The following story will get into spoilers for both Logan and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, so stop reading now if you don’t want to be spoiled on anything.
It wasn’t until I had my recent conversation with acclaimed filmmaker James Mangold that I made the deeper connections between the ending of his incredible Wolverine film, Logan, and the resolution he reached with Harrison Ford’s classic character for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Both movies were viewed as final chapters in the long-running sagas of these classic characters, and both had important messages to say about the personalities. In Mangold’s opinion, both were happy endings, and the very last moment of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny brings with it an even deeper meaning, which Mangold was happy to share.
During our exclusive conversation for Indiana Jones, Mangold and I got into the possibility of leaving Harrison Ford’s archaeologist in the past, a conversation they had but dismissed. To Mangold, it was more important to bring Indy back to New York City, where he could resolve his issues with Marion (Karen Allen). At the same time, Mangold ended the movie with Ford reaching out the window to grab Indy’s trademark hat. So I asked if that meant, indirectly, that the adventures for this character would continue. And he told CinemaBlend:
Yes, it absolutely means the adventure continues. But there are two ways to say that. Whether the adventure continues, and there's more movies, or the adventure continues because that's what Indiana Jones is. Meaning until his heart stops beating and he's laid to rest, he's going to be investigating, answering questions, solving mysteries, confronting villains, and educating us about the history of our world. To me, the most important thing to say about Indy was he had found his mojo and wasn't stopping. And was never going to stop. Everyone anticipated I'd be doing what we did to Logan. But to me Logan, in its own way, was its own happy ending. Because it was a character who had lived an eternity of pain, and was finally released from it, in his final moments, in an incredibly positive way. Knowing love, knowing he had done the right thing. For Indy, he faced none of (those) existential questions. He had just hit a kind of rough patch in his life – in a very positive and wonderful adventurous life – and was just finding his way back to it.
Putting the final nail in a character’s coffin, so to speak, presents all sorts of challenges. You can actually kill the hero off, as Mangold did with Wolverine at the end of Logan. Or you can signify that this probably is the last time that we will see them on screen, but their life will go on. With Indiana Jones, it comes down to Harrison Ford eventually aging out of the part, and the producers being unwilling to let another actor step into the role. (Good choice.)
To that end, I wondered what the final day on set was like for James Mangold and Harrison Ford, knowing that – for all intents and purposes – this was Ford’s final time playing the character. And Mangold told me:
Well, the experience with Harrison was one of the most lovely experiences I've ever had with an actor in my life. To me, he's an actor who I profoundly admire, who I think is a cinema legend. But he's my friend. And he was also kind of like my dad. The whole process of making the movie, we spent a couple of years working on it together – from script to cutting to finishing. He was present for all of it, and my partner in all of it. … The significance of (the last day) for Harrison, which I think is more extreme, which is the last time he was going to play that character in his life. That, to me I think, was powerful for him, and very moving for him, and very moving for me. I felt exactly the same thing on the last day of shooting Logan, although, of course, it isn’t the last day. (laughs) So one also gets cynical about when the last day actually occurs.
As Mangold is learning, thanks to Hugh Jackman returning to Wolverine for Deadpool 3, even if you kill off a character, Hollywood will do whatever it wants. I don’t think Indiana Jones will ever be back. Or, wait. I don’t think Harrison Ford will ever play the part again. A studio still might try to bring the character back somehow. But that’s how Mangold and Ford wanted the character to go out, just like Logan marks how Mangold and Jackman wanted Wolverine to go out. At that time, anyway.
