Joey Paur
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Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny took Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones on one of his greatest adventures. The franchise has always delivered fun and wild supernatural endings and this one is no exception. In this story, Jones finds himself on an adventure hunting down that ancient Archimedes Dial, which in theory gives whoever uses it the ability to travel through time. This story sets the stage for an awesomely bonkers final journey for Jones.
I liked the way the movie came to an end, but James Mangold says he did have an alternate ending idea that he explored for a little bit. Before we go on, I should let you know that Spoilers are ahead!
In the film, Mads Mikkelsen‘s villainous Nazi character Jürgen Voller is looking to get his hands on the Dial of Destiny so that he can travel back in time to 1939 to kill Hitler so that he could take his place and lead the Nazi party to victory. Once Voller got his hands on it, Indy realized there was a miscalculation in how the Dial worked, and this sent Voller and Jones all the way back to 200 B.C. There they interrupted a battle and Jones got to meet Archimedes as he was in the middle of building the dial.
Mangold revealed that his alternate ending involved Jones and Voller actually getting to 1939, but with all the time spent talking about Archimedes, he felt it was more appropriate to take audiences to that point of time. He explained to Insider:
“I would never make this choice without ruminating over lots of choices. The other interesting thing was that one of the things I thought about was even if we did travel in time, would Mads’ theory be right and they’d land in Nazi Germany? And the last act of the movie would be Indy trying to foil Mads’ plan? But the more I sketched that out in my mind, the more that became kind of just a spy movie at the end. I couldn’t find a way to emotional resonance.”
He continued saying: “It occurred to me that we’ve been talking about three different time periods a lot in the movie: 1968, 1944, and 200 BC … So why don’t we go there? Because that’s the only one I’ve been hearing a lot about but I haven’t seen.”
It makes sense, especially for a character like Jones. Hell, when he got there he didn’t want to leave! It took Phoebe Waller-Bridge‘s Helena Shaw to knock him out and brings him back home. By taking Jones to that period of time, it gave him the opportunity to experience some he never experienced before. He added:
“The idea immediately moved me. Indy’s character would suddenly be faced with something he’s only imagined all his life. The reality of something he’s been only looking at through the keyhole of history and artifacts and is suddenly in it. And what a powerful moment that might be for Harrison himself to play.”
That’s why I loved the ending! That’s why I think the ending works so well. I know a lot of people don’t seem to like it, but it works perfectly for this story that Mangold wanted to tell.
What did you think about the ending of the movie? Would you have liked to see the alternate version instead? Maybe Indiana Jones would have run into himself!