Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny ending explained

Like every Indiana Jones film after 1984 Temple of Doom, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is here to remind you Hunter of the lost treasure. It has all the hits: World-travelling archaeologist Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) reluctantly faces the snakes and dutifully the Nazis. Plus: John Rhys-Davies plays an Egyptian! The film is so fixated on nostalgic thrills that it’s easy to forget that director James Mangold, along with writers David Koepp and Jez and John-Henry Butterworth, are very deliberately telling a story about a late-career Indiana Jones who have a genuine interest in it to take him to a new place what is meant to be his last bow.

That means Fate dialThe film’s final act could come as a complete surprise to viewers, although the film alludes to this as a possibility throughout. It’s perhaps the most harrowing Indiana Jones moment since – well, the end of the previous Indiana Jones film. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Last but not least, it continues a rich tradition of memorable endings to Indy’s adventures. It also feels like it’s at odds with the spirit of all previous Indiana Jones films. Let us talk about it.

[Ed. note: Spoilers for the entirety of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny follow.]

How does Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny end?

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

follows Indy and many other less palatable folks on their quest for that Antikythera, the Greek name for the film’s Dial of Destiny of the same name. Also known as the Archimedes dial, named after its inventor, the Greek mathematician Archimedes, the dial is said to be a kind of compass that indicates anomalies in space and time.

The film’s villain, Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen), is a former Nazi scientist who came into favor with the US government by helping to land the moon and pretending to have been reformed. He is secretly after the dial, hoping to use it to travel back in time to WWII and lead the Nazis to victory. What actually happens is even stranger.

The dial works as advertised, leading Voller to a time rift in the middle of a storm. But Voller’s calculations are wrong – the portal does not take his plane full of secret Nazis back to the war, but to the Sicilian city of Syracuse around 212 BC. BC when the city was besieged by the Romans. It is the battle in which Archimedes dies.

The last fight in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Indy and his goddaughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) defeat the Nazis while avoiding the Romans. In the end, the heroes succeed, but Indy suffers a serious injury. Helena wants to save him and bring him back to the present, but Indy is moved by the living history around him and, after meeting Archimedes himself, says he wants to die there in the past.

Helena skillfully knocks out Indy, bringing him back to the 1969 present where he can be hospitalized and rescued.

The reason for the end of Dial of Destiny

In an interview with Uproxx

Director James Mangold states that the artifact in an Indiana Jones film is like Chekhov’s weapon – the ancient object discussed in the first act must go off and show its power in the third. Also, he argues, it must be related to Indy’s personal journey and help him resolve whatever he is struggling with.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny takes place at a point in Indy’s life where he feels he doesn’t belong anymore. Mankind made it to the moon, his son Mutt (Shia LaBeouf in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) died off-screen in Vietnam, his marriage to Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) is over and he is about to retire from his long career as a professor. The idea that Indiana Jones longs to hide in the past and stay there has a strong thematic resonance as he miraculously lands in a period he has devoted his life to studying.

The problem is that it doesn’t fit the Indiana Jones movies before it.

The fall towards the end of Dial of Destiny

While the same two people – Steven Spielberg and George Lucas – directed every previous Indiana Jones film, each film is a very different kind of pulp throwback. One thing is consistent, however: the artifact at the center of each story blurs the line between fact and fiction and sits on the cusp of history and myth.

“Archaeology is the search for facts, isn’t it Truth‘ Indy tells his classroom at the beginning Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

. It’s a clever phrase that sums up both Indy’s greatest drive and his biggest blind spot: he firmly believes that history is findable and explainable, even as he constantly encounters things that defy explanation, and through it grows as a human.

In Fate dialIndy is skeptical of the Dial’s abilities, but that doesn’t ultimately force him to face something he doesn’t understand. In fact, it lures him into a version of the world he already knows.

While it’s upsetting and a bit silly to see Indiana Jones talk to Archimedes, Fate dialThe film’s script themes the moment, and within the logic of the film a solid argument could be made for it. However, if you take a step back, the ending becomes a metaphor for how a franchise is being hollowed out as one sequel after the other piles up and the story drifts further and further from its core.

The Indiana Jones films have always been a throwback to pulp adventure series. They were in 1981 when Hunter of the lost treasure premiered and they starred in 2008 Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – a film that, although mocked, was designed to be reminiscent of 1950s sci-fi in the same way that the previous films in the series were reminiscent of films like The 1939 Adventure Rock yours. While Fate dial is all about a compass that only leads the viewer to other Indiana Jones films. It turns the franchise into a navel-staring ouroboros. On the surface, as Mangold puts it, it’s a story about moving on. But that’s not the case – it’s a regressive story about Indy choosing a world he knows and a story he knows. And it’s about the franchise itself falling into self-parody. Much like Indiana itself, this final installation in the series is stuck in the past — and shows no indication of what a problematic message that is.