Following a drip feed of new imagery and information about Indiana Jones 5, some concrete news has emerged about the direction of the film! And it’s heading down familiar territory. Once more, Harrison Ford will don the legendary fedora to take on his old foes from Germany.
While Indy was able to dispatch the Nazis in previous installments of the franchise, the oppressive fascistic threat will never truly vanish, and it seems Indy is destined to do this dance forever, with those left behind who feel the work of the Nazis is unfinished.
As part of an exclusive feature, Empire has revealed that the film will be set in 1969, with an aging Indy unable to rest easily knowing that the space-race battle was aided by a number of ex-Nazis. “The simple fact is that the moon-landing program was run by a bunch of ex-Nazis,” said Jez Butterworth, co-writer of the script. “How ‘ex’ they are is the question. And it gets up Indy’s nose. It’s not just that the model of what a hero is has completely changed. It’s not just that they’re looking for something where there’s nothing up there – it’s like Reno without the gambling, or whatever his line is. But the people that are behind it are, you know, his sworn enemies.”
Empire was also able to reveal that a major action set-piece will take place within the film at a ticker-tape parade in New York City, celebrating the launch and success of the Apollo 11 mission, which took place on August 13, 1969. Boyd Holbrook, who plays Klaber, a “lapdog” to Mads Mikkelsen‘s Nazi scientist Voller, will be involved in the set piece.
Indy has a long history with the Nazis. They were his original nemeses across the first three films of the franchise, when the story was set in the 1930s. Not only did that make it appropriate as to the era of the films, the tie-in to supernatural objects of desire like The Ark of the Covenant, and the Holy Grail, made sense given the Nazis’ desire for world domination at any cost. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull pushed the franchise into the 1950s and, given the time jump necessary to explain why Indy (and Ford) had aged almost 20 years, a switch to Soviet agents as enemies made logical sense.
Additional cast members of Indiana Jones 5 include Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Antonio Banderas, Toby Jones, and Thomas Kretschmann, while James Mangold directs, and co-writes alongside Jez and John-Henry Butterworth. Legendary composer John Williams returns to oversee the score for Ford’s last outing as Indy.
