Sanderson - The Last Crusade

           

           The Last Crusade finally gives the audience a little background of how Indiana Jones became the man we came to know so well. The last movie in the trilogy shows us that even as a teenager Indy had a knack for adventure and bravery. The Young Indy is extremely impressive as he tries his best to save an artifact from falling into the wrong hands. He is insistent upon the fact that this golden cross belongs in a museum and not with a bunch of crooks. We get to see where the hero started.

            There are a couple things that are iconic symbols of Indiana Jones: Fedora hat and his whip. The beginning of The Last Crusade shows us exactly how he comes to use these two pieces, though I don’t think it was a strong as it could have been.

            While Indy is running from the gang of crooks he jumps onto a traveling circus train and falls into the lions cage. The only thing that was there for Indy to protect himself was a whip that was hanging on the wall. Indy grab the whip and at first hit himself in the chin with it. Indiana dons this scar from there on out but he also learns to use that whip to chase of the lion. This whip essentially saves Indiana’s life and it was the movies was of showing that from there on out Indiana always had it with him just in case.

            The Fedora hat was done much better in my opinion. The man that young Indy was running from was wearing a fedora hat. Pfeiffer says Indy is, “a daring adventurer traveling the globe in search of elusive treasures and artifacts” (114). The fedora man could also be described in this manner.  It was obvious that this man respected Indy even though he was young and stealing from him.  Indy’s bravery earned this man’s respect and after he eventually takes the golden cross back from Indy he still gives him encouraging words, “You lost today, kid. But it doesn’t mean you have to like it”. I think Indy started to look up to him at that point. I think he took a liking to his life style seeing as the sheriff handed over the cross even to them even though it wasn’t the right thing to do. Indy at that point realized that trying to give it to “superiors” wasn’t the best thing to do.

            I’m not exactly sure how the whip could have been introduced in a better way but I just found it to be kind of weak the way that they did it. Obviously, they didn’t have enough time to just focus on the whip so it gets a pass. The introduction to the fedora and the mercenary life style was done well. We can see the admiration that the fedora man has for young Indy as he watches him run from the train and Indy obviously has the same respect since he is heavily influenced by him throughout his life.