Koepp Script

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Wilhelm

Member
Maybe they chose Jeb Stuart by his work in The Fugitive with Ford. It seems that most of the writers have been approached by their past projects with Lucas / Spielberg / Ford.

Kasdan: Continental Divide / Star Wars
Huyck-Katz: American Graffiti
Columbus: Gremlins etc
Menno Meyjes: Empire of the sun
Jeffrey Boam: Innerspace
Jeb Stuart: The Fugitive
Darabont: Young Indiana Jones / Saving Private Ryan
Nathanson: Catch Me if you can / The Terminal
Koepp: Jurassic Park etc
 
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agentsands77

New member
oki9Sedo said:
I feel that Koepp's script was better than Darabont's, to be honest.
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I can't even begin to understand that position. I can just barely understand saying that based on the finished film, when folks were trying to imagine what Koepp's script was like.

But now that we have the scripts in hand, well, I think there's no comparison between the two. Evaluated apart from the finished film, Koepp's script is dismal. It reads significantly worse than the finished film actually plays. I find the idea that this lazy, meandering, dull piece of work is better than Darabont's draft - flawed though it is - laughable.
 
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oki9Sedo

New member
agentsands77 said:
I can't even begin to understand that position. I can just barely understand saying that based on the finished film, when folks were trying to imagine what Koepp's script was like.

But now that we have the scripts in hand, well, I think there's no comparison between the two. Evaluated apart from the finished film, Koepp's script is dismal. It reads significantly worse than the finished film actually plays. I find the idea that this lazy, meandering, dull piece of work is better than Darabont's draft - flawed though it is - laughable.
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Apologies, haven't actually read Koepp's script, was just basing my opinion on the film itself (escluding the "directorial flair" stuff etc, just the dialogue, events etc etc)

Didn't realize the thread actually had his script. Where is it?
 
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nitzsche

New member
Wow. Koepp's Mac from the script is brilliant. Mac was a victim of editing. A little trim here and snip there and a lot of the wit and motivation of the Mac character was lost.

I was interested to read the scene of the battle with the cemetery warriors. That edit was a shame. It was character development for Mutt.

We see what happens to Marion in the jungle and why she is left behind.

The dialogue on the river was a fun moment too.

Oxley lost some moments in the climax as well.

The big scene between Mac and Spalko in the jeep discussing the skull and psychic powers should not have been cut.

Overall, this lost 5-10 minutes or so would have helped a lot.

I think his script is solid. He provided a lot more texture that didn't make the cut. Even some harrowing close-calls that got trimmed.
 
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Udvarnoky

Well-known member
nitzsche said:
The big scene between Mac and Spalko in the jeep discussing the skull and psychic powers should not have been cut.
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I agree. Bizarre edit there. If there was one cut that absolutely shouldn't have been made, that was it.

Still, I don't think restoring that or any other of the cuts would have resulted in a substantially better movie. Mac still isn't what he should have been even with the compulsive gambling and womanizing aspects given some deserved attention. And even if Mac's demise in the final movie feels just really terribly staged on Spielberg's part (which absolutely contributes to the confusion), it's still not scripted in a way that makes it any less random or any less "This is like Elsa's death, but different!" I still don't know why he leaves the tracers other than to have a last minute "twist."
 
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agentsands77

New member
Udvarnoky said:
I agree. Bizarre edit there. If there was one cut that absolutely shouldn't have been made, that was it.
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I think that edit makes sense (actually, I think *all* of the edits make sense). The film was already sluggish as was, and that scene - while having some interesting content that enriched some of the characters - wasn't exactly exciting. To try and streamline that section of the film, it was a natural cut.

That underscores the problem with most of Koepp's script... he delivers information in a horribly paced fashion, so that in order to keep any semblance of momentum, one has to cut some narratively interesting bits.
 
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agentsands77

New member
nitzsche said:
I was interested to read the scene of the battle with the cemetery warriors. That edit was a shame. It was character development for Mutt.
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Not substantial character development (kind of extraneous and unimportant, really), and the scene was awkwardly structured. That bit of development for Mutt occurred after the natural scene break.

nitzsche said:
The dialogue on the river was a fun moment too.
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I thought it was terrible. The piranha would have been awful.

nitzsche said:
Oxley lost some moments in the climax as well.
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Thankfully. It would have been horrible for Oxley to be babbling on and on about inter-dimensional physics towards the end, undercutting what little tension there was.

nitzsche said:
The big scene between Mac and Spalko in the jeep discussing the skull and psychic powers should not have been cut.
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It needed to be cut for pacing reasons.
 
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Udvarnoky

Well-known member
agentsands77 said:
That underscores the problem with most of Koepp's script... he delivers information in a horribly paced fashion, so that in order to keep any semblance of momentum, one has to cut some narratively interesting bits.
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I mean, what you say is absolutely true, but since I felt the movie had no momentum anyway (the action scenes to me weren't particularly breathless, so the effect of the nonstop action - in the sense of there constantly being something going on - didn't give the movie's pace as brisk a feeling as it should have), it wouldn't have hurt to get a little more insight into characters that were totally lacking in depth in the final film.
 
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Darth Vile

New member
Not had an oppertunity to look at this yet... but hopefully I'll have read it by the end of the week and can comment. Sounds like there are very few surprises...
 
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the ox

New member
of the BIG 3 only harrison delivered, in my opinion. lucas was adamant about a plot device that was inferior ... much better and more fitting plots in some of the indy novels that i've been checking out recently. still - some of lucas's ideas provided my favorite parts of the movie (ie. first half stuff) ... even the fridge was at least SOMETHING. the movie still COULD have been great ... but spielberg failed by wasting all the more traditional indy stuff with tepid pacing and no tension in his shooting of a pretty average script.

in the end it's obvious they spent a long time NOT making this movie rather than working on it. they were in stalemate and uninterested about indy 4 until they decided to do it then they rushed together the "best" of what they had. shoe-horning in marion's return and a son called "mutt" should have alerted us all ... but i was optimistic going in.

it's grown on me and there are some fun parts ... but not enough!
 
TheMutt92

TheMutt92

New member
Havn't started reading it yet, but I did make one observation:

The page count is 211 compared to The Dark Knight's 141. Now it may be that the Nolan's write less when it comes to action or something, but I don't know...
 
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agentsands77

New member
TheMutt92 said:
Havn't started reading it yet, but I did make one observation:

The page count is 211 compared to The Dark Knight's 141. Now it may be that the Nolan's write less when it comes to action or something, but I don't know...
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To be fair, the pagination on this copy is a bit screwy. So take that for what it's worth.
 
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ResidentAlien

Guest
The Man said:
Some pages have only one piece of dialogue or one slice of narrative on them.
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Nothing at all screwy about that. It's a shooting script which means scenes have been omitted and shuffled around. You don't change the page number because by that point the scripts already been broken down. So instead some pages are just "screwy."

...Script breakdown sucks. I was doing that all last night. No fun.
 
TheMutt92

TheMutt92

New member
ResidentAlien said:
...Script breakdown sucks. I was doing that all last night. No fun.
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My I ask what for...? :cool:


Back on subject though, since scenes were omitted, is the page count from the actual length of a previous draft? (sorry for all the questions, but I myself am an amateur screenwriter and trying to learn all the ins and outs)
 
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