According to Harrison Ford, a fifth Indiana Jones film is on the cards and will take momentum once George Lucas finds his MacGuffin. Upon working out what that is, Ford told MTV, Lucas “stumbles into a story”. In Dr. Jones’s four earlier adventures, he’s quested for the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, alien crystal skulls and retrieved the Shankara stones to make those poor Indian villagers smile again. It’s worth asking then, what mystical, supernatural, sadly-misplaced artefacts should the man with the whip search after in Indy V? Here are ten possible targets...

The Philosopher’s Stone
Beloved idealised artefact across numerous cultures throughout the ages, Harrison Ford’s daring-doer sets off to secure the immortality-offering elixir of life. Finding that all those scientists, spiritualists and secret societies had it all wrong for centuries, Jones sets off to Hogwarts Castle in the Scottish countryside to take on a purple turban-wearing Dark Arts teacher who’s preserving some parasite on the back of his head. Sadly, an egotistical little oik with a lightning scar on his face gets to the stone before him and claims all the glory.

Nose of the Sphinx
Guarding the Pyramids of Giza but perpetually tormented by its absent facial protuberance, the sad Sphinx seeks the aid of Indy to find his nostrils. Back on what is pretty much home turf in Egypt then, this time being bullied about by a giant ancient monument instead of Henry Jones, Sr., our man must face such terrors as snakes, scarab beetles and two-thousand-year-old monster nasal hairs. Upon retrieving the lost organ, Indy has the honour of performing the world’s first rock rhinoplasty...

Pandora’s Box
Greek mythology posits that following Prometheus’ theft of fire from the gods, Zeus created the woman Pandora as punishment (those Olympians were terribly misogynous) who opened her jar of horrors and unleashed all the ills of the Universe. It’s a race against time for our Indiana to beat the Soviet baddies to the box in order to avert impending catastrophe as the Kremlin looks to crack it open and destroy the Western world with all its despicable contents (head-melting ghosties, CGI monkeys, etc.).

The ending of Monty Python and the Holy Grail Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade saw the Jones family father-and-son duo fail to grasp the fabled cup of Christ as it fell into a crack of doom (along with Elsa the overambitious Nazi). Graham Chapman’s King Arthur similarly failed to obtain the ultimate artefact of fevered conspiracy theory as production for the Python’s pastiche of Camelot lore was closed down by the police at the climax. That can’t be the end! I demand an ending! Facing up to killer rabbits, Black Knights and rude French taunting, our man goes with whip and shrubbery to search for that satisfactory questing closure.

Excalibur
Enough about the Grail; what about Arthur’s almighty weapon of choice? By now bored with his bullwhip, our man Indiana goes after the eponymous star of John Boorman’s 1981 film, which, according to Arthurian lore, grants its owner the right to rule England. Sadly, since The Da Vinci Code was published, the legendary sword in the stone has suffered in the face of Holy Grail conspiracy speculation so a blockbuster boost back into the popular consciousness would be welcome. Thus, the greatest movie adventurer journeys to argue with the Lady of the Lake and try and retrieve the blade of folklore before Prince Charles can claim the throne of England and before Helen “Morgana le Fay” Mirren has a chance to take her clothes off again.

The briefcase from Pulp Fiction
Does it contain the soul of Marcellus Wallace, or is it just a lightbulb in a suitcase? It’s up to Indy to find out and immerse himself in the Los Angeles underworld (wilder than any jungle) with its nefarious assortment of mobster wives, diner robbers and sadomasochistic pawn shop owners. How will Dr. Jones cope in the postmodern-hipster-pop-culture haze as he tracks current custodian, Jules Winnfield, a man moved after a “moment of clarity” to “walk the Earth”?

The Monolith
It advanced a rabble of rabid monkeys from chimpish simplicity to ability with tools in seconds and sent Keir Dullea on the most far-out trip sequence in 1960s cinema. Now Indy too is looking for the great obsidian monolith that makes its mysterious presence felt in 2001: A Space Odyssey to push human evolution forward or alternatively, stop those Soviets or some Nazi getting their grubby mitts on it. Cue Harrison Ford hurtling through the galaxy, this time not in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon, but rather in a hallucinogenic cosmo-dash through the psychedelic star gate. The ultimate trip... with Indy!

Star Wars Holiday Special
Despite George Lucas’s best efforts to bury it so it can never be found again, a fraternity of malicious villains (either Nazis, Russkies or maybe just a bunch of hardcore Lucas-bashers in “Han Shot First!” t-shirts) have a hold of the remaining copies of the 1978 saga spin-off. To counter anymore damage to his creator’s remaining credibility, Indy takes off with a bazooka to blast away any remnants of the ropey seasonal special and ends up facing an animated Boba Fett and an army of Wookiees, drunk and hyperactive after their Life Day celebrations. The Special Edition DVD release adds extra CGI explosions and revisionist scenes to fit alongside the Clone Wars animated series.

The Abominable Snowman
Heading to the Himalayas in yet another race against time with the Russians (or, if we’re feeling nostalgic, some rogue Nazis who forgot that World War II had finished), Indiana is on the lookout for the Yeti. If the Chinese government has issues with the film crews and foreign journalists operating in Tibet, then a North American quest for Sasquatch could be set up instead, though Dr. Jones would, of course, also find himself competing with DIY Bigfoot detectors, serial hoaxers and possibly Rambo.

His bus pass/false teeth
If Indy IV is anything to go by, by the time this project has actually come together, Ford may be so old that even his famed fedora will be haunted. Thus, Indy V finds a geriatric Jones confined to the retirement home and, ever the adventurer, on the look out for his false teeth, the best biscuits in the communal tin or his meds (the matron is a former Nazi hellbent on undermining our hero’s health). Will the legendary ex-archaeologist recover his possessions before bingo night?