The Indiana Jones movies are beloved for many reasons, from Harrison Ford’s everyman hero charm to the deft balance between action, humor, and romance, to the reassuring feeling that, no matter what, Indy is always gonna save the day. But it’s also one of those franchises that is just full of iconic moments which are instantly recognizable, even to people who’ve perhaps never seen the movies that those moments are from.
Now, with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (review) hitting theaters for one last Dr. Jones adventure, we spoke to Harrison Ford and the cast of the film about their favorite Indy moments, and why they’re still classic after all these years.
Watch the boulder scene here:
When we asked Ford about the most iconic moment from the series, he said he couldn’t pick just one.
“Gosh, you’ve just opened a Pandora’s box for me because there’s so many images,” said the actor. “There’s the rolling ball, there’s the swordsman that Indiana Jones ends up shooting.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, the first sequence from the first movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, was the source of many of the cast’s picks.
“Oh, the boulder for me, Indy running away from the boulder,” Phoebe Waller-Bridge immediately responded when asked the same question. Her Dial of Destiny costar Ethann Isidore agreed with her.
Of course, you remember that moment as well. Indy has ventured into a Peruvian temple in search of a legendary golden idol. Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for us, he triggers the temple’s ancient booby traps and is forced to exact a thrilling and death-defying escape. It all culminates in a giant boulder heading right down main, with Dr. Jones the only pin in this deadly bowling ball’s way.
In fact, the boulder may have been made of fiberglass in real life, but it was still dangerous. Raiders production designer Norman Reynolds recalled creating the boulder in a making-of documentary about the film.
You’ve just opened a Pandora’s box for me because there’s so many images. -Harrison Ford
“The overriding consideration was to be able to stop the thing,” said Reynolds. “If Harrison tripped up or someone had fallen over and the ball was actually coming through… Whilst it was a fiberglass ball, in fact it was still very heavy and could actually do a lot of damage. And when [director] Steven Spielberg first saw it, he was really very excited about the whole thing and he said, why don’t we make it another 50 feet longer, which of course we did!”
There are conflicting reports on where the boulder idea originated. Legend has it that it started with George Lucas, who created Indiana Jones and produced the pre-Disney era movies. The way the story goes, Lucas got the idea of the boulder from a Scrooge McDuck comic. In the comic, Donald Duck and his pals discover a… well, legendary idol, only to trigger booby traps which result in a giant, deadly rock almost taking everyone out.
But Spielberg has his own story about where the idea came from — namely, from him.
“The ball was my idea when we were knocking out set pieces and just making suggestions,” the filmmaker said in that same documentary. “I just said at some point, some huge boulder should start chasing Indy, and almost squishes him three or four times before he gets out of the cave. But I didn’t know it was going to look as good as that until the day Norman Reynolds showed me that he actually made a boulder that was something like 22-feet in diameter. It was extraordinarily large.”
Either way, just like with Donald Duck and his friends, there was more to that sequence beyond a giant, homicidal rock. Mads Mikkelsen, who plays the villain in Dial of Destiny, agreed that the boulder is iconic, but he also has strong feelings about the entire opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
“I would say [that] entire sequence from the get-go, until he starts running away from the 2,000 [indigenous people],” responded Mikkelsen. “It’s just such a rollercoaster. It just goes up and down. It’s so charming and so surprising.”
Indeed, that opening sequence is filled with contenders for the greatest Indy moment. Remember a young Alfred Molina playing throw me the idol and I’ll throw you the whip with Indy? Yeah, that didn’t work out too well for the future Doc Ock. And then there’s the point a bit earlier on where Indy just sliiiiightly miscalculated when pulling that idol off of its pedestal.
Dial of Destiny co-star Shaunette Renée Wilson also shouted out that opening: “I mean, the baggie of sand and taking the relic, and then the moment of relief: ‘Ah, everything’s great. I got it, good.’ And then bam, there’s this big old stone chasing after him. I think that’s seared in my mind for sure.”
You can just feel those arrows whizzing past Indy’s ears when he’s fleeing the temple, but that’s part of why the character connected as hard as he did when Raiders debuted in 1981, and why he has continued to ever since. It’s because Harrison Ford plays Indiana Jones as a guy who feels every blow, grimaces with each hit, and is as scared as anyone else would be in such a situation.
“Something I’ve always tried to do is to make sure that in that context of action, there’s also character development going on,” Ford said of how he would approach scenes like these. “I want the audience to see the fear of a man who supposedly has no fear, who’s fearless. Nonsense; nobody’s fearless. … I don’t want to hear hero in the same context with something I’m doing because nobody’s a hero until it has to be done. I want to be an ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances who behaves well.”
It’s hard to pick just one scene or moment when it comes to the Indiana Jones franchise, and the cast of Dial of Destiny definitely had other favorites after the giant boulder. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade also came up.
“It was the cup, and it was just God, and it really did mean that,” said Boyd Holbrook of the holy grail scene in Last Crusade. “And that’s all about Indiana and his hunt for these relics. It was just inspiring.”
Isidore said that Last Crusade is actually his favorite movie. “The last scene from The Last Crusade,” he cited as a highpoint. “With the horses and the sunset. I think it’s really iconic too.” Meanwhile, Waller-Bridge couldn’t help but also point to the melting faces from Raiders.”
For Ford, these iconic sequences — whether it’s a rolling boulder or runaway mine cart or a Grail Knight showing up for a hang — all have to serve a purpose that goes beyond simply thrilling audiences or giving Indy something cool to do. And that philosophy continues with Dial of Destiny, which brings Indy’s story to a close.
“In every film, there are many, many moments, but really those moments are just moments in a chain of moments that are a story,” said Ford. “I wanted the story to end my experience with Indiana Jones by telling the last part of his story, the part of his story where you see the effect of the life that he’s lived on him in a very honest way, and that the world has changed around him. Then I want to see him pull himself out of the mud one more time.”
For even more on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, be sure to check out our Indiana Jones Story So Far.
Interviews by Jim Vejvoda
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