Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade Continues To Upstage The Modern Origin Prequels
The recent release of Cruella provided a fun early summer hit for Disney. The movie stars Emma Stone as the iconic villain Cruella de Vil, made famous in the classic animated movie 101 Dalmatians. The movie serves as a prequel origin story of how Cruella came to be and it follows a lot of the same mistakes of modern origin tales.
These types of movies are becoming more frequent in recent years with iconic movie characters getting their own movies to explore the backstory that has never been told. But as these movies continue to fumble with how to tells these stories organically, it's hard not to think about Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade accomplished what they are trying to do in a much more effective and simpler way.
Prequel origin stories have proven successful in the past. Movies like Batman Begins and Casino Royale told the stories of how the heroes fans know and love first started their journey. They were also used as a reboot to franchises that had grown stale. But as the prequel movies evolved, there began a trend of them focusing on the wrong things which is continued in Cruella. To be fair, Cruella is a very fun revenge/heist movie set in the 1980s fashion world. It also helps that Stone gives a really terrific performance in the lead role. However, the movie doesn't work because of how it explains Cruella's backstory. In fact, it works in spite of all the pointless trivia bits it is forcing on fans.
From her name to her car to her animosity towards dalmatians, Cruella throws one unnecessary element in after another. It becomes a fill-in-the-blanks style of storytelling that feels it needs to answer every question fans might have ever had about this character. And whenever the movie feels the need to clumsily deliver another answer it grinds the fun story to a halt so the audience has time to roll their collective eyes. This is the same issue that plagued Solo: A Star Wars Story.
A movie about the early adventures of Han Solo seemed like a sure-fire win and allowed for the beloved character to carry on in some form. But early on in the movie, they make the baffling decision to give the audience the origin of his surname. Was this something fans were really wondering about? Fans seemed to enjoy Han Solo fine before without having that knowledge. The movie is peppered with all these needless explanations that don't add anything interesting. It feels like checking boxes of all the things that need to be addressed. And yet that is pretty much the approach Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade takes and succeeds with.
The Last Crusade feels like it was definitely meant to be the final adventure of Indiana Jones. The movie ends with the hero and his companions literally riding off into the sunset. So it makes sense that the movie would feel it is an appropriate time to look into Indy's past a little bit. The movie opens with a flashback to Indy as a young man who stumbles across some treasure seekers stealing a rare artifact.
In keeping with his sentiments in other movies, Indy believes the artifact belongs in a museum and steals it from the robbers. This turns into Indy's first adventure that results in a thrilling chase sequence that really does feel like Indiana Jones finding his footing as a hero. It is also packed with the origins of his most famous traits. The sequence shows where his fear of snakes comes from, his first time handling a whip, and, of course, where he got his trademark hat.
So why does The Last Crusade succeed as an origin story when Cruella and Solo stumble? Well, the simple answer is that it doesn't take any of this too seriously. It has no intention of spending an entire movie following Indy on his first adventure as he gradually picks up all these things that will later define his character. It is happy enough to throw it all into one fun sequence before moving on with the story.
While these moments sometimes feel like a blatant wink at the audience, the movie never lingers on them for long or tries to make them feel more important than they actually are. Indy is literally picking these things up as he goes, making a collection of character traits while running from the bad guys. It is the kind of momentum that is missing from the other movies that try to assign too much importance to these storytelling trinkets. They are not the story, they are just jokes in a scene.
While the rest of the movie moves on from young Indy and returns to Harrison Ford as the character, it still manages to pepper in some backstory for the character that had not been explained before. His love of archaeology and passion for seeing artifacts placed in museums comes from his father and what he learned from him. Most hilarious of all is the explanation of his name.
At the end of the movie, Henry Jones Sr. (Sean Connery) reveals that Indy's real name is Henry Jones Jr. When he tells his father that he prefers Indiana, his father responds, "We named the dog Indiana." The origin of this iconic hero's name is that he took it from the family dog. If The Last Crusade hadn't come out decades before Solo, this would feel like it was poking fun at that movie's name reveal.
Hopefully, any origin prequels that come will wisely follow the footsteps of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. There is a way to answer those questions fans might have about their favorite characters without dedicating the entire movie to it. It is also a movie that understands, these little things that Indy picks up along the way are recognizably part of his character, but they are not what defines him as a character.
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