Dr. Henry Walton Jones, Jr. (better known as Indiana Jones) is a fictional professor of archaeology, an adventurer and the eponymous titular main protagonist of the Indiana Jones film series.
Background
Personality and Traits
As a professor of archaeology and an adventurer, Indiana Jones is very knowledgeable in ancient history and brave in the face of danger. He explores the world looking for rare priceless artefacts, even ones that are suspected to have magical properties. His search for mystical artefacts often gets him into trouble and in a race against evil men/women who seek to claim certain treasures for their own personal gains or diabolical schemes. When Indy is not out searching the world for treasure, he works as a part-time university professor at Marshall College.
Despite his encounters with the most creepiest, disgusting, and deadliest creatures, snakes are the one thing that Indy is afraid of. Snakes did not really bother him when he was about thirteen years old, but after falling into a create of them aboard a Circus train, while trying to escape with the Cross of Coronado, he quickly from that day on became afraid of snakes. Despite being ophidiophobic, he has from time to time been forced to face his fears, especially when he went into the Well of Souls to retrieve the Ark of the Covenant, which was infested with snakes.
Whenever in physical combat, Indy is a capable fighter, but not when up against men who are twice as tough, as shown when he fought against a bulky Nazi Mechanic and the Thuggee Chief Guard.
Physical Appearance
By the 1930s, Indy was in his thirties with a body built figure (as seen in The Temple of Doom). He originally had dark brown hair, and later turned grey in his fifties. Indiana Jones has a scar across his chin, which he got while using a whip for the first time to fight off a Circus Lion.
During his expeditions, Indy wears a dark browned levered jacket, a stone coloured buttoned shirt with buttoned chest pockets on each side, and brown pants held up by a belt. Indy also wears a gun belt that holds his gun and whip, and wears brown boots. On some occasions, Indy wears a pair of leather glove. The only time he was seen wearing gloves was in Raiders of the Lost Ark during his search for the Ark of the Covenant.
Indy wore a high-crowned, wide-brimmed sable fedora through many of his adventures. Although he also wears gray fedoras, the sable hat is the one with which he has most sentiment for. The fedora originally belonged to a treasure hunter named Garth, who discovered the Cross of Coronado with his gang in Utah in 1912. Garth gave Indy his fedora after being impressed by young Indy's attempt to claim the cross.
Weapons and Equipment
- Bullwhip: Indiana Jones is known for carrying a bullwhip, which he uses as both a weapon and a tool in several makeshift or unorthodox uses. These specific uses involve swinging across chasms, climbing, and capturing adversaries. The first time Indy used a whip was when he was thirteen years old. He used one to fend off a Circus Lion while trying to escape with the Cross of Coronado.
- Pistol: Indiana Jones frequently carried some type of handgun sidearm during his adventures. During his adventures, he often ends up losing his gun on certain occasions.
- Satchel: On his expeditions, Indy carried a satchel bag, usually underneath his jacket.
Appearances
Raiders of the Lost Ark
In 1936, Indy travels Peru to find a golden idol hidden inside a ruined temple rigged with booby traps. Accompanied by his guide, Satipo, they venture into the temple. Eventually, they make it to the heart of the temple, where the golden idol is. Indy carefully retrieves it, avoiding pressure pads that fire arrows from the walls. Despite his carefulness, he still triggers a pressure pad where the Idol sat, causing the temple to seal itself. After nearly getting run over by a huge boulder, Indy makes it out of the temple with the idol, on the account of Satipo getting killed while trying to escape with it. However, he is confronted by rival archaeologist René Belloq and the indigenous Hovito people. Surrounded and outnumbered, Indy is forced to surrender the idol to Belloq and escapes aboard a waiting float plane.
Jones returns to his teaching position at Marshall College, where two Army Intelligence agents come to see him with information that the Nazis had discovered the lost city of Tanis, which is one of the possible resting places of the lost Ark of the Covenant. The Nazis believe that if they acquire the Ark, their armies will become invincible. Indy is also told that the Nazis are looking for Professor Abner Ravenwood, leading expert on the city of Tanis, who possessed the headpiece to the Staff of Ra, which is the key to finding the Well of Souls, a secret chamber in which the Ark is buried. The agents authorise Jones to recover the Ark before the Nazis do. He travels to Napal and discovers that Abner is dead, and the headpiece is in possession of Ravenwood's daughter Marion. After saving her from a Nazi commander known as Arnold Toth, both Indy and Marion fly to Cairo, Egypt, where they meet up with Indy's friend Sallah. He reveals that Belloq and the Nazis are digging for the Well of Souls with a replica of the headpiece (created from a burn mark on Toht's hand when he tried to grab the headpiece which was burning hot). They quickly realize that the Nazi headpiece is incomplete and that they are digging in the wrong place.
Sallah and Indy raise the Ark of the Covenant from its resting place.
Indy and Sallah infiltrate the Nazi dig site to sneak into the map room, and use their staff to correctly locate the Ark. Indy later discovers Marion is alive, after she was kidnapped and thought to have been killed in an explosion during a chase through Cairo earlier on. By evening on a stormy night, Indy, Sallah, and a small group of diggers unearth the Well of Souls, which is discovered, much to Indy's demise, infested with snakes. Indy and Sallah drop a couple of torches to keep the snakes away and clear a path for them. By morning, they acquire the Ark of the Covenant, but lose it after Belloq and Nazi officer Colonel Dietrich arrive. They leave Indy sealed inside the Well of Sould with Marion, and at the same time torches that keeping the snakes at bay go out. However, Indy finds an exit upon some snakes coming through a wall. He climbs up one of the Anubis statues, and causes it to tilt over and go through the wall. After going through a room full of ancient dusty corpse, Indy and Marion find themselves out of the Well and close to a local airstrip where a flying wing is preparing for take off.
Indy hanging from the front of a truck.
Certain that it was going to transport the Ark to Berlin, Indy plans to seize control of the plane, but it does not go as planned. He is forced to engage in a fistfight with a bulky Nazi Mechanic and destroys the flying wing after Marion starts a fire and a fuel leak. The Nazis then load the Ark onto a truck and set off for Cairo. Indy gives chase on a horse, and throws out both the driver and passenger. Once behind the wheel, he takes out the escort surrounding the truck. He forces a motorcycle off the road and a jeep off the edge of a cliff. Several men, who are in the back, attempt to retake the truck, but Indy shakes them off with only a slight shot wound. One Nazi is still in the back, and throws Indy out the windshield. Indy manages to slide underneath the truck and climb back aboard. He retakes the wheel and throws the Nazi through the windshield. Then he forces Belloq, Toth, and Dietrich off the road and drives to Cairo where the people help him hide the truck.
Indy makes arrangements to take the Ark to London aboard a tramp steamer, but by the next day a Nazi U-boat intercepts the ship, and seizes the Ark once again. The Nazis also capture Marion, but cannot locate Jones, who stows away aboard U-boat. He travels with them to their secret Island base in the Aegean Sea. Once there, Belloq plans to test the power of the Ark before presenting it to Hitler. Jones threatens to destroy the Ark with a panzerfaust, but Belloq calls his bluff and Jones surrenders rather than destroy such an important historical artifact. Indy and Marion are tied up to a post where they can observe Balloq perform a ceremonial opening of the Ark, which is revealed to contain nothing but sand. Suddenly, angelic ghost-like beings emerge from the Ark. Indy cautions Marion to keep her eyes closed and not to observe what happens next. As the power of the Ark kills and consumes everyone, Indy and Marion were spared from the wrath of God by closing their eyes and looked away, symbolically showing proper respect. Afterwards, Jones and Marcus Brody are informed that the US government has taken possession of the Ark and is stored away inside a gigantic warehouse among hundreds of similar crates, instead of giving it to the National Museum as agreed.
The Temple of Doom
In the prequel film, 1935, Indiana Jones arrives in India with his assistant Short Round and singer Willie Scott, after escaping from crime boss in Shanghi, Lao Che. He comes to a small village in northern India, where the poor villagers believe he was been sent by Shiva to retrieve the sacred sivalinga stone that was stolen from their shrine, as well as the community's children, from evil forces from the nearby Pankot Palace. During his journey to Pankot, accompanied by Shorty and Willie, Indy hypothesises that the stone from the village may be one of the five fabled Sankara stones that promise fortune and glory.
Indy retrieves the Sankara stones.
Indy and his comrades are warmly welcomed by Chattar Lal, the Prime Minister of the Maharaja of Pankot. During their stay they discover a hidden passage in Willie's bedroom, leading to an underground temple where the Thuggees worship Kali with human sacrifices. He watches as the Thugs chain one of their victims in a cage and slowly lower him into a ceremonial fire pit, burning him alive. Indy discovers that the Thuggees, led by their high priest leader Mola Ram, are in possession of three of the five Sankara stones, and have enslaved the children to mine for the final two stones. After witnessing the Thuggee ceremony, Indy sneaks down and retrieves the villagers' sacred stone, including the other two. Unfortunately, Indy is captured, along with Short and Willie, and is later forced to drink the blood of Kali, which places him in a trance-like state where he begins to mindlessly serve the Thuggees. However, he is later snapped out of his trance after Shorty burns him with a torch and saves Willie from being sacrificed. They go back to the mines to free the children, but Indy gets caught up in a fight with a hulking overseer. The Maharajah, who was also entranced, attempts to cripple Indy with a voodoo doll. Shorty spars with the Maharajah, ultimately burning him to snap him out of the trance. With his strength returned, Indy kills the overseer, and escapes in a mine cart with Willie and Shorty.
Indy surrounded and prepared to cut the rope bridge.
After a mine cart chase, the trio emerge above ground and are again cornered by Mola Ram and his henchmen on a rope bridge high above a crocodile-infested river. Using a sword, Indy cuts the rope bridge in half, leaving everyone to hang on for their lives. Indy utters an incantation which causes the stones to glow red hot. Two of the stones fall into the river, while the last one falls into Mola Ram's hand, burning him. Indy catches the now-cool stone, while Mola Ram falls into the river below and gets devoured by the crocodiles. The Thuggees then attempt to shoot Indy with arrows, until a company of British Indian Army riflemen, summoned by the Maharajah, arrive and open fire on the Thuggee archers. Indy, Willie, and Shorty return to the village with the children and give the missing stone back to the villagers.
The Last Crusade
Elsa and Indy exploring the hidden catacombs beneath the Library.
In 1938, Indiana Jones was introduced to Walter Donovan, who informed him that his father, Henry Jones, Sir, was missing while searching for the Holy Grail, using an incomplete inscription as his guide. Earlier, Indy receives his father's Grail diary via mail from Venice, Italy. Realising he would not have sent him the diary unless he was in trouble, Indy and Marcus travel to Venice, where they meet Henry's Austrian colleague, Dr. Elsa Schneider. The three of them visit the library where Henry was last seen, and discover a hidden catacombs underneath. Indy and Elsa find the tomb of Sir Richard, which contains a complete version of the inscription, that reveals the location of the Grail. However, they are almost killed and chased by the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword, a secret society that protects the Grail from evildoers. After a boat chase through Venice, Indy and Elsa capture one of the Brotherhood, Kazim, and Indy tells him that his goal is only to find his father and has no interest in finding the Grail. Kazim tells him that Henry is being held in Castle Brunwald on the Austrian-German border. Marcus later reveals a map drawn by Henry of the route to the Grail, which begins in Alexandretta. Indy removes the pages containing the map from the diary, gives it to Marcus for safekeeping and sends him to İskenderun, the city built on the ruins of Alexandretta to rendezvous with their old friend Sallah, and he and Elsa head to Castle Brunwald in Austria.
Father and Son.
At Castle Brunwald, Indy finds his father locked in a room, and after telling him of what he discovered they attempt to escape. Indy learns that both Elsa and Donovan are, indeed, working for the Nazis, and have been using him to find the Grail for them. The Joneses are left tied up in a room, giving them the chance they need to escape. Indy advises his father to use his light to burn through the ropes, but he drops it and sets the room on fire. Indy and Henry shelter in the fireplace, and once free escape through a secret passage to a dock of boats. Indy sails out an unmanned boat as a decoy, and both the Jones ride off on a motorcycle. After a chase between four other motorcyclists, Henry tells Indy that they need to go to Berlin to retrieve his Diary. According to Henry, to reach the grail, one must face three booby traps and his diary contains the clues to guide them through the challenges safely. They recover the diary from Elsa at a book burning rally in Berlin, and later board a Zeppelin to leave Germany. However, the Nazis soon discover the Joneses are aboard and they escape in a parasite biplane after realising they were heading back to Germany.
After engaging two Luftwaffe fighters in a dogfight, the Jones meet up with Sallah in Hatay, where they learn that Marcus has been abducted. The Nazis are already moving toward the Grail's location, using the map possessed by Marcus, armed with a tank. Indy, Henry, and Sallah find the Nazi expedition, which is ambushed by the Brotherhood. During the battle, Henry is captured by SS Colonel Ernst Vogel while attempting to rescue Marcus from the tank; Kazim and his comrades are killed. Indy pursues the tank on horseback and, with the aid of Sallah, saves Henry and Marcus. He is then caught up in a fight with Vogel, and barely escapes before the tank goes over a cliff, crushing Vogel to death.
Indy about to drink from the Holy Grail.
Indy, Henry, Marcus, and Sallah catch up with the Surviving Nazis, led by Donovan and Elsa, who have found the temple where the Grail is kept but are unable to pass through the three protective booby traps. Donovan shoots Henry in order to force Indy to risk his life in the traps to find the Grail and use its healing power to save his father. Using the information in the diary, Indy safely overcomes the traps and reaches the Grail's chamber. He discovers a knight who has been kept alive for seven hundred years by the power of the Grail, which is hidden among dozens of false Grails. Indy, Donovan and Elsa must choose from any of the grails, but are warned to choose wisely as only the true Grail will retain life, while the false ones will claim it. Elsa purposefully selects the most princely grail, a golden chalice studded with emeralds, for Donovan. Unfortunately, the grail that Elsa chose was false, and Donovan rapidly ages into dust after drinking from it, as the knight remarks he has chosen poorly. Indy selects the true Grail, which is a simple wooden cup. He fills it with holy water and takes it to Henry, which heals him instantly. Even though they were warned by the Knight that the Grail cannot be taken beyond the temple's entrance, Elsa tries to leave with it. The temple begins to collapse and Elsa falls to her death trying to recover the Grail. Indy nearly suffers the same fate but Henry persuades him to let it go. The Joneses, Marcus, and Sallah escape the temple and ride off into the sunset.
The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
In 1957, Indiana Jones, now in his fifties, and his partner George "Mac" McHale are kidnapped in New Mexico by Soviet agents under Colonel Dr. Irina Spalko. The Soviets infiltrate a warehouse labelled "Warehouse 51" and force Indy to locate a mummified alien corpse, recovered ten years earlier. Upon its discovery, Mac reveals he is a double agent working for the Soviets. Indy escapes and unsuccessfully attempts to retrieve the body. After a fight with Spalko's henchman, Colonel Antonin Dovchenko, Jones escapes to a model town called Doomtown, which is minutes from being destroyed by an atomic bomb test. He survives the explosion by taking shelter in a lead-lined refrigerator. Indy is rescued, decontaminated, and then apprehended by FBI agents, who suspect him to be working for the Soviets. Although freed on the recommendation of General Ross, he is put on indefinite leave of absence from Marshall College.
Indy and Mutt find the Crystal Skull.
One day, Indy is approached by a greaser named Mutt Williams, who tells him that Harold Oxley had found a crystal skull in Peru, suffered a mental breakdown and was later kidnapped. Indy tells Mutt about the legend of crystal skulls found in Akator. Mutt gives Jones a letter from his mother, who is also held captive, containing a riddle written by Oxley in an ancient South American language. The two of them fly to Peru, and arrive at the local psychiatric hospital, where they discover walls and floor of Oxley's cell covered in scribbles that lead to the grave of Francisco de Orellana, a Conquistador who searched for Akator. They discover the skull at the grave, with Jones reasoning that Oxley had returned it there.
Jones and Mutt are captured by Mac and the Soviets and taken to their camp in the Amazon jungle. Upon arrival, they find Oxley and Mutt's mother, Marion Ravenwood, who reveals that Mutt is Indy's son, Henry Jones III. Spalko believes that the crystal skull belongs to an alien life form that holds great psychic power, and that finding more skulls in Akator will grant the Soviets the advantage of psychic warfare. Spalko uses the skull on Jones to enable him to understand Oxley and identify a route to Akator. Jones and his four allies escape with the skull, but Marion and Jones get caught into a dry sandpit, to be recaptured by the Soviets after Oxley accidentally got them caught. On their way to Akator, Mac tells Jones he is a CIA double-agent to regain Jones' trust, and Indy's team fights its way out of the Soviets' clutches. Indy and his allies survive three waterfalls in an amphibious vehicle and find their way to a head-like rock formation that leads them to Akator. Unaware to them, Mac is dropping transceivers to allow the surviving Soviets to track them, indicating that he lied about being a CIA agent.
Marion and Indy get married.
The adventurers escape the city's guardians, gain access to the temple, and find it filled with artefacts from many ancient civilisations, identifying the aliens as extra-dimensional "archaeologists" studying the different cultures of Earth. They enter a chamber containing the crystal skeletons of thirteen alien beings, one missing its skull. Spalko arrives and presents the skull to its skeleton, whereupon the aliens reanimate and telepathically offer a reward in ancient Mayan through Oxley. A portal to their dimension becomes activated, and Spalko demands knowledge equal to the aliens'. The thirteen beings fuse into one, and in the process of receiving the overwhelming knowledge, Spalko is disintegrated and sucked into the portal. Jones, Marion, Mutt, and Oxley, who has regained his sanity, escape, while the remaining Soviets are drawn into the portal. Mac is caught in the vortex while trying to scrounge some of the treasure, and even though Indy tries to save him, he willingly lets himself get sucked in. Indy and the others escape as the temple walls crumble, revealing a flying saucer rising from the debris and vanishing, while the hollow in the valley floor left by its departure is flooded by the waters of the Amazon. The following year, Indy is reinstated at Marshall College and marries Marion.
Indiana Jones 5
Indiana Jones is to reappear in a fifth film in 2021, with Harrison Ford reprising his role.
Spoof Cameos
Although Indiana Jones has never made actual appearances in Disney motion picture or television productions, he has been spoofed by several Disney characters, such as Genie in the Aladdin animated series, Mickey Mouse in the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episode "Quest for the Crystal Mickey!", and Phineas and Ferb in "Phineas and Ferb and the Temple of Juatchadoon". In DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp, a dog character dressed like Indiana appears during Scrooge McDuck's speech at the Archaeological Society Ball.
In the 1991 video game, QuackShot, Donald Duck is portrayed as a treasure hunter alongside his nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, and is dressed in a outfit similar to Indiana Jones'. The game itself was also heavily inspired by the Indiana Jones films.
Disney Parks
Indiana Jones as he appears at the Disney parks.
Prior to Lucasfilm's acquisition by The Walt Disney Company on October 30, 2012, he has been featured as a meetable character, and is in a number of different attractions at Disney theme parks in collaboration with George Lucas, including:
- Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular!, a stunt show that opened in 1989 at Disney's Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World, based on Raiders of the Lost Ark
- Indiana Jones et le Temple du Péril, a roller coaster that opened in 1993 at Disneyland Park in Disneyland Resort Paris
- Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye, an elaborate dark ride that opened in 1995 at Disneyland
- Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Crystal Skull, a dark ride nearly identical to the Disneyland version, which opened in 2001 at Tokyo DisneySea in the Tokyo Disney Resort and also both a Character Meet and Greet at Tokyo DisneySea and a Indiana Jones Promotion Event at Disneyland in 2008.
Additionally, an animatronic Indiana Jones appeared with Sallah in a recreation of a scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark that was featured in The Great Movie Ride.
Outside these attractions, Indiana Jones has played an indirect part in the backstories of non-Indy attractions, with the world of Indiana Jones being connected to the Society of Explorers and Adventurers through Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar, and references to Jones being found in versions of the Jungle Cruise and Shanghai Disneyland's Camp Discovery.
Trivia
- Indiana was the name of George Lucas's dog in the 1970s, and was the original source for the forename of Indiana Jones. Chewbacca from Star Wars also took inspiration from Indiana.
- Ironically, the origin of Indy's name was used in The Last Crusade, where the Jones family owned a dog named Indiana.
- Indiana Jones is played by Harrison Ford, who also played Han Solo in Star Wars.
- The scar on Harrison Ford's chin was from a car crash when he used to work at a department store near Laguna Beach, California. On the way to work one morning, he veered off the road and into a telephone pole while fumbling for his seat belt.
- Indiana's surname was originally going to be "Smith", but George Lucas changed it to "Jones" after Steven Spielberg made a negative comment about the character's name when he was shown the idea for Raiders of the Lost Ark. He liked the story, but not the hero's name.
- American academic, explorer and politician, Hiram Bingham III has been cited as one possible basis for Indiana Jones.
- Indiana's quote "Snakes, why did it have to be snakes?" was referenced but changed slightly in the Tangled episode "Plus Est En Vous by Eugene with the line, "Snow, why did it have to be snow?".
Gallery
Disney characters as Indy
External links
