Abner Ravenwood in Last Crusade

IndyBuff

Well-known member
TombReader said:
When the Army intelligence guys think that Ravenwood may be a Nazi,Marcus is quick to disagree and Indy's disagreement could be implied by his line about the Nazi's wanting something that Abner has.In other words,it seems that Indy still respects Ravenwood and that maybe their falling-out was not a professional one(which we know it wasn't),and I'm not sure that I believe Indy would try and steal artifacts from people that he respected.

That has generally been my opinion too. Although Indy and Ravenwood did have a falling-out it seems that Indy still puts Ravenwood in high regard and considers him a worthy expert on the Ark and the headpiece to the Staff of Ra. I do wonder, however, if Ravenwood felt the same way about Indy.:confused:
 

Pale Horse

Moderator
Staff member
Deadlock said:
The final piece to complete this drama about obsession would be Indy following in the footsteps of his father figures... Indiana gets his very own in Indy 4.

Impressive collection of quotes. You have true mastery of the scripts.

As for Indy having an obsession, on several occassions I've said:

Joe Brody in the 'Indy 4 and the true origin of Pale Horse' thread said:
I'd bet a dollar that there will a Don Quixote reference or allusion in Indy IV.

And aren't we all out chasing windmills?

To that end, what would be worthy of Indy's obssession? The only thing we have to go on to this point of the trilogy is Fortune and Glory. It is the one thing he hasn't experienced to this point, and as he comes to the end of his life, maybe that is what he longs for. A shotty professor whose only accolades are smitten females and apple kissing males vying for recognition? A black market archeologist who can't even acquire a legimate piece of history through traditional means? To tie in the father/mentor aspect with Henry and Ravenwood...is he Ray Kinsella and his cornfield dig would be to find Tut's tomb with the two men who meant the most to him?

Jay R. Zay said:
This joke seems to be not Indiana Jones related or not funny. Please get back to funny jokes or we will have to delete your replies from now on.

:p

point taken, I quess I'll have to get a bit funnier from now on, it's just not really a domineering mods style...
 

roundshort

Active member
Sorry to enter late here but,

I look at Fedora as an inspiration to young Indy, the way he dressed, using hired hands (probably local, given the make up of his crew, a ute Indian, a kid, etc, not the professional student hands used on official digs). When Indy realized he wanted to be a grave robber whne he grew up he looked at Fedora as his inspiration, because he was an anit-Henry Jones. We know Indy was not thrilled with his childhood relationship with his father (insert deep quote from LC here). So when he ran into Fedora, that was as far from what Indy grew up and took him as a role model (hate to think Indy was ever so simple-minded but he was a kid).

Ravenwood on the other hand was probably someone in the middle. Not the strict by the book, Henry Jones type, but as not the rouge Fedora. I am sure Indy had a close student professor relationship with Abner and learned a lot about research and field digs, but always kept the graverobber image of Fedora with him.

Maybe Indy and Ravenwood's falling out was a bit deeper than just the broad (and yes ToJ, I am sure Ravenwood resented Indy for laying the pipe). I wonder if the falling out was a bit of guilt Indy had on his "own methods" of field research, which were not like Ravenwood, and he did not want Abner to see that Indy had become nothing more than a grave robber with a Profeesor gig. I feel Indy let Marion be an excuse to tear away from Abner and his father, only Marcus was willing to turn the other way and provide Indy with pay. We know from LC that Marcus was not really good at anything, heck he even got laost in his own Museum. So Marcus i am sure was just happy to have a steady flow of "good objects" coming in and would not ask questions that Henry or Abner would have asked. I wonder if Indy was ashamed of his methods and motives, and let himself be a loner and lose contact witht he people close to him. I don not think Abner was a rough and tumble type like Indy, but if they want to make Indy IV the quest for Ravenwood, then the back story might be better if he was.
 

roundshort

Active member
See this is what I am talking about, this was a great Indy thread about Indy, and it just dies, while the Birthday page keeps going, why?
 

Joe Brody

Well-known member
Pale Horse said:
[W]hat would be worthy of Indy's obssession? The only thing we have to go on to this point of the trilogy is Fortune and Glory.

I have argued that Indy's obssession should arise from a past mistake -- most likely a mistake made during the Fortune and Glory years. That's why I think Indy IV will revolve around a story in which Indy's task is to return (or repatriate) an artifact.

Think of Indy's lifelong obsession with the Cross of Coronado. In the beginning of Last Crusade, we see the last moment of Indy's childhood and its youthful idealism ("that artifacts belongs in a musuem"). But like all teens Indy becomes a hell-raiser. Like all teens he pushes his limits and this takes him down the deviant grave-robber route, which includes the ToD and Raiders years. By the time of the main Last Crusade story, however, thirty/forty something Indy re-captures part of his youth (he gets to be Junior again with the added bonus of being validated by Dad -- as we've discussed in other threads) and we witness Indy finally and trully displaying an unequivocal (abd more mature) do-the-right-thing mature realism (whish echoes the young idealism).

So what's left to our aging self-actualized hero? To make amends for past wrongs.

But these 'past-wrong' theories have been the subject of other threads. I was just sitting here trying to get my thoughts straight on Ravenwood and I wanted to reply on this point. If we're close to shooting (Pale Horse?), there are few days left to spin all these random theories.
 

Paden

Member
To toss in an aside, I tend to agree with what you say, Joe, in the sense that I've always felt that a fourth film necessitates Indiana putting to rest his inner demons, which are hinted at, particularly in Raiders. It's always been difficult for me to envision Indiana becoming obsessed with an artifact as, in my view, Indiana's "fortune and glory" mindset was put to rest in Last Crusade with his response to the line, "Indiana...let it go." Just as Deadlock has indicated in reference to his screenplay, while obsession is a dominating theme in the trilogy, the final chapter should turn Indy's obsession to satisfying a desperate inner need, such as atonement. The "prize", as it were, should be some kind of means to this end. (Side note: If the object of the quest is a means to redemption, how interesting that said motivation matches one of the theories that you proposed regarding Ravenwood's pursuit of the Ark.)
 
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Pale Horse

Moderator
Staff member
Joe Brody said:
That's why I think Indy IV will revolve around a story in which Indy's task is to return (or repatriate) an artifact.

I have always felt that there should be a screenplay where Indiana has to Return the Ark...
 

Joe Brody

Well-known member
Pale Horse said:
I have always felt that there should be a screenplay where Indiana has to Return the Ark...

You might be right -- but it would be tampering with one of the greatest endings in film history. I like the Ark in the warehouse, forgotten.
 

roundshort

Active member
Joe, you might have hit on something Lucas can not do and that is leave well enough alone! Hopefully the creative folks can make a new scrpit that does not need to feed off the older stories, but with the threat/promise of the women returning it makes sense that they will revist an older story. But, this thread has seemed to gotten off topic and may need to be moved to Indy IV, right pale?
 

Paden

Member
Joe Brody said:
You might be right -- but it would be tampering with one of the greatest endings in film history. I like the Ark in the warehouse, forgotten.
Because of this fitting ending, I'm torn on the issue of the Ark making a second appearance. On one hand, I could see how the Ark could bring the series full circle, as its strong connection to Ravenwood remains one of the unresolved threads in the series. On the other hand, the Ark's disappearance into its dusty, lonely destination is somehow chillingly appropriate in its implied finality. In some respect I would like to see Indy come to a peace about both Marion and his old mentor in the final film, whether it involved the Ark of the Covenant or not.
 

Deadlock

New member
Hey, Joe. Quick question: how would you see this "repatriation" plot working (not the Ark necessarily, but some other relic)?

Given the expectations of Indy doing some "archaeology" (or just avoiding some quasi-implausible booby traps), how would you have him return an already-found artifact? Wouldn?t that preclude the usual ancient secrets and replace them with more contemporary pitfalls?

Do you have a way to accomplish this type of story and hold true to the Indy establishment? Or are you retooling Indy as Mission: Impossible or Ocean?s Eleven?
 

Joe Brody

Well-known member
Deadlock said:
Hey, Joe. Quick question: how would you see this "repatriation" plot working (not the Ark necessarily, but some other relic)?

Given the expectations of Indy doing some "archaeology" (or just avoiding some quasi-implausible booby traps), how would you have him return an already-found artifact? Wouldn’t that preclude the usual ancient secrets and replace them with more contemporary pitfalls?

Do you have a way to accomplish this type of story and hold true to the Indy establishment? Or are you retooling Indy as Mission: Impossible or Ocean’s Eleven?

I may break off 'repatriation as a theme' into a separate Indy IV thread.

But quickly, I see Indy getting the artifact in the beginning of the film (first 40%) and then the relic changing hands (like the Grail Diary) several times before the ending. Scoring the relic off the bad guy would likely involve some set piece -- except I'd hope it would be more creative than MI or Ocean's 11.

Notably, ToD has a repatriation theme -- getting the stone back to its rightful owners. Today, archaeology is pre-occupied with getting works that were wrongly plundered back to their nation of origin -- so I think it would be a good, timely story. But I'd hate to see some race-against-the-clock-or-the-world-blows-up storyline. Save that for Lara Croft -- but I do think the story should have some consequence if the relic is not restored.

There should be some menace -- other than the competiting human adversary but it shouldn't echo the challenges in LC. Pirates of the Caribbean also had a repatriation story (with ghosts no less) that would've worked just fine for the ending of the Raiders series.

[I'll get this back on-topic and get my Ravenwood post up tonight or tomorrow.]
 
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roundshort

Active member
What is Marion is the one who steals the ark to return it, I don't know, maybe to reconnect with her father, or it is her father who is not really dead, and Indy has to go "rescue the ark" hmmm . . .
 

Paden

Member
If we run with the idea that Ravenwood isn't deceased, perhaps he, or those in his employ, remove the Ark from its storage in an effort to return it to a sacred site, such as the remnants of the temple mound in Israel. Ravenwood's motive might be to complete a ritual consistent with those performed on the Day of Atonement, perhaps believing that doing so will provide him with the absolution he craves. Jones is contacted to pursue the Ark due to his prior experience with it, and has to unravel the mystery of who has taken it and for what purpose. Were this to take place in the forties/fifties, the fledgling Israeli government could serve as a foil for both sides, interfering in the business of the interlopers on their soil, certain that they are intent on stealing or defacing national sites and treasures.
 
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roundshort

Active member
Hmm, I like this, maybe a very dark, almost religous zealot Ravenwood, that has lost all sense of relaity, since he heard about the ark being discoverd etc. . .
Now, all we have to do is figure out how Jar-Jar is involved, George?
 

Joe Brody

Well-known member
Paden said:
If we run with the idea that Ravenwood isn't deceased, perhaps he, or those in his employ, remove the Ark from its storage in an effort to return it to a sacred site, such as the remnants of the temple mound in Israel. Ravenwood's motive might be to complete a ritual consistent with those performed on the Day of Atonement, perhaps believing that doing so will provide him with the absolution he craves. Jones is contacted to pursue the Ark due to his prior experience with it, and has to unravel the mystery of who has taken it and for what purpose. Were this to take place in the forties/fifties, the fledgling Israeli government could serve as a foil for both sides, interfering in the business of the interlopers on their soil, certain that they are intent on stealing or defacing national sites and treasures.


That's the single best Treatment that I've seen for an Indy IV. Except I wouldn't have Jones 'contacted to pursue the Ark'. Instead I'd have him haunted/tormented by a ghoulish Belloq -- which signals to Indy that someone is tampering with the Ark. Paden, you cracked the Israel dilemma nicely.
 

roundshort

Active member
I don;t know if we want Indy haunted, but the need for him to act would have to be to save a possed Abner, the last movie he became reaquinted with his estranged father, this could be his reaquaitnce with his estrange mentor, we can call it

Indiana Jones, The Last Crusade, we mean it this time!

Come on Joe, i had the idea first . . .
 

Deadlock

New member
Here's my question: If Abner's alive, (and was in 1936) why didn't he involve himself in the proceedings of Raiders? The man had deep knowledge of Egypt and numerous connections there, I'm sure. So with the discovery of Tanis (which wasn't kept quiet, what with "every digger in Cairo" being there), if Ravenwood had still wanted the Ark, don't you think he would have turned up down there?

Perhaps he did go there, only to be too late. Or perhaps he no longer cared about the Ark... Once again, I think Abner's motives are paramount here.
 
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