Fanboys Anonymous

One of the rumors going around right now is that not only is a reboot of the Indiana Jones series coming, but it may also be starring Robert Pattinson as Dr. Jones himself—and this has gotten Fanboys everywhere in a big fuss. As expected, people are complaining that he isn't right for the role due to primarily one aspect: "that guy was in Twilight!"

As a fellow Fanboy who gets into these types of discussions 24/7, I know the mentality, and I see your frustration. However, I stand in a weird position on this issue. I have never seen any of the Twilight films, I have only seen one film that Pattinson was in (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), and I'm one of the few members here (and in our culture) who thinks the Indiana Jones series is massively overrated. It's an unpopular opinion, I know. I can see the appeal, and I find them entertaining, but I think that they are fawned over far too much and are not strong in terms of structure.

So, with that preface in mind, I have something to ask those who are speaking out so vehemently against this. Just why exactly can't Robert Pattinson play Indiana Jones? He's not a weird looking guy with a deformity that you can't market on a poster. He's been in action sequences. He's worked in a series before, so he knows what it is to be committed to more than one picture at a time. He's been a big star to market and could draw money. If the sole reasoning is that he was involved in the Twilight series, then that is just ridiculous. It isn't as though his involvement would mean that the next film would have to be entitled "Indiana Jones and the Sparkling Vampires" or something. It's hypocritical to judge an actor on one role in a supposedly bad set of films and then ignore the same concept when it comes to others.

Even if we keep this at Twilight actors themselves, there are people that speak against this kind of thinking. Did anyone lash out when Anna Kendrick was cast in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World? There seems to be a positive reaction to her whenever her name is brought up as a potential casting decision for a comic book film. Many fan casts have thrown the name Kellan Lutz and Cam Gigandet all over the place, but they were in Twilight. Billy Burke's Revolution didn't have a stain on it because he was in that series. For everyone who complained by Shailene Woodley's casting as Mary Jane Watson in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 because she was "too ugly" for the part, if Ashley Greene had been cast, there probably would have been no uprising whatsoever.

Then again, maybe it isn't that Pattinson was in Twilight that has people upset, and that's just a scapegoat response. Maybe the truth of the matter is that these fans are just mad that a franchise they love is being rebooted in general. For those people, I can sympathize. Terminator 2: Judgment Day is my favorite movie of all time, and as much as I hated Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and thought that Terminator Salvation was problematic, I was at least happy that they kept some of the continuity. Granted, The Sarah Connor Chronicles was significantly better than both of those installments, but that's beside the point. When Terminator: Genesis was announced as a reboot, it annoyed me. I don't like the idea that they are going back and messing with two films that I love. I also don't like some of the casting decisions, as I can't imagine Jason Clarke fitting the role of John Connor particularly well.

But—and here's a huge "but"—that isn't from a disliking of Jason Clarke. I wouldn't lambast the guy's acting chops, as I think he's a fine actor. My problems spawn from thinking that the reboot concept is ridiculous and unnecessary when there's still a potential future (in my mind, at least) of showing the war with Skynet and getting a few more movies out of the time period before Kyle Reese is sent back through time. My problem with Jason Clarke is that I just think that he's much better suited to play a villain rather than a hero, from my experiences watching him in films. Still, he'll probably do a better job than Nick Stahl.

I don't know Emilia Clarke, as I don't follow Game of Thrones (but if you do, you'd love the Sand & Snow podcast) and I think that Jai Courtney is alright, so I have to trust that the filmmakers know what they're doing. The same should apply to Indiana Jones. If the same people involved in making the movies that you loved so much are telling you that they think this is the direction that the series should go in, then you should have a little bit of faith. They know more about this stuff than you do, even though you're a hardcore fan. Devotion to a series doesn't equal talent in performing the jobs that bring that series to life. I love the characters of John Connor, Sarah Connor, and Kyle Reese, but I'm not a good enough actor or the right choice to pull off any of them (especially Sarah).

It's a simple fact that Harrison Ford cannot play Indiana Jones forever. That means there are only three directions that the franchise can take:

1) Continue the continuity and recast the role
2) Reboot the continuity and recast the role
3) Let it go and never see anything Indiana Jones related again

As fans of the series, option #3 is terrible if there is a chance that it can continue to be good as opposed to a guaranteed failure. Letting something go can sometimes be the best course of action, as there's always the risk that things will get worse, but that isn't something that will definitely happen. If X-Men fans kept this mentality after the abortions of X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, then we wouldn't have gotten X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past, which are arguably two of the best in the series. Maybe a rebooted Indiana Jones story can end up being just as entertaining, if not better, than what has come before it. Remain optimistic until given a reason to believe otherwise. It worked for Star Trek, it worked for Planet of the Apes, and it might work for Terminator and Indiana Jones as well.

At the very least, try to give actors credit that they are not responsible for the script material of the movies in which they appear. A bad actor can ruin a good film, but a good actor cannot save a fundamentally flawed movie no matter how hard they try. When they apologize and agree with the fans that they think those movies kind of suck, then cut them some slack and don't hold them to it as though that means they can't ever act in anything else ever again. Would I necessarily cast Robert Pattinson in the role? Probably not. But I've been wrong before with Heath Ledger's Joker and Chris Evans as Captain America, so I should keep my mind open, as should you.

How To Be

From Jennifer Gilbreath, an editor here at Fanboys and a Robert Pattinson fan: Here's my $0.02 worth on this rumor. First of all, the rumor comes from a UK gossip rag from what I hear, which is bound to want to spread a rumor that puts a popular British actor at the top of a major franchise and inspires fan worship, non-fan horror, and sales. So I take the whole thing with a whopping grain of salt.

That said, however, I really dislike the idea that Robert Pattinson is "pigeon-holed for life" for having been in Twilight. He's an understated actor, and for the most part he has taken understated roles, but he has done a lot more than Twilight, a fact of which many are unaware. Yes, there was his minor role in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but in the years since Twilight (and the substantial sums of money he was paid for that series) he has taken a more post-Titanic Leonardo DiCaprio approach to movies, and I respect him for that.

Let me backtrack a little. Titanic made $6 billion worldwide. It was a phenomenon, and it came with a lot of backlash. It also made Leo a "star" and a "heartthrob" and all the things that actors worth their salt want to avoid. However, he also made a tidy sum of money from that movie, and after a short bit of playboy living he retreated into making more serious, grown-up films with exceptional directors and good writing and established himself not as a "star" but as an actor. He could afford to do that, because he didn't have to jump onto every role that was tossed his way.

Bel Ami

Rob has made similar decisions. Before Twilight he was in a British film called How to Be, in which he played an entirely unattractive social misfit with some serious emotional issues. Since the start of the Twilight series he has had lead roles in Remember Me (a 9/11 drama), Bel Ami (a period piece from the novel by Guy de Maupassant in which he romanced Christina Ricci, Uma Thurman, and Kristen Scott Thomas), Water for Elephants (another film based on a novel where he had to do some action as well as romance Reese Witherspoon), Cosmopolis (in which he plays an executive trapped in his limousine as the world around him lapses into anarchy), and is in the upcoming film The Rover with Guy Pearce (described as a "dystopian crime drama" by Wikipedia). Did any of his released films make tons of money? No. However, they have deepened Hollywood's respect for Rob as an actor while at the same time exposing him to different genres, a variety of directors, and excellent costars. That's how you learn and develop your craft and ultimately overcome people's single-minded view of you.

Cosmopolis

So is Rob likely to take on Indiana Jones? I don't know, but having read many interviews with him and seen his personality in more casual settings, I'd say it's unlikely. He's certainly intelligent enough to pull off the professor of archeology bit, but the action…it's not something he's done much of, so I'd have to see it to believe it. However, I don't think any of us should count him out as a candidate. He's willing to learn and develop and study and take risks as an actor, so he may just surprise us.