Did Sean Connery hate the KOTCS script?

Forbidden Eye

Well-known member
deckard24 said:
As for Connery's participation in KOTCS, I think his absence is due to both his disdain for the script and the lack of prominence his character would have. If the script was fantastic, I highly doubt he would have used the excuse of having just too much 'fun' with retirement to make an exception. Joe Brody made a good point earlier, Connery's had no problem getting together with Annie Leibovitz to shoot Louis Vuitton ads, but a cameo in KOTCS is too much work? Yeah it would take more time, but the payday would be considerably higher.


Well, where were these ads filmed?

Keep in mind, the man lives in Scotland. What would be the point of traveling to the United States if you don't have a huge role?
 

Miss bubbles

New member
now this is speculation but maybe he3 thought his charecters cole in the movie degraded the film slightly maybe taking away some of the dilms credability
maybe he just didnt like the story
many people seem to (not me)
but one more single opinion doesnt decide wether or not its a good movie


and one the point of henry Sr being dead its not just plausable but fairly likely to be so i meen how old would the guy be and life expectancies were shorter back then werent they
 

Grizzlor

Well-known member
Major West said:
Connery hasn't lived in Scotland for decades.
Yeah I think he lives in the Caribbean, just like Ian Fleming did!

Miss bubbles said:
and one the point of Henry Sr being dead its not just plausible but fairly likely to be so i mean how old would the guy be and life expectancies were shorter back then weren't they
He would have been around 85, but he did drink from the Cup of Christ, so I expect he could have been given some extra time from that.
 

Miss bubbles

New member
He would have been around 85, but he did drink from the Cup of Christ, so I expect he could have been given some extra time from that.[/QUOTE]



so? when you drink from the holy grail it restores you to perfect health (in the story) it doesnt make you live forever just off the bat

besides he was injurred fately and most of it was poured on his wound


so it wouldnt be effecting him that long afterwards

thats what i reckon
 

indyrcks

New member
I hope Sean does return like a cameo or a small part in Indy 5 but this is to do with Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
 

Hawkeye

New member
indyrcks said:
I hope Sean does return like a cameo or a small part in Indy 5 but this is to do with Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull


How the heck do you think that's going to happen? The guy's dead! The only way I see this happening is if they show Henry Sr.'s photo like in KOTCS.
 

WrathofGod

New member
Apparently "anything goes" now with Indy so they may as well make him return the same way he did in Highlander two.
 

Moedred

Administrator
Staff member
Unearthed 2007 interview (skip to 3:09):
"I spoke with Spielberg, but it didn't work out. It was not that generous a part, worth getting back into the harness and go for. And they had taken the story in a different line anyway, so the father of Indy was kind of really not that important. I had suggested they kill him in the movie, it would have taken care of it better."
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3Y6I5PwCKxQ" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 

Udvarnoky

Well-known member
Not surprising. They offered him nothing more than a cameo, so he figured it wasn't worth the trouble. Same deal with John Rhys-Davies, only in his case it was even more insulting. They just wanted to green-screen him applauding at the wedding, right?
 

Major West

Member
Would have been the John Hurt role (slightly tweaked). Not surprised he turned it down. John Hurt was wasted, playing a sort of idiot who doesn't speak until near the end.
 

Udvarnoky

Well-known member
Major West said:
Would have been the John Hurt role (slightly tweaked). Not surprised he turned it down. John Hurt was wasted, playing a sort of idiot who doesn't speak until near the end.

Actually it was worse than that. Oxley was always Oxley. The imagined cameo for Henry Sr., I believe, was basically the role Stanforth had at Indy's house after he was fired. And of course he would have been at the wedding. That's it. The character was never actually part of the main adventure. When Connery turned it down, they just expanded Stanforth's role.
 

Z dweller

Well-known member
Major West said:
I suppose they were thinking of his age
That would be ironic, considering that Connery in 2007 was the same age as Ford will be next year, give or take a few months.
 

Raiders90

Well-known member
Major West said:
Really, wow. I suppose they were thinking of his age, but why would he want to come out of retirement for that.

I don't think that was the case. Henry Sr. never seems to have been considered as a major character in an Indy 4 even as far back as the mid 1990s, when Connery was still acting and in action films. The Saucermen script was in 1995 and Henry only has a cameo in that script. There was never going to be a second father and son Jones romp.
 

micsteam

New member
Part of KOTCS's problems was there were to many characters !! Who the f#$k is Mac ??, Oxley do we really care about him ??, I don't care if they got Robert DiNero to play Mutt do we really want to know or care about him ?? I would like to find out about Mac, I really like Raymond Winstone but I think he was wasted here. I love John Hurt, he's truly an exceptional actor but was pretty much a fool here. Mutt, Shia LaBoof ... (dropping the mic). Nuff said. So should we have added an appearance of Connery, Mr. Connery ( I think) saw the ship sinking and said he's not like to get on the cruise. :hat:
 

Udvarnoky

Well-known member
micsteam said:
Part of KOTCS's problems was there were to many characters !! Who the f#$k is Mac ??, Oxley do we really care about him ??

Oxley really is a superfluous character when you think about it. His functions in the story seem to be:

1) A motivation for Indy to go to Peru
2) A way of demonstrating the dangers of the skull
3) A guide to Akator

But all of those functions would have been more effectively and elegantly served in other ways. As a reason for Indy to embark on the adventure, Oxley is weak, because we have no investment in the character. Mutt simply saying that Marion Ravenwood has been kidnapped would have been a cleaner and more compelling impetus, both for Indy and the audience. No need to pointlessly shroud her identity, and you can ditch the nonsense with the letter.

There's no need for Oxley once the story gets to Peru, either, because Indy should have been the one driven mad by the skull and used as the "divining rod" to the lost city. The way the final film handles Indy's influence by the skull is utterly without stakes and a huge missed opportunity. Somehow the Soviets make him look at the skull just long enough to interpret Oxley, yet not long enough to suffer any ill-effects himself? What kind of weird cop-out is that? I'm not sure what it even accomplished, because afterward Indy doesn't seem to be employing any special knowledge beyond his own to figure out the directions from Oxley.

Besides, we've never met Oxley before; we don't even know what he was like when he was sane. So seeing him insane has no effect on us. Subject someone we care about to the skull: Indy. When Indy gets captured in the Russian tent, I would have had the corpse of Oxley and maybe a few other guinea pigs dead on the ground, with Spalko explaining that the last few men who were forced to look at the skull went insane and had to be put down. That way there's an actual sense of jeopardy for Indy when he is forced to stare at it.

After that, the movie could have played out largely the same way, except with Indy slowly losing his mind throughout the journey. By the time they get to the waterfall, he is in Oxley's state or worse, and proceeds to the lost city because he has to, and not because "it told me to," which is such a wimpy way to kick off the third act, especially in comparison to, say, Connery being shot before the Three Trials. Indy being possessed does make him less proactive once they're in Akator, but guess what, he's not proactive in the actual movie either. At least this way there's a reason, a degree of drama, and an element of spookiness sorely missing in the final product.

And how about we let the characters solve problems through actual ingenuity, and not just by following the lead of a character who figured everything else out already? One of the more boggling choices the movie makes is to have John Hurt have the real Indiana Jones adventure off-screen and before the events of the movie. People want to see Indy figuring stuff out himself, not just following somebody's breadcrumb trail and being a passive character in his own story. It's ridiculous.

You can play this game endlessly with Crystal Skull, because pretty much every scene in the movie has a much better option right there in plain sight. Why doesn't it ever take them? Why is Indy constantly helping the bad guys of his own free will? Why is Mac a triple agent? Why is Spalko introduced as maybe having psychic powers before the idea is dropped completely? Why was the jungle cutter abruptly destroyed when it was crying out to be the centerpiece of a fight scene? Why are the Akator natives simply cowed by the skull when their capture of the heroes could have been the setup for a fun escape sequence instead? Why doesn't Mac use his feet? Why does the federal scrutiny of Indy utterly evaporate at the end?

It's all such a lazy mess. The movie had great ingredients, but it just kind of threw them in a pot. It has a bizarre lack of interest in itself.
 
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