Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The Dial of Destiny pits Indy against ex-Nazis infiltrating NASA during the Space Race of 1969. Armed with state-of-the-art digital technology and the franchise's biggest budget to date, the fifth Indiana Jones movie falls into the same trap as Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
At 80 years of age, Raiders of the Lost Ark.
In a time before sophisticated visual effects and computer-generated imagery (CGI), Raiders of the Lost Ark and its two 1980s sequels employ practical, in-camera effects that ground the spectacular action in reality and imbue the movie with the charm of 1930s and 40s movie serials. However, 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is considered the weakest in the series partly due to its overuse of CGI.
Indiana Jones 5 Still Has Too Much CGI
Director James Mangold prioritized filming on location instead of inside LED-ed studios for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, but the film still uses too much of the same technology that doomed Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The most obvious example of CGI in the Dial of Destiny is the de-aging of Harrison Ford for flashback sequences. Well done though it may be, this effect moves the film into a realm that creator Steven Spielberg never intended. In 2012 Spielberg stated (via New York Daily News), “I would never do an Indy retread where I took Indiana’s face, the way it exists in 2011 and ‘youngify’ him.”
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny has to deal with the issue of an aging star in a role that has always demanded a great level of physicality. Embracing Indiana Jones' age with more subtle action and the right plot, which seemed to be Spielberg’s original intention for a fifth movie, can avoid this problem, but that doesn’t go over well in today’s age of big-budget blockbusters that demand even bigger action. A more divisive example of CGI from the Dial of Destiny is a digitally rendered Harrison Ford on horseback in the streets of New York City. Unlike the de-aged Ford, this effect is not rendered very well and draws attention away from the story, repeating a similar problem found in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Why CGI Hurt Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
The CGI in sequences like the jungle-swinging chase and alien finale in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull blurs the lines between plausible action and outright fantasy. Earlier Indiana Jones movies employ glass-painted backgrounds, physical props, and prosthetics to retain a level of credibility. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull even goes as far as creating CG gophers and ants while Raiders of the Lost Ark famously boasts thousands of real snakes in its Well of Souls scene. Realism like this draws the audience into the world on screen and heightens the sense of danger the heroes face.
CGI, when done right, can enhance a movie, but too much CGI is typically a recipe for disaster. The CGI used in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, no matter the quality, continues to move the series farther away from its practical effects-driven origins. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom famously coined the tagline, “If adventure has a name…it must be Indiana Jones.” Nowadays, if adventure has a name, it’s more like CGI.
