THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR BLADE RUNNER 2049, THE FORCE AWAKENS, INDIANA JONES AND THE CRYSTAL SKULL
Have you noticed a recurring theme in all of Harrison Ford’s revisits to the iconic roles of his early stardom?
They all tell us that his heroes ended up pretty miserable.
Rick Decard lost the great love of his life, gave up his illegal child for the child’s own good, spent years living in isolation in the ruins of Las Vegas, denying himself all human connection.
Han Solo’s marriage to Leia Organa fizzled, he watched his beloved son lose himself to addictive dark forces, his final moment was knowing he had failed as that son killed him.
Indiana Jones abandoned Marion Ravenwood a second time, just as he had the first, and for years never knew that he had fathered a son.
This is all, of course, reflection of the factor that in order to give us a sequel to a happy ending, that happy ending must be temporary.
But what’s next?
Detective John Book returns to the police force, is embroiled in a corruption scandal, is forced to resign in disgrace, and years later returns to Amish country, where he finds out that the woman he once loved there died young and that nobody there remembers him with fondness?
President James Marshall’s ability to handle a crisis situation does not translate to skillful stewardship of the U.S. economy, and so he now lives in seclusion, remembered as the guy who plunged us into a second Great Depression?
Despite the evidence gathered by Philip Gerard, Dr. Richard Kimble was not actually at the end of that movie free to go, so he was delivered straight to prison and spent ten years rotting in a supermax, twenty-three hours out of every twenty-four, until some judge vacated his old conviction. But he never got a financial settlement, and six months into an alcoholic parole was accused on another bullshit charge, and was not in the physical shape necessary to run and leap and evade his way to the truth?
Henry Turner’s cognitive improvement in the year or so after his bullet to the head deteriorates again as he ages, and within ten years of the events in REGARDING HENRY leaves him in a nursing home, unable to speak?
Comment By: Jason Bennion
October 11th, 2017 at 11:17 am
I have noticed, and frankly I resent the hell out of it, although I blame the tenor of our times and the inexplicable (to me) popularity of grim cynicism more than Ford personally. The Force Awakens particularly angered me because a big part of its mission seemed to be to diminish the original trilogy and its heroes, right from the opening shot of the wrecked destroyer, an inversion of the most famous scene of the first Star Wars. And then one after another our original heroes are revealed to be a bunch of shell shocked screw ups whose struggles ultimately amounted to nothing… gah. We’ll see what the new film does, but honestly, building on THAT foundation? Not expecting much.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
October 11th, 2017 at 12:17 pm
It’s part of the nature of the game. Any biopic that ends happily does so because it ends at the right moment. Rocky Balboa’s life kept turning to shit, a half dozen times, so he could prevail again.
Comment By: Christopher Bennett
October 11th, 2017 at 1:19 pm
“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.” — Orson Welles
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
October 11th, 2017 at 1:19 pm
See ED WOOD. A happy ending, for a man whose life spiraled into failure, alcoholism, and poverty.
Comment By: Christopher Bennett
October 11th, 2017 at 1:19 pm
And Orson Welles was in that movie! (Played by Vincent D’Onofrio with the voice of Maurice LaMarche.)
Comment By: Jason Bennion
October 11th, 2017 at 12:17 pm
I guess I just like my happy (or at least hopeful, in the case of Blade Runner) endings. I know that’s not realistic. But I get enough realism in everyday life.
Comment By: Ron Slimmin Hall
October 11th, 2017 at 12:17 pm
So what does this bode for Indy?
Comment By: Jason Bennion
October 11th, 2017 at 1:19 pm
For Indy V (assuming it gets made — I’m dubious), he will likely have lost Marion again through death or his own stupidity and alienated his son…
Comment By: Ron Slimmin Hall
October 11th, 2017 at 1:19 pm
Jason Bennion It’s irony, on a very ironic level….
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
October 11th, 2017 at 1:19 pm
Next time George Lucas and Spielberg consult me, as they do from time to time, I will say, “Look, honestly, you should have recast Indy and kept him in the pulp era that belongs to him, keeping Nazis as antagonists, especially fucking NOW, but…
“Since you’ve decided to go the other way, I should point out that the march of time inevitably places Indiana Jones in the early 1960s, and brings the character up to the onset of the genre era defined by James Bond, and that he is now in the position of the Sean Connery character in LAST CRUSADE, the older guy watching a younger figure in his element, and kibitzing. Honestly, a guy pushing 80, doing the same shit, is just ridiculous; but a guy pushing 80, contributing far more than expected in a world that he enters as mere consultant to the work of a James Bond, can be hilarious.”
Comment By: Mark Richards
October 11th, 2017 at 1:19 pm
I can see it now — Indiana Jones as the “M”/”Q” combo of archaeology.
Comment By: W. Owen Powell
October 11th, 2017 at 1:19 pm
The way they’ve been going with that, sooner or later we may well end up with an Indiana Jones film set in 1981 (the year Raiders was released), and I’m just not sure I’d be able to get my brain around it.
Comment By: Jason Bennion
October 11th, 2017 at 1:19 pm
^That… would be weird.
Comment By: W. Owen Powell
October 11th, 2017 at 1:19 pm
I saw Blade Runner 2049 yesterday, and the only thing I’ll say about it here is that Ford is dearly deserving of one of those little gold statues come spring.
Comment By: Michael M Jones
October 11th, 2017 at 1:19 pm
You either retire a hero, or live long enough to see your happy ending ruined in the sequel.
Comment By: Bill Goodwin
October 11th, 2017 at 4:18 pm
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again–if “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” had ended with the CE3K Mothership taking Indy and Marion away to the stars, it would have been one of the greatest, funniest, most righteous moments in Spielberg’s oeuvre, computer-monkeys and Shia LeBeouf notwithstanding.
Comment By: Buzz Dixon
October 11th, 2017 at 7:18 pm
David Latham, the creator if Stray Bullets, once observed it’s easy to have a happy ending if you know where to end your story.