hammer... Death is not an ending. The reason death worked in 'Logan' is because of the beautiful irony of his death, which is that he lived such a painful life, that it was only in the last 30 seconds of his life that he actually got to experience love. And that to me was what was so moving about that ending."
'Twas box office that (possibly) killed Indiana Jones
"Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" presented a different storytelling challenge, one that couldn't be solved by simply killing off the amazingly durable educator. "For Indiana Jones, it isn't about him dying," he told EW. "It had to be about him coming to terms with this period of his life and this period of the world. And in a way, coming to terms with whether Indiana Jones has relevance to ours."
Early in the movie, we see Indy struggling to connect with his Hunter College students. He's lost his zeal for teaching and for life in general because, as we learn later, his son Mutt was killed in Vietnam. Indy is now himself a relic, but he is still immensely relevant to his wife and friends. They've been through so many spectacular adventures together and somehow survived to see both the Space Age and old age. Now is the time to savor these bonds and leave the danger-seeking to someone else.
And if this installment's shockingly low $379 million worldwide gross is any indication, this franchise will be able to rest easy with its protagonist and star.