It has been suggested that an Indy4 discussion that was going on in the Indy5 speculation thread be continued in a more appropriate place, so unless someone would prefer to spin this off into another thread, I'm going to resume a discussion left off with
this post by Attila.
Attila the Professor said:
All of these are points well taken. (Although, while the general point about the rhythm of the thing still stands as a potential reason to cut the Irina/Mac conversation, that was placed in Koepp's script just before the Indy/Marion/Mutt in the truck scene, in a slight breather between the miniature action sequence of the sand pit escape sequence and the jungle chase. Hell, that placement is possibly as strong a reveal of what may be Koepp's exposition dole problem as anything.)
I've got to remove some egg from my face - my memory was that the Spalko/Mac scene took place right after Indy knocked out Dovchenko, rather than before, but upon checking the script again, you are correct. Given that, it's now harder for me to imagine that Spielberg would have cut it for pacing purposes (if that was the reason) without seeing how it would have played out. Maybe he balked at the idea of two extended dialog scenes in a row, but I'm more inclined to agree with you that its existence would have been justifed.
Attila the Professor said:
I disagree about there being an "obligation to maintain a relentlessness from the point where the jungle chase starts all the way to when the crew goes over the waterfalls," as it seems that there is a natural place for a lull following Dovchenko's death.
Well, "obligation" is too strong - I'm speculating about what might have been Spielberg's head. I'm thinking of the extended sequence in Temple of Doom that starts with the fuel being drained from the plane and ending with the arrival at the village - there is
no lull indulged in during that insanity. It's possible that Spielberg was attempting to achieve something along those lines. Since I don't think the final result had the breathlessness that it should have, I'm inclined to agree with you about restoring the lost dialog - there was nothing to lose and everything to gain - but we don't know how it played in the assembly cut.
We also have to consider the runtime when evaluating potential reasons for all these excisions. Not breaching two hours is something Spielberg seems to have been pretty keen on. Some of the cuts were arguably misguided, but as I said, I think the structure of the screenplay placed some good material in places that made it more expendable than it might have been with more organic storytelling. If important exposition is doled out in giant bursts, there's really no way to cut such a scene, and some quality "little moments" have to get the axe as a consequence. Koepp's approach leaves very little options for targets when it comes time to trim the movie down.
Attila the Professor said:
I'm curious whether your thoughts on Darabont's method of exposition apply to the earlier scenes: the interrogation scene, the Stanforth scenes, at the diner and at Indy's home with Mutt, Oxley's cell, and the conversation in Orellana's cradle. It is primarily the last of those which I think doesn't work, and the two preceding it exist in a fairly lengthy section without action, so they don't feel shoehorned in, at least to me. I think the problem with the Orellana's cradle scene is not so much one of an improper sense of rhythm for where it ought to stand in relation to other dialogue scenes and to action sequences as that it's uninteresting.
I assume by Darabont you mean Koepp here. True to my reputation as the resident crank, I take issue with pretty much every exposition scene, though I'd say the ones in the cell and the crypt are the chief offenders, largely because they're in the service of this mini-mystery story that doesn't actually go anywhere. I'll share my thoughts on the pre-Peru stuff.
My problem with the interrogation scene, as I've described before, is simply that
every bit of information that it conveys has either already been told to us or is just about to be. Who Spalko is and what she wants has already been well enough established by this point, and there's more coming in the tent scene. Telling us what we've already seen is wasteful, glaring, and very disruptive to the movie's flow. Furthermore, the added emphasis the scene places on the Indy vs. The Feds subplot effectively functions as a setup to something that does not pay off in the ending, which is content to just imply that Indy's been cleared, somehow. Stanforth telling Indy he's been fired, the ensuing ruminations at Indy's home, and the Better Red Than Dead protest at the college all effectively anchor the paranoia theme. Finally, Indiana Jones and the Mushroom Cloud was absolutely the perfect closing visual to the prologue.
The Stanforth scenes are good, no real qualms there. I think the "First dad, then Marcus, then Shorty in that industrial accident" part was a little bit too on-the-nose, but I recognize that Connery dropped out after being written into the script. And I'm also with you that cutting the Stanforth dialog that they did was a mistake. And while it may not have moved the plot along enough to justify its existing, I thought Darabont wrote a very touching little scene where Indy says goodbye to his class that might have been carried over.
The diner exposition for me is more about the content of the exposition rather than it presenting pacing issue. Here is the scene where we're told about Oxley and how he has key relationships with all these characters in addition to being a crystal skull authority. Here is where we learn that Mutt's mom "Mary" (really?) has been kidnapped. This is the scene, in short, that's supposed to supply us with the impetus for Indy to go to Peru, and that impetus is for Indy to save some guy whom we don't know and have never seen, and a lady that Indy doesn't realize he knows. It's not that we don't buy it as a motivation, but that as motivation it's pretty weak sauce in comparison to the previous films. Why is it necessary to invent Oxley, and why couldn't Mutt have just said, "My Mom, Mary Ravenwood, has been kidnapped?" Then we're all on board. Concealing Marion's identity is a secret for the sake of it.
Attila the Professor said:
Perhaps the broader question - and the one that might manage to justify us going on about Koepp's script so much in this thread - is whether the beards's prescribing of desired set pieces is an approach with an inherent possibility for disaster.
Based on the draft we have of the Darabont script, my opinion of which doesn't seem to be among the majority here, I'm going to say no. The Beards hand the screenwriter a checklist and their job is write the most entertaining script they can that incorporates all of those things. Koepp would have been given a somewhat different checklist (which included Indy's son, I'd assume) than Darabont, but the evidence suggests that they were both given at least these requirements/suggestions:
- Crystal Skull
- 1950s, Russians (and the associated themes)
- Drag-racing teens in Nevada desert
- Area 51 warehouse
- Rocket sled
- Doomtown
- Nazca lines
- Lost city in the Amazon
- Giant, flesh-eating ants
- Waterfalls
The screenwriter must have at least some input on the story, of course, as we know reprising Marion, and by implication the wedding, was Darabont's contribution. There's possibly an argument to be made that the screenwriters were burdened with too long a checklist for this particular movie given the years in gestation, but it's hard to know for sure exactly how much leash the Beards gave their scribes (and if that changed from scribe to scribe). It's pretty amazing how different the two scripts really are despite the abundances of superficial similarities. It'll be fascinating to see one of Nathanson's drafts should it ever surface.