Bye bye Sallah
Ok. I just read this over at
CHUD. Here's the original story as reported by
darkhorizons:
'deciph3r' had the chance to talk to Johnathan Rhys-Davies at the Armageddon Pulp Expo in Christchurch, New Zealand over the weekend and confirmed his "Indiana Jones IV" non-status:
"Seems he has not been asked to be in Indy 4 or even approached about it.
From the little information he had about the film he had been told through a third party that the character of Salah had been written out of Indy 4 in favour of a younger cast."
Alright. In spite of all of my sympathy for Sallah and John Rhys-Davies I don't think this is necessarily bad news.
I like it if they bring new characters into this film instead of putting together an old reunion party.
In the case of Sallah one should also keep in mind that his rather comic and less "best friend" portrayal in Crusade is one of those things the alleged last installment has rightfully been criticized for a lot.
It's also one of those nostalgia traps many fans of whatever popculture property step into when they, afraid of new things and desperate to relive the past, call for the return of certain old favorites. Of course it can be great to watch those characters again.
But after all
everything depends on their function in the story ...., which brings me to the point of a
"YOUNGER CAST".
My first reaction to that was rather negative, because the story makes it sound very much like a marketing-audience segment kind of decision.
Another bad association was the often mentioned concept of passing over the torch to a younger sidekick. And again, while thinking about it, I notice how it all depends on the overall concept of the story. If the "younger cast" has an actually interesting purpose to be in this story I'm all for it. If it's just a rather formulaic addition...I'll be pissed.
But that's probably the basic condition for everything concerning this film (and others
).
Maybe the "younger cast" is there to broach the issue of Indy's age in an indirect...rather interesting way.
Somehow this really leads me into the thinking that Shia may not be the son after all.
In the end it's just a third party (???) summarizing the situation to Davies, who summarized it for dh...
That said, I guess we can pretty much trust this news...
I wonder at what stage he had actually been written "out of" Indy IV. Was it decision made early on? Was it a changer from the d-draft? Or was it made after Nathanson's draft?
I'm curious to read your thoughts!
