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The ‘Indiana Jones’ Supernatural Horror Movie That Almost Was (2017)
- echelon 6y agoThese ideas and script snippets here are outlandishly horrible. George Lucas is quite the fountain of ideas, but he needs a partner to help temper his vision. If he teamed up again with another director like Spielberg, he'd be a powerhouse. I imagine there are a lot of people like him out there in the world. Tech tree spent 100% in the visionary / idea column, but lacking the well-rounded, sensible pragmatism.
- ricc 6y ago> George Lucas is quite the fountain of ideas, but he needs a partner to help temper his vision. This. Many say that the Star Wars OT became the great films they were because of George Lucas’ wife, Marcia, who also served as his editor. And actually one can feel the degradation of their relationship by seeing how ROTJ was much worse than the first two movies. (They divorced after releasing ROTJ.) So now imagine if George did have complete rein of everything... [Vietnam flashbacks while thinking of the 2nd Trilogy and unnecessary remasters]
- ggambetta 6y agoI'd heard that about Star Wars too, but hadn't understood to what degree it was true before I encountered this article and video: https://www.polygon.com/2017/12/29/16829502/star-wars-wreck-editing https://www.polygon.com/2017/12/29/16829502/star-wars-wreck-...
- rangibaby 6y agoAdd Gary Kurtz to the list. He said the original plan for ROTJ had no Death Star, and Wookiees instead of Ewoks.
- ricc 6y agoWho proposed the addition of Death Star 2.0 and replacing Wookies with Ewoks? Many people have been criticizing the Ewoks because their role "doesn't make sense" and probably started George Lucas' tendency to pander to children for merchandising purposes.
- krapp 6y agoGeorge Lucas originally planned the trilogy so that the Death Star was destroyed in the third act - and the Wookies were supposed to be a primitive, arboreal species. However, he wasn't at all certain that A New Hope would be popular enough to fund sequels (remember how risky a big-budget sci fi epic was back then,) so he essentially rewrote the entire trilogy into the first movie. When ANH turned out to be... popular (to say the least,) he wound up retelling the trilogy as he originally intended, as best he could. And because it had already been established that Wookies were a technologically advanced species because of Chewbacca, he basically just made them smaller and reversed their names (Ewoks.)
- ricc 6y agoNow I'm curious why did he use Chewbacca as Han Solo's partner in the "compressed" ANH... Who was supposed to be Solo's partner?
- DennisP 6y agoI'm really curious how Episode IV would have ended. Maybe just rescue Leia and get away, skip the final battle? It seems possible that a scaled-back Star Wars would have been less popular.
- rangibaby 6y agoIn “The Hidden Fortress”, which Star Wars plot and characters (minus Luke) is mostly based on, “Obi Wan” humiliates “Darth Vader” by refusing to kill him after beating him in their duel. The Emperor horribly tortures Darth Vader for losing, which convinces him to switch sides and help Obi Wan and the princess escape, and the ending is the three of them rejoining the rebellion, ready to fight another day.
- coldtea 6y agoGeorge Lucas post 1976 is a mediocre director, and a worse writer. Even before 1976 he wasn't that great either - American Graffiti is a forgetable coming of age movie. If it wasn't made by Lucas of later 'Star Wars' fame nobody would remember it today. What he is actually known for is being great at worldbuilding once, with Star Wars (beginner's luck?). Middle age took that ability away though after the eighties, like a punk band trying to be relevant in their 40s: only for hardcore fans. And I say it regretably. I'd too wanted a great Star Wars 1, 2, and 3. That said, most modern S.W. movies are also crap. The J.A. ones were so much a blatant copy of the original story plots as to be useless, whereas Han Solo bordered on camp. Rogue One was somewhat decent though, and I hear good things about the Mandalorean... Spielberg on the other hand is a true master...
- paul_f 6y agoRegarding American Graffiti, it was a huge hit, before anyone heard of Star Wars. It was the number 3 grossing film of 1973 after The Sting and The Exorcist. It made AFI's list of the top 100 movies.
- coldtea 6y agoIt was a hit (for it's money) but there are tons of hits (with similar acclaim) from back then that are forgotten today.
- ghaff 6y agoTo be fair, how many non-film buffs know a lot of films from the early 70s today? Star Wars is an exception mostly because it became such a franchise.
- ghaff 6y agoIt would almost certainly be on my Top 100 list as well. I think it stands up pretty well. Those other two are pretty classic too--although I'm not really a horror film fan. (That said, I could see people not being able to identify with the where/when the movie was set. I certainly wasn't part of that either but I still really enjoyed it.) But, yeah, the films Lucas directed go way downhill after American Graffiti and Star Wars.
- Chazprime 6y agoI think it’s time we consider that George Lucas is a mostly mediocre filmmaker who peaked in 1976. How Spielberg let Lucas talk him into the fourth Indiana Jones movie is beyond me.
- goto11 6y agoIf Lucas gets the blame for Crystal Skull, surely he gets the credit for Raiders of the Lost Ark also?
- Chazprime 6y agoLucas had lots of help from Lawrence Kasdan and Steven Spielberg on the Raiders script.
- goto11 6y agoLawrence Kasdan wrote the script for Raiders, David Koepp wrote the script for Crystal Skull. Steven Spielberg directed both. Lucas was co-creator of the story on both. You can easily verify this on IMDB.
- jccooper 6y agoThere's a transcript of an early story conference for Raiders of the Lost Ark, between George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Larry Kasdan where they present and hammer out ideas for the movie. You can actually see what parts of the movie come from whom. What's striking to me are that Lucas has most of what we now know as Indy, with Spielberg mostly tossing in goofy gags--some of which made it and some which (thankfully) didn't. https://moedred.livejournal.com/2009/03/04/ https://moedred.livejournal.com/2009/03/04/ Older drafts (link from there) are also quite interesting. An all-Lucas "Raiders" would have looked very similar to what we got, maybe just a bit more serious.
- Razengan 6y agoFew greater atrocities in the world of art than the absence of a movie based on the awesome Fate of Atlantis game. It would have been more epic than anything. After all Atlantis is more of a “Holy Grail” for archaeology than the Holy Grail itself.
- muterad_murilax 6y agoAt least we got a comic-book adaptation.
- waihtis 6y agoAh, Fate of Atlantis. As a kid, I used to bike to our local library to play it on the library computers - they had a surprisingly decent game selection. It was either this or another Indy game where you could win any fight by pressing a specific key (causing Indy to instantly knock out the opponent.) I remember learning this trick from a random kid play the game at the same library. I sometimes wonder if the streaming era has killed that kind of "serendipitous discovery" which was an important part of some of the more important childhood memories.
- amock 6y agoFate of Atlantis is the game where you could knock almost any opponent out with a specific key. Later in the game there's an enemy who says something like "that cheap American trick won't work on me" if you try it, so you have to find another way to defeat him.
- daniel-cussen 6y agoYeah but it did do him a lot of damage. I think you have to defeat him by "knocking him out" like five times.
- amock 6y agoThe one I remember had to be crushed by rolling a boulder over him since he couldn’t be defeated by fighting. It’s been a long time, though, and I only remember a few parts.
- ashurov 6y agoperhaps 2017 should be added in the title?
- Taylor_OD 6y agoWhat do you call the alien Indiana Jones movie we got?
- caseysoftware 6y agoNothing. There was no Indiana Jones movie involving aliens. I recall Shia LaBeouf had a fever dream about it though. Maybe you mean that?
- icefrakker 6y agoPretending a movie doesn't exist is something that has been beaten to death. I would choose to live in a world where Crystal Skull is the best film if it meant I never had to read garbage comments like yours ever again.
- alblue 6y agoIndiana Jones and the Crystal Skull has what turned out to be aliens and an alien spaceship.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- DennisP 6y ago> He told Spielberg he had an entire trilogy planned for his old-fashioned hero and they shook hands on the spot. That character turned out to be Indiana Jones, and George Lucas turned out to be a liar. Yet another reason to doubt that Lucas had already sketched out nine stories when Star Wars was released, much less that they were the source material for Episodes I-III. (And I don't think Disney is even claiming to draw on old unpublished material.)
- antiquark 6y ago> George Lucas turned out to be a liar. This seems to be an annoying new trend: people using the word "liar" when someone's prediction didn't come true.
- matt-attack 6y agoI read it as: Lucas claimed he had fully fleshed out a 3 movie series. In reality he only had Raiders of the Lost Ark plus a few loose ideas for 2 sequels.
- antiquark 6y ago> Lucas claimed he had fully fleshed out a 3 movie series But if that was his belief, then he wasn't lying.
- karatinversion 6y agoI don’t see how you could honestly and falsely believe that.
- antiquark 6y agoSo I'm a liar if I don't think Lucas lied?
- karatinversion 6y agoSorry, I meant “that”, referring to the belief that one has three fully fleshed out movies. The “you” was a general construction, replaceable with “one”. I.e. I don’t see how anyone could honestly believe that they have three fully fleshed out movies ready, if they in fact do not.
- forgingahead 6y agoEveryone is certainly entitled to their opinion -- but my goodness what a pile-on in the article and these comments. Looking forward to enjoying the globally-enjoyed and profitable franchises everyone here will be producing soon!
- kyberias 6y agoWhy are some words in the script written IN ALL CAPS?
- antiquark 6y agoThat's a standard script format: https://www.writersstore.com/how-to-write-a-screenplay-a-guide-to-scriptwriting/ https://www.writersstore.com/how-to-write-a-screenplay-a-gui...
- goto11 6y agoMovie scripts follow a very strict format. Always courier 12pt, no bold or italic. Every scene have a standardized header. Characters names and certain other keywords are ALL CAPS. It probably originated in the age of mechanical typewriters, but the format has become completely entrenched and everyone in the industry knows how to read it. Lots of script guidelines like ("1 page is one minute of screen time", "the first turning point should happen before page 20") assumes a standard script format. So you cannot just change to Times New Roman if you think it is more legible.
- kyberias 6y agoI know the script format, I just wasn't aware that there is a freedom to excessively capitalize random words. :)
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y agoHe's got somewhat of a point though, in the first extract, what's capitalised is "SCREAM", "STUMBLES UPON", "GATHER", "CORPSE", "BROKEN", "FROZEN", "STARE", "WHISPER" These certainly are "certain keywords" but so are many collections of words. That doesn't help one understand what should or should not be on the list. As outsiders we don't really have to know the rules, but are they key words, not just "random words"? Is it something to do with how they're either actions that a character takes, a thing that they see, a reaction, etc. i.e. a rough guide to where to point the camera?
- goto11 6y ago