‘I wanted to deal with the end of his career’: Harrison Ford bangs the drum that ‘Indiana Jones 5’ is his final stand

Harrison Ford has now confirmed that Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny will indeed be the actor’s final foray into playing the archeologist and adventurer. Not only that, but he is also giving insight into what motivated him as an actor to want to explore this stage in Indy’s life.

Ford also hinted that Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Helena Shaw — Indy’s goddaughter — serves as a sort of catalyst that kicks off Indy’s character arc in the new film. As Ford explained to ScreenRant:

“As much as we’ve come to know the character through his experiences and his relationships, this is the last Indiana Jones film for me. I wanted to deal with the end of his career. I wanted to deal with his age and less physical capacity available to him.

He’s also ending his academic career, which has not been the high point of his life. So, he’s a bit damped down in spirit until he’s challenged by the character that Phoebe plays. In the context of that relationship, he learns to love and laugh and live again.”

The idea that Dial of Destiny will actually address Indy’s less-capable physicality as an aging hero certainly bodes well with me as it seemed the hero was just as nigh-invulnerable as he’d ever been in his appearance in 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Hopefully, that means Indy won’t be hiding inside a fridge to protect himself against a nuke in this new installment. 

I must admit, though, that I am just a tad bit disappointed that Ford will be hanging up the fedora for good after this. I would’ve loved to see a passing-of-the-torch film, in the style of Creed, in which Indy teams back up with an adult version of Ke Huy Quan’s Short Round. 

However, it’s probably just as well that the franchise stop here. You see, writer-director James Mangold previously helmed one of the greatest all-time swan songs for an iconic character in 2017’s Logan, the concluding chapter for the story of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine from the X-Men universe. If Mangold can pull off Dial of Destiny with as much gravitas and heart as Logan, it will surely be a worthy peg for Indy to hang up his whip for good.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny comes to theaters on June 30.