Empire Magazine has confirmed that the opening sequence of the upcoming fifth Indiana Jones film will feature a de-aged Ford back to his younger years in the original trilogy. The technique was pulled off using a new ILM software where they trawled through archive material of the actor’s younger days. “My hope is that, although it will be talked about in terms of technology, you just watch it and go, ‘Oh my God, they just found footage. This was a thing they shot 40 years ago,’” producer Kathleen Kennedy said. “We’re dropping you into an adventure, something Indy is looking for, and instantly you have that feeling, ‘I’m in an Indiana Jones movie.’” Ford himself has a positive reaction to seeing his younger years being recreated in the film and praised the team for being able to successfully pull off the technology for his scene. “This is the first time I’ve seen it where I believe it,” he said. “It’s a little spooky. I don’t think I even want to know how it works, but it works. Doesn’t make me want to be young, though. I’m glad to have earned my age.”
In case you’re wondering why the character’s final outing will go back to his younger years, director James Mangold explained in the same interview how they are going to juxtapose the flashback and the film’s main setting which is in 1969. “I wanted the chance to dive into this kind of full-on George-and-Steven old picture and give the audience an adrenaline blast. And then we fall out, and you find yourself in 1969,” he told the magazine. “So that the audience doesn’t experience the change between the ‘40s and ‘60s as an intellectual conceit, but literally experiences the buccaneering spirit of those early days… and then the beginning of now.” Back when the film was in production, there were rumors that the film will have a flashback sequence since Ford was spotted on the set with dotted marks on his face which are speculated as reference points for visual effects artists to potentially de-age him to his younger years. For the past several years, de-aging technology has become a more frequently used visual effects tool in several movie and TV projects. However, some of them were not as perfect as most people are hoping to be. Hopefully, in the case of the film, it will not look jarring for the audience especially since it will be the opening sequence. Also Read: Disney+ and Lucasfilm Developing Indiana Jones TV Series Indiana Jones 5 is slated for release in theaters on June 30, 2023.
