Indiana Jones has been through a lot. The whip-wielding archeologist's fifth big screen adventure is currently in production and while we have far more questions than answers about just what sort of movie that will be, early looks at filming are providing few answers and only more questions. In this case, the big question is, just when is this movie set?
A shot from where Indiana Jones 5 is apparently currently filming has surfaced online and while it certainly doesn't reveal much, what it does show us is cars. However, what's interesting about the cars is that they appear to be from an era much earlier than we would expect from the fifth Indy movie.
Indiana Jones' adventures began with Raiders of the Lost Ark which was set in 1936. The most recent film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was set in 1957. It's been 13 years since that movie came out, it will be 14-years-old when Indiana Jones 5 is released. And so it stands to reason that since actor Harrison Ford will be over a decade older, the new movie will take place more than a decade after the last one.
But that would put Indiana Jones 5 chronologically in the late 1960s or even the early 1970s. And while it's difficult to peg what era these cars are from, the picture doesn't reveal a lot, those who know more about cars are pegging them as anywhere from the 1940s to the late 1950s, much earlier than we might expect.
There are, are a number of potential explanations for this. The most obvious is that Indiana Jones 5 could contain one or more flashbacks. They're not entirely foreign to the franchise, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade opened with a flashback sequence that saw a Boy Scout-era Indy played by River Phoenix.
Of course, what's interesting about this, if it is a flashback, is that it would be a scene that takes place in the middle of the existing Indiana Jones history, meaning that, assuming Indy himself is in the scene, we'll likely get a CGI de-aged Harrison Ford playing a younger version of the character.
Another possibility, however, is simply that Indiana Jones 5 won't take place quite as late in Indy's life as we think. Harrison Ford appears to still be in pretty good shape all things considered, so it's possible that with a little make-up help he could made to look significantly younger than his current 78 years. Perhaps the new movie is simply set shortly after the last one, despite the time since that movie was filmed.
At some point we'll get an offical plot synopsis that should explain everything, though it's likely we won't get that for several more months. Indiana Jones 5 is set to open in July of 2022.
