“Fortune and glory.” Those two driving forces inspired a hero in 1977, when George Lucas took the advice of fellow filmmaker Steven Spielberg and gave the world not Indiana Smith, but Indiana Jones. The fedora-hatted character, whom Harrison Ford played on the big screen (in addition to portraying another rascal with a winning smile in the early Star Wars films), straddled an epic divide only possible in Hollywood. In the classroom, Jones would elicit laughs as he fumbled over spelling and nervously side-stepped the lusty gazes of young female students. Placed outside the stuffy academic setting, he assumed a whole new persona: that of a charismatic ladies’ man and daring adventurer, fast on his feet in a crisis and brave despite his chronic fear of snakes.
Indiana Jones inspired both Lara Croft and Nathan Drake, and with the Tomb Raider reboot around the corner, these adventurers are here to stay.