Is Harrison Ford Too Old to Play Indiana Jones Again?
The Twitterverse is making jokes, but what do you think? Take our poll.
This just in: Indiana Jones is coming out of retirement. Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford are reuniting for a fifth movie in their much-loved and financially lucrative action-adventure series, slated for a July 19, 2019 release. Naturally Twitter has some concerns.
Now, anyone who saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in 2008 has good reason to wonder just how good the new movie might be, especially if Spielberg brings Shia LaBeouf back. (No word on that yet — fingers crossed.) There were also some pretty fair complaints about Hollywood recycling the same ideas instead of coming up with a new, original idea for a movie.
But the most frequent complaint? Harrison Ford is too old for the role.
Oldies but Goodies
At 73, Ford is 14 years older than 59-year-old Sean Connery was when he played the daring archaeologist's dad in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in 1989. (Connery was only 12 years older than Ford at the time.)
Some of the Twitter comments on Ford's age were merely apprehensive. Some were mean and witless. (It's 2016 and people are still trying to get laughs with variations on “get off my lawn” — the ageist equivalent of “Take my wife … please.”)
And yet, buried in all that lazy snark and ageist nastiness, there were more than a few funny suggestions for the new movie's title that acknowledged Indiana's advanced maturity:
- Raiders of the Lost AARP
- Old Man Yells at Cloud
- Indiana Jones and the ... Wait, What Was I Looking For?
- Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost .. Where Did I Put It? It Has to Be Here Somewhere
Take This Joke ... Please
One union used the news as an opportunity to imply that a more secure pension fund might have allowed Indiana to kick back and enjoy his golden years.
Some folks, however, like the idea of a more mature Indiana Jones.
Of course, Ford returned as Han Solo last year in the latest Star Wars installment, The Force Awakens, and is currently filming a Blade Runner sequel. But one tweeter noted he has many more old movies to reboot. Others pointed out that many of these “new” tweets were making the same old jokes everyone made when the last sequel was announced.
That's probably true, and it won't stop us from making the same old jokes again in another 10 years.
