Indiana Jones

When I was in Senior Primary school, I had a friend named Vaughn. And once or twice a month, I'd take the short walk to his place. Vaughn and his family would record movies from Mnet, a pay TV channel that was in its infancy, and kindly lend them to friends who didn't have Mnet. Those were still the days of VHS tapes.

I fondly remember their friendliness. I was a shy kid, and his older sister used to happily take me through verbal synopses of the rows of tapes on their small bookcase. And on one of these occasions, she asked me if I'd watched a movie called Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. I hadn't. So it and its neat label came home with me.

I loved it. I was hooked. Action, adventure, suspense. Unique situations. Even Indiana Jones' attire was unique. His neat and clean professor look the one day. His trademark adventure clothes in a perilous situation the next. I reference this as sometimes in those days action stars would inexplicably wear the same clothes throughout an entire movie, or grumble if they had to change into something different. Even some TV shows had characters who wore the same clothes week in, week out.

***

My unofficial introduction to Indiana Jones had been when I was tiny. My mother took me to the Umbilo drive-in, and the second show was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It was long past my bedtime, and with it having a PG rating, my mother asked me if I wanted to stay. I nodded excitedly, but within half an hour of bugs and monkeys' brains, we were on the way home.

Looking back now, having watched the movies of the original trilogy several times over the years, the Temple of Doom rates as my least favourite. I liked certain aspects like Short Round and the opening ten minutes ("the antidote"), so I don't hate it. I simply rank the structure, direction, and scripts of the other two movies as better.

While I felt the franchise should have remained a trilogy, the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was more along the lines of Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Last Crusade than the Temple of Doom. Big alien heads and all. It was only Harrison Ford's age that made it seem it wasn't.

***

When I think of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, I think of my sister's imbecilic boyfriend at the time laughing mockingly at me for enjoying Indiana Jones riding off into the sunset to the theme tune. I also think of a friend, who would ask me to play the Last Crusade on his computer after school, only for me to always sit there watching him play it.

But a more favourable memory comes to mind. Something that still makes my wife and I chuckle.

When we were in our twenties, and approaching a long weekend, I downloaded an Amiga emulator onto my computer. And along with it, the Last Crusade. From Thursday night till Sunday evening, we played it, hair untidy, eating chips.

Come the part where Indiana Jones has to get to the grail without falling through the floor, my wife said, "There it is. We've done it." And went to go watch TV.

No amount of coaxing from me, or sleep-deprived laughter between us, could get her back to the computer for the very end of the game. In her defence though, it was now Sunday evening.

And I finally got to complete the game, in happiness, as opposed to watching my "friend" protect his computer from my incapable hands. Although, chiefly, it is that enjoyable weekend that I remember most.

***

When I was growing up, I didn't care less who had inspired George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan to come up with Indiana Jones. Jones was a fictitious character. An entity separate to whoever had inspired his creation.

But then in my twenties, I watched a documentary that proposed it was Heinrich Schliemann. Schliemann swops suits for field clothes to go looking for Troy and Mycenae.

Documentaries and videos about Giovanni Belzoni suggest he was the inspiration. He protected himself from raiders and so forth with a kurbash, and felt that artefacts belonged in a British museum.

And Roy Andrews has also been hypothesised. In his explorations in Mongolia, he wore a jacket and hat.

So, possibly, all three men inspired Lucas and Kasdan.

To a degree, I still don't care. Jones remains a separate and fictitious entity.

The silver lining though, is that all this did get me interested in Belzoni, and I wouldn't mind buying a couple of books about him.

***

Despite saying that Indiana Jones should have remained a trilogy, I did watch the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Likewise, I'd watch the latest one, the Dial of Destiny, too, if I ever get Disney+.

Earlier this year, and twice, I watched the video game The Great Circle on YouTube. Much better than half the crud on TV and streaming channels. The voice actor playing Indiana Jones was so good, I thought they had sampled Harrison Ford's voice for the game.

I also sometimes listen to Rob MacGregor's Indiana Jones novels.

***

So, the kindness of my friend Vaughn and his friendly family birthed in me a lifelong love of Indiana Jones.

I sometimes tell my wife that if we have a kid one day, we can spend lazy, rainy Sunday afternoons watching the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

Although, by then, my son might say, "Again? I hate this old junk."

Unless another actor dons the famous hat for a younger generation, which, in Hollywood, might be inevitable.

Then I might complain to my son, "It's not the same. He's nothing like Harrison Ford."