The ‘Indiana Jones’ franchise cannot end without coming to terms with the sins of its past

Dr. Henry Walton Jones Jr. has finally returned to our screens, after 15 years away, in the form of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. While fans are reacting to it with a lot of warmth, critics have been left underwhelmed by James Mangold’s attempt to recapture the ol’ Steven Spielberg magic and the fifth Indiana Jones movie has unfortunately sunk hard at the box office. In light of this, you might say that Disney chose poorly in deciding to resurrect the adventuring archaeologist for one last ride.

And yet the notion of doing an Indiana Jones movie in the 2020s is actually not only a strong one but perhaps even a necessary one. It’s just that Dial of Destiny was too keen to rest easy on nostalgia than taking a bolder direction with the franchise. Given that, despite its financial woes, the studio really owes it to the name of Indiana Jones to continue the franchise with at least one more film. And, you know what, it doesn’t even necessarily need to feature Harrison Ford.

The reason why is that this theoretical Indy 6 needs to exist not to further the story of our beloved Nazi-punching professor but to address the more uncomfortable elements of this series head on. When Spielberg and George Lucas looked to the adventure stories of their youth for inspiration — such as movie serials of the 1940s and H. Rider Haggard’s Allan Quartermain books — when it came to creating Dr. Jones, they brought all the inherent themes in those stories with them.

As most notably seen in Temple of Doom, Indy is part of the problematic White Savior tradition — the white man who takes it upon themselves to save an indigenous people. Indiana Jones is also guilty of the unintentional racism that comes from “othering” different cultures — the monkey brains scene, again from Temple, for example. And, most of all, we have Indy’s firm belief that the artifacts he encounters “belong in a museum”… rather than the nation it was no doubt pilfered from in the first place.

These days, Indy’s old-timey heroism and treasure-hunting hit a little different, and so if Disney really wants this franchise to continue it must embrace that, not sweep it under the rug. So how about a new character taking over who is the opposite of Indy, someone who swipes ancient treasures to restore them to their proper homes and places in the world? And if this character just happens to an adult Short Round, finally bringing Ke Huy Quan back to this universe, then that’s A-OK with me.