She Chose Poorly: Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade

I didn’t get around to starting to write my second book until Monday, but I already took a break last night after 5,000 words, a lot of it copy and paste. It was literally gut-wrenching and I was feeling physically sick, so I started watching Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade on Netflix. I haven’t seen it in a couple of decades and watching it on my 4k monitor was just as good as when I saw it in the theater in the summer of 1989.

The movie’s tone is more light-hearted than Raiders of the Lost Ark and there’s some genuinely funny moments. In fact, “He chose poorly” is the funniest one-liner I’ve ever seen in a movie. I remember laughing out loud in the theater. Sean Connery is brilliant as Indiana’s father as are Julian Glover and Alison Doody as the villains. It’s too bad I haven’t seen Doody in any other films I’ve watched.

It’s sad to see River Phoenix at the beginning as a young Indiana Jones because his career was obviously going to be brilliant, but got cut short by a drug overdose. I never realized Harrison Ford had a noticeable scar on his chin until after Phoenix, playing young Indiana Jones, accidentally whips himself on the chin trying to fend off a lion.

Anyway, the movie is as good as Raiders in its own right, although I like the tone of Raiders better. This movie and the four of them riding off into the sunset is the perfect ending to Indiana Jones and I’ll just forget about the fourth movie even though there were a couple of aspects I liked about it. I won’t even watch the upcoming fifth. I’ve also largely forgotten about Temple of Doom even though there were some aspects I liked about it too.

Grade A+

Speaking of Alison Doody, I found it interesting that her character’s name is Elsa in the movie and that after falling to her death trying to get the Holy Grail, Indiana Jones’ dad tells Indiana to “let it go.” He does let the Holy Grail go, saving his own life, and the implication is that Elsa should have let it go to save her own.

So I wonder if this character somehow served as an inspiration for the Elsa character in Frozen. I’m not the only one who wondered this and there’s a Reddit thread about it here as well as a funny video here. While the consensus is that it is likely just coincidence, I’m still not so sure. Doody’s as pretty as an archetypal princess and here’s a publicity shot from her at that time next to Elsa from Frozen.