Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: John Williams’ “Helena’s Theme” Video Released

The first four Indiana Jones films all starred Harrison Ford, all were directed by Steven Spielberg, and all featured music by composer John Williams, and even though Spielberg has departed the franchise for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Ford and Williams remain staples of the franchise. As iconic as Ford himself or any other components of the title character’s outfits or personality traits is his theme song, and with the new film seeing the addition of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Helena Shaw comes the all-new “Helena’s Theme.” In honor of the film landing in theaters Friday, “Helena’s Theme” has been released on YouTube for fans to listen to. You can listen to “Helena’s Theme” below before Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny hits theaters on June 30th.

Much like how Ford pushed himself to new heights for the upcoming sequel, Williams similarly ventured into new territory, recording a reported 90 minutes of new music instead of merely resting on his laurels and recreating previously recorded cues.

“It’s certainly got to be an hour and a half of music, maybe more,” Williams detailed to Variety earlier this year. “But I’m quite happy with it. There’s a lot of new material. The old material works very well as a touchstone of memory, but I had great fun, and I have a theme that I’ve written for Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the wonderful actress.”  

Williams pointed out that the scores for each film “are unified by Indy’s theme, and the general style of the film, which is in my mind a kind of action-comedy, because you never take the action seriously. It’s certainly a swashbuckling affair from beginning to end, fashioned more like movies of the ’30s and ’40s where the orchestra is racing along with the action, which you wouldn’t do in contemporary films very much.”  

Not only did the new film allow Williams the opportunity to craft music in the spirit of Helena, but Williams expressed that his favorite moments of the film connect to the all-new explorer.

“Harrison is wonderful in it. He looks great, he moves beautifully,” the composer detailed. “The best part of it for me is the writing and the interplay of dialogue between Harrison and Phoebe, like the old-style Hepburn-and-Tracy kind of bickering. It’s witty and bright and snappy, like a duet that goes on for two hours.”    

The iconic Harrison Ford returns for one last adventure when Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny premieres in theaters on June 30th. Lucasfilm’s latest film in the long-running franchise sees Dr. Jones team up with his goddaughter Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) in a race against nefarious forces to secure a powerful artifact. The duo will go up against the mysterious former Nazi-turned-NASA scientist Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen), and the film also features stars Boyd Holbrook, Antonio Banderas, Toby Jones, and John Rhys Davies. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is directed by James Mangold and is set to be Ford’s final appearance as the iconic archeologist.

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