Indiana Jones will face a familiar foe in his final outing. In an exclusive report – which will be presented in full in their next print issue, which will be available on November 24 – Empire reveals that Indiana Jones 5 will see Indy caught up in the space race and Operation Paperclip. Taking place in 1959, the upcoming sequel finds Indy uncomfortable with America’s recruitment of former Nazis in their technological war with the Russians. Mads Mikkelsen plays Voller, the head NASA scientist who hasn’t left the Fourth Reich behind, and Boyd Holbrook is his henchman. One scene will be “a major action set-piece set at the Apollo 11 ticker tape parade in New York.” You can see all the details and images at the link and an Empire-exclusive picture and magazine covers below:
None of this gets me any more interested in Indiana Jones 5. Despite it taking place during the Cold War, the Nazis are the bad guys again. The space race is the backdrop, and one of the big action sequences takes place in New York City. The weightless, boring villain from Logan is one of Indy’s nemeses. It doesn’t sound very exciting. Indy is supposed to travel to exotic locations and engage in adventure and discovery, not hang around Manhattan for a ticker tape parade. The space race and Operation Paperclip could serve as set-ups for great movies, but they don’t fit with Indiana Jones. Maybe there’s more to it, but this is the stuff they’re revealing to Empire to get people excited, and none of it is very Indy (except the Nazis, I guess).
What’s more interesting is what they didn’t talk to Empire about, at least in this truncated version of the full report. There’s no mention of time travel, which has been heavily rumored as an important plot element. Does that mean they’re saving it for the movie, or was that not the case (or changed along the way)? Time travel and the space race don’t seem to mix, unless they abandon moon landings for a flux capacitor halfway through. There’s also no mention of Phoebe Waller-Bridge, aside from listing her as one of the people who will be interviewed in print, with the focus solely on Indy and the bad guys. This feels like the rollout of Thor: Love and Thunder to me; they know who the draw is, even if they’re planning a bait-and-switch.
How does the new Indiana Jones 5 information sound to you? Are you looking forward to the movie? Is Indy going to grapple with snakes on the moon? Let us know in the comments, and stay tuned to Geeks + Gamers for more on the last gasps of dying franchises!
Thanks again to Empire for the images!
No point in being negative just because of a location. It’s not where your story takes place, it’s how good your story is.
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