Indiana Jones 5 will feature a de-aged Harrison Ford for its “adrenaline blast” of an opening – and it’s the first time Harrison Ford has believed it.
CGI de-aging really began in 2006 with X-Men: The Last Stand, in a short flashback where Patrick Stewart’s Professor X and Ian McKellen’s Magneto recruit Jean Grey.
There’s been highs (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Captain Marvel, The Irishman) and lows (Tron: Legacy, Ant-Man, Terminator: Genisys), but it’s a VFX trend that’s here to stay.
Thankfully, Indiana Jones 5 won’t be employing it throughout the highly-anticipated sequel for Harrison Ford – it will be used for the movie’s thrilling opening sequence.
Indiana Jones 5 director explains de-aging
In a new interview with Empire, director James Mangold revealed how the opening minutes of Indiana Jones will reintroduce Indiana Jones to fans as they best remember him: in his Raiders of the Lost Ark prime.
“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 said.
Indiana Jones is back!“It’s full of adventure, laughs, and real emotion,” says Harrison Ford. Take a first look at Indiana Jones 5, from Empire’s major world-exclusive new issue.READ MORE: https://t.co/VYFhQ7Rqyn pic.twitter.com/rMGsoxZLKk
— Empire Magazine (@empiremagazine) November 18, 2022
The sequence will follow Indy in a “castle swarming with Nazis,” the outlet reports, before shifting to the movie’s primary timeline during the Space Race.
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“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.”
Harrison Ford says de-aging is “a little spooky”
Ford admitted to Empire that the de-aging is “a little spooky” – however, it’s also the first time he’s seen it used where he “believes it.”
“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,” he said.
Lucasfilm president and producer Kathleen Kennedy said she wants audiences to feel like they’re seeing “found footage… this was a thing they shot 40 years ago”, having assembled the sequence from archived material of the star and using new ILM software to bring it to life.
“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’,” she said.
You can find out more about Indiana Jones 5 here.