Raider with roots

Everyone’s favorite whip-cracking archaeologist becomes a family man | Megan Basham

It's been 19 years since Indiana Jones last donned his weather-beaten fedora. That's quite a long time for a character to lie dormant, and the worst thing Steven Spielberg and George Lucas could have done was pick up the dashing archaeologist right where they left him, giving him yet another girl to seduce and the same life to live.

Thankfully, they do the opposite in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Rather than ask 60-something Harrison Ford to continue playing Indy as the dusty playboy he always was, they use the actor's aging visage to their advantage. By the time we catch up with him in 1957, Indy has grown more contemplative and become less of a committed bachelor.

So while he's dodging the KGB and chasing the mysterious Crystal Skull, Spielberg and Lucas also provide him a chance to find a solution for his solitary, lonely life with the return of Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood