Indiana Jones 5: The Helena Scene That Explains How The Dial Of Destiny Works

"Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" sees Indy (Harrison Ford) and crew seek out a MacGuffin that's based more on science than religion for once. The Antikythera, created by Archimedes (Nasser Memarzia), uses mathematics to determine the location of time fissures one could use to travel through time. Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) wants to use one of these fissures to go back to 1939 to kill Hitler and install a better leader so that Germany can win World War II. However, Indy soon realizes that due to continental drift, Voller's calculations would be off, and he's correct. They instead travel to 212 BC to the Siege of Syracuse and meet Archimedes himself. 

It's a clever twist that ties together all of the story's themes, but what if "Indiana Jones 5" hinted at what would happen all along? Time seems immutable, especially seeing how Archimedes' skeleton had a watch, proving they were always meant to go to that time period. And some Redditors, like u/lookatthemonkeys, have noted how the Dial could've only directed the user to the Siege of Syracuse: "I thought they said that the dial was always meant to bring them to that one point in time. What Indy was yelling in the plane was that their GPS location would be off because the continents have moved over thousands of years."

Voller may have thought he could bend the Dial to his whims, but he had a stacked deck against him, which calls back to one critical Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) scene from earlier. 

There's plenty of foreshadowing throughout "Indiana Jones 5" to show how Indy will end up in Archimedes' time. For example, when in Sicily, there's a street vendor putting on a puppet show. At one point, a dragon puppet breathes fire onto Roman soldiers, which is more fact than fiction when the planes enter 212 BC with the people of that time referring to them as dragons. However, there's a more subtle bit of foreshadowing when Indy and Helena are on the boat, and she shows him her neat card trick. 

She has a way of always making her mark pick the exact card she wants, so she's always right with the reveal. She stacks the deck against her marks, similar to how the time fissures have always been marked to bring whoever finds the Dial to the Siege of Syracuse. This is revealed later, as Archimedes wanted to signal help from the future. This is precisely what Redditor u/_Comic_ noted, "Indy realizes that Archimedes couldn't have known about [continental] drift and that the coordinates would be off— and he's right, but the Dial isn't built to actually change based on coordinates. No matter what you put in (no matter what card you pick), you will always get the Battle of Syracuse (seven of clubs or whatever that card was)."

Voller believed he could go back whenever he wanted and change the future, but it turns out he was just another mark. Time can't change, and Archimedes was really the one in control all along to try to get more firepower to his people.