By the time Lucas and Spielberg setup these meetings with Kasdan, they knew for the most part what they wanted. This was just a matter of “okay, so, how do we tell this story?” Lucas did most of the talking. He seemed to be just talking through all of the ideas. He came across as, on the one hand, a strong driving force behind the film and on the other hand, a bit controlling. Spielberg occasionally threw in some exciting, funny, and even wacky ideas, which at times Lucas tried to dial down. But many, if not most, of Spielberg’s ideas would be used. Kasdan doesn’t say too much. I imagine he’s just soaking in everything he’s hearing, but he was certainly in sync with the filmmakers. He’d occasionally interject suggestions and also good questions about logic, characters, and plot.
Man-oh-man, Spielberg and Lucas were idea machines. They could’ve sat there coming up with Indiana Smith ideas forever. There were enough ideas generated in these meetings for two films, which they actually used for two films.
The author goes on to break down the story treatment and create 10 rules for screenwriting based upon the account. It’s a very interesting read, especially if you’re interested in the creative process and don’t want to spend time digesting the 125-page file. Or stash in next to the toilet. Either way.
Tangentially Related: MTV reports that casting is already underway on George Lucas’s Star Wars show. Rose Byrne (FX’s Damages), who played Dorme in Attack of the Clones, let it slip at the Knowing junket that a lot of her friends have been auditioning for the series. Set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, the show has been described by Lucas as “Deadwood meets The Sopranos in space”. Way to show drop.
According to Slashfilm, the show will be “told from the perspective of minor characters from the Star Wars galaxy (rumored to be a family in the underworld)” and will also be “darker, grittier, more character-based.” Don’t be surprised to see characters you are familiar with make guest appearances and cameos but not the heavies like Darth Vader.
By James Furbush | December 16th, 2008 | 1:49 pm PST
It’s been a good year for movies, if you don’t analyze the plots all that much. I often wonder what movies would be like in real life, i.e. Tony Stark in Iron Man would just be killed once the terrorists realize a ransom won’t be paid. But then that would make most movies like 30 minutes long. I’m okay with that. Coming back home, I watched The Dark Knight again and realized that even though it’s a gripping crime drama and held my attention for two-plus hours, the plot is absurd. And that’s why those two movies make the list, along with Mama Mia!, Indiana Jones, Sex and the City, Hancock, and Wanted. I won’t include the final one on the list, since it makes for a good punchline. [The Guardian]
After waiting almost two decades, it’s hard to believe that what everybody went to go see was the best that Harrison Ford, Steven Spielberg and Co. could do. Truth be told, this one doesn’t even hold a candle to any of the previous three and makes Temple of Doom look that much better. However, this is coming from a guy who thinks Temple of Doom is the second best and offers giddy pleasures in a way vastly different but equal to Raiders.
With that said, though, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull just comes off as a hack job. There are bits that work (is there a better action director than Spielberg?) and silly bits that take you out of the movie (yeah I’m looking at you George of the Jungle sequence) and more insect scares (holy shit those giant ants frightened the hell out of me) and moments that left me crying like a little girl (those first two or three scenes with Marion Ravenwood).
But it’s hard to take the movie serious when Indy is actually surprised by shit, ya know? This is a guy, who is not only immortal after drinking from the Holy Grail (which helps explain him surviving an atomic blast in a refrigerator!), but he’s seen more crazy shit in his lifetime that by the time this adventure rolls around I almost expect him to be utterly detached, blase to the point of being apathetic.
Regardless, it didn’t pervert my childhood (yeah I’m looking at you George Lucas) so it has that going for it. And still, with all the crazy stuff Indy has been through, I’m drawing a line at aliens and spaceships.
Oh and Shia LaBeouf didn’t ruin the movie, so let’s not start calling him Jar Jar Binks.
Did everyone have a great weekend? I finally spent it taking care of odd and ends and not thinking at all about what was going on in the world? Strange but also comforting. Finished unpacking, updated the back end of the website (and still working out the kinks and adjustments), went to see Liam Finn and Laura Veirs on Saturday night (look for a brief review since it was unexpected and I didn’t have a camera or notebook with me) and then Sunday was relaxing in the morning, gardening in the afternoon sunshine and then caught a late showing of Iron Man. (Yes, it’s as good as advertised. Again look for some brief thoughts soon.)
But let’s take a look at some of the trailers that I was digging on this week that didn’t make it to post. A few of these broke over the weekend.
The Dark Knight
We got a glimpse of this in a shitty bootlegged version early in the week. But this one manages to reaffirm it’s ass-kickory without giving away too much. No matter what, I can’t get over Heath Ledger’s strangely pitched delivery as The Joker. It’s um, hypnotic, and weirdly comforting.
The Happening
M. Night Shalam-a-ding-dong has burned lots of his fans recently and deservedly so. He’s made five well-known movies and only two of them have been better than good. He’s been coasting on his reputation since Unbreakable. Possibly the crash and burn nature of Lady in the Water has made him realize that he can’t coast on his name and a snazzy out-of-nowhere ending. We still don’t know what to expect out of his new picture, but it boasts a great cast and it looks ominous as shit.
Swing Vote
So there’s an election and it comes down to … egats! Kevin Costner? Holy cow, this looks like the worst movie ever and yet I’ll still watch it at some point because, um. Remind me again? I guess I’m the one person in America who doesn’t hate Kevin Costner. So yeah, they floated out this shit ship for me.
Bangkok Dangerous
It’s impossible to take Nic Cage seriously, especially now that he’s rocking the balding mullet look that’s so popular in Hollywood. Anyway, this time around he’s a super assassin in Thailand. Shenanigans and hijinks no doubt ensue.
Indiana Jones and the movie that sells itself
Wouldn’t you love to be the marketing department behind this movie? But still, their trailers have been flawless. The first time around they played up Indy’s iconography and this time around they sell us on the adventure. It seems so obvious and yet they nailed it.
Maybe this only interests me, or those of you who enjoy the works of author J.D. Salinger (Catcher in the Rye, Franny and Zooey). There’s an auction going on at Ebay right now where you can take home the above letter written by the author in 1981 to Janet Eagleson, whom the author carried on an affair with.
The bidding starts at $1,250 and the letter is estimated to be worth between $2,500-$3,000. So it’s not cheap but not expensive either.
However, the real news hear is that the author slags on of the greatest films ever in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
“…The sight of summer in full swing has put me off ever since I can remember. Oddly, I work nicely or at least normally amidst all the greening and flowering and burgeoning. But correspondence falls off, goes to pot…on top of everything, the woodshed crew…have been here…leaving me rattly and pale, but with a shelter of sorts for some twenty cords of wood. As ugly a structure as any I’ve seen, with lots of shitty little space-filling fancy scroll-y crosspieces, said to be ‘functional’. No doubt it will take an esthetic turn for the better with a couple of good hard winters. I took the morning bus into Boston…to do what I almost never do…went to see some particular pictures in a gallery. The Pissarro exhibit…Have seen no good movies, except The Last Metro…I got hooked into seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark, which might be excused for its unwitty, unfunny awful socko-ness if it had been put together by Harvard Lampoon seniors…Hope to see yez [sic] one of these limbo summer days…”
Boldness by us for emphasis. He closes the letter with the very emo-esque: “Have been in New York (I am the Man, I suffered, I was There.)”
Seriously though, how do you hate on Raiders? Everything I ever felt for the author is now gone. He is dead to me, even though I assumed he had been dead for the past thirty years.
Wouldn’t it be kind of cool though if J.D. Salinger had a movie blog and no one new it was him or it was one of those secrets that everyone knows about but no one will admit it? Especially the author in question. I don’t know why, but I like the image of him just writing for the simple pleasure of it alone in a house somewhere in the Vermont or New Hampshire woods.
By James Furbush | February 14th, 2008 | 6:52 am PST
Yahoo has posted the first trailer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. First impressions? Well, it seems that any fears I’ve had about this movie sucking have been allayed for now. I like that there seems to be a good blend of classic action and the mysterious.
Roswell can be spotted which means that the connections to aliens aren’t entirely unaccurate. Also, we only get snippets of Brendan Gleeson, Cate Blanchett and Shia LeBeef. Best part for me was when Indy was swinging in the artifacts warehouse and he screws up and lands in the windshield, “I thought I had more room.” Classic.
Or you can watch the embed below, it’s not the highest quality, but it’s still darn good.
In light of recent images surfacing of the actual Crystal Skulls that will appear in the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls, (just google it for all the deets) MTV sat down with noted Harvard archeology professor Marc Zender to discuss what those pesky skulls could actually mean.
“The dentition, vestigial nose orifice, massive eye cavities and dolichocephaly [or 'long-headed-ness,' to a layperson] put this thing into a very different class of entity,” Zender said, describing the “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” centerpiece. “It looks foreign really strange.”
“Definitely not human, no doubt about it,” Zender said of the skull’s structure, indicating that it obviously comes from an alien culture. “It’s got a mixture of the alien’s mouth from those movies with Sigourney Weaver [the 'Alien' series] and then really, really big eyes.”
Well, great but that doesn’t tell us what the point of it all is. Besides anyone with an internet connection could figure out there’s going to be some connection to aliens in the fourth installment of the franchise.
What does it all mean, by god!
“Assuming that the filmmakers took their cue from some prevailing New Age beliefs,” Zender said, “these crystal skulls are supposed to be computer-like repositories for the lost knowledge of the ages. The idea that these things have the knowledge of lost civilization or space-faring cultures or anything like that in them, that’s pretty prominent.”
What is it that they say, the more you know or something. So Indy has the all-powerful Ark, everlasting life from The Grail and now he knows everything because of the skulls. Just doesn’t seem fair does it. Though, it surely would make for a great pickup line at a bar. You know besides the obvious, “Hello, I’m Indiana Jones.”
Looks like it was taken from Empire Magazine’s upcoming spread on the movie or possibly another one. It was found via AICN and first surfaced on Myspace. Indy looks like he’s about to open a can of whoop ass on Cate Blanchett’s Commie-pig and her thugs. I love that he’s got that hangdog “why me worry” expression on his face.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls opens on May 22.
By James Furbush | November 27th, 2007 | 8:24 pm PST
These were posted to the IMBD boards and no doubt many of you have already seen them as this was the big news story of the day. I think it goes without saying that Harrison Ford is still one bad mutha… He looks good for 60 or 70. As for Shia LaBeef? I’m not sure he holds a candle to Mr. Ford, but knowing that he has awesome slicked back hair makes us chuckle for some reason. Internally, because laughing out loud would just be cruel.
By James Furbush | November 13th, 2007 | 12:06 pm PST
Director and mighty fine screenwriter Frank Darabont was originally picked by Spielberg and Co. to pen what will become Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls. However, George Lucas didn’t like the script Darabont turned in, though Spielberg loved it very much. What happened next was that Lucas hired David Koepp to rewrite a draft, but by all acounts most of what Darabont had written turned up in Koepp’s draft of the movie.
Darabont, who told MTV, said he expects a fight over writing credits sometime in the near future to occur.
Insisting that he still hasnt read Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls (scripted by Spider-Man writer David Koepp), Darabont again indicated that there may be more than a passing resemblance to his efforts.
I havent read the script, [but] at a certain point I will because Im sure there will be an arbitration over writing credits, he revealed. I keep hearing from people who are near the production and they keep saying, You know, theyre using more of your ideas here than you may have thought.
In the interview, Darabont admits he had nothing to do with Shia LeBeouf’s character, but he still thinks Spielberg is going to deliver the goods on the fourth Indiana Jones adventure. As a fan, Im keeping my fingers crossed,” he said. “I hope it turns out great.
By James Furbush | November 1st, 2007 | 10:20 am PDT
There is something deep inside the human spirit that Indiana Jones taps into. Whether you’re four-years-old or 70-years-old, the world and character that Stephen Spielberg, George Lucas and Harrison Ford have created just ignites the spark of imagination dynomite.
So this clip of Spielberg shouting, “It’s a wrap” on every Indy movie, including the latest Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, got us more excited than any teaser trailer possibly could. It means it’s a reality and it means that the film has moved from principal photography into post-production, which means that it really will be released in the summer of 2008.
Cause unlike Shortround, that’s all we’ve got for Indiana Jones and the gang putting this one together. The one image released a few weeks back of Harrison Ford in costume got lots of fans titillated at the actual possibility of another Indian Jones movie.
Well, Spielberg and co. have been doing a great job of keeping fans excited, dropping little nuggets every few weeks. Today, over at IndianaJones.com, the gang has released a very short video of Harrison Ford walking around in costume. It isn’t much, but just the opening three shots: the fedora, the leather jacket, the bullwhip – it’s like Indiana Jones porn.
Kudos for them releasing enough stuff to get us excited, but not enough to really know what the hell the movie is going to be.
Steven Spielberg has taken some time from directing the latest Indiana Jones flick to deliver us this shot of Harrison Ford as the fedora, whip-wielding archeologist.
Sort of shaping up to be a Harrison Ford kinda day ain’t it? Thanks to Comingsoon.net for the heads up.
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