One thing strikes me as I read this interview: how can a professional writer -- a
creative -- give such a deathly boring interview? Maybe I expect too much -- but for some reason while I don't expect someone like Will Ferrell to be funny in person on command, I expert more from a writer whose list of credits runs as long as Keopp's. I understand the guy can't tell us anything about the story -- but you think he'd at least be able to slip in a tantalizing adjective.
So Mr. Koepp tell us something about the Indy IV writing experience?
“I spent about a year on it, first doing drafts with Steven and then doing drafts with Steven and George,” he explains. “It was a lot of fun."
Fun? Most informative. And how about working with Lucas and Spielberg?
"They’re big guys with big opinions. . ."
[...]
And talk about saying nothing:
"But with set pieces, sometimes it’s common sense and sometimes it’s a bad idea.”
[Let me get back to this last one.]
So why the long rant? Sour grapes you say? Koepp's the incredibly successful writer and I'm nobody. So O.K. -- I can admit to some sour grapes -- but there's more to it than that. My fear about Koepp writing the script is my suspicion that he's not an artist but merely a technician. When it was announced that he had been brought onto the project as the new writer -- I was impressed by the number of big films he had written. Then, I realized that I've never purchased a single one of said films. Sure, I've watched
Spiderman a couple of times -- but Dunst is the only thing there that stirs me. Same for
Panic Room -- Jodie Foster rocks.
Looking at his filmography, I can only ask: where's the human spark in his films? Where's the true interaction and spontaneity between characters? Watch the opening sequence of
Mission Impossible where Tom Cruise and the rest of the MI team 'good-naturedly' rib the Jon Voight character. It's painful -- there's some dialogue about bad coffee and the need for a new machine. Now watch an opening to a film that works, an opening that's entirely different -- something that truly draws in the audience and seems entirely real. Watch the same amount of screentime from the opening of
Close Encounters. What film draws you in more? Which film has more 'real' human interaction?
'No problem' you say -- we've got Spielberg on hand to insure that Indy IV will have the necessary human element. Surely, we can count on Spielberg to come up with the human 'story' angle, not to mention witty lines ("Don't you mean extinct?"). I'm not so sure. Watch
War of the Worlds and what do we get? Tom Cruise -- the disenfranchised father -- wears a Yankee hat. And the alienated son? A Red Sox hat. That there is quality writing. Given Koepp's work product to date, can we reasonably expect Indy IV to have a scene like the Sallah terrace scene in
Raiders?
Enough b*tching. The good news? Koepps [mercifully] as much as promised us that we're going to be spared the "It's the years not the mileage" line.
And the 'set piece' quote is more than mildly provocative. The Indiana Jones formula demands the opening set piece -- yet Koepp's quote raises a doubt. Just when is an opening set piece a 'bad idea'? When you've got an old star, and you've got to conserve his physical screen moments for the final sprint at the end of the film? Wait a sec -- wasn't that already done in
Last Crusade? So what are the alternatives? I wouldn't be surprised with a minor break from the formula with something like the opening to
Close Encounters -- something that keeps us waiting for Indy yet has raging elements, an up-tempo and action.