The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles Indiana Jones feature films, the cast and crew frequently questioned creator George Lucas about the Indiana Jones character's life growing up. During the concept stages of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", Lucas and director Steven Spielberg decided to reveal some of this backstory in the film's opening scenes. For these scenes, Lucas chose River Phoenix to portray the character, as Harrison Ford believed that Phoenix most resembled Ford as a young man (Phoenix had appeared as Ford's son in "The Mosquito Coast"). This decision to reveal an adventure of a young Indiana led Lucas and crew to the idea
Indiana Jones films involving archaeologists, they were portrayed as victims who would need to be rescued by a more masculine or heroic figure. Following 1981, the stereotypical archaeologist is thought of as a male bullwhip-wielding adventurer and professor. The stereotypical image of an archaeologist is also portrayed as an individual usually out doing fieldwork, which is not always the case. Archeologist Anne Pyburn described the influence of Indiana Jones as elitist and sexist, and argued that the Indiana Jones films have caused new discoveries in the field of archaeology to become oversimplified and overhyped in an attempt to gain public interest, which