THE BIG BANG: Raiders story conference transcripts!!??

cdmeredith

New member
James said:
...But people that grew up with the films obviously have a much different view of how serious the original trilogy was meant to be taken.

Here we see that all of the sequels' most hated elements were present right from the beginning.

Maybe it's just me, but I think what people are most responding to in their dislike of KOTCS, whether or not they can really put their finger on it, is the shallow writing. It's not really the tone, or the subject matter, or things like that. It is characters that lack proper motivation and aren't engaged with the story. Non existent stakes, dialogue that doesn't reveal character, clunky exposition, etc. After all, both Temple of Doom and Last Crusade suffer from many criticisms too, but most people still think of them as good movies. And both of those films differ in tone from each other, and Raiders. I think this is different for Crystal Skull, which is widely seen as a subpar film. I sincerely don't think it's fond memories that ruin it, but the writing. This is something you can clearly see mattered to Lucas, Spielberg, and Kasdan when they were creating Raiders in this document. Everything was second guessed, and every motivation had to be cemented. Characters and scenes didn't just exist, they had to serve the story, and in a logical way. The main mystery/puzzle plotline was endlessly argued over until it made a certain amount of sense, and worked within the story's architecture. Character arcs and relationships had a certain number of beats to them, all character plotlines needed resolution in some form. Kingdom really lacks all of these things. It never feels like a cohesive story, more like bunch of random scenes. There are no stakes. I think that if Kingdom of the Crystal Skull's screenplay had been fixed, while retaining basically the same story elements and setpieces, that people would have enjoyed it. They would still have criticisms about things like aliens and tone, etc., just like all the other indy films have, but indy fans would have welcomed this film with fondness, instead of recoiling from it in horror. That's my take.
 
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James

Well-known member
cdmeredith said:
There are no stakes.

Well, this is actually another thing that jumps out about the transcript: Spielberg's concern over the fact that...there's not really any stakes.

Spielberg: It must be explained somewhere in this scene that this will not decide the outcome of the war or when the war will begin. It has nothing to do with that. It will give Hitler a certain kind of comfort that we don't want him to have. Otherwise the audience will say that this is not very important. That's what worries me about this part.

Fans always take for granted that if Hitler gets the Ark, it will actually be the type of threat seen in the museum photograph. But here we see that neither Lucas or Spielberg felt that way. Ironically, Lucas' biggest concern was that the audience wouldn't accept the power of the Ark!

Spalko actually tells the audience what Russia thinks the skull will grant them. This is something that the Nazis never bother to do. The only real difference in the "stakes" is that the audience is more inclined to believe in a Biblical power than an extra-terrestrial one.

But I don't mean to suggest that the writing in KOTCS was the same quality as it was in ROTLA. It was their fourth trip to the well, and everyone was thirty years older. Naturally, things that seemed important in 1978 probably weren't in 2008. Nonetheless, the approach was virtually the same: A couple of friends brainstorming for ideas they thought would be cool.

I was simply pointing out how differently the filmmakers viewed the material, as opposed to fans. Some of the reactions last summer made ROTLA sound like a documentary. There are not many fans who would describe the villains and sidekicks the way we find Lucas and Spielberg doing here. After reading this, you can easily see how the same guys that made ROTLA could end up making KOTCS.
 
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cdmeredith

New member
I think Spielberg was concerned about the historical stakes. About the nazis going on to invade poland anyways, and where this story would fit in a historical context. I am more talking about the individual stakes that the characters have within the context of the story.

While, yes, technically the outcome of the plot would be the same had Indy never gotten involved, we become invested in Indy's emotional quest to retrieve the ark, and his personal rivalry with Belloq, not to mention the engaging emotional reunion with Marion. These are revealed through story points and dialogue, and is a very big reason why we love this film in my opinion. In last crusade, he bonds with his father. The characters and story points are fleshed out with meaningful character scenes between the action setpieces. they are not afraid to slow the action and develop characters. in the story conference transcripts, they even insist on it.

I agree that story stakes are spelled out by Spalko in the tent scene, but that's part of the problem for KOTCS. I don't think it's the difference in aliens vs god in terms of believability. I don't believe in either, they are just some myth to attach the macguffin's supernatural power to, anything on the fringes of archaeology/anthropology would work. I think it's simply that she tells us about the skull's powers and her motivations in one fell swoop, in clunky exposition. Whereas, in Raiders, or Last crusade for instance, we are teased about the macguffin's power throughout the movie, shown various examples of it, all in subtle ways, drawing us into the mystery, and are able to come to our own conclusions instead of it being jammed down our throat. The power of the skull invades indy's mind, etc., but is almost incidental to the story. We were never told that the ark would contain ghosts, only that it had "the power of god or something.", and indy didn't believe it.

KOTCS has a lot of the trappings of the necessary elements, but the way they were executed within the story was pretty awful in my opinion. The monkey in raiders was given a better storyline that Mac was. mac kept switching sides so often, that nobody even cared. Indy delivered weird dialogue about his past with poncho villa, the creators winking at the audience, instead of ever bonding with mutt. it has none of the poignancy of indy and his father. indy and marion's relationship was given a backseat in this film, from hate to reconcilliation in two scenes. whereas in raiders, it took the whole film, and there were obstacles to their emotional character arcs. (like when indy leaves her in the tent.) in KOTCS, oxley is the only reason indy/marion/mutt are there, and he's simply an annoying throwaway cartoon character without any meaningful interaction with anyone else in the entire movie. pretty poor justification.

It has been said that the metaphor in the Indy movies is, thematically, about the different roles men have in life. In Raiders, he must learn how to be a good lover/partner to Marion, and learning not to give in to greed, and become just like belloq. In TOD, he must learn how to take the role of a father figure seriously, putting the welfare of children above his own personal interests. And of course, last crusade, was about learning how to have a close relationship with his father, and being a son. A big problem with KOTCS, is that he doesn't grow as a character like he did in these movies, even in a small way. He is static, and unchanging, merely reacting to events around him. There's no emotional throughline. They attempted to give mutt something, but it came off shrill and hollow in my opinion.

I also agree that every fan will have very individual views about these movies, and I agree that debates about tone and aliens and other things wouldn't vanish were this movie better, after all it didn't for the other films. I personally don't like some things in those areas, like the tarzan scene, the gophers, etc. But I truly think it was the writing that kept this movie from it's real potential. after all, we didn't think twice about a lot of goofy things in the original trilogy because the stories were better.

but that's just my take.
 
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James

Well-known member
The historical context was an issue, but it's fairly obvious they didn't consider the Ark as all-powerful as fans ultimately would. And there were many fans who criticized the stakes in KOTCS, claiming they lacked the genuine threat of the original trilogy.

But I don't believe any of the MacGuffins were ever handled as well as the Ark. The Thuggee plan made little sense, and the quest for the Grail was the most generic of them all. We're told it's a "race against evil", but little else.

I have to disagree with you about Spalko's speech, though. Far from clunky exposition, it manages to not only reveal the threat, but cleverly sum up the Red Scare as well.

I'd say the Indy-Mutt relationship is on par with the work in TOD and LC. It pretty much had to be, since nearly every fan (myself included) was prepared to hate the character. The fact that he ended up winning over some of the film's most savage critics speaks volumes. The only glaring problem is that Shia is no Sean Connery.

I agree that Mac and Marion were much less successful. Ironically, I think Mac was a victim of overthinking the character. They tried to make him more convoluted than an Indy character really needs to be, and it backfired on them.
 

cdmeredith

New member
here's another question that bothers me. I'm sure this has been asked before, but how in the hell did the conquistadors get into the chamber to steal the skull, if you require the skull to unlock the chamber???? It's things like this that make me hate this movie.

I think the red scare is a very interesting nuance to this movie, but I don't agree that it was handled well. mac's character was meant to represent that aspect of what we feared during mccarthyism. that anybody could be the enemy, but mac reveals himself as turncoat not for ideological reasons, just greed.

For every Toht/Mola Ram/and Vogel, there needs to be a Belloq/Chattar Lal/ and Donovan.


Every Sadist villain needs an ideological coutnerpart, they tried to put all of that into spalko I think. they did that a lot in this movie, just throwing things at the wall to see what would stick, and horribly, what stuck was a bad movie.
 
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James

Well-known member
cdmeredith said:
here's another question that bothers me. I'm sure this has been asked before, but how in the hell did the conquistadors get into the chamber to steal the skull, if you require the skull to unlock the chamber???? It's things like this that make me hate this movie.

For every Toht/Mola Ram/and Vogel, there needs to be a Belloq/Chattar Lal/ and Donovan.

I think the red scare is a very interesting nuance to this movie, but I don't agree that it was handled well. mac's character was meant to represent that aspect of what we feared during mccarthyism.

My theory was that the conquistadors encountered the alien somewhere outside the temple. I'm not sure why everyone assumes they made it into the chamber. As we see in the film, people that wore armor were too slow to survive the stairwell trap.

This is supported by artwork on the dvd (Galleries > Art Department > Akator). In drawings and finished artwork, you can see the conquistadors claiming the head, as well as the other 12 aliens discovering the body of the beheaded 13th. The artwork appears to have been created for the film, and I assume it is somewhere on the walls of the Ugha's hideout. (Probably not visible in the finished film, though.)

It's ultimately one of those things you're not supposed to dwell on. Even though the transcripts reveal an attempt to clearly map out the story of Raiders, there are still moments where they admit, "We'll just gloss over that and no one will notice." So even when the goal was to create a tight, efficient story, we see they weren't afraid of plot holes. We find this in the finished film as well, in areas such as Indy's deleted periscope ride. It's not so much story that has always been king in the Indiana Jones series, but ideas.

Spalko was the 'champagne' villain; Dovchenko was the 'thug'. It actually wasn't Spalko that got stuck with double duty, but Dovchenko. He had to not only be Mola Ram, but the Chief Thuggee as well.

The skull's threat was the attempt to evoke the Red Scare- drawing its inspiration from such B movies as Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Mac was an attempt to incorporate another staple of the era: Spies and double agents.

Ray Winstone actually explained the Mac character better than the script did, imo: "When he's with the Russians, he thinks he's working for the Americans. When he's with the Americans, he thinks he's working for the Russians. He no longer knows which side he's supposed to be on...but he knows Indy's his mate." (One reason I didn't have such a problem with the Mac character, is because I've actually had friends like this! :D )
 
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Darth Vile

New member
James said:
The most interesting thing about this transcript is that it provides a clear insight into how Lucas and Spielberg have always viewed this series. This is something that was endlessly debated in the wake of KOTCS, as everyone has their own opinion of what an Indy film is supposed to be. But people that grew up with the films obviously have a much different view of how serious the original trilogy was meant to be taken.

Here we see that all of the sequels' most hated elements were present right from the beginning. Lucas refers to Indy as being a role model for children. The supporting characters are considered comic relief. The Nazis are treated as little more than caricatures. Spielberg has a LOT of goofy ideas, and is constantly thinking of new things that will be "funny". (He's even responsible for the over-the-top life raft gag in TOD!)

Completely on the money. Agree 100%. We forget (or some do) that Lucas and Spielberg are actually closer to these movies than we are. Of course, that doesn't mean that their artistic/creative choices always work on screen, but I do believe they are in a better place to make these judgments than the likes of us.

cdmeredith said:
Maybe it's just me, but I think what people are most responding to in their dislike of KOTCS, whether or not they can really put their finger on it, is the shallow writing. It's not really the tone, or the subject matter, or things like that. It is characters that lack proper motivation and aren't engaged with the story. Non existent stakes, dialogue that doesn't reveal character, clunky exposition, etc. After all, both Temple of Doom and Last Crusade suffer from many criticisms too, but most people still think of them as good movies. And both of those films differ in tone from each other, and Raiders. I think this is different for Crystal Skull, which is widely seen as a subpar film

I think you are falling into the trap of letting your feelings define what the movie is for everyone else. As is evidenced on this site alone, the majority of people here (considering fans can sometimes be the most critical) don’t believe this to be a “subpar film”. In fact, they enjoy/like it.

Also, lumping the original trilogy together and then comparing i.e. OT versus KOTCS, seems a little unfair and biased towards the originals. It’s only really logical to compare movie with movie. In reality, TOD is as far removed in quality from Raiders (IMHO) as KOTCS is. I don’t recall TOD being lauded for it’s great writing and character motivation… but perhaps I missed that meeting. That’s not to say one can’t have a preference, but I just don’t see it has much to do with “the writing” or “character development” etc. If anything, TOD proves that you don’t need those things in order to make a good action/adventure movie.
 

Darth Vile

New member
cdmeredith said:
here's another question that bothers me. I'm sure this has been asked before, but how in the hell did the conquistadors get into the chamber to steal the skull, if you require the skull to unlock the chamber???? It's things like this that make me hate this movie.

As James states, I?m not sure the conquistadors ever got into the actual chamber? but rather; they encountered the aliens on the outside? But ultimately it?s all down to willing suspension of disbelief. There are several threads on this site where we?ve discussed inconsistencies with the other movies? I responded to one only yesterday about the feasibility of the ?Word of God? test in TLC. The bottom line is, if you want to find fault, there are many examples to find fault with. ;)

cdmeredith said:
I think the red scare is a very interesting nuance to this movie, but I don't agree that it was handled well. mac's character was meant to represent that aspect of what we feared during mccarthyism. that anybody could be the enemy, but mac reveals himself as turncoat not for ideological reasons, just greed.
So whilst I have stated before that Mac was done a huge disservice with his death scene, I?m not sure about what he was actually ?representing?. The ?red scare? was merely some historical context to reference the movies time period. KOTCS was not designed to address the underlying issues of the day, just as Raiders wasn?t designed to be a narrative on the rampant march of Nationalism under the Nazi party.

cdmeredith said:
For every Toht/Mola Ram/and Vogel, there needs to be a Belloq/Chattar Lal/ and Donovan.

Every Sadist villain needs an ideological counterpart; they tried to put all of that into spalko I think. they did that a lot in this movie, just throwing things at the wall to see what would stick, and horribly, what stuck was a bad movie.

I think the combination of Dovchenko and Spalko replicated what had gone before quite successfully i.e. the brawn and the brain. I find Spalko to be at least as interesting as Mola Ram/Donovan. Again, looking at the Lucas/Spielberg transcripts, I?d posit that you have perhaps imbued those villains from the other movies with qualities/depths that are not necessarily there. It?s clear that Lucas/Spielberg envisioned them as fairly 2-dimensional villains? and that?s basically what I see on screen in all of the movies.
 

cdmeredith

New member
C'est la vie.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. the debate is fun though. I guess I will never like KOTCS.

However, I am really glad that everyone is getting a kick out the story transcripts. I totally agree that Lucas is controlling the show here. Even when the other two throw ideas in, it's usually Lucas that approves or denies them. And most of the time, he takes their initial idea and improves on it greatly. I think Kasdan really deserves the credit for Marion though, that seems to be the one truly monumental addition that didn't come out of George. I also had always thought that it was Kasdan and Spielberg that had really fleshed out the story of Raiders, based on minor input from George, but actually the opposite was the truth. Weird. The power of the ark, and the way it appears in the film is absent from this document though, so maybe spielberg devised that later, to make it more dramatic? Lucas seems to have envisioned it as a burst of static electricity that's over in two seconds.
 

Moedred

Administrator
Staff member
cdmeredith said:
I also have a draft of Raiders of the Lost Ark that is dated August 1979. It contains the Shanghai stuff, has this been posted before?
Yeah, it looks like the revised third draft at theRaider.
The only snippet I've seen from any other draft was on the DVD.
 

The Man

Well-known member
It's a fascinating brainstorm to read. Thankfully, Spielberg was fully engaged with the proposed storyline and didn't spend a decade trying to ignore it...;)
 

James

Well-known member
Another reason it's interesting to read this now, is because of the way Lucas is blamed for EVERYTHING people didn't like about KOTCS. But here we see a strong argument that Spielberg took this series a lot less seriously than Lucas did. Add to this the fact that Spielberg considers LC a better crowd pleaser than ROTLA, and that he frequently joked with his editor about the comedy in KOTCS: "Am I taking this too far?"

We already know that several hated elements in KOTCS were entirely Spielberg's- yet no one's ever willing to admit it. For example, he had strong input into the Tarzan scene and wanted a shot of the monkey surviving. It was also his idea to make the 13 aliens merge into one big one. And after reading the transcript, does anyone really believe the prairie dogs or the rubber tree were entirely Lucas' creations?

It's actually Lucas that fought to keep the action in ROTLA believable. Spielberg came up with things like the life raft jump, Indy riding a camel through clotheslines, and a turban-wearing monkey. Based on this, it wouldn't surprise me if Spielberg were the real culprit behind the infamous fridge scene. We'd previously seen how Lucas approached the idea in the Saucermen script. It was still bold and over-the-top, but he didn't have Indy flying around in a refrigerator.

Most people didn't have a problem with Indy riding the initial blastwave. Or the fact that he became airborne- since he wasn't really that high off the ground. These are both similar enough to stunts Indy had already survived in TOD.

No, the most common criticism of that scene was the exaggerated landing. But to me, that comes across as having a strong Spielberg influence. It's played for laughs, and basically has the tone of, "Look at what Indy is surviving here!" This is consistent with one of Spielberg's favorite aspects of the character: Someone who can take an absurd beating, yet keep on ticking.
 
Thanks for the Transcript

It's a great read for the obsessive fan!

I have to say it's remarkable how focused Lucas comes off. My favorite, (so far...not done with this guilty please yet!) is how much he wants to make it BELIEVEABLE! He's definitely serious about this film!

I spent many years NOT paying much attention to the "Steven Spielberg Film" line and would always give much more respect to Lucas.

Then they got old, BOTH of them, but while Lucas gave us JarJar, Spielberg gave us Munich and I started to re-think my position.

ESPECIALLY after Lucas downgraded Crystal Skull in interviews by catagorizing CS as just another adventure for this WACKY acrcheologist.

That is how he approaches the FRANCHISE these day and that is exactly what he has created with Crystal Skull...a wacky film, (cue wackety sax).

Thanks for this great read...I can rest assured that I didn't invest so many years and so much imagination in a character who's become a parody of himself.

The reason Raiders is so great is that they couldn't indulge themselves, They had to be quick dirty and cut corners, that's why we have Indy shooting first and not the (now I'm being generous) Chaplinesque slapstick they wanted.

All the subsequent movies mine from Raiders...it was the BEST of the material, and they took it SERIOUSLY. Indy was the "Archeologist with No Name" and not Frank Drebin.

Thanks for the material...I will be enjoying it for along long time!


:dead:
 

Moedred

Administrator
Staff member
Wilhelm said:
super high-powered radio from one of Erick Von Daniken's FLYING SAUCERS.
I knew Lucas was inspired by Chariots of the Gods from the start!

More gallows humor:
G ? We have a scene with the villians torturing the girl a little bit, rape her, talk about the fact that they're not finding the Ark.
S ? She should be screaming his name, she's so pissed off. He had to tie her up, otherwise they would know that he was around. At the same time, there are people raping and torturing her.
G ? I was using that facetiously.
 

Darth Vile

New member
Rocket Surgeon said:
It's a great read for the obsessive fan!

I have to say it's remarkable how focused Lucas comes off. My favorite, (so far...not done with this guilty please yet!) is how much he wants to make it BELIEVEABLE! He's definitely serious about this film!

I spent many years NOT paying much attention to the "Steven Spielberg Film" line and would always give much more respect to Lucas.

Then they got old, BOTH of them, but while Lucas gave us JarJar, Spielberg gave us Munich and I started to re-think my position.

ESPECIALLY after Lucas downgraded Crystal Skull in interviews by catagorizing CS as just another adventure for this WACKY acrcheologist.

That is how he approaches the FRANCHISE these day and that is exactly what he has created with Crystal Skull...a wacky film, (cue wackety sax).

Thanks for this great read...I can rest assured that I didn't invest so many years and so much imagination in a character who's become a parody of himself.

The reason Raiders is so great is that they couldn't indulge themselves, They had to be quick dirty and cut corners, that's why we have Indy shooting first and not the (now I'm being generous) Chaplinesque slapstick they wanted.

All the subsequent movies mine from Raiders...it was the BEST of the material, and they took it SERIOUSLY. Indy was the "Archeologist with No Name" and not Frank Drebin.

Thanks for the material...I will be enjoying it for along long time!


:dead:

I think most would agree that Raiders is still the pinnacle of Indiana Jones. Of course, that's not to say that enjoyment cannot be found, in what are, three very well crafted sequels.
 

Moedred

Administrator
Staff member
I converted it to html and posted it here.
http://moedred.livejournal.com/2009/03/04
The typewriter typos remain, for identification purposes. Agent5's transcript is cleaner, and I suspect his Ebay source polished this transcript without hearing the tapes himself. Which means his copy wouldn't have the 2 missing pages either. He'd be the first to ask about them... he hangs out at COW quite a bit.
 

Darth Vile

New member
Moedred said:
I converted it to html and posted it here.
http://moedred.livejournal.com/2009/03/04
The typewriter typos remain, for identification purposes. Agent5's transcript is cleaner, and I suspect his Ebay source polished this transcript without hearing the tapes himself. Which means his copy wouldn't have the 2 missing pages either. He'd be the first to ask about them... he hangs out at COW quite a bit.

That makes it a lot easier to read.

Thanks. :D
 

Robyn

New member
cdmeredith said:
I think Kasdan really deserves the credit for Marion though, that seems to be the one truly monumental addition that didn't come out of George. I also had always thought that it was Kasdan and Spielberg that had really fleshed out the story of Raiders, based on minor input from George, but actually the opposite was the truth. Weird. The power of the ark, and the way it appears in the film is absent from this document though, so maybe spielberg devised that later, to make it more dramatic? Lucas seems to have envisioned it as a burst of static electricity that's over in two seconds.

I really agree with you on that, Kasdan deserves almost all the credit for Marion!

James said:
Another reason it's interesting to read this now, is because of the way Lucas is blamed for EVERYTHING people didn't like about KOTCS. But here we see a strong argument that Spielberg took this series a lot less seriously than Lucas did. Add to this the fact that Spielberg considers LC a better crowd pleaser than ROTLA, and that he frequently joked with his editor about the comedy in KOTCS: "Am I taking this too far?"

We already know that several hated elements in KOTCS were entirely Spielberg's- yet no one's ever willing to admit it. For example, he had strong input into the Tarzan scene and wanted a shot of the monkey surviving. It was also his idea to make the 13 aliens merge into one big one. And after reading the transcript, does anyone really believe the prairie dogs or the rubber tree were entirely Lucas' creations?

It's actually Lucas that fought to keep the action in ROTLA believable. Spielberg came up with things like the life raft jump, Indy riding a camel through clotheslines, and a turban-wearing monkey. Based on this, it wouldn't surprise me if Spielberg were the real culprit behind the infamous fridge scene. We'd previously seen how Lucas approached the idea in the Saucermen script. It was still bold and over-the-top, but he didn't have Indy flying around in a refrigerator.

Most people didn't have a problem with Indy riding the initial blastwave. Or the fact that he became airborne- since he wasn't really that high off the ground. These are both similar enough to stunts Indy had already survived in TOD.

No, the most common criticism of that scene was the exaggerated landing. But to me, that comes across as having a strong Spielberg influence. It's played for laughs, and basically has the tone of, "Look at what Indy is surviving here!" This is consistent with one of Spielberg's favorite aspects of the character: Someone who can take an absurd beating, yet keep on ticking.

Well I myself enjoy those little funny things Steven throws in, what I didn't like was the aliens, and that was Lucas's idea! I still loved KOTCS, but I hated the aliens/crystal skull thing and it needed a lot more Marion!

Darth Vile said:
Completely on the money. Agree 100%. We forget (or some do) that Lucas and Spielberg are actually closer to these movies than we are. Of course, that doesn't mean that their artistic/creative choices always work on screen, but I do believe they are in a better place to make these judgments than the likes of us.

I think you are falling into the trap of letting your feelings define what the movie is for everyone else. As is evidenced on this site alone, the majority of people here (considering fans can sometimes be the most critical) don?t believe this to be a ?subpar film?. In fact, they enjoy/like it.

Also, lumping the original trilogy together and then comparing i.e. OT versus KOTCS, seems a little unfair and biased towards the originals. It?s only really logical to compare movie with movie. In reality, TOD is as far removed in quality from Raiders (IMHO) as KOTCS is. I don?t recall TOD being lauded for it?s great writing and character motivation? but perhaps I missed that meeting. That?s not to say one can?t have a preference, but I just don?t see it has much to do with ?the writing? or ?character development? etc. If anything, TOD proves that you don?t need those things in order to make a good action/adventure movie.

I absoutely agree with you, as the character development goes.. I saw little to no character development in TOD, and I never noticed Indy developing into any kind of father for shorty, all I ever saw was a cute and at times annoying temporary side kick, but the point is, maybe KOTCS did lack character development, but TOD had none either

Quote:
G ? I was thinking that this old guy could have been his mentor. He could have known this little girl when she was just a kid. Had an affair with her when she was eleven.
L ? And he was forty-two.
G ? He hasn't seen her in twelve years. Now she's twenty-two. It's a real strange relationship.
S ? She had better be older than twenty-two.
.....
G ? Fifteen is right on the edge. I know it's an outrageous idea, but it is interesting. Once she's sixteen or seventeen it's not interesting anymore.

Had an affair with her when she was eleven!?!? Is he crazy?! I don't know why he would come up with an age like that, but it's a good thing they changed it to fifteen and then seventeen!
 
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Attila the Professor

Moderator
Staff member
I'm a little more perplexed by the "And he was forty-two." Did they intend for Indy to be 52 in this film? Abner could have been 42, yes, but that's a bit of an irrelevance, yes?
 

kongisking

Active member
Wilhelm said:
Big Thanks cdmeredith!!!

This is a great document. I just begin to read and it's so interesting.

For example: the polemic concept of flying saucers / extraterrestials of Indy 4 was present in the genesis of Raiders from 1978.

LUCAS: "The Ark is like a radio transmiter. That's the real legend. That's what they used to do. The Israelis used to set up these tents and they would talk to God and God would tell them what to do. And then they would march with it in front of their army. The other Armies would be destroyed. Our idea was that there must actually be some kind of super high-powered radio from one of Erick Von Daniken's FLYING SAUCERS. The fact that it's electrical charges makes it vaguely believable."
(Page 28)

Take that, you Alien/UFO/SciFi Indy-hating asscracks. Sci-Fi has been here since the start. Now stop your *****ing, PLEASE!!!!!!!!!! :mad:
 
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