How I would have done ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’

By now, all the world knows that the fifth and final film in the Indiana Jones franchise, “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” is an atrocity against the character, thanks to the feminazi and cancer on pop culture, Kathleen Kennedy. Indiana Jones, the archeologist-adventurer who punched, shot, and whipped bad guys through the four previous movies, has been reduced to a broken old man, continually shown up by his goddaughter, an annoying female named Helena Shaw. Fans have stayed away in droves and the movie is predicted to lose tens of millions of dollars.

Well, smart guy, how would you have handled the movie? Glad you asked.

I would have kept the opening sequence in which a de-aged Indy punches Nazis on a moving train. Indy was always at his best when he was punching Nazis.

However, once we flash forward to 1969, I would have made some significant changes. Far from being a broken old man, Indy would be well satisfied with a life well lived, though he would be somewhat itchy about what to do after retirement. Mutt, as annoying as he was in the fourth movie, would not have died in Vietnam, but rather would have taken up his Dad’s career of adventure archeology. Indy and Marion would still be together and planning an extensive vacation, including to Greece, where Mutt would be digging up artifacts.

In short order, they would get a telegram from Mutt stating, “I’ve found it. Please come,” Intrigued, Indy and Marion would get on the next plane to Athens. Before they can, Sallah would ask them to look up his son, in this version played by Antonio Banderas.

I would have kept the Voller character, even though I am uncomfortable with making a von Braun clone a villain. While Werner von Braun did join the Nazi Party and held rank in the SS, there was no evidence he agreed with Nazi ideology. Indeed, he was nearly shot by the Gestapo for speaking out against the war after having drunk too much schnapps. He wanted to use rockets to explore space, as he did when he later joined NASA. Von Braun even became a champion of civil rights after he came to America.

Whether Indy and Marion find their son would depend on whether Shia LaBeouf has control over his mental health issues. In any case, if he has not, they would find that he was killed for the other half of the Dial, or the studio could recast the character.

Indy and Marion would find Helena Shaw, who in this version would be Mutt’s annoying girlfriend. They would find out that Voller and his cohorts have taken the other half of the Dial.

We’d have lots of action scenes, of course, with lots of whip work and gun play. As in the original version, Voller would want the dial to take out Hitler, not to install someone better capable of conquering the world, but rather to have Germany remain at peace and develop a space program, sort of what von Braun came to wish for.

It would also turn out that Helena wants the dial too, because she’s a Soviet agent and wants to go back in time and show Stalin how to grab the German rocket scientists. Thus, the Soviets would win the race to the moon and eventually dominate the world under the iron fist of communism.

Naturally, Indy and Marion, with the help of Banderas’ character, would thwart the plans of both parties, possibly by convincing Voller that it’s too dangerous to muck with history, certainly by shooting Helena, who really needs to be put down. Marion, by the way, would do the shooting, as Indy is too much of an old school gentleman to kill a woman. They would destroy the Dial as something too dangerous to be possessed by anyone, having learned that lesson with the Lost Ark.

Indy and Marion, possibly with Mutt if he is still alive, would wind up back in New York, regaling a circle of friends about what a wonderful, fun-filled vacation they had in Greece. We might end with a hint of further adventures to come.

Mark Whittington, who writes frequently about space policy, has published a political study of space exploration entitled Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon? as well as The Moon, Mars and Beyond, and, most recently, Why is America Going Back to the Moon? He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner. He is published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Hill, USA Today, the LA Times, and the Washington Post, among other venues.