Dialing Back the Dial of Destiny

 It's President's Day so there will probably be even less interest than usual in blogging.  So here's another of my stupid movie ideas.  At one point I actually looked around my blog and made a list of links and I think I had 33 of them.  (A lot of Star Wars prequel/sequel ideas.)  So this would be #34.

My biggest problem with the movie (besides that Harrison Ford is just too old to do much) is the last act where they actually go back in time and meet Archimedes and fight Romans.  Ugh.  How is that better than aliens?  I mean, that's Bill & Ted shit.  It was pretty weak.  Also, the fate of Indy/Marion's son Mutt.  I get that Shia LaBeouf basically got himself canceled but just saying that he went to Vietnam for...reasons and died was weak.  And while we still probably wouldn't want him in the movie, maybe we can at least make his death count for something.

You can still have the deepfake Indy in 1945 fighting Nazis for the dial if you want.  Skip forward 24-ish years to where Indy/Marion are at his retirement party for whatever college.  The party is interrupted when a messenger shows up to say that Mutt has died in Greece or Italy or some such place where he was studying something or other.  Indy and Marion are then distraught.

Days later there's the funeral though there's not really a body or anything.  At the funeral, "Wombat" shows up to express her condolences but also to say that she and Mutt were working together on finding the dial.  They were getting really close to finding the missing piece when he was killed by some bad guys.  And then bad guys show up!  Maybe then Marion is injured so we don't have to use her in the rest of the movie.

A lot then can go like it did as Indy and Wombat go to find the other piece of the dial.  The change I'd make at the end is instead of the dial only being able to take them back to whatever BCE could take them pretty much anywhere, anytime.  So the Nazi guy is going to back to 1939 like before but then Indy stops him and gets the dial.  He considers using it to go back to when his son was killed to save him.  But then Wombat convinces him that would create a paradox and really make him no better than the Nazi guy.  As someone who loves history, he should keep it unaltered, even if it means losing someone he cares about.  So he destroys the thing instead.  Like maybe he opens a gateway to the distant future and tosses it in, sort of like Discovery.

Then Indy goes home to see how Marion is doing and Wombat reveals that she's pregnant with Mutt's kid--Indy's grandkid.  Cue the theme song!

Not perfect, but I think it's better.  It still isn't exactly Indy going out in a blaze of glory, but at least some better character work.  Or not.  You decide!  Or not.

And even though they didn't use my better idea, here's how you could still do a revival movie:

In the 90s a guy who turns out to be Indy's illegitimate grandson (they killed "Mutt" offscreen but who's to say he didn't knock someone up?) is an archaeology professor.  When the Taliban takes over Afghanistan and start destroying historical artifacts, the guy goes there to save what he can.   In addition to saving artifacts, he saves some women who would be killed by the new regime as well.  It's gritty and real and topical! You could probably also use Iraq in either 1991 or the early 2000s.