Maybe with the Uncharted games (well, two of them) releasing on GOG, this is as good a time as any for this topic.

Say what you will about Dial of Destiny (I thought it was ok), but it's been months and I'm still in the Indiana Jones-ish mood it put me into. I just love those kind of pulp-y adventure movies, but unfortunately there's not really that much in the genre that's really good. Even the worst/least good of the Indiana Jones films (except for the Young Indy Chronicles, which are sadly crap) leave vast majority of the competition in the dust. I mean, depending on how narrow we make our definition of an Indiana-like movie, MacGyver and the Lost Treasure of Atlantis may be in serious danger of making it into top 5. Which is why I'm still hoping against hope for another Indy movie that would shift the series from Indy to grown up Short Round, giving it a second life sort of like with Rocky and Creed. I know it's 99,999% not happening, but I still wish.

In games things are really not much better. Other than the Uncharted series (which I like a lot) and Tomb Raider (which I never could get into any incarnation of) and a few actual Indiana Jones games, the pulpy treasure hunt adventure seems to be none too popular. Lost Horizon was very good. Broken Sword didn't impress me too much, too many puzzles felt nonsensical or super obsucre and forced me too look for hints online. The Saboteur is quite fun, but already it feels like a bit of a stretch to include it. Flight of the Amazon Queen is great, but it's more of a completely clownshoes parody (though one of the best classic point & clicks not made by LucasArts).

So, do you think there's any life left in the Indy franchise? If not as a movie then maybe an animated series? Or another game (I think one is in production, thought it's been silent for a long while)? What else would you recommend (games, movies, tv shows etc.) that could fit my pulp adventure mood?

EDIT: By the way, I wanted to share these two very nice Indiana Jones/Uncharted/Tomb Raider crossover fan films. There aren't many fan films I think of very highly, but this is really some high quality work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icgSr-RDuPs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPAeCr7saDs

I think we should go for an animated series, preferably anime (as I have zero faith in western animation these days). I'd also be okay with further films in the franchise if they aren't specifically called "Indiana Jones". Maybe create a larger franchise to encapsulate the Indy stuff and maybe some stories outside of it. I'd be fine with deep fakes if it takes place during Indy's younger years.

However, I really do think the future should be in books, animation and gaming. Harrison loves the role but Dial of Destiny (which I thoroughly enjoyed) should be the final story in the timeline for the character.

As for recommendations, I can't really give any for that unfortunately. There are some Indy-like episodes in recent Star Wars shows (an episode in Resistance, a few in Ahsoka, one in Mandalorian season 3) but yeah, other than that, I can't really think of much.

Oh no, anything but that. I'd rather the franchise die than go anime. I hate more than turning franchises into anime. Indiana would work perfect in western animation. Just look at this. I think there's one more possible story that could work. I think I decscribed already in some other thread: Indy's son wasn't killed in Vietnam but taken prisoner, and now communists are using him to blackmail Indy into finding some artefact (there's a vietnamese legend of a crossbow that could kill hundreds with a single shot, could work as the mcguffin) , but being way too old for such escapades Indy enlists the help of Short Round, who has since followed in his footsteps and is an adventurer-archeologist in his own right. They find the thing, rescue Mutt, and after that Ke Huy Quan could continue as the solo protagonist of future films (the movie titles could shift back to "Raiders of..." format).

Given the involved parties' (Machine Games & Todd "Because everything I say is everything you've ever wanted to hear" Howard) recent efforts they might want to cancel this thing - if they haven't already - to save them the embarassment.

In regards to the franchise - as long as it's in Disney's custody I don't see anything even half-decent made in it, bar very few moments of something resembling classic "Indiana Jones" TDoD definitely ranks behind KotCS, as far as I'm concerned.
It also might just be too intrinsically linked with Ford and Lucas/Spielberg that it's quasi impossible to just pass the Fedora to Short Round or Chris Pratt and let ANY other director take the reigns and try make both the modern as well as the audience that grew up on the classic trilogy care for any further attempt at something "Indiana Jones".

Guess you're familiar with the decent 80s clones (the two Quartermains, Romancing the Stone) as well as the first two Mummy's and National Treasure and National Treasure: Book of Secrets?

Have you checked out Secret Files: Tunguska and the sequel? I don't remember much from the first game, but the sequel (which I liked more) has an Indy feel.

Maybe So Blonde, though I don't remember liking that one much.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_Blonde

I only saw the first of the 80s Quatermain movies and the first of the Mummy films. Frankly, I didn't find them decent. Both were way, waaay too cartoonish and goofy for me. Same, only eve worse, with the Librarian film. National Treasure is great, probably the best non-Indiana historic treasure hunt movie (the sequel is just ok).

As for some other stuff, I really liked Sahara with Matthew Mcconaughey, and the short lived tv series Tales of the Gold Monkey is fantasticm probably the best Indiana-like thing in a similar pulp-y style. I also really like the Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow film. Not really much like Indy in plot, but it's a fantastic pulp adventure, so it scratches a similar itch for me, so to speak.

There are also of course some older movies that Indiana was actually based on. Secret of the Incas is very good, and really it could be included in box-sets of Indy films, it feels so close to it. Never played it, but I think I actually have Tunguska on some old DVD that came with a gaming magazine. It belongs in a museum! Guess I should dig it up. I remember trying that once twice (also had it on a DVD from some magazine), but I just couldn't get into it. Don't remember why, I think it was just boring.

You aren't quite getting the 2+2=4 thing here.

I usually don't.

Yeah... So Blonde wasn't very good.

Also, here are some movies that you might find interesting:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047464/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042646/
(both of these, among a few others, are some of the films that inspired Spielberg and Lucas for Indy)

I'm assuming you've seen most of the '80s trash-clone movies? I think the only watchable ones, albeit still bad, were the Michael Douglas movies, Romancing the Stone/The Jewel of the Nile.

I'm pretty sure there are more games, but I looked through my library and my big box games, and the images I have in mind don't connect to any of those. It'll come to me at some point.

Oh, there's also this:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22059768/

Edit #3: and yeah, as Sachys suggested, pulp fiction is usually trash by definition. You'd be hard pressed to find anything that good except from the "anomalies".

Secret of the Incas is the one I meant before. For whatever reason I thought it was called Treasure of the Incas instead. My bad. Haven't had a chance to see that version of King Solomon's Mines. It does at least look better than the 80s one. There's still a few I haven't been able to see, like Firewalker or Jane and the Lost City. Which reminds me, I haven't seen the new Lost City film with Sandra Bullock either (man, there are a lot of Lost Cities). But that looked more like a rip-off of Romancing the Stone, and I already thought that was overrated). I don't know, Hammett was a pulp writer, wasn't he? And he is rightly considered master of crime fiction. Howard, Burroughs, Haggard - a lot of what is now influential classics was pulp fiction.

Besides, when I say "good" I don't neccesarily mean some masterpiece. Something can be trashy but still very entertaining and fun. Or it can be just sort of boring nothing.

While they are influential classics now, back then they were made as cheap fiction for either young adults/teens or bored housewives. Same with most sci-fi books. Pulp magazines were used by a lot of well known/now-respected writers as a means for income, which is why we get a few gems/sparks of genius here and there.

I am gonna nitpick about Howard, however. His writing is cheap/pulp through-and-through, no matter how much I like Conan and some of the stories.

I view the series, like Trek, Wars, and...most continuous film properties that tried to imitate comic books in spite of those having some of the worst writing committed to paper as perhaps a bit old and tired. Now Marvel at the lengths you have to go to in order to be a Comics Detective within a debauchery of overwrought movies. The only reason it worked for comic books is because comic book fans were obsessive collectors!

But sure, let's glorify Frank Miller's baffling idea to have Batman & Superman fight for those who are so incurious that such a question would cross their minds; even though both are fighting for justice and the only quarrel they would have is over semantics such as their ideals of redemption and justified force. Let's make it so that a casual viewer has to watch six disparate movies of wildly varying quality just to watch the 7th in a 12 movie series!

I look forward to the movie adaptation of the baffling Grant Morrison comic where Wonder Woman takes over the world; because I know there's some tone deaf Hollywood exec desperate to make even more baffling decisions.

As for there being any life left in the Indiana Jones series? Nah, that was wrung dry in the (very good, I add) adventure games by LucasFilms & Young Indiana Jones, which happened when I was but a wee sprig.

And that's my point. The machine of pigs has been milking these franchises, actors, and premises dry since over 30 years ago, maybe let them have a rest.

Basically, fuck Hollywood and everything it stands for, and may it fall into a seismic fault in a freak earthquake.

Personally, I don't want to see any more Indiana Jones movies, and I say this as a kid who was so blown away by the series that it (and to a lesser extent Star Wars) determined my initial career path. To me, Indiana Jones is Harrison Ford... and a timeless, ageless 40-something Harrison Ford who rode off into the sunset with his father for more adventures we can only imagine. IMO that's how Indiana Jones best lives... in our cinematic imagination. We want more (as fans), but that "more" just degrades the beauty of legend.

With that said, there is plenty that could be done (and some that has been done) in games, books, and comics. I'd love to see more! And I do think there's room for Indy in animated form. I'd love to see an animated film... maybe aimed at a late teen - adult audience?

animated Indiana Jones short by Patrick Shoenmaker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE8v5WDbbC4

Indiana Jones... I'd have liked to see them make something good; Though the audience spoke loudly enough with the Crystal Skull, that bringing it back wasn't going to work. Dial of Destiny... Well....

Doomcock (Overlord DVD) and them had spoilers for over a year before it came out how they intended to kill off indy and replace it with a younger woman. Naturally that didn't go over well, causing so many reshoots...

I'd also watched a video on the history of the franchise, how they had a TV series as well, not including the video games, and... hmmm... i'm not sure. Seems a certain type of niche audiance, kinda mix adventure, noir/mystery, comedy, and supernatural/mysticism while not being outside the realm of possibility. Finally add a charismatic archeologist with a whip and an iconic look/hat, and you get Indiana Jones.

But with current hollywood, current directors, writers, and the push for DEI/wokeness (which is failing hilariously and miserably), i'd say let it die and leave it alone. Harrison Ford will always be Indiana Jones, and he's too old. If they bring it back, wait another 10-20 years.

If they wanted to do something, have a followup series (and not CGI Harrison ford in); Use a grandson who finds an old journal of some unexplored ruin, and call it 'Following the footsteps of Indiana' or something. But a big feel for the movies/series, is that it's set in the 1930's to 1960's, before computers and technology really took off, when you had no real surveillance and spying, when there were mysteries still abound and rumors and legends spanning hundreds or thousands of years. Sorry, but i have to say, i HATED the uncharted series. Tried playing it, and i wasn't impressed at all. I mean it has a similar premise, and it's better than the last two movies, but the main character is an asshole and the whole plot is so railroaded and having to go up and out of the way in order to do the simplest tasks as busywork i lost interest. If you dropped all the busy-work and made it as 'the movie' as they do on youtube where they take all the cutscenes and some gameplay mixed in, it might be enjoyable. But i didn't like it.

People liking Dial of Doody. Now I've truly seen everything...

Just replay Infernal Machine. Best non-movie Jones we ever got. They won't defile the franchise for a long time now with how their latest attempt failed hard.