Producer Frank Marshall did a recent interview with Collider and seemed to put a lid on the “Indiana Jones” franchise. George Lucas said he told Steven Spielberg that he had a story but he had not come up with a MacGuffin. One year later, it looks like that entire plan may be dead in the water. Lucas has since quit Hollywood filmmaking.
“I say, for me, [Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is] the last hurrah,” Marshall said in the interview. “I know that yes, we talk about it, but there’s no idea, there’s no MacGuffin.”
With Marshall’s wife the new co-chair and successor to Lucasfilm, he would know better than anyone. However, the problem remains that Indiana Jones went out with a whimper, many not liking the aliens in that storyline. That really makes no sense, because that sort of MacGuffin is what Indiana Jones is all about.
“Raiders of the Lost Ark”
The movie that started it all used a MacGuffin from straight out of the Bible with the Lost Ark of the Covenant. In “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” Jones got involved with a giant Nazi plan to uncover the Biblical artifact for Hitler, knowing his love for the occult. Of course, our hero was there to stop them and almost ended up dead for his work. The minute the Ark opened, and everyone who looked at it melted in their skin, it was obvious that the Indiana Jones franchise was never based in reality.
“Temple of Doom”
Things grew even stranger in the second movie, “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.” In this movie, Jones ends up in an Indian village looking for a rare stone. What he finds is a voodoo tribe. What makes it worse is when Jones and his partners on the mission learn that the tribe can control the dead, risen back to life as possessed zombies. Spielberg’s future wife Kate Capshaw also starred in the movie as one of the worst supporting characters in the entire series.
“Last Crusade”
With the third movie, Sean Connery joined the cast as Henry Jones, the father of our hero. Once again, “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” uses ancient beliefs, this time the legendary Holy Grail. Father and son search for the Grail, and when they finally find it, things really fly off the tracks. Indiana uses the Grail’s magical powers to heal his mortally wounded father. They also find an ancient Knight of the First Crusade, kept alive through magic, protecting the Grail.
With the Ark of the Covenant, voodoo zombies and a thousand year old Knight of the First Crusade, it is clear aliens are not that far out of line. It remains a disappointment that the adventures of Indiana Jones might be dead, but with Harrison Ford 70-years-old and Shia LaBeouf not readily accepted as his replacement, it might be time to finally let go of one of cinema’s greatest action franchises.
