If recent declassified files are to be believed then the Ark of the Covenant is real and the CIA knows it’s location — okay, they sort of know it’s location — okay, the CIA doesn’t have a clue where it is, but they’re sure it’s real — okay, they’re pretty sure it’s real — okay, they’re not sure at all. 4i5a6e

No matter how crazy the conspiracy theory, it seems as if there’s always a declassified CIA file to back it up. Last week we saw CIA files that claimed Adolf Hitler was alive and well in 1955 and this week we have files claiming the CIA knows where the legendary Ark of the Covenant, which supposedly contains the Ten Commandments, is. The world really is feeling insane right now, I mean Nazi conspiracies and lost arks? Are we sure that the Indiana Jones films weren’t documentaries?

The files relating to the lost Ark were actually declassified in 2000, but they’ve only recently gotten mainstream attention. They detail a secret project, known as “Project Sun Streak,” which saw the CIA use psychics to project their consciousness and remotely view the Ark and its location.

Project Sun Streak explained 155m72

It all sounds a little bit out there, but let’s give the CIA a chance here, they may be onto something. The file in question relates to one of the clairvoyants known as “Viewer #32” who was tasked with finding and identifying the mythical Ark. However, they allegedly weren’t informed about what they were supposed to be looking for.

Viewer #32 gave vague details of a location in the Middle East in which there was an “object” they described as a container with “another container inside of it.” They described how this container looked, claiming it to be “fashioned of wood, gold, and silver,” and that it was “Similar in shape to a coffin and is decorated with seraphim.”

This sounds an awful lot like the numerous depictions we’ve seen of the Ark of the Covenant across culture, including the 1981 film, Raiders of the Lost Ark. All this comes from a supposed psychic who apparently didn’t know they were looking for this fabled religious object. They also gave a few indicators as to the location and even provided a few sketches.

Interestingly, Viewer #32 also claimed that the container was protected by entities who would use a “power unknown to us” to destroy anyone who tried to open the Ark before “the time is deemed correct.”

Let’s be real for a second 593mv

While it’s cool to imagine that the Ark and psychic projection are all real, we have to be a bit more skeptical about this. First of all, why couldn’t this remote viewer give us a specific location when everything else in their description was specific? Retired Army Chief Warrant Officer and the first participant in the remote viewing project, John McMoneagle, told the New York Post that the search for the Ark was “a waste of time.”

“If someone claims that remote viewing proves the existence of something, such as the Ark of the Covenant, they must produce the Ark to substantiate their claim.”

Unfortunately, it seems the CIA was unable to locate and prove the existence of the container Remote Viewer #32 claimed to have seen. Of course, we all know in reality the Ark of the Covenant is actually being kept at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

Seeing as Harrison Ford is about to enter the Marvel universe himself, I guess it’s only fair that two MCU veterans the studio kicked to the curb earlier this decade should team up to make their own Indiana Jones movie, with none other than Guy Ritchie behind the camera.

Despite the general meh-ness of The Dial of Destiny, the world still loves all things Indiana Jones as much as ever, as proven by the enormous acclaim the new video game The Great Circle is accruing. Ford appears to have hung up his fedora and whip for good, and Disney is probably thinking hard for a way to extend the franchise without him. In the absence of an official new Indy film, Ritchie has stepped in to offer up his own copyright-skimming homage starring none other than Mr. Fantastic and the Mighty Thor herself.

Guy Ritchie, John Krasinski, and Natalie Portman are teaming up to go find the Fountain of Youth 4j3l2q

First look at Guy Ritchie’s new film ‘FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH’, starring John Krasinski, Eiza González and Natalie Portman.

Described as a contemporary ‘Indiana Jones’, the film follows siblings who partner on a global heist to find the mythical Fountain of Youth.

(Source: @EW) pic.twitter.com/VwNvFLNL08

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) December 17, 2024

Since making the most financially successful movie of his career with 2019’s Aladdin remake, Ritchie has returned to his bread and butter — pumping out mid-budget actioners that generally star Jason Statham — but next year he’s returning to the family-friendly world with Fountain of Youth, which is described as a “contemporary Indiana Jones” adventure.

Entertainment Weekly has revealed some first-look images from the film, which stars John Krasinski, Natalie Portman, and Eiza Gonzales (reuniting with Ritchie after 2024’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare). This is the first time Krasinski and Portman have worked with either Ritchie or each other, although they both have a very specific shared experience of being killed off by Marvel in 2022 — see Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Thor: Love and Thunder.

Fountain of Youth is described as a “family-friendly action-adventure film” that is “in the vein of Indiana Jones but contemporary.” It follows two estranged siblings, Luke (Krasinski) and Charlotte (Portman) Purdue, who partner on a global heist to find the eponymous mythical spring. Luke is said to be an “adventurous (and somewhat reckless) spirit” who has followed in his parents’ archaeological footsteps while Charlotte has put the past behind her and has “chosen a more stable life,” although she’s “thrust back into adventure” when her brother comes a-knocking.

Honestly, with its main cast of characters comprising two mismatched siblings pairing up with what looks to be a cool, action hero expert in the form of Gonzales, Fountain of Youth is sounding more like a redo of The Mummy than Indiana Jones. And considering how poorly the last one of those turned out that’s a little concerning. Dwayne Johnson’s Jungle Cruise also attempted to recapture that Mummy magic but similarly fell far short.

Still, if you catch him on a good day — Sherlock Homes and The Man From U.N.C.L.E., not King Arthur — Ritchie is the safest pair of hands to entrust relaunching a classic movie format in a fresh, thrilling way so Fountain of Youth may turn out to be just what the doctor (Henry Jones) ordered. It’s yet to be handed a specific release date, but we know it’s coming to Apple TV Plus sometime in 2025.

The greatest licensed video games let you step into an iconic character’s shoes in a way a movie never could. For many fans, their love of superheroes like Batman and Spider-Man was reinforced by tens of hours spent cleaning up Gotham City and New York in the Arkham games and Marvel’s Spider-Man, with the slower pace of a video game letting the players fully inhabit the heroic mindset.

Well, with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle we can add another entry to the list of all-time great licensed games – and it arrives with perfect timing. After 1989’s The Last Crusade the Indiana Jones franchise began steadily coasting downward, with Lucasfilm desperately trying to write an action-adventure around an aging Harrison Ford. That process culminated in the humiliating flop of 2023’s The Dial of Destiny, which seemed destined to be an embarrassing coda to a once-great series.

Well, like Indy somehow escaping a fatal situation by the skin of his teeth, The Great Circle redeems the franchise.Set one year after the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark (whose iconic opening temple sequence is painstakingly recreated as the game’s introduction) the story opens with the mysterious theft of a mummified cat by a giant figure. Adventure and mystery beckon!

After the relatively straightforward opening, the game sets out its stall in the frankly jaw-dropping Vatican City map. This isn’t quite an open world, but more of a large interconnected environment to explore reminiscent of immersive sims like Dishonored. Poking around in its corners proves deeply satisfying: a surface level of baroque religious marble, under which there’s a labyrinth of dusty secret ages and crypts sealed away for centuries. The undisputed highlight is the game’s microscopically detailed recreation of the Sistine Chapel. There’s more care and attention poured into this single room than there are in entire other games.

The downside is that this sun-dappled beauty is overrun with fascists, with a giant picture of Mussolini being raised in the central courtyard. The experience that follows is a (generally) relaxed game of cat and mouse as you outsmart enemies and sneak around where you shouldn’t be, punctuated with moments of thrills, wonder, comedy, and tension: the precise formula that made the movies immortal.

Without getting into spoilers, the game is broadly episodic, throwing you into several highly-detailed large maps and letting you puzzle, sneak, and punch your way to the answers of why this mummified cat was stolen. Perhaps smartly, the game puts its best foot forward with the Vatican City map, but while subsequent areas aren’t quite as intricate and beautiful, they’re certainly no slouch.

And boy, is this game pretty. I’m playing on ultra settings with full ray-tracing on PC and practically every room has me hammering the screenshot button. Each area has a finely tuned atmosphere created through subtleties: columns of light shining through suspended dust, moonlight over marble floors, or a willingness to envelop the player in pitch darkness with only a candle for illumination. Much of this is cribbed from Spielberg’s movies (specifically Douglas Slocombe’s cinematography), and it goes a very long way to making the game feel like a missing chapter in the movie series.

There’s also a perceptive understanding of how Indy fights. Most combat in the game is hand-to-hand, augmented by your whip that can snatch weapons out of enemies’ hands or yank them toward you (ideally straight into a waiting fist). The game also leans hard into the slapstick undertones of Indy action, forever supplying you with umbrellas, saucepans, and violins to bonk over fascist skulls. You do have a revolver but, frankly, using it feels like a failure of both imagination and comedic potential.

Then there’s Dr. Henry Walton “Indiana” Jones Jr. himself. Harrison Ford’s 1981 face has been immaculately recreated, though the performance has been ed off to veteran voice actor Troy Baker (Death Stranding, The Last of Us, Uncharted). Frankly, it’s unnerving how accurate Baker’s imitation of Ford is and, unless I knew otherwise, I would simply assume this was Ford aided by Lucasfilm’s digital voice de-aging tech. It’s a masterclass performance that should (and will) pick up some awards and I can only imagine the relief the developers felt after hearing the first recording sessions.

But The Great Circle isn’t simply a slavish fetishization of the movies. Developer MachineGames has a cast-iron Nazi killing pedigree from their recent Wolfenstein games, which have a far more nuanced position on fascism than their macho exterior indicates. The Great Circle picks up that baton and runs with it, proving unexpectedly (but depressingly) timely as its Nazi villain cackles “nothing is quite so easy to manipulate as an insecure male!” Mmm. Quite.

Indiana Jones is ultimately a Disney property, so the razor-sharp antifascist satire of Wolfenstein is substantially toned down, but it’s still there and as incisive as ever, and eventually dovetails neatly into the overarching archeological mystery.

There are only a few minor wrinkles. MachineGames have painted themselves into a corner with the invincible dog enemies, doubtless the result of a stern Disney edict that Indy does not kill animals. This results in the bizarre compromise of Indy ‘scaring’ dogs until they lie down for a bit, after which they leap up and begin savaging you again. A little more subjective is that stealth is very fuzzy. Though it wouldn’t make a lick of sense I found myself craving “Indy Vision” so I could see where enemies are through walls though, fortunately, being spotted isn’t a big penalty. And, if you want super-granular nitpicking, I’m not a fan of the pained grunt Indy makes whenever he climbs up onto a ledge.

MachineGames was already in the upper echelon of developers, but with The Great Circle they’re now unquestionably one of the all-time greats. This is a near-perfect translation of the Indiana Jones franchise to an interactive medium, uses that cultural heft to say something extremely relevant to our times, and – perhaps most importantly of all – is just a damn fun video game to play.

On the big screen, Indiana Jones has outrun his last giant boulder. In the interactive world, I suspect his adventures are just beginning.

Donald Trump’s election win took many of us by surprise. After all, it just doesn’t make any sense. But what if I told you there is strong evidence to suggest that Trump has access to occult and mystical artifacts that perhaps gave him some unearthly powers?

I’m kidding, of course, or am I? A picture posted to X shows a replica of the Ark of the Covenant from Raiders of the Lost Ark being displayed in the convicted felon’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Kind of odd, but hey, the first Indiana Jones film is great, so I suppose it’s not a massive stretch of the imagination to assume that Trump would be a fan. Just because he’s a terrible person doesn’t mean he can’t have good taste in movies.

It’s sort of ironic that Trump should be such a big fan of the Indiana Jones franchise though – does he not realize that the Nazi’s are the bad guys in those films? Let’s not kid ourselves, he’s definitely more of an Arnold Ernst Toht character than an Indiana Jones.

One comment joked about the box being the real deal.

It's not a replica.

— 𝓓𝖗. 𝓥𝖔𝕏 𝓞𝖈𝖚𝖑𝖎 ᴰᴬᴿᴷ ᴹᴬᴳᴬ ᴱᴰᴵᵀᴵᴼᴺ (@Vox_Oculi) November 14, 2024

Another comment suggested he just wanted the box because it was shiny – like a big dumb magpie. I wouldn’t be surprised, considering Trump’s brain is probably about the same size as a bird’s brain.

He just saw a shiny box and wanted it.

— DaVinci (@BiancoDavinci) November 14, 2024

A third implied that the Ark has given Trump supernatural abilities, which might explain how he won the election.

“An army which carries the Ark before it, is invincible.”

— Jamo (@LvDnH8D) November 14, 2024

All these replies may be talking sense, personally, I’m inclined to believe this is the real Ark of the Covenant. There’s just something about this image that feels so cursed. I bet Donald even had a little peek inside as well, which would explain why his face always looks a bit melty. In fact, now that I think about it, I’m almost certain someone has opened it, as I can clearly see one of those horrifying spirits looming right next to the box. Oh, wait, that’s Laura Loomer – which is arguably even more horrifying.

That’s not a replica of the arc, that’s the crypt Laura Loomer sleeps in

— TheVesuvian (@TheVesuvian) November 14, 2024

Perhaps this was the real reason Trump’s estate was raided back in 2022, and it’s all coming together now. Obviously Biden wanted to get his hands on Trump’s ark before he could use it to win this election.

Alright, jokes aside, do we have a better explanation for the presence of the replica? Some jumped in to defend Trump, claiming it’s because he’s a self-proclaimed Christian.

Because he's a self-proclaimed Christian?

— Ribashogilogasheshiakili (@Desrouleaux10) November 14, 2024

I’m not buying it though, as most Christians would just settle for a copy of the bible or something. Having the Ark of the Covenant on display in your home is a bit extra. In reality, it probably really is just a case of Trump being a fan of the movie. I can’t exactly explain why Laura Loomer is there, though. She’s a cryptid, sort of like Slenderman – she just pops up in photos, standing there, menacingly.

As children, quicksand really seemed like it would be more of a problem in our adult lives, but it turns out it’s not as big of a threat as all those movies made us believe. Although for one woman, that threat became a reality as she found herself sinking while going for a walk.

Jamie Acord was going for a walk with her husband on a beach in Maine earlier in June when she unknowingly walked over a hazardous patch of sand and ‘dropped like a rock.’ She instantly sank up to her waist but luckily for Acord, her husband was there and was able to pull her out quickly. She spoke about her terrifying ordeal with PEOPLE.

“And as soon as he pulled me out, we turned around to look to see what had occurred because we just assumed I’d fallen in an actual hole and there was nothing there, […] It looked just like the beach. It had filled itself right back in.”

Upon beng pulled out, Acord says that her clothes were covered in ‘wet cement-like sand.’ Later that day she decided to post about it on social media to warn others, while she was lucky, someone who is walking the beach on their own might end up getting stuck. It seems her warning was worth it as there are signs expected to go up on the stretch of beach warning people of the potential dangers according to NBC , WCSH.

Is quicksand common in America? 2wq26

it’s the kind of thing you’d expect to come across deep in some sort of desert, or in the jungle surrounding some cursed temple like in Indiana Jones. It’s really not something you’d encounter on a regular walk on a beach in Maine. However, this type of sand is actually a lot more common than you’d think! According to an article from Newsweek they can be found all over, but particularly near rivers or estuaries. 

Speaking to the AP, spokesperson for the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, Jim Britt explained that climate change had likely led to winter storms redirecting river water to sand areas which explains the presence of the sand where the Acords were walking.

So maybe we were right when we were younger, it seems quicksand is actually something that poses a risk to us as it can literally form anywhere. However, if you’re worried about sinking down to a sandy grave, fear not, as it turns out that once again, Hollywood was lying to us. Quicksand is not nearly as deadly as the movies would have us believe. According to Britt, humans will only ever sink up to their waist as we would actually be buoyant in the supersaturated sand, so if you ever do get stuck, remain calm and try to slowly crawl to safety.

We should know by now never to count out Indiana Jones. First The Last Crusade was proven to be a misnomer when it was followed up by 2008’s Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and then even that was replaced as Indy’s final adventure with 2023’s Dial of Destiny.

But surely that was it, right? Nope, wrong again. While Harrison Ford probably has donned the fedora for the last time in live-action, Dr. Henry Jones Jr. lives on in a different medium that he hasn’t raided for a while. On Jan. 19, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was officially announced to be coming from Bethesda and Wolfenstein’s MachineGames, with a stunning gameplay reveal trailer offering our first look at what promises to be a truly authentic outing for everyone’s favorite Nazi-punching archaeologist.

But does The Great Circle fit into the continuity of the movies or does it exist on the outside sphere of the franchise, like the little-ed Young Indiana Jones Chronicles? Here’s your answer.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle timeline, explained 2a3ng

Yes, Indy nerds, The Great Circle definitely is part of the movies’ canon as it slots neatly in between two of the films. Specifically, the game is set in 1937, which means it takes place in between the first movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the third, The Last Crusade. , Temple of Doom is actually a prequel to Raiders. So if you want to be really thorough next time you do an Indy binge, the chronology should go Temple > Raiders > Circle > Crusade > Kingdom > Destiny.

The Great Circle‘s timeline is teased throughout the trailer, in ways that’ll make fans feel all kinds of nostalgic, complete with Indy still working at Marshall College and his old colleague Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliot in the movies) making an appearance. As it takes place right in the middle of the original trilogy, the game might actually go down as the most successful attempt to recreate that classic Indiana Jones feel and alleviate some of the negativity certain fans felt towards the downbeat Dial of Destiny.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is coming sometime in 2024.

Does it get more legendary than Harrison Ford? Not really. The guy has been doing it longer than most of us have been alive, and now that we’re all adults, he’s still doing it!

He’s Han Solo, Jack Ryan, Rick Deckard, and Jacob Dutton — he’s Indiana Jones, both in the historical sense and the current sense. It’s impressive that he can still get the job done, but even more impressive when you consider how old the actor is.

How many candles did Ford blow out last year? 5af53

Ford is 81 years old and made his screen debut in 1966. Well, unofficially.

He played a bellhop in Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round but went uncredited. He was credited as Harrison J. Ford in A Time for Killing, which was released the following year, but the film didn’t do much to boost his career. Nothing did, actually. The actor became so fed up with the lack of good parts he was getting that he decided to become a carpenter by the end of the decade.

It proved a wise decision, at least in the short term. Ford had a wife and two kids at the time and built decks for the likes of Joan Didion, Sergio Mendes, and Mamas, and the Papas singer Michelle Phillips paid the rent a hell of a lot better than bit parts in forgettable genre films.

It wasn’t until producer Fred Roos championed the actor that he got a piece worthy of his talents. The part in question? The central villain in George Lucas’ American Graffiti (1973). The film would gross over $100 million at the box office and establish Ford’s relationship with Lucas, which would serve him incredibly well throughout his career.

What was Harrison Ford’s first movie? 3s82p

Ford’s profile got increasingly better throughout the decade, as he landed bit parts in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974) and Apocalypse Now, which was released in 1979 but filmed before the release of Ford’s breakout role, Star Wars (1977).

It would be redundant to state the impact that the original Star Wars had on the world, so I’ll just note that Ford became a superstar at the age of 35 years old. Not bad for a guy who was building decks a decade earlier.

The next decade of Ford’s career is among the most significant acting stretches ever. He released The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Blade Runner (1982), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), Witness (1985), and The Mosquito Coast (1986) before he turned 45.
Four of these are generational classics, one of these earned him an Oscar nomination, and the other is supremely underrated (The Mosquito Coast might be his best performance).

We don’t have enough space to recap Ford’s entire career. Still, I highlight this specific period because it’s the period that gets replicated during Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. The film used de-aging technology to make Ford look like he did in the 1980s, and the actor could not be more pleased with the result.

“It was fun for me to see how well it worked because I feel very strongly that it’s the best example of de-aging if you will, that we’ve seen yet,” Ford told SiriusXM. “It’s not a photoshopping kind of thing, it really is my face from 40 years ago… I thought it was a great way to start.”

Who are we to argue with one of the greatest stars of all time?

Indiana Jones is timeless. He’s one of the most beloved film characters of all time, and he’s connected with multiple generations in a way that few characters ever will. That being said, the actor who plays him is not. Harrison Ford may be in better shape than most of us, but he ages just like we do, and he was already a father of two by the time he landed the role of Indy.

Indiana Jones has a surprisingly complicated timeline, with prequels and flashback scenes that take place between the original sequels. That being said, we’re going to by the fictional chronology and focus on real-life dates. We’re here to determine how old Ford (not Indy!) was in each film.

Harrison Ford’s age throughout the Indiana Jones movies, explained 2h5y3m

Ford was 38 years old when he appeared in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). He had been acting since he was 24, but the first leg of his career was riddled with bad parts and even worse films. It wasn’t until Star Wars (1977) put him on the map that things began to change. Raiders solidified him as an A-list talent, and he hasn’t looked back since.

Ford was 41 during the production of Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom (1984). He was in the best shape of his career due to multiple scenes involving a shirtless Indy, but he also suffered a back injury that required emergency surgery. Despite being told he needed months to recuperate, Ford returned to the set after only six weeks to complete the film. It went on to be the second-highest-grossing release of the year.

Ford’s age has a comical wrinkle in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). He was 46 years old during filming, which makes sense until you consider the fact that Sean Connery, the actor playing his father, was only 58! It’s a testament to the charisma of both Ford and Connery that they’re able to convincingly play father and son despite their minuscule age gap. (Ford also made a cameo in “Mystery of the Blues,” an episode of the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. He was 50 years old at the time, though his beard makes him look a bit older.)

Speaking of gaps, it would be nearly two decades before we saw another Indy film. Ford was 65 years old by the time he returned for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). Despite being at retirement age, the actor did many of his own stunts and proved that he could still navigate an action film with the best of them. The quality of Crystal Skull is debatable, but Ford’s commitment is not.

The same can be said for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. The reviews for the film were not kind, but nearly every critic has pointed out that Ford can still deliver the goods at 80 years old. Dial of Destiny will mark the last time the actor dons the hat and whip, and we’re pleased to see that he went out on his own .

Harrison Ford may be the hero of the Indiana Jones franchise, but Dr. Henry Jones Jnr. wouldn’t be half the hero he is without the aid of an ever-growing cast of eclectic and eccentric ing characters.

Indiana Jones is a full-on callback to old, pulp films, and what’s a good pulp film without a strong woman to keep our hero on his toes? Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth, Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway — it’s practically a requirement of the genre to have the rugged hero accompanied by some beautiful, often mysterious, woman.

And the character of Indiana Jones is no exception. Every film features Indy alongside a female co-lead, and each of these heroines (or villainesses, occasionally) has their own fans and their own draws. At the end of the day, though, not every co-lead was created equally — and it’s time to see where each of these leads rank from worst to best.

5. Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) 2d5l6e

Irina Spalko is an anomaly out of the franchise’s main female characters, as she’s the only villain. Brought to life with a cartoonish Russian accent, Cate Blanchett’s over-the-top performance is fun, but Irina is not exactly the deepest character, nor does she make the biggest splash on screen. Ultimately, her search for knowledge and power is her undoing — but the concept had been done in a much stronger fashion during Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

But, come on, she’s still Cate Blanchett. I don’t think she could turn in a terrible performance if she tried. Personally, I love the camp inherent to the character, but it seems as though most fans just haven’t warmed up to Irina like they do the other leads.

4. Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) 3t1c1j

Her theatrical opening number is always a memorable part of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but Willie herself? She’s more well-known for being more of a hindrance than anything. To be fair, Indy does meet her by taking her as a hostage, but it’s true, most of the time, Willie can’t help but complain. She’s more of the classical ‘damsel in distress’ than other Indy women, which can be a bit of a drag when you want to see action and adventure and the characters are not into it at all.

Willie apparently disappeared sometime between Temple of Doom and Raiders of the Lost Ark, and that was probably for the best: I don’t see Willie keeping up with Indiana Jones for too long. C’est la vie.

3. Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) 6h6i2h

With Indy a divorced 70-year-old in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the fifth and (we’re pretty sure) final installment in the series naturally doesn’t introduce a new love interest for the aging archaeologist. Instead, it pairs him up with his (never-before-seen) goddaughter, Helena Shaw, as portrayed by Fleabag‘s Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

How much you take to the character of Helena will probably depend on the level to which you enjoy Waller-Bridge’s whole shtick, but she earns her high ranking here by dint of being the first Indy woman since Marion to have a streetwise and independent quality to her and the quasi-parental nature of her relationship with Indy offers a fresh twist on the classic formula of Dr. Jones’ adventures.

2. Elsa Schneider (Alison Doody) 2dbh

Elsa is an example of a classic pulp character. Beautiful but cunning and mysterious, she manages to seduce Indiana Jones so that she can procure the Holy Grail. While she double-crosses him initially, Indiana is eventually able to somewhat redeem her (if that’s possible). It’s all for naught, however — her hunger for the Grail consumes her. Elsa’s a real mess — but that’s what makes her a fun character.

Of course, she also seems to be the most… colorful of the female leads. Not only does she, you know, the Nazis, she’s also implied to have hooked up with Henry Jones Snr. (Sean Connery), Indy’s dad. Sorry, Junior, you’ll never be able to live that down, but it made for a classic moment.

1. Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) 515c1w

How can I put this? Well, there’s a reason Indiana Jones ultimately ended up with Marion — and it’s not just because the first girl always wins. Spunky and energetic enough to keep up with Indy, Marion knows how to take care of herself. Her character was a damsel, but she wasn’t ever in distress. She is resourceful, smart, and just as willing to punch Nazis as Indy, but also finds herself prone to her own misfortunes. Marion is the blueprint for an Indiana Jones side character.

While the behind-the-scenes story behind Marion and Indy’s romance isn’t so romantic, there’s a reason why Allen was brought back to star in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull before cameoing in Dial of Destiny. The franchise never bettered the chemistry between Ford and Allen and it’s been trying to recapture that magic ever since.

Warning: This article contains minor spoilers for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

The newest Indiana Jones film, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, is set in 1969, over three decades since the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark. While the majority of the new film follows an older Dr. Jones as he battles a former Nazi amid retirement from his teaching position, the opening scene takes place in 1944 and features a much younger-looking Indy.

De-aging isn’t anything new for films, but while older attempts were clumsy at best, more recent ones tend to be more realistic (although many viewers think the Dial of Destiny de-aging still borders on uncanny). How did the crew behind the film make Harrison Ford, who’s currently 80 years old, look nearly half his age?

Several techniques helped make Indiana Jones young m3564

De-aging Indiana Jones was no simple feat and took several techniques to pull off. The process of de-aging an actor through AI involves using machine learning algorithms to analyze and manipulate the actor’s facial features, skin texture, and other visual elements. This allows filmmakers to digitally rejuvenate the actor and create a more convincing illusion of youth on screen.

In an exclusive interview with Empire, director James Mangold remains relatively mum on the subject, though he shares ILM software (short for Industrial Light & Magic, a visual effects company founded by George Lucas) was used to comb through archived material of a younger Harrison Ford before matching it with the new footage.

To achieve this method, ILM used a set of tools called FaceSwap. In the same way ILM developed the technology that allowed Scorsese to de-age actors in The Irishman, Dial of Destiny used a proprietary system called Flux that utilized two infrared cameras mounted on either side of the camera that filmed Ford to gather information about his performance on-screen. Unlike The Irishman, this project also used dots on the actor’s face that captured even more data. All that data was then combined to create a CG mask that could be placed on Indy at any moment in the frame. 

As part of the ILM team’s efforts to make Ford look like his younger self, the team used machine learning tools to search through all of the footage Lucasfilm had available for Ford. Also, the team used VFX tools from Disney Research as well as a “smattering” of other sources to help refine the de-aged shots. 

The challenges of de-aging Indiana Jones z301x

As the de-aged scenes are mostly set on a train traveling through the Bavarian countryside, keeping the proper “physical configuration of the face” since there is a blue screen and hundreds of artists involved had proved to be a challenging process for ILM VFX supervisor Robert Weaver. 

There are times in the sequence when Indy’s smirk might need to be tweaked to give it more realism, such as when a scene begins at night and ends at dawn. However, that adjustment could create a sheen that will highlight new folds and make the smirk seem frowning to the viewer.

The eyes were usually the problem if Indy looked disconcerting, as our gaze generally settles there, Weaver told Wired.

“There are idiosyncratic characteristics that each individual has with the way that they blink, the number of times they blink, how the eyes sit at rest, and those types of nuances lead to a perception,” he says. “Many times, we weren’t quite getting the right balance of the eye-opening and the shape of the overall eyes, and were continually having to reference both older footage and what was shot in camera.”

Although de-aging technology did most of the work, the costume department helped out as well, fishing out Indiana Jones’ original jacket from Raiders of the Lost Ark, which was then “replicated thread-by-thread” for Ford to wear in the newly shot scene.

Producer Kathleen Kennedy acknowledged the reality that viewers will focus mainly on how the effect was achieved but expressed her hope that they’d still appreciate how the de-aging is intended to make them feel.

My hope is that, although it will be talked about in of technology, you just watch it and go, ‘Oh my God, they just found footage. This was a thing they shot 40 years ago.’ 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.’

While audiences found Ford’s aged voice coming out of a younger-looking Indy vaguely unsettling, Ford found the effect more convincing— albeit still unsettling. “This is the first time I’ve seen it where I believe it. It’s a little spooky,” the actor told Empire. “I don’t think I even want to know how it works, but it works.” We’re still not sure exactly how it works either, but de-aging tech has certainly come a long way.

We all have our favorite filmmakers – those directors whose work we just can’t resist, no matter what the subject. But who are the greatest? Here’s our hot take.

10. Alfred Hitchcock 2t1j6h

The master of suspense was nothing if not prolific, averaging a film a year over a career that spanned half a century and began in the 1920s – so long ago, in fact, that several of his early films are lost. But Hitchcock is chiefly ed for his remarkable works of the 1950s and 1960s, movies that included Rear Window, Psycho, and The Birds. All three cranked up suspense to new levels, with both the famous shower scene in Psycho and the attack scene in The Birds are so well known that they are the frequent subject of parodies. His mastery of technique was complete, and it remains a minor mystery that despite five nominations, Hitchcock never received the Academy Award for Best Director.

9. Jane Campion 56z18

Peter Jackson may have more name recognition, but it’s one of New Zealand’s other great directors who makes the list. The first woman in history to receive Cannes’ Palme d’Or (for The Piano), Campion’s clinical, unfussy directorial style has won many plaudits over the years, most recently for her acclaimed revisionist Western drama The Power Of The Dog, which bagged her an Academy Award for Best Director. Look out also for the taut psychological thriller In The Cut, an uncompromising look at sex and power starring Meg Ryan and Mark Ruffalo, and Bright Star, her 2009 biopic of the Romantic poet John Keats, starring Abbie Cornish and a young Ben Whishaw.

8. David Lean 6r49t

With two Academy Awards and a further nine nominations to his name, British director David Lean swept all before him in a glittering career. Success came early with Brief Encounter, the Noël Coward-written romantic drama that made household names of Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard as would-be lovers who weigh the pros and cons of cheating on their respective spouses in pursuit of happiness together. Adaptations of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations and Oliver Twist brought good box office returns, Oscar nods, and excellent reviews. But Lean’s reputation rests on The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, and Dr. Zhivago. All three swept the board at the Oscars, and two smashed box office records on both sides of the Atlantic. Lean’s two Academy Award wins were richly deserved; his faultless direction of, for example, the climax of The Bridge on the River Kwai is an object lesson in how to build tension without music, explosions, or gimmickry.

7. Ang Lee 5i5f3v

The ultimate stylist, Taiwanese director Ang Lee has an extraordinary CV. Fans of the neo-Western genre will Brokeback Mountain, which garnered Lee the first of two Academy Awards for Best Director, and Life of Pi was similarly a tour de force, if a little cloying in some aspects of its realization. But Lee’s earlier work is just as impressive: his version of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility remains definitive, and The Ice Storm is a disturbing meditation on the secrets and betrayals that tear two families apart during a Thanksgiving weekend. However, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon remains Lee’s masterpiece. A technically unsured wuxia film in which Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun-fat star as warriors intent on bringing a criminal to justice in 18th Century China, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon‘s absorbing storyline, pitch-perfect performances, faultless pacing, and gorgeous cinematography make it one of the finest films the this century has yet produced.

6. Francis Ford Coppola 2495t

Coppola’s Godfather trilogy was largely responsible for supercharging the careers of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, as well as offering lavish and superb filmmaking. 1979’s Apocalypse Now, however, raised the bar, with technically demanding action scenes and storytelling on an epic scale, all in the service of a plot that sees Martin Sheen’s rabble of whacked-out Marines make their way hesitantly upriver to meet their fate, perhaps at the hands of the shadowy renegade Colonel Kurtz (played by a Marlon Brando who famously refused to learn the script and improvised his lines). The director’s latest project, the science fiction drama Megalopolis, is slated for a 2024 release, with Adam Driver, Forest Whitaker, and Apocalypse Now star Laurence Fishburne in leading roles.

5. Akira Kurosawa 5j2y1d

Though many in English-speaking countries know his work only by reputation, Akira Kurosawa’s influence on cinema is out of all proportion to his fame, or lack thereof, in America. It was the Japanese director’s Rashomon, with its multiple-perspective storyline, that first brought him to the attention of Western audiences; and his Seven Samurai, with its impeccable action scenes, was famously the inspiration for The Magnificent Seven. Newcomers to Kurosawa’s oeuvre, however, would also do well to watch Kagemusha, an epic film set in medieval Japan that recounts the exploits of a petty criminal who is tasked with the job of impersonating a powerful lord. In 1990, he received an Honorary Academy Award in recognition of his services to cinema.

4. Ridley Scott 711wl

No-one has directed cinematic science fiction over the last half-century quite like Ridley Scott. The British filmmaker cut his teeth on ments in the 1970s before Alien catapulted him to greater things. The visually sumptuous Blade Runner and The Martian confirmed Scott’s status as a go-to director for all things sci-fi, while Gladiator bagged a Best Picture Academy Award. But it’s the less vaunted films in Scott’s career that prove his excellence as a director. 1492: Conquest of Paradise contains numerous inaccuracies, not the least of which is a far rosier picture of Christopher Columbus than is warranted by history, but is visually superb, while Kingdom of Heaven is a breathtaking story of the Third Crusade. Nor is Scott ready to hang up the megaphone, either; anticipation continues to build ahead of the premiere of Napoleon, with Joaquin Phoenix in the lead role, this November.

3. Martin Scorsese 321f5f

The director of Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, and The Age of Innocence is the quintessential director’s director, with an uncanny knack for hard-hitting storytelling. It was modern-day gangster film The Departed that won Scorsese his Academy Award for Best Director, but The Aviator is the superior movie, an expansive of the life of Howard Hughes, with Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead. Scorsese’s latest movie, the epic Western Killers of the Flower Moon, featuring longtime collaborators DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, premieres in American cinemas next month.

2. Stanley Kubrick 3t6q19

Stanley Kubrick’s reputation precedes him; there can be few directors with such a track record of consistently brilliant filmmaking. Some of that achievement can be laid at the door of Kubrick’s obsessive streak, though few today would be impressed with the rampant perfectionism that frequently reduced Shelley Duvall to tears on the set of The Shining. But in Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick displayed a grasp of cinematic technique that has rarely been emulated since. The sheer attention to detail and verisimilitude in 2001 single-handedly elevated the science fiction genre above the cardboard sets and shoddy special effects, while Dr. Strangelove allowed Kubrick to show off a whip-smart sense for satire and black comedy. Arguably the finest cinematic achievement of his later career was Full Metal Jacket; sequences such as the forward advance with the soldiers, shot with a Steadicam in a single take, place the viewer right at the center of the action, and underscore the thankless task that was the soldiers’ lot.

1. Steven Spielberg 6n1b55

Subtract Steven Spielberg from Hollywood, and you rip out most of the history of cinema over the last 50 years. The legendary director has either produced or directed so many of masterpieces – Jaws, the Indiana Jones franchise, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, Lincoln, Bridge of Spies, and more – that it is difficult to know where to begin. Jaws, with its beautifully executed dolly zooms and axial cuts, proved an early indication of a young director on top of his game, while Raiders of the Lost Ark showed aptitude with action. Jurassic Park remains impeccable 30 years after its release, while Schindler’s List – for which Spielberg won an Academy Award – remains just as harrowing, but his less lauded works as just as compelling. Amistad, about an insurrection by slaves on the eponymous ship and the efforts of abolitionists to have them freed, was inexplicably overlooked at the Oscars. No Hollywood director has helmed such a wide variety of subject matter, and none have exhibited such consistent brilliance.

Indiana Jones will need to conquer one of his greatest fears, and fast, because the iconic and ever-charismatic Harrison Ford just got a new species of reptile named after him, and it will undeniably try to slither its way into his heart.

Ford, a vice chair at Conservation International, is the inspiration behind naming a new type of snake discovered in the Andes Mountains in Peru. The slinky and wriggly creature might not be the favorite of our beloved hero, Indiana Jones, but Ford himself is quite humbled by the honor of having a new species named after him.

People shared the following quote from Ford, in which he says that the discovery is something truly special to his heart:

“In all seriousness, this discovery is humbling. It’s a reminder that there’s still so much to learn about our wild world — and that humans are one small part of an impossibly vast biosphere. On this planet, all fates are intertwined, and right now, one million species are teetering on the edge of oblivion. We have an existential mandate to mend our broken relationship with nature and protect the places that sustain life.”

While it’s an honor to have a snake named after him, Ford is a little bit confused regarding the fact that he’s three for three in creatures named after him that are spooky and frightening. He exclaimed that he’s the kind of guy who spends his downtime “cross-stitching. I sing lullabies to my basil plants, so they won’t fear the night.”

You read that right; Ford sings to his basil plants so they’re not scared of the dark — as if we needed a reason to love him more. Of course, Ford doesn’t feel a sense of fear or horror when thinking of snakes, spiders, and ants; it all lends to the idea that he values all inhabitants of this wild world.

Conservation International shared the following information about the new breed of snake, Tachymenoides harrisonfordi:

“Tachymenoides harrisonfordi is a slender snake, measuring a modest 16 inches when fully grown. The well-camouflaged predator is harmless to humans, though it does have an appetite for lizards and frogs. While the diminutive reptile itself is hardly the stuff of adventure films, its discovery took researchers on a pulse-pounding journey worthy of Hollywood.”

The harmless-to-humans snake is glorious as it slithers with a bronze body and accents that are black and gold; researchers say that the Tachymenoides harrisonfordi’s eyes are amber, and Conservational International, along with those who discovered the species are hopeful that Ford’s relation to it will serve as a way to encourage people to learn more about reptiles and to keep on a path of discovering the unknown.