Disney may have officially reached peak deepfake horror.
If the late Carrie Fisher’s appearance in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker from beyond the grave didn’t petrify you, LucasFilm and Disney have teamed up once again to reach for new levels of CGI abomination. This time, they’ve seen our disgust, but raised us sexy Harrison Ford. So maybe we can’t be mad! Well, that mad.
The trailer for the fifth installment of Ford’s iconic Indiana Jones franchise—entitled Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny—has officially dropped, and Ford will be returning to play the iconic whip-cracking, smart-talking professor-turned-thrillseeker. The trailer opens with the soft piano chords reminiscent of every other long-awaited franchise continuation, while Indy’s old friend Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) reminisces about their daring days of yore.
“I miss waking up every morning, wondering what wonderful adventure the new day will bring to us,” Sallah says. Indy rebuffs him, telling him that those days are long gone. “Perhaps…perhaps not!” Sallah says in return. And from here, we’re left to wonder just how many intrepid enterprises Indy’s got left in him.
While the plot for the film is still heavily under wraps, the trailer hints at a return to the classic tropes locked into place by past Indiana Jones installments. There are brooding villains in double-breasted military uniforms, large boulders tumbling through caves, some good, old-fashioned face-punching, and plenty of ancient artifact porn.
This time around, Indy’s newest sidekick is his goddaughter Helena, played by the great Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Waller-Bridge—no stranger to the LucasFilm universe after some CGI magic of her own as a robot in Solo: A Star Wars Story—brings her signature wisecracking front and center to keep Helena’s godfather in check.
Despite reports that Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny would rely heavily on practical effects during production, the film does look heavily dependent on some computer-generated magic. And that’s all well and good, it’s 2022 after all; Harrison Ford is 80 years old, we can’t expect him to be galloping on horseback through a parade crowd for real!
But it’s the de-aging of the beloved hero that has already lit up Twitter, with users calling for the end of de-aging technology in Disney franchises, and saying the brief shots of a younger Indiana Jones look like video game characters.
Others were quick to praise the uncanny technology. “I am shocked at how clean this looks!” wrote one user. Another simply summed it up by saying, “If you want an Indiana Jones movie with Harrison Ford, this is what you get.” Even Ford admitted that the de-aging process was “spooky,” but praised its final result in a recent interview in Empire.
Whether you’re here for the sexy, digital Indiana Jones or slightly perturbed, it looks at though the film itself will be a rollicking good time and a return to classic Indiana Jones form. And thank God, we need a little more Nazi punching action right now.
