Why We Need To Recast Indiana Jones

[The_Waspman]

We don't NEED to recast Indiana Jones. Because we don't NEED any more Indiana Jones movies. Lets just movie on man. Raiders of the Lost Ark was awesome. Last Crusade was a damn good sequel. Everything else with the Indiana Jones name on it has sucked donkey balls.

 

[Nurb]

Let the franchise be. There doesn't need to be any more sequels, especially since no one knows how to make a good adventure movie anymore, and with the way hollywood casts now, it'll be some 16 year old who is somehow a professor at college.

We don't need this, we don't ask for this. We need NEW ideas.

 

[Catface Meowmers]

"He will always be the definitive Indiana Jones like Connery's still the definitive Bond."

But Connery isn't the definitive Bond for a majority of the key movie demographic. Hell, I'm 31 and I've never seen a Connery Bond film. To me, Pierce Brosnan is the definitive Bond because of Goldeneye for the N64.

I think continuing the Indiana Jones series in a Bond-style casting direction is definitely within the spirit of the original inspiration for Raiders: the old adventure serials. If they can maintain the spirit of adventure, they could make it work.

 

[Hutzpah Chicken]

The fact that much of the inspiration for Indiana Jones comes from James Bond, I don't understand why Indy wasn't recast for the last movie. Sean Connery might be the definitive James Bond, but I still like Roger Moore the most. Harrison Ford will be the definitive Indy, but maybe another one might be more liked by a group of people. There are hundreds of stories that can be made into an Indy movie, so keep the chain of actors comming.

 

[Grumman]

No. I strongly disagree. What we need are no more Indiana Jones movies at all and something new instead.

This. Let the Indiana Jones franchise die with whatever dignity remains after Crystal Skull. There's plenty of room to make a new movie with the same feel in a historical, fantasy or science fiction setting.

 

[The Madman]

The entire idea that by letting the Indy franchise go you're somehow depriving that sort of world-faring adventure to a new generation is a fallacy. Indiana Jones is itself a homage to the serial comics and pulpy drama that came before just as stuff like Nick Cage's National Treasure or Angelina Jolie's Tomb Raider are homage to Indy and what came before.

So let Indy go. I don't want him recast, the series doesn't need anymore movies, just let it go and instead turn your attention to new properties. I'm sick of remakes and recasting, how about people just make something new? It doesn't even have to be original, just new enough that it's not reminiscent of a leech clinging desperately to a dying corpse in the hopes of sustaining itself just a little longer.

Besides, how much really left is there for Indy? He's a character that works best in a very specific time of history in specific sorts of adventures. A new properly could not only maintain the spirit of Indy but give it room to expand.

 

[GodzillaGuy92]

And in this world of Transformers and superheroes, I want kids to have a hero whose powers amount to a PhD, language skills, and the ability to take a punch.

In which case they will continue to be more than satisfied with the original Indiana Jones. If an Indy reboot speaks to the next generation in a way that the originals somehow couldn't, then clearly it has already compromised the simple values you listed, in which case the entire point of attempting to perpetuate Indy's cultural presence has in turn already been undermined.

No, Indiana Jones is like Star Wars in that it's a genre throwback that could have been made in any decade (not that they don't both feel like seventies and eighties films, because they do, but it's not as though those decades are the only ones where someone would possibly think to harken back to old sci-fi and adventure serials), and as a result has a broad, timeless appeal about it - in fact, in many ways this applies even more than it does to Star Wars, because Indiana Jones is a lot less reliant on the visual effects that have been revolutionized to such a degree since the original three movies. Unless they come up with some seriously different twist on the old formula, any further Indiana Jones ventures, especially now that Crystal Skull has broken its streak of quality, is just an exercise in nostalgia cash-grabbing. Not that it would necessarily turn out bad - you did singlehandedly succeed in selling me on the role being recast for Chris Pratt with this article - but that it would be a pointless retread of an endeavor even if the end result turned out to be watchable.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Disregarding the fact that Chris Pratt has too much of a goofball exterior to really pull off a good Indy (you said it yourself... that voice), you just can't make a proper Indiana Jones movie in this day and age anymore. It was a franchise from the 80's, when hardcore violence and foreign vilians were still okay. Even though we're all in general agreement that the Nazi's were evil motherfuckers, worthy of vilification, Captain America couldn't even feature them, because it might've offended Germans.

 

[Kahani]

Recasting Indy makes me nervous, but if we shelve him I worry he'll become an artifact that only holds meaning for my generation.

I fail to why this would be considered a problem. Most of the things you enjoyed growing up will not hold any meaning for later generations, that's not something to worry about, it's been an unavoidable fact of life since generations were invented. Endlessly remaking the same franchises over and over again is one of the biggest problems the film industry currently has, and it's entirely because of this kind of misplaced nostalgia. Nostalgia is supposed to be about continuing to appreciate things you enjoyed in the past, not about trying to resurrect a pale semblance of it from its dismembered corpse and then forcing it down the throat of everyone younger than you. Younger generations are perfectly capable of enjoying the same things older ones did for what they are, and if they don't and instead prefer new things, that's absolutely fine.

That said, if they absolutely have to keep beating Indiana Jones' poor dead horse, Chris Pratt is easily one of the better sticks they could choose to do it with.

 

[SecondPrize]

I've always been of the opinion that, if we really have to recast Indiana Jones, Nathan Fillion would be the best choice for the role.

The problem here is that Nathan Fillion only knows how to play the role of Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion is a fine character, but he's not Indiana Jones.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Recasting for a new Indie is so obvious that's it's merely academic at this point.
Ford was woefully unfit for the role well before Crystal Skull; you need new blood.

Regardless, after Crystal Skull; I don't have any faith in any future Indie film, because I'm aware that I live in the age of Hackywood Reboots. Sure, a number of reboots have high production values, but the biggest problems I have with so many current movies doesn't lie in the production values, it's with the writing and acting.

For the most part, the writing doesn't seem to matter at all because the appeal of doing a reboot (from a producer's perspective) is that the scripting is already half-done. Just throw in a bunch of references to the original, smush some CGI onto the screen, ship it in 7 months.

If I sound cynical and jaded about movies, it's only because that's the attitude that goes into making most of them now, and it shows.

 

[Extragorey]

I just don't get the obsession with reviving old franchises. Here's a better idea: leave Indiana Jones in the past with Nazis and WW2 conspiracies, where he belongs, and create a new IP for the current and future generations.

We've already got James Bond as a movie franchise that will never die [another day].