Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is more than Indy’s last adventure — it’s a love letter from a kid who became enthralled with filmmaking while watching Raiders of the Lost Ark on opening day in 1981.
Director James Mangold was a teenager when he saw the first Indiana Jones adventure in theaters. “It inspired me,” Mangold tells Lucasfilm.com. “I mean, I was already making Super 8 films at that point; I was already a crazy filmmaking geek. My room was a double-system editing room and cameras galore, and I was devising how to make special effects, building models, animating, and shooting movies in my high school.” But to the aspiring young filmmaker, the cast and crew of Raiders was already firmly ensconced among his personal heroes. “You’re talking about George Lucas and Steven Spielberg [who executive produced this film]. You’re talking about Harrison Ford and John Williams. These were my North Star.”
Now more than 40 years later, Mangold has helmed Indy’s final ride, an epic send-off for one of cinema’s legendary action-adventure heroes, once again played by the incomparable Harrison Ford. The story finds Indy at the end of his teaching career, confronted by his past, at a crossroads in a life filled with some significant disappointments. To put it bluntly: “He’s lost.”