Harrison Ford will age Indiana Jones 5 to look just like the first movie

Harrison Ford has sparked plenty of conversations about reprising his iconic role of Indiana Jones one last time at 80 years old — but he’ll look a lot younger.

The fifth installment of the “Indiana Jones” franchise will open in 1944 – eight years after the events of 1981’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark”.

It’s been four decades since Ford first played the legendary adventurer, and the octogenarian doesn’t look quite the same as he once did – but moviegoers will still be able to see Indiana Jones in his prime.

Audiences will see a “aged-down” Ford, thanks to visual effects and Industrial Light & Magic, according to an upcoming issue of Empire Magazine.

Using the special effects company’s computer software, old footage of Ford from previous films was matched and superimposed on new footage for the troubled production, which survived several of Ford’s stunt injuries and the death of a crew member.

“I hope that even though it’s going to be talked about in terms of technology, you watch it and go, ‘Oh my God, they just found footage.'” This was something they shot 40 years ago,” producer Kathleen Kennedy told Empire.

“We’re getting you on an adventure, which is something Indy is looking for, and immediately you get that feeling of, ‘I’m in an Indiana Jones movie.'”

This technique is only used in the film’s opening sequence, in which Indiana Jones confronts the Nazis in a castle.

“Then we fall out, and you find yourself in 1969,” said director James Mangold. “So that the audience does not experience the change between the 1940s and the 1960s as an intellectual vanity, but rather the ambiguous spirit of those early days . . . and then beginning now.”

“I wanted to have the opportunity to dive into this kind of whole old George and Stephen picture and give the audience an adrenaline rush,” explained Mangold, who is taking over the filmmaking duties from Steven Spielberg.

Ford admitted that seeing a younger version of him was “a little scary”.

“This is the first time I’ve seen it where I believe in it . . . I don’t think I even want to know how it works,” he said. “It doesn’t make me want to be young, though. I’m glad I earned my age.”

The original jacket Ford wore in “Raiders” was also pulled from storage and replicated in the upcoming film.

Although the film’s opening takes place in 1944, the bulk of “Indiana Jones 5” takes place in 1969 – with Ford as the current 80-year-old – and takes place against the space race.

“Indiana Jones 5” is set to be released in theaters on June 30, 2023. It comes 15 years after the last film in the series, 2008’s “The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.”