“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” is now a reality. The fifth installment of the beloved archaeologist’s film saga has already premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and will hit theaters worldwide on June 30th. In this new movie, Indy will embark on what appears to be his final great adventure, and the resounding six-minute applause from the French audience makes it clear that it will be a spectacle worth admiring.
However, director James Mangold, who is taking the helm from Steven Spielberg for the first time, didn’t want to focus solely on Indiana Jones’ later years. And considering that Harrison Ford is already eighty years old, they had no choice but to utilize a technique that is very popular in today’s cinema: CGI rejuvenation.
Harrison Ford, a young Indiana Jones at 80 years old
As we have seen in the early footage of the film, scenes from the later period of the movie, set in the 1960s, are seamlessly blended with earlier scenes from when Indiana Jones was younger. To achieve this, they have employed digitalization techniques that, it seems, fit the character like a glove.
But how does Harrison Ford feel about this technique? Many actors are against using these types of tools. However, Ford’s opinion seems to be quite different. During the press conference at the Cannes Film Festival, the team was asked if we would see new Indiana Jones films starring this younger version of Harrison Ford. “No,” responded Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm. But the actor decided to elaborate further:
“The technology has evolved to the point where, for me, it looks very realistic. […] I know that’s my face – it’s not the magic of Photoshop. That’s how I looked 35 years ago because Lucasfilm has all the film frames we’ve done together over the years.”
Ford continued to elaborate on this technique, saying, “It’s just a trick unless it’s supported by a story, and it sticks out like a sore thumb if it’s not honest, if it’s not real… I mean, emotionally real. But I think it’s been used skillfully.”
However, he is not a fading star longing for his younger years. On the contrary, he wanted to make it clear: “I’m very happy to be old, I love being older. It was great to be young. But, damn, I could be dead.”
While Tom Hanks embraces the use of digitalization in his films and sees it as a common practice in the future of Hollywood, Ford also embraces the idea and believes that as long as it is justified, it is well utilized. We will see how digitalization changes everything in the future, but it certainly seems that we have many changes to come.
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