Indiana Jones might bring more people to archeology but wouldn’t bring the right people, the people with the patience to do the job right. For every exciting Jewel or classic book there will be thousands of coins and bits of crockery. The job wont be dodging spears and fearsome tribes but will be more sitting in a ditch brushing dirt from a piece of a plate. Most will understand the difference between fact and fiction but many will believe at least a portion of what they see and expect some degree of reality. They have to realise that there are hours and hours of patient nothing in order to achieve something. There will be travel and there will be boredom. There will also be little chance of making a fortune from what you might find and there may be history but little else. You may get lucky, but it is far from a guarantee.
To be fair if the film was true to life people wouldn’t watch it, the same reason all police shows depict arrests and all fire brigade shows have constant fires. The reality bears little relationship to the job, but of course fiction isn’t supposed to. If you watch the films then concentrate on Indy teaching class and watch the people digging ditches and brushing dirt, these are the closest scenes to the real world. You may find something of real value and great history but its not a thing you can be sure of.
Many heroes from James Bond to Indiana Jones gives the impression of constant excitement and a life of thrills, the reality is far less in all aspects. Mi5 exists for all the things they show but also they spend hours on computers and sitting watching people. To make a film they condense all possible aspects of the job, add some unreality and come up with ninety minutes of whats diluted from all the parts. If you do find the gem or you find the spy you have been tracking you will get the glory and may become famous for it.
The film may bring some of the right people in to the field , those who know what is involved and what sacrifices are involved. These people will have patience and will be in the job for the history as opposed to the excitement. They will be the people who want to find the rare artifact and are ready to sort through tons of earth to possibly find nothing. You may find an item that takes hours of gentle cleaning in order to find out what you have and if it is important or even valuable. It may be a small piece of a larger item or a whole item that you find, you may not know till much later what it is. You have to have patience in the discovery and then even more once the work is done, this isn’t something a hyperactive film show will do.
