Why Indiana Jones VI Will Be a Helena Shaw Prequel

With Phoebe Waller-Bridge (co-)writing the screenplay

Very dangerous. You go first, Helena. (Photo by Florian Hahn on Unsplash)

I finally managed to see Dial of Destiny the other day, after a few hectic weekends of cancellations and delays to our occasional family multiplex movie+fast food night. It’s already been reviewed to death both here on Medium and elsewhere by now, of course, so I simply offer a brief TL;DR take by way of introduction:

First half-hour overheavy (and underlit) on the chase sequences — poor horse! — layers of familial and character depth woven in later — overall, a fine addition to the odd-numbered sequence of palpable hits, at least for old-timers like me.

Obviously you don’t buy your ticket and popcorn for an Indy film expecting an indie film, big on dramatic depth and angst-ridden characterization. For which we need simply await next week’s Barbie. But there was a particular backstory blindspot that struck me, and which I feel is worth taking an analytical magnifying glass to.

I should also point out here that since I live in a small town in Spain, the only available option was to see the film dubbed into Spanish, so some subtleties of…