MachineGames showed the trailer for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle at yesterday’s Xbox Direct. The Wolfenstein studio’s take on the film series seems like fun, but I am haunted by one question: whose mouth is on the game’s version of Jones actor Harrison Ford?
The voice coming out of Jones is gaming’s everyman Troy Baker. Entertainment Weekly writes that “Baker flew out to MachineGames' home base in Sweden early in the process to work out blocking for the motion-capture performance” but that “the character's animation maintains the likeness of Harrison Ford’s performance” from the films. Something that struck me about the trailer was how much video game Indiana Jones looks like Harrison Ford, especially Ford’s notable mouth.
If you, like my Aftermath colleagues, are now going “His mouth?”, let me explain: I can’t really explain it! I have strong childhood memories of Harrison Ford’s mouth– not from Star Wars, like every normal person, but from his role in 1991’s Regarding Henry, a middling movie about a lawyer who gets amnesia after a shooting. I remember watching this movie a million times for reasons that alluded me then but which, like most of my childhood media obsessions, probably had to do with being a trans guy before I knew trans guys existed. The point is: I think Harrison Ford has a pretty distinctive mouth.
Here it is in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark:
Here it is in Regarding Henry:
Here it is in Star Wars:
Jones’ mouth in The Great Circle really captures what stands out to me about Ford’s: always a little bit open, the heavy bottom lip, the sharp corners turning up in a smile or a smirk. It really looks like Harrison Ford’s mouth! The fidelity of the rest of his face kind of comes and goes, but the mouth.
My first thought was that they mo-capped Ford’s face, but then where does Troy Baker play in? I think Baker also has a pretty notable mouth, because he has one of those upsettingly good-looking actor faces that I envy for gender reasons I tell myself I’m over this far into my transition but clearly am not. Like Ford, Baker has a very distinctive smile, and he also has a uniquely Troy Baker mouth, with a distinctive thin upper lip. Here he is at a Comic-Con way back in 2013:
Here he is on a Stoicism YouTube show (??) last year:
Here he is talking on his Instagram:
So let’s go back to Great Circle Jones. In the image atop this post, the mouth really looks like Ford to me. Similarly, it feels Ford-ish in the image below.
But when it moves a bit in this same scene, the effect changes, and it feels more Baker-ish in the upper lip and the way the corners turn up.
Here, later in the trailer, it feels like a combination of Baker, Ford, and the general weirdness of computer-animated faces, though it’s got the heaviness and tilt of Ford’s mouth.
We’re already in uncanny valley territory with video game Ford-as-Jones but with Baker-as-Ford-as-Jones’ voice coming out, but the mouth is tripping me the hell out. I keep rewatching the trailer, staring at it, slipping into different memories of myself staring at the mouths of men throughout my life. There’s a lot happening for me here!
The most logical answer is that this is just video game magic, because MachineGames probably didn’t fly Harrison Ford to Sweden to move his mouth around, and there’s plenty of material of his face out there to draw on. (I have, of course, reached out to ask and will update if I hear back.) MachineGames said Great Circle will be a mix of first and third person, so I won’t have to stare at Jones’ face the entire time I play it, pondering the mystery of his mouth. Please weigh in with your own wild theories, with which we will keep ourselves occupied until the game comes out later this year.
