Two things I hate about Indiana Jones 4 (out of a lot)

[seriousfic]

What's the first thing we see in an Indiana Jones movie? That Indy has a life. An insane, dangerous, ridiculous, globe-trotting life. We're not seeing the great adventure of Indiana Jones's life, because Indy's great adventure is his life. We start Raiders at the end of an adventure, we start Temple of Doom at the end of an adventure and end it on a new adventure, and only in Last Crusade do we finally have him riding off into the sunset. The central conceit of Indiana Jones is that Indiana Jones has this amazing life.

So, at the end of the saga, who do we see at his wedding? Well, a dean and, uh, his old professor.

Fuck that.

There should be Sallah, and Short Round, and Willie, and Sean Connery should be there if he has to be forced at gunpoint. There should be people hired to play all the friends he's made in the novels and comics and games. Sophia Hapgood should show up, at least. We should get that there's a whole other movie of Indy getting married, because the play is over and it's time for the cast to take a bow.

Instead we get an empty church. It's such a handy metaphor for what George Lucas and co ended up doing to Indy.

Second was how miscast Shia LeBeouf was. Indiana Jones dealing with an unruly, rebellious teenage son is one of those ideas any FF.net brat could come up with (we've met his dad, after all... it's either this or an evil brother, and as long as the evil brother was Kurt Russell...), but it could be executed well. Just like how Star Trek XI had a very cliched idea of James T. mini-Kirk that was pulled off well. Imagine, say, Chris Pine as Mutt Williams. It could've worked.

But the more I thought about it, trying to come up with an actor who could play Indy's son, Sean Connery's grandson, the more I thought -- why not a woman? It makes great metafictional sense--as fond as we all are of the pulp adventures that inspired Indy, you have to admit they're full of unpleasant stereotypes. Instead of dealing with that by just shifting the movie's homaging to sci-fi films of the fifties (which I thought Independence Day already covered anyway), why not give Indy a daughter to pass the torch to? Yes, Indy was great in his day, but the next generation belongs to heroes like Buffy as well as Batman. And it ensures that should the series be continued, there's no way the new hero could be someone doing a Harrison Ford impression.

Just off the top of my head, why not Jordana Brewster as Indiana Jane? Would anyone complain about getting this instead of this? No way anyone argues that Shia LeBeouf is a more believable action hero than Jordana Brewster. You can give Shia a fucking Bowie knife, I'd still rather fight him than Jordana Brewster.

Besides, doesn't Indy having to deal with an estranged Marion and a crazy motorcycle-riding daughter on an adventure sound like more fun than Shia LeBeouf doing anything ever? Normally I don't see the point in genderswapping, because I looked at liviapenn's gender-swap of Star Wars and I just wondered why almost everyone was white and straight, but at least this would inject some unpredictability into the franchise.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/thrace_/]

I applaud your casting, sir.

[mightbefound.livejournal.com]

I agree that Shia LeBeouf as the kid was just horrible casting. But that movie was so bad that I'm not sure there were many actors who could've done all that much with the role.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

But at least with Jordana Brewster we'd have something pretty to look at.

[mightbefound.livejournal.com]

true! And Indy as the father of a girl would lead to some interesting overprotective father moments. ;)