General Indiana Jones Thread

The cultures that have sprung up throughout history around defeated and dispossessed armies stuck in foreign lands would make for an interesting study. One of the theories about the origins of the Romani people is that they're the descendants of a defeated expeditionary army that had been raised by an Indian king in antiquity.

As much as I'm not defending the British in this case, there's also a long history of whitewashing cultures as part of nationalism and pride by dismissing the truth of claims against traditional or preconquest cultures in order to romanticize them.

For example, Carthage absolutely sacrificed children but plenty of people want to say the Romans made it up.

In the Spanish's case, the biggest lie they told was effectively erasing the fact the Aztecs were defeated by their fellow indigineous people making an uprising against tyranny. The Spanish just backstabbed their "allies" and took over after the war.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Feb 28th 2023 at 10:29:54 AM

Once, when talking about the idea of history being written by the victors, I noted that while people will lie and make up outrageous atrocities their enemies commit, people do also actually commit outrageous atrocities.

Getting back on topic, what is the chronological order for this franchise?

While I watched the movies through video releases as a child, I never really got what was going on. The only Indiana Jones film that I could fully understand was Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and that, as far as I know, is post-Raiders of the Lost Ark and reading about the former here in TV Tropes, I was surprised by the existence of an Indiana Jones TV series that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull referenced.

Okay but this is actual scholarly studies going around outside of India that's widely accepted within academia. The consensus is that the popular depiction of the Thuggee is nonsense and that it was heavily exaggerated and manufactured by the British authorities.

"History is writen by the victors" is kind of a joke in the first place, because the "losers" frequently get their own false version of events popularized. Major examples being the Confederacy and Nazi Germany.

The latter being (to bring things back on-topic) tied into the plot of the new movie coming out.

I think it's something like:

1) Young Indiana Jones (the TV series)

2) The prologue to The Last Crusade

3) Temple of Doom

4) Raiders of the Lost Ark

5) The rest of TLC

6) Crystal Skull

7) Dial of Destiny (but there may be time shenanigans or flashback bits out of sequence)

Not including the games because I have not played them and don't know if they have specific dates.

Edited by jakobitis on Mar 1st 2023 at 8:18:26 PM

More the Aztecs was what I was referring to.

I think the concensus is that there where a lot of Kali-worshiping bandits but that's to be expected in a country that has a lot of people...worshiping Kali.

Which is if you did arrest a bunch of criminals in the Bible Belt, they'd likely include some extremist Christians.

Just because the grand sacrifice maybe wasn't real doesn't mean the Aztecs didn't sacrifice people. They nearly sacrificed Cortes himself, and they certainly did so to other soldiers they captured.

And yeah, there's a lot of whitewashing of that sort of thing, both by the cultures themselves and their fans. Just look at how fans of Norse religion sometimes whitewash the less savory aspects of their religion, like human sacrifice.

One of the things that annoyed me about Vikings wasn't making the Vikings the heroes (despite being conquering invading bandits) but the attempt to portray them as egalitarian and a Eternal Sexual Freedom when we have documents about their horrific punishments for adultery.

But I'm a nitpicker like that.

I know right? They find a few shieldmaiden graves, and suddenly the Vikings were "egalitarian" after all. But we're getting off-topic.

Humanity sucks, and does terrible thing. Some of them have just been more successful about it than others.

x5 Young Indiana Jones Chronicles featured both adventures of 11 year-old Indy and of college-age Indy. I'd say the prologue from Last Crusade takes place after 11 and before college-age (I doubt Indy's gonna come back from WWI and join the Boy Scouts...).

Edited by Robbery on Mar 1st 2023 at 5:07:17 AM

Thank you. I admit to have only seen some of it so my memory is not the best.

Honestly, the Sean Patrick Flannery ones during WW 1 are fantastic.

The child Indy movies? Not so much. Which isn't a slight on the actor so much as there's not much action in those.

Indy starts to develop his sarcastic and "by the seat of his pants" attitude in the WW 1 sections.

I'm surprised they never tried doing an cartoon based off Indiana jones,it was a trend to make a cartoon spin off

You mean Vikings is not an accurate documentary???.

As for the Thugges, my understanding is that it was a general term used by the British to describe bandits in general and a particular group that was said to kill only by rope for Kali. These stories reached Europe and some authors found their inspiration. 

In Rocambole stories, the Thugges are depicted as a secret society that rules India and has infiltrated England nobility, planing to overthrow the invaders from India. They also choose random people to sacrifice for the benediction of Kali (Though it was showed that the leader of the sect do not believe in Kali themselves and us her as a rallying point for the gullible populace)

In Sandokan stories we meet for the first time a Tugges priest who have supernatural powers that he got from human sacrifice and Kali is implied to be real (Sandokan has a cartoon made in the 2000s and the Thugges feature heavily in it).

Temple of doom is ha homage to these works, just instead of ex-bandits and pirates, the hero now is an archeologist. Is a 1984 movie made probably before anyone of us is borne, so I think there is no point judging it with modern sensibility lens in place. 

Edited by jawal on Mar 1st 2023 at 6:16:55 PM

The page for Vikings has its own artistic license page. That should tell you enough.

I've only seen two or three episodes of the Young Indy show, but what I saw was pretty good. Shame they never got to do all 70 something episodes Lucas had in mind.

New Trailer, better sense of the story.

Getting real "grand finale" vibes from this, at least when it comes to Indiana Jones as portrayed by Harrison Ford.

Edited by Falrinn on Apr 7th 2023 at 6:06:46 AM

The Dial of Destiny honestly sounds like a parody title.

And yeah, major "grandpa Jones returns for one last hoorah" vibes here. The next oen will probably feature a new Indy.

And no, I don't doubt that there will be a next one. This movie is going to be a blockbuster on sheer nostalgia alone, I'd wager. They'd have to screw it up really bad to make this bomb.

Edited by Redmess on Apr 7th 2023 at 3:41:28 PM

They've said multiple times that this is The End, I believe. Ford is retiring and nobody else will take the role.

Then again we perhaps shouldn't trust a media company to be honest about such things.

What I think is most likely in the foreseeable future, just based purely off the trailer, is a spinoff featuring Helena Shaw, the goddaughter character.

Very long term....well, Disney seems to have finally given up on pushing copyright to extend indefinitely so in 2076 anyone can make an Indiana Jones movie.

My immediate thought upon seeing her was wondering if she was originally going to be the Shia Laboef character before he got MeToo'd.

Mutt Williams died returning to his home planet.

Considering Mutt was a boy in that movie, that would certainly be an interesting direction to take.

Indy having a daughter to take up the fedora would be a great idea, too.

I would love it if Short Round took Indy's place, if Ke Huy Quan is up to it.