Even Harrison Ford couldn’t escape the clutches of Disney’s obsession with de-aging technology. The Indiana Jones 5 actor is now the third and final member of the Star Wars original trilogy trio to roll back the years with VFX software. Empire has revealed that a younger Indy will make an appearance in the upcoming film.
Thankfully, the uncanny tech won’t steal us from seeing Ford as the adventurer in his golden years. The de-aged software only comes into place in the movie’s opening sequence, where Indiana has to face off against a castle filled with Nazis all the way back in 1944, a few decades prior to him continuing to fight Nazis (but this time in NASA) in the fifth film’s setting of 1969.
“And then we fall out, and you find yourself in 1969,” director James Mangold told the publication. “So that the audience doesn’t experience the change between the ‘40s and ‘60s as an intellectual conceit, but literally experiences the buccaneering spirit of those early days… and then the beginning of now.”
With new software from VFX powerhouse Industrial Light & Magic, the film recreated a 1980s Ford by combing through archived footage of the actor, eventually blending it together with the newly shot scenes. The dedication in bringing back Raiders-era Indiana didn’t stop there, as the costume department even re-created his iconic brown leather jacket stitch-by-stitch.
“My hope is that, although it will be talked about in terms of technology, you just watch it and go, ‘Oh my God, they just found footage. This was a thing they shot 40 years ago,’” said producer Kathleen Kennedy. “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.’”
Of course, Ford reacted to seeing his younger self on-screen as pretty much expected—by calling it “spooky” and acting like a dad that was perfectly fine with his flip phone, but will begrudgingly take your gift of that fancy iPhone 14. “This is the first time I’ve seen it where I believe it,” said the 80-year-old actor. ”It’s a little spooky. I don’t think I even want to know how it works, but it works.”
We’ll have to wait and see if Ford’s de-aged Indiana looks passable or veers too far into Luke Skywalker deepfake territory when Indiana Jones 5 swings into theaters June 30, 2023.