Kunzig – Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade – Young Indy

    Revealing part of a character will always add some depth to his personality, makes him seem more human, more realistic, whether it's in a book or a movie. It allows the audience to feel like the character is less of a stranger, and more relatable. So to some extent these opening scenes automatically create some depth of character for Indiana, by showing us how he became what he is today.

    We learn that his passion for history and archeology dates back to a very young age when he sees the cross and knows immediately what it is, which is surprising for a young adolescent boy. When he arrives back at his father's house, we learn where his knowledge and interest came from – his father, who is copying in his journal an image of a christian stained glass, and makes 'Junior' count to 20 in greek, is obviously a bit of a history nut. We also catch a glimpse of the dog that we will later learn was called Indiana, and was the inspiration for Junior Jones to adopt that name.
    We also learn where his eternal fedora came from – it belonged to the tomb raider Indy tried to take the cross from. When the sheriff gives the cross back to the raiders, their leader puts his hat on Indy's head, and says "You lost today, kid. But that doesn't mean you have to like it." This scene establishes not only the meaning of the fedora, but also Indy's reason for distrusting authority, and even his persistent, fighting nature. Indy lost that day – he lost the battle but not the war. He eventually retrieves the cross.
    The scene in the lion's wagon on the train tells us what gave Indiana the idea that a whip would be a useful thing to carry around (because it is pretty weird). It is what saved his life in that moment.
And finally, it supposedly shows us where is snake phobia came from: he fell in a tub of snakes. But it is highly unlikely that someone would develop a phobia after an experience that caused them no harm, nor to anyone else, especially if this person had said ten minutes earlier "it's just a snake," and obviously felt no discomfort around it. If anything, he learned that he could fall in a tub of snakes and have two snakes stay in his clothes and nothing bad would happen.
    So while this history at the beginning of the movie does help create a fuller character for Indiana Jones, it also feels like a bit much. Every main aspect of his character has been stuffed into one short experience during his childhood. It also creates a contradiction: the two previous movies show us Indiana evolving from a mercenary, interested only in personal gain and selling important historical artifacts rather than giving them to a museum, into an archeologist who can accept a higher authority, values history and believes the ark should be studied and in a museum. But then this one shows that when he was young, he already valued history and believed the cross should be in a museum. So why would he go from that to what he was in Temple of Doom? If for instance, a relationship between the cross raider and young Indy was developed (the smiling and giving of the fedora really seemed like it should lead somewhere), it would make more sense.

    In summary, I think the opening scenes did add some depth to the character, but it should have either been further developed or not done at all.