Indiana Jones 5: Details for the opening sequence revealed (SPOILERS)

Last Updated on November 28, 2022

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR INDIANA JONES 5!

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If you wanted to remain spoiler free and continued to read anyway, you have chosen…poorly. Because James Mangold himself has spoken about the details that surround the opening sequence for Indiana Jones 5, which is slated to release next year. Empire recently had the exclusive on the newest images from the film in their latest issue. And Mangold sat down with them in the same issue and talked about the opening sequence that will be featured in the film.

Mangold explained, “I wanted the chance to dive into this kind of full-on George-and-Steven old picture and give the audience an adrenaline blast.” Mangold has revealed that the new adventure aims to recapture the spirit of the original film with a Last Crusade-type flashback at the beginning, except this time, it will flashback to Raiders-era Indy, complete with a de-aged Harrison Ford. So, for the opening sequence, Indy finds himself in a castle occupied by Nazis, set in 1944. “And then we fall out, and you find yourself in 1969. So that the audience doesn’t experience the change between the ‘40s and ‘60s as an intellectual conceit, but literally experiences the buccaneering spirit of those early days… and then the beginning of now.”

De-aging techniques have been getting better in recent years. After The Mandolorian featured a Mark Hamill from the Return of the Jedi era, a YouTube user named Shamook used Deep Fake technology to improve upon it and make it look natural. Since then, he had been hired by Disney based on the strength of his video. The CGI artists here would utilize a number of archive footage of Harrison Ford from Raiders as a source for the de-aging.

Kathleen Kennedy says, “My hope is that, although it will be talked about in terms of technology, you just watch it and go, ‘Oh my God, they just found footage. This was a thing they shot 40 years ago’. We’re dropping you into an adventure, something Indy is looking for, and instantly you have that feeling, ‘I’m in an Indiana Jones movie.’”

Ford, having already seen the footage, reacted, “This is the first time I’ve seen it where I believe it. It’s a little spooky. I don’t think I even want to know how it works, but it works.”