I don't know how to express all that chaos in my mind in one post that makes sense. I have clicked on the POST REPLY button a gazillion times now but always got lost halfway through my post before I could get to the SUBMIT REPLY button. It was just too confusing. Thus...excuse my chaos, folks.
Well, I do the "could he play Indy" game quite a lot. For example, I find myself doing it during LOST all the time. And basically I do it everytime I see an interesting looking younger actor.
This thread, though, is about more than that. Under the surface it is about wether or not Indiana Jones could or should be turned into a franchise just like James Bond.
I don't think you should rush forward to the Indy-Bond comparison without reflecting on what constituted both "series" in the first place.
There are certain things, that, for me, indicate big differences between both series:
Indiana Jones was created for the screen. It came out of the minds and hearts of a lot of people, including Kaufman and Kasdan.... But first and foremost it was a birth of Spielberg and Lucas...and later all the people working on the film.
Ok...I may rely on romantic concepts of authors here. But I don't think there's something comparable to the helming spirit of Indy on the Bond side. Certain people whose vision founded the series and stayed with it...oversaw the development. Terence Young was very important and created something new, yes. Others that remained steadily influental probably were the Broccolis, but what do I know....
Development.
While they of course rework a certain scheme every indy film so far is quite unique. And then there's that -for an adventure film- pretty far reaching exploration of our hero's character in Last Crusade. And yes, you could also hold the richness of Indy's character up as a support for the franchise concept.
Bond, though, never seemed to have the uniqueness Indy has now. Even though, the Bond films may have seemed unique in the 70s, now it is a big franchise with great heights but also huge holes.
In the end:
I can't imagine Indiana Jones being extended to death, becoming a somewhat irrelevant mass. It would be like some kind of betrayal for me. There'd always be the Spielberg/Lucas/Ford era opposed to the rest. In the case of the Bond flicks its eras are defined by the actors and certain social changes.
An indy franchise could only work as we would have films focused on certain stages of his life.
But again: I don't think that Spielberg/Lucas/Ford are replacable. And I know that the "is Ford replacable" debate alone could be very long and very interesting....
*sigh*
I gotta go to sleep. It's 2.40 in the morning. Sorry for the rather unstructered post but I had to let it out now...
And one more thing in the end concerning the initial question of this thread: Every performance by another actor would be an interpretation of what Ford did. And only because someone looks like Ford doesn't mean that he is able to have the same energy on screen. Of course you already mentioned it by throwing in the expression of the "indy spirit". Nevertheless it is Ford's ability to be very credible to be shockingly afraid on film and his unique physicality, that is one of the key things to his Indy performance. There's none who does that like Ford. Anyone else as indy would be an interpretation. In the case of Bond you always have the books to go back to ....next to Connery's performance. In the case of Indy it's only Harrison Ford.
There's some truth to the Ford=Indy, Indy=Ford thing, despite the fact that it sounds stupidly dogmatic when you say it....
good night.