Raiders112390 said:
Even as a professor I don't view him as erudite. He strikes me as a guy who is a professor to have legitimate income, but whose real love is adventure and he uses the clout and pull of being a Professor to get away with his shenanigans, with Marcus acting as basically a fence for his stolen goods. Like, Indy is the real personality, not Dr. Jones.
Have to disagree with you there. Remember, in the talk with Army intel in
Raiders, Indy provides some snark while dealing with Musgrove and Eaton's general ignorance of the Ark of the Covenant and it's power. As someone who comes from a family with a few professors, that snark is
extremely common with those who take their day jobs seriously. And watch him as he teaches, or when he "researches" in other countries. He speaks in a cool, collected, fairly intelligent style that's typical of a serious professor, not one just showing up for the paycheck. As for which personality is truly his, I've always seen both Indy and Dr. Jones as almost fictitious characters created by a trauma-stricken young man who had no idea where to go and therefore created two personalities based off those who inspired him the most, such as Fedora (who became Indy) and his father/Marcus Brody (who became "Dr. Jones"). Over time the real Indy became more apparent until he had inherited and took control over both those roles.
Raiders112390 said:
To your second point, he does get giddy over geeky archaeology stuff but he seems to hold a bit of disdain for bookworms, men like his father. I think he simply used his "book learnin" to survive; I don't think he holds great value in it.
Again, inclined to disagree. For Indy, knowledge is heavily important, and as someone who was an archaeological scholar I'd consider him to be at least a bit bookish. I'm not sure if he holds a disdain for bookworms (seeing as he is one), but probably holds a disdain for what he views as "armchair archaeologists" like his father who instead of searching for their MacGuffins fell deeper into obsessive research. Furthermore, one of his best friends is a bookworm!
Raiders112390 said:
Even with Winds of Change, I don't see this absent, cold guy who really doesn't care about his son. He seems to think of his son as an overgrown child and is resentful that he ran away. And I would say in terms of political views, Indy is the more cynical. Henry is a naive idealist still looking at things through a medieval mindset and praising David Lloyd George, while Indy bitterly says "we gave them victory and they threw it away."
I think there are lines in LC which suggest that Henry thought that for a while Indy was below his interest and somewhat immature in youth ("You left just when you were getting interesting", etc.) but I think it's incorrect to say that he didn't care about his son. He did, he just didn't exactly display it. And as far as political views go, Henry is
undoubtedly much more cynical. He praises Lloyd George and Clemenceau arguably because of their skill in forcing Wilson's idealism down, and even criticizes him for it (not the words of an idealist by any stretch of the imagination). Furthermore, Indy's assertion that "they threw it away" comes from a spot of idealism. Indy joined the war because (for better or worse) he believed the promise that the Allies were "building a new world". Henry's comments about the nation-state and it's wars display the fact that he thought everything Indy did was for nothing, and that this was simply an occurrence that would happen again.
Raiders112390 said:
Both his and his father's attitude in the 1912 segment just reek of small town regular folk-ness. Their house in Utah is humble and lower class, down to the cheap mailbox and the ramshackle furnishings (compare these to the more grand Princeton furnishings and such). Connery's Henry also doesn't strike me as a man who wrote several bestseller books. There's a certain rough edge which Sean Connery carries with him that the actor who plays Henry in the Chronicles doesn't have; rough around the edges. The YIJC Henry is a romantic Victorian gentleman, suave, sophisticated, a smooth talker who knows just what to say to Helen Seymour to change her mind; not even a hint of the angry old Scottish professor, not even in 1916. And Indy's been in Utah long enough to become an Eagle Scout there. Where did he find the time to do that in the two years between the end of the world lecture tour?
Also, the YIJC never even mention Utah or attempt to reconcile it. All it would've taken was one simple line like, "After mom died, my father isolated us. He secluded us halfway across the country in a one horse town in Utah and I practically didn't exist." Something like that.
In all honesty, they don't reek much of small-town folksiness to me, because we only see them for about two minutes at home. Furthermore, their somewhat lousy home conditions could be (again) attributed to Henry's depression after Anna's untimely passing. Through studying the subject and unfortunately knowing friends who've gone through it, sometimes people just throw themselves away to escape reality. Even though Henry didn't act like the perfect husband at times, his wife's death and the realization that he had to now raise a thirteen-year-old boy likely shook him up and isolated him even further. Furthermore, Connery's Henry might seem rough around the edges, but we have to separate the character from the actor a little bit here. Even with that, Sean's portrayal was realistic enough to resemble that of a real professor-especially one who had delved in scholarly ambitions from time to time. As for your last few points, Connery's Henry
is romantic, much to Indy's chagrin. He views the whole adventure as a mythical Grail Quest, portraying himself and his son as members of a crusade against good and evil, heavily steeping himself in Christian tradition. And as for suave, well, we know what he did with Elsa, even at his age
.
Indy's Scout rank probably is cumulative. We know he's moved around a lot, and as there are thousands of Scout lodges over America, he most likely joined the Princeton one then transferred over to one in Utah when he got there. But yeah, something to acknowledge Indy's isolation while there would've been fitting, even if only a handwave.