There is a curious feeling for me when it comes to all these sequels and whatnot of our childhood movies. Star Wars, Indiana Jones, these movies defined how I looked at the world. They were wonder personified and dreams made corporeal. Unimaginable powers and creatures at work behind the world, something always just out of sight in the day light but you knew it was just behind you.
Luke Skywalker lived a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. I believed it. It happened, he did. That seemed even more real to me because there were only three movies made and it didnt seem like they would ever come again. I couldn’t understand why when I was small that these films would not be continued, why wouldn’t there be more? Everyone loved them, didn’t they? What did Luke do with the rest of his life? Would we ever find out? Until lucas dies we probably never will.
And what of Indy? The last we saw he was riding off into the sunset. The man with the whip had existed in the world before the Nazi’s broke it, before humanity was forced to scrutinize every inch of the globe so that no people could ever again set the world on fire. Indiana Jones who fought for what he believed. What he believed in asked strength from not the mind or the body but the soul – something he never seemed capable of giving and yet he fought on anyway. How did someone so strong and rough dedicate himself to a cause that required such fragile belief? What becomes of man like that after the wonder has been sucked out of the world?
Are their any adventures left? This week we get to find out. How do hero’s age? Are we going to see the last ride of Cohen the Barbarian? Or just, the next ride?
Can this movie make me look at the stars again with glassy eyed wonder? I want to believe again that the world holds dreams I have never even thought of yet. Or is Indy just too old now? Or am I?
Update: I have to say, all in all I was mostly let down. Indy not only lost his youth he lost his bite.
