'Indiana Jones' Director Shares Worrisome Comments About 5th Film

"Indiana Jones" director James Mangold made some recent comments that should give fans serious pause.

"Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" will hit theaters June 30, and it's safe to say millions of fans are excited. After all, this will be the last time people get to watch Harrison Ford put on the legendary hat and crack the whip.

However, it sounds like things will be different in the fifth film. Judging from Mangold's comments to The Hollywood Reporter, the film might be significantly different.

"Indiana Jones" might have a different feel with the fifth film.

The legendary series with Ford as Indy works in large part because it follows a simple formula. There are clear bad guys, clear good guys, clear goals the good guys are trying to accomplish and bad guys in their way. Very simple. Very fun. However, things won't be so clear cut this time around for the film set in 1969 and some level of focus on Nazis in America's space program.

"The first three Indiana Jones movies took place in roughly the same period. They all easily fit with the serialized, theatrical, almost screwball-action style of the movies that were being released in the period they’re set in. The challenge for on [Crystal Skull], and for me on this one, is: How do you move forward into new decades where the world is no longer seen in such clear demarcations of black and white and good and evil? Where the whole concept of raiding tombs and fighting over relics is looked at in a different way? It’s not about changing the story but allowing the character to experience how the world has changed around him," Mangold explained to THR.

He further added, "And our perception of politics is more gray. Who’s a villain? Who are we working with? Who are we fighting against? Proxy wars, all of that. It’s not as simple as the era around World War II. What happens to a hero built for a black-and-white world, when he finds himself in one that is gray? It’s a problem that produces humor, produces contradictions, produces adjustments that this character’s going have to make."

Yeah, not comforting words at all.

The new film will also focus on Indy's age.

Harrison Ford is currently 80 and will turn 81 within a couple weeks of the film premiering. He's a hell of a lot older than he was when the original film - "Raiders of the Lost Ark" - premiered back in 1981. The film won't shy away from the fact he's now an elderly man.

Mangold explained, "We can’t hide from where we are in our lives — none of us can — and neither can Indiana Jones. wanted to follow Harrison’s own lead and simply deal with it straight on. It’s not just a movie about a hero in his twilight years who is called back into action. It’s more than just that his bones might ache, it’s that his soul might ache, or that some of his optimism or sense fitting into the world might have evaporated. The mistake you can make in movies — and we’ve all seen movies like this — is where someone is of a ripe age, but the entire movie is continuing this charade along with them that they’re not that old."

Is it time for "Indiana Jones" fans to start panicking?

Red flags, my friends. Lots of red flags. This should be incredibly concerning to fans of the iconic film. The entire point of "Indiana Jones" is that there are bad guys Indy has to kill.

It was the Nazis in the first and third films, a weird cult in the second film, the Soviets in the fourth film and now, likely, the Nazis again in the fifth film.

When fans heard Nazis were, once again, going to be featured, we took that as a good sign. However, this chatter about gray areas, politics, proxy wars and such is a joke. Give me a break. That's not what "Indiana Jones" is all about.

I had such high hopes for this film, and now, I'm starting to get very nervous. Give fans a fun ride. Don't give us some preachy film about looking inside and finding out who the real villains are. Puke. Let's all keep our fingers crossed it doesn't turn out to be that bad. I simply wouldn't be able to stomach it.

Written by
David Hookstead is a reporter for OutKick covering a variety of topics with a focus on football and culture. He also hosts of the podcast American Joyride that is accessible on Outkick where he interviews American heroes and outlines their unique stories. Before joining OutKick, Hookstead worked for the Daily Caller for seven years covering similar topics. Hookstead is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin.