Raiders scene: comic vs. film

HovitosKing

Well-known member
In RotLA, at the beginning of the film, Indy snaps his whip across the wrist of a double-crossing guide (forget his name, and don't really care).

In the film you hear a gunshot sound effect, but can clearly tell that there's no recoil or smoking barrel when the pistol hits the ground. In the comic book, the gun is drawn as if it were firing at the instant it hits, with flame and smoke coming out.

So did the film mean for the gun to have discharged, or was the audible "boom!" just a sound effect designed to indicate a dramatic action? Personally, I like the latter.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
The scene as it appears in the Revised Third Draft:

Barranca is suddenly on his feet, quietly drawing his pistol. He raises it toward Indy as Satipo realizes with alarm what he's doing. Too late. Indy's head turns and he sees Barranca.

Indy's next move is amazing, graceful and fast, yet totally unhurried. His right hand slides up under the back of his leather jacket and emerges grasping the handle of a neatly curled bullwhip. With the same fluid move that brings Indy's body around to face the Peruvian, the whip uncoils to its full ten foot length and flashes out.

The fall of the whip (the unplaited strip at the end of the lash) wraps itself around Barranca's hand and pistol.He could not drop the gun now if he tried.

Indy gives the whip a short pull and Barranca's arm in jerked down, where it involuntarily discharges the gun into the dirt. Barranca is amazed, but feels some slack in the whip and immediately raises the gun toward Indy again, cocking it with his free hand.

Indy's face goes hard. And sad.

Indy sweeps his arm in a wide arc. Barranca spins around, enclosed in the whip, his gun hand stuck tight against his body. Indy gives one more short jerk on the whip handle and Barranca's gun fires. Barranca falls dead. Indy looks quickly at Satipo, who is shocked and frightened. He raises his arms in supplication.

And as it appears in Campbell Black's novelization:

Before he could finish his sentence he saw, as if in a slowed reel of film, Barranca reach for his pistol. He saw the thin brown hand curl itself over the butt of the silver gun-and then he moved. Indiana Jones moved faster than the Peruvian could have followed; his motions a blur, a parody of vision, he moved back from Barranca and, reaching under the back of his leather jacket, produced a coiled bullwhip, his hand tight on the handle. His movements became liquid, one fluid and graceful display of muscle and poise and balance, arm and bullwhip seeming to be one thing, extensions of each other. He swung the whip, lashing the air, watching it twist itself tightly around Barranca's wrist. Then he jerked downward, tighter still, and the gun discharged itself into the ground.
 

Goodeknight

New member
Montana, I'm glad they didn't go with the hokey version of Indy being able to manipulate Barranca into shooting himself. Way too far fetched. Would have been a terrible start. (Not that everything else is easily possible, but it would have a bad tone and left the rest of the movie open to heavy criticism.)
 

Montana Smith

Active member
goodeknight said:
Montana, I'm glad they didn't go with the hokey version of Indy being able to manipulate Barranca into shooting himself. Way too far fetched. Would have been a terrible start. (Not that everything else is easily possible, but it would have a bad tone and left the rest of the movie open to heavy criticism.)

Definitely. Not only the hokey angle, but it would also rob us of the scene with Barranca riddled with darts.
 

Kooshmeister

New member
Another difference is in the comic, Barranca apparently survives. He runs away and isn't with the Hovitos when they return. No scene of him standing there, then suddenly falling over dead filled with poison darts. His death scene is omitted entirely. Odd.
 

Crack that whip

New member
There are, of course, any number of differences between all the Indy screen productions (not just Raiders, but all the other movies and the TV episodes as well) and their print adaptations (both comics and otherwise).
 
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