Look, I fell in love with Harrison Ford when I was 11 years old and I watched him tell Princess Leia that he figured she liked him because he was a scoundrel, and even the innocent pubescent I was understood in a deep-down way the scary truth of that. He ruined me for nice men forever, and that's not something a gal gets over easily ... or even wants to get over. It has pained me deeply, then, these last few years, to see Ford gallumping around like an old man in movies like Firewall and -- dear god -- Hollywood Homicide [my heartbroken review]. I take no pleasure at all in seeing my first great cinematic romance falling in old-coot decrepitude.

So you must understand when I say this how much I wish I didn't have to: Harry, it's time to give up on Indy.

Ford, alas, disagrees:

Harrison Ford says he feels "fit to continue" to play Indiana Jones despite growing older.

Ford, 64, said at the inaugural Rome Film Festival on Friday that he was delighted to team up again with directors Steven Spielberg and George Lucas for the film. Lucas co-wrote and executive produced the earlier films, which Spielberg directed.

"We did three films that stay within the same block of time. We need to move on for artistic reasons and obvious physical reasons," Ford said at a news conference. "I feel fit to continue and bring the same physical action."

I couldn't bear to see Indy shuffling around with his pants hiked up to his armpits in Indiana Jones IV: The Quest for a Table at the 4pm Dinner Seating at IHoP. Please don't make us endure that.

I'm not saying put Indy away -- I'm saying it's time for Ford to step aside, one way or another. I've got a brilliant idea for an Indy story in which his less-than-action-oriented son (to be played, naturally, by David Duchovny) reluctantly gets involved in an adventure in, ahem, someplace that I won't reveal since I may still write the script, in the 1950s. Ford could make an appearance as Indy ... a relaxing, unstressful appearance, perhaps in a rocking chair, with a nice cup of tea nearby.

But my it'll-never-happen-impossible dream Indy story? Indy's struggling to save some priceless archeological site in the midst of the Spanish civil war, when he runs into gun-runner Rick Blaine -- you know, the guy who will later, during WWII, be running Rick's Cafe Americain in Casablanca -- and they butt heads and blow stuff up and have a grand old time. Indy will be played by Aaron Eckhart, Rick by Daniel Craig, and the girl, of course, will be Scarlett Johansson.

Lucas, Spielberg: You guys listening? Let's talk options. ...

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
MaryAnn Johanson
author of The Totally Geeky Guide to The Princess Bride
minder of FlickFilosopher.com

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