past May, two weeks before “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” opened worldwide, George Lucas told reporters at the Cannes Film Festival that he already had an idea for a possible “Indiana Jones V,” and that it centered, not on Dr. Henry Jones, but on his son, Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf).

Three knife-flipping, tree-swinging, accident having months later and that idea? It’s kind of, well, “Nuked the Fridge,” Lucas told MTV News.

Asked whether he still considered Mutt Williams a strong enough character to drive an “Indiana Jones” film, Lucas was adamant that Indy just isn’t Indy without Indy. Or, to put it another way: No. 

“Indiana Jones is Indiana Jones. Harrison Ford IS Indiana Jones,” Lucas said, dismissively adding about a character he helped create that, “If it was Mutt Williams it would be ‘Mutt Williams and the Search for Elvis’ or something.”

It’s unclear what changed Lucas’s mind about the character, or whether he would necessarily return at all – even in a sidekick capacity. That said, “The Search for Elvis” is hilarious.

Of course, talk of an eventual “Indiana Jones V” is something of a giant hypothetical anyway, even as Lucas continued to stroke the fire of anticipation at his Big Rock Ranch near San Francisco, insisting that work IS being done to find a suitable object for another installment.

“We ARE looking for something for him to go after,” Lucas said. “They are very hard to find. It’s like archeology. It takes a huge amount of research to come up with something that will fit.”