What year should Indy 5 be set?

Raiders90

Well-known member
What year do you think Indy 5 should be set?

I personally think anywhere from 1959 to 1962 would be fine.
It would be cool to have (film) Indy start in the mid 1930s and end in the early '60s. That's basically all part of the same era, and is about when that era begins and ends.
 

Mickiana

Well-known member
1961 or 1962. I presume they will do a sequel and not a prequel as making Harry look younger might not be feasible, as youthful as he is for his age.
 

Attila the Professor

Moderator
Staff member
You've more or less got it right as far as the upper bound...past '62 would be a stretch, once you hit the Missile Crisis, and the end of '63, with the Kennedy assassination, is a point I'm not sure you can push past without acknowledging it.
 

Lance Quazar

Well-known member
I'd like to see it set in 1965. Indy can hire Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce to design the PR campaign for the grand opening of the New York wing of the National Museum.
 

Raiders90

Well-known member
Attila the Professor said:
You've more or less got it right as far as the upper bound...past '62 would be a stretch, once you hit the Missile Crisis, and the end of '63, with the Kennedy assassination, is a point I'm not sure you can push past without acknowledging it.

Well, I figured the Kennedy age, around '61 or '62 is the last gasp of the 'age of innocence', and around 1933-1935, the Roosevelt years, is when that began--The high reign of the till then infallible Greatest Generation and undefeatable America. It's sort of Indy beginning right along with the beginning of the era, and if he ends during the Kennedy years, than the end of that era. I mean since we've brought Indy into the Atomic age, I don't see why '61 or '62 wouldn't be good. 1961 might be perfect as it's the last year before the first (film) James Bond came out. I'd be nice (even though they're unrelated) if the age of Indy ends chronologically as the age of James Bond begins.
 

Attila the Professor

Moderator
Staff member
Lance Quazar said:
I'd like to see it set in 1965. Indy can hire Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce to design the PR campaign for the grand opening of the New York wing of the National Museum.

Showcasing artifacts from the Akator expedition? It isn't a spaceship, it's a time machine?
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Keep it in real time.

2008 was 1957.

So 2011 will be 1960.

2012 will be 1961.

etc.

Attila the Professor said:
Showcasing artifacts from the Akator expedition? It isn't a spaceship, it's a time machine?

Presumably for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space?

"Dr. Jones, I presume?"

"Dr. who?"
 

Gobi-1

Well-known member
I'd personally prefer they don't go pass 1959. However the furthest they could go is 1962. Dr. Jones has to retire in 62 so James Bond can start saving the world.

I'd love to see Indy 5 be a espionage/spy movie.
 

Udvarnoky

Well-known member
Montana Smith said:
Keep it in real time.

2008 was 1957.

So 2011 will be 1960.

2012 will be 1961.

etc.

I don't think it's necessary that they keep it in real time, and it's not really tradition, anyhow. Last Crusade allegedly takes place two years after Raiders, but Harrison Ford sure as heck looks eight years older in that movie. I was way more convinced that I was looking at a 58 year old man in Crystal Skull than I was that I was looking at a 39 year old in Last Crusade.

I do agree that if they move things to the 60s then that would bring with it a whole new approach and slew of influences. I'd be cool either way.
 

Major Eaton

New member
Raiders112390 said:
I personally think anywhere from 1959 to 1962 would be fine.

This would be the ideal time.

However, I'd really like to see it set in the summer of 1977 when Star Wars was setting the country on fire. A tie-in would be a must. Am I thinking a bit too much like Lucas!? :whip::D
 

Mickiana

Well-known member
But there will be a generalised preconception of what the 60s were like. Will that impact on the script? I wouldn't have a clue, but I look forward to the story of Indy5.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Mickiana said:
But there will be a generalised preconception of what the 60s were like. Will that impact on the script? I wouldn't have a clue, but I look forward to the story of Indy5.

The 1950s impacted very heavily on KOTCS, so if Lucas continues in that vein, then he'll probably be looking for more contemporary references for the next one.

Part of the difficulty in initially accepting KOTCS was not so much Indy's age, but the period itself. I have the notion that the 1930s were an age of wonder nd mystery, which the pulps accentuated as an escape from the very real impact of the economic depression.

The 1939-1945 war years accelerated modernization, and the world became smaller through technological advances. Some of the mystery was eroded. I always think of 1945, at the end of the war, as the beginning of another modern age. Therefore, it was hard to see Indy in this new world. Harder still to see him in the 1960s, though this is where I expect he'll be in Indy V.

It's also a transition from the stylish art deco world of the 1930s into the age of the concrete high-rise block. A time when the world was losing its charm (seen personally as a mythical golden age), and succumbing to brute ugliness. Indy not only has to battle his own age, but the age he's forced to exist in.
 

Attila the Professor

Moderator
Staff member
Mickiana said:
But there will be a generalised preconception of what the 60s were like. Will that impact on the script? I wouldn't have a clue, but I look forward to the story of Indy5.

Right. But I think people tend to know that there's Kennedy's Camelot and the civil rights-hippies-Vietnam era of LBJ and Nixon. (To take the Zemeckis narrative.)

Montana Smith said:
The 1950s impacted very heavily on KOTCS, so if Lucas continues in that vein, then he'll probably be looking for more contemporary references for the next one.

Part of the difficulty in initially accepting KOTCS was not so much Indy's age, but the period itself. I have the notion that the 1930s were an age of wonder nd mystery, which the pulps accentuated as an escape from the very real impact of the economic depression.

The 1939-1945 war years accelerated modernization, and the world became smaller through technological advances. Some of the mystery was eroded. I always think of 1945, at the end of the war, as the beginning of another modern age. Therefore, it was hard to see Indy in this new world. Harder still to see him in the 1960s, though this is where I expect he'll be in Indy V.

It's also a transition from the stylish art deco world of the 1930s into the age of the concrete high-rise block. A time when the world was losing its charm (seen personally as a mythical golden age), and succumbing to brute ugliness. Indy not only has to battle his own age, but the age he's forced to exist in.

I agree with all of this. But I feel like the period from 1945 to 1963 is its own era, and the 60s as we think of them don't really start in earnest until after Kennedy, that is, after 11/22/63. It's about hope and optimism and idealism of a sort that are symbolized as collapsing with the assassination - and I think nothing we've ever heard from Spielberg and Lucas gives us reason to think they wouldn't go along with precisely this interpretation.

It's true that there's room for a lot more exploration and adventure pre-'45 and as has been said, the Doomtown sequence dramatizes this very well, showing Indy as a relic who doesn't fit into the 1950s notions of suburbia. But post-1963, I'm not sure there's room for Indy's brand of heroism at all. So there's a declension of heroic ages, I suppose.
 

foreignerfred

New member
Attila the Professor said:
It's not as though hippies and mods suddenly appear on January 1st of 1960...

Wow. Didn't say anything about hippies or mods.

The original trilogy took place in the 30's and stuck to the "serials of the 1930's" feel.

Since they decided to move KOTCS into "50's sci-fi B-movie" territory, I think they should stick with the 50's for Indy 5.
 

Attila the Professor

Moderator
Staff member
foreignerfred said:
Wow. Didn't say anything about hippies or mods.

The original trilogy took place in the 30's and stuck to the "serials of the 1930's" feel.

Since they decided to move KOTCS into "50's sci-fi B-movie" territory, I think they should stick with the 50's for Indy 5.

I didn't exactly jump down your throat...all I'm saying is that the stereotypical '60s don't begin with 1960. They've done 1950s Red Scare paranoia, and if they're going to keep going with era-appropriate shenanigans, as seems to be a part of their M.O., I don't think it's unlikely to suspect that we'll exit the 1950s and move onto something that's a little bit different without being in an entirely new period. The various musings and rumors about the Caribbean are unsurprising in this regard, allowing us to deal with Communists in a different framing, or perhaps with the mob, or a tinpot dictator of some sort.
 
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