by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Where there’s smoke there’s fire and the chatter surrounding Indy 5 is pretty fucking bonkers. Now, I find all of it rather dubious because the more astonishing elements of the rumors surrounding the movie come from the usual suspects who think everything Kathleen Kennedy does is some sort of nefarious plot to turn everything into content for the “woke cancel culture mob.”
But here’s what I keep hearing: the time travel element of the movie was originally intended as a way to shoehorn Phoebe Waller-Bridge into the franchise to make her the new, female “Indy.” From a strictly business point of view, this would make a lot of sense: you recon the Indy canon so Waller-Bridge is a new, young, female Indy who can continue the franchise for 20-odd more years if this movie is a success.
And, yet.
Doing such a thing would also cause the Indy fanbase to fucking go bonkers for various reasons. Having a “female Indy” would make the most vocal of Indy fans apoplectic because it would seem like yet another woke movie from the evil mind of Kathleen Kennedy. (I honestly don’t know how much of the fanboy complaints about Kennedy are real and how much is just misogyny combined with them wanting to be young again.)
Anyway, the rumor mill is that the “erase Harrison Ford’s Indy and replace him in the canon with Waller-Bridge’s Indy” has been shelved and that the movie is now $150 million over budget. The whole thing is apparently one huge clusterfuck at this point.
Again, I think on paper, it would make a lot of sense to replace Ford with Waller-Bridge, I’m just not so sure timetravel would be the best way to do it. Waller-Bridge would be a great addition to the franchise and I think if you could somehow have her pick up Indy’s mantel in a smoother manner that people would really get into it.
In fact, it would make a lot more sense to get over the pretense of it all and do a hard reboot of the franchise by setting it in the present day with Waller-Bridge being Indy’s granddaughter or something. But, even then, you would still get complaints from the male-dominated fanbase about the “woke cancel culture mob” ruining yet another LucasFilm property.
