Indiana Jones and the Failure to Pass the Torch

No fiction today.

The assignment here is “A different ending for a movie.” I started by looking up some top-ten lists: I was drawing a total blank. Even though there are several movies whose endings irritate me, I couldn’t really think of them right now. Googling for “10 worst movie endings” seemed like a place to start, and sure enough, there seem to be an infinite number of click-bait top-ten-movies... so I spent some time clicking through them.

The movie that turned up on just about every list was a surprise to me: “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” It surprised me because the movie irritated me so badly when I went to see it on opening night, and has continued to irritate me each time I’ve seen it since; my son is a big Indy fan, so we’ve watched all four movies en marathon a bunch of times.

All the top-ten lists centered around the twist in which the Crystal Skull turns out to be an alien artifact and the movie spins off into a wild Close Encounter; people were disappointed that we were dealing with weird interdimensional aliens instead of ancient curses. I guess people don’t like science fiction sprinkled in their adventure fantasy.

What bothered me so much about the end of Crystal Skull was not the aliens. It was the hat. As Indy and Marian walk down the aisle, there’s a moment where the famous hat blows off Indy’s head and lands squarely in the hands of the Shia Labeouf character, Mutt Williams; this lighting thing happens and Williams raises the hat to put it on... and then Indiana Jones snatches it away, sticks it on his head, and is out the door with an admonishing little glance.

Indian Jones is the ultimate Baby Boomer hero: The mix of action and accreditation; the willingness to tackle complex, nuanced problems while simultaneously adhering to a simplistic moral code; the befuddlement that narrow professional success and uncompromising right action doesn’t automatically get you the love and respect of your family and colleagues, these are all signature Boomer traits, reflecting the directors, writers, and actors of the films more than their period or intended audience.

Jones’ plot signature is creating a lot of noise and discomfort for everyone involved, without actually affecting the outcome of the story -- if Jones had never been involved, the end would have been the same: the Nazis open the Ark and then God strikes them down. The Nazis drink from the wrong cup because of their hubris, and God strikes them down. Temple of Doom is an exception of sorts, except that the only thing that saves our intrepid explorer from the bad guys is the arrival of the British Indian Army -- who were apparently on their way anyway.

A lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing. But the sound and fury is generally worth the price of admission, so I’m a fan.

In The Last Crusade, we find out that Jones has a completely stereotypical Boomer relationship with his father: Refusing to follow the rules or bow to authority, the young Jones pursues the same professional as his father, hoping to prove himself by succeeding despite not doing anything right... and in the end, we find that his father loves him anyway; not because he proved himself, but because his father loves him anyway.

And in Crystal Skull we find that our intrepid hero has fathered a son, with whom he has a distant relationship -- he didn’t know he’d fathered the boy -- and the course of the movie acts out the Boomer family drama again: Uninvolved with the son’s life, he’s nevertheless disappointed and controlling and...

And at the end, when we have the perfect cinematic opportunity for a passing of the torch, putting the famous hat onto the head of the next generation, our man Jones passes, choosing, Boomer-style, to refuse to relinquish the limelight.

So, I don’t mind the aliens. It’s a 50s set piece, and Aliens are the perfect weirdness: If the 30s and 40s signified the end of the old world, the cleaning up of the old mysteries, the 50s were about the beginning of the new world, and the embrace of new mysteries: aliens are just the right tone.

I object to the bit with the hat. Actually, I object to just about everything about the Jones/Williams relationship, but the hat can stand for all of it. In the end, Indiana Jones, like the entire generation he symbolizes, is not going to stop trying to be at the center of everything, despite the fact that all they’ve ever done is create unnecessary drama, wreck shit up, and ultimately fail to save the day.