Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
By now, the news has been rumbled about for weeks, and because of the way I heard it initially, I’ve been just sitting on my hands, waiting for it to become official and be announced. And now, it has been.
Frank Darabont is writing INDIANA JONES 4.
And to be perfectly honest... I’m not excited.
Don’t get me wrong. Frank’s a great choice for it. He was a writer for the YOUNG INDIANA JONES CHRONICLES. In fact, when I met him, that’s what he was working on. Some of our earliest conversations were about what it was like to work at the Ranch with other writers like Jonathan Hensleigh and Jonathan Hale, kicking around ideas with George Lucas, helping to expand the mythology of a character that was central to my childhood. I think a lot of fans were disappointed that YOUNG INDY wasn’t more of an adventure show, but it wasn’t designed to be one. I still remember the way Frank described it to me. It was like Lucas had already started planning for an eventual DVD release of the whole series with branching material that would allow each episode to become an interactive educational tool. Pains were taken to get all the history in the show exactly right, with the notable exception of introducing Indiana Jones into it. He also talked to me about the way Lucas was already using computers to change the way he edited material, and to build things in post-production in a way that had never been possible before on a TV budget. Everything Frank talked about then was speculative, the way it would work in a perfect world. And all of it has come true in the years since. Television shows are routinely packaged now as complete box sets, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see them eventually put out YOUNG INDY as a set, with all the bells and whistles that Lucas wanted to do back then, all the extra historical educational reference material packed onto the discs. And one look at ATTACK OF THE CLONES reveals that, like it or not, he’s finally gotten to the point where he can create the digital landscapes he dreams of from the ground up, building whole worlds that manage to still be versatile, easily altered, flexible at any stage of production.
Frank’s shown RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM for friends, beautiful 35mm prints, and in both cases, I loved seeing them on the bigscreen again. I think RAIDERS is a perfect film, and Frank readily agrees. I think Belloq is one of the great villains in adventure film history. I think every character is memorably etched, and the dialogue is ripe, with Karen Allen, Harrison Ford, Paul Freeman, John Rhys Davies, and Denholm Elliott all doing sterling work. I think RAIDERS is the best adventure film ever (ROAD WARRIOR is more of a pure exercise in action), and it’s Harrison Ford at his absolute best. Watch that opening sequence again sometime, the gradual revelation of Harrison after using the whip for the first time. Best entrance I’ve ever seen. He was an icon... IMMEDIATELY. The hat... the jacket... the whip... the way he handles himself as they push forward into that temple... the calm in the scene with the spiders... the way he steals the idol... and of course... the sprint to escape, rolling boulder and all. RAIDERS is one of those films that will play to an audience with unmuted impact for as long as people watch movies on any format.
Frank’s also a huge fan of TEMPLE OF DOOM. Personally, I hated the film when it came out in 1984. Thought it was a total about-face from the first film. I hated Kate Capshaw, and I hated Willie Scott, and I draw a distinction between them. Willie was written as weak and useless, something I always find annoying in an action/adventure setting, and Kate's screaming was like a nailgun to the face. I wasn’t a fan of having a kid along with Indy. Instead of projecting me into the film, it distanced me from it. I was 14, and something about it just didn’t sit right overall. In the years since, I’ve had a reversal of heart. I like the film in its own way. It’s a nightmare machine, a bleak and ugly rollercoaster ride, and the set pieces are pretty remarkably built overall. Spielberg must have been out of his mind when he made it, of course. It’s overheated, overdesigned, cranked up past the point of shrill for the entire running time. Somehow, that ends up being the charm of the thing in the end. Its excesses actually make it interesting. It’s an off-the-rails lunatic endeavor that definitely ages well, as long as you’re not from that part of Asia. I’ve had that conversation. Many times. Oy.
And LAST CRUSADE? Well, I know this isn’t a popular opinion, but I’ve got little use for the film. I don’t like it. If TEMPLE OF DOOM has grown on me, this film has actually diminished the more I’ve thought about it. I am well aware that this film is beloved, and that people adore Sean Connery in it, and that there are many who prefer it to RAIDERS. You’re cracked. Deranged. Sean Connery is a gifted comic performer, something that Spielberg realized, and he and Ford have a wonderful rhythm that they fall into when they bicker. The opening sequence with River Phoenix as the first young Indiana Jones we ever saw is every bit as great as RAIDERS, and for that ten minutes or so, I thought LAST CRUSADE was going to be a classic when I first saw it. Then the rest of the film hit, though, and there’s not much about it to like. The action sequences are forgettable, dull even. The settings are equally bland. Allison Doody is a pretty blank. The bad guys are so boring that I literally can’t remember the character names. Worse, the film trashed some beloved characters from the first film in a way that I actually found offensive. Sallah is one of Indy’s friends, a peer in that first movie. When Indy comes to him, it’s because Sallah is the best digger in the city. His men are known for the quality of work they do. He’s a friend to Indy. Indy knows and loves Sallah’s family. All of this is established, illustrated. Sallah is smart, outgoing, and knows how to play the fool without ever being one. In LAST CRUSADE, he’s a fat, greedy Arab who demands money before he helps Indy during a crucial action sequence. It’s a total betrayal, and it’s just unpleasant. Equally off-putting is the way the sly, forceful work of Denholm Elliott in RAIDERS was denigrated by the depiction of him as an incompetent boob in LAST CRUSADE. The man we see in RAIDERS was Indiana Jones 30 years earlier. He travelled. He had his own adventures. He sees himself in Indiana when he sends him after the Ark, and it breaks Marcus’ heart not to go. I assume that must be the reason he’s a raging drunk buffoon who doesn’t know how to find his way off a train in a foreign country by the time CRUSADE happens. Bah. Phooey.
One thing LAST CRUSADE did right, though, was its ending. The sight of Indy and his father riding off into that amazing sunset was the perfect way to close out the bigscreen adventures of the Jones boys. In cinematic language, Spielberg couldn’t have gotten a better last image. It suggested adventures of their own, better left untold and imagined, and a happy ending. Going back to the well now... color me skeptical. It’s no secret how much I like Frank Darabont and his work. I’ve gone on the record many times. When I say that I don’t want to see an INDY 4, that I don’t really get why we’d want to see the effects of age on Indy, that’s a long-standing belief that predates him coming aboard. All his hiring does is suggest to me that the film is actually going to get made now. He’ll write the shit out of it. No doubt. And I wish that got my interest up. I sincerely do. But it still feels like been there done that.
I’ve seen several outlets report that the new INDY film will feature the addition of his son to the cast. I don’t see any point in reacting to that part of the rumor yet, since I’ve also seen outlets as reputable as the VARIETY article above mention that Frank just finished working for Spielberg on MINORITY REPORT. And that’s not true. Not even a little bit. CINESCAPE and their Spielberg "quote" be damned... I've been following this process for well over a year, and I can tell you EXACTLY how the writing of the film took place.
Jon Cohen was the writer who created the draft of MINORITY REPORT that got Jan De Bont and Tom Cruise attached. That was back at Fox. Then Cruise and Spielberg started talking, and the project became a possible Spielberg film, with De Bont taking a back seat as a “producer.” In other words, paid and kissed off. It was at that point that Scott Frank came aboard and started writing with Spielberg. Scott Frank has been the writer on the film ever since, except for a period where he took off to work on a few other projects like A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES, around the same time that Spielberg wrote his own script for A.I.. During that time frame, John August came in to write one draft, which was so far from where Spielberg wanted to go that he ended up putting the film on pause until Scott Frank could come back to it and pick up right where he left off. This has all been arbitrated and decided already by the WGA, and it’s Jon Cohen and Scott Frank who are getting credit, as it should be. Scott Frank was on-set for much of the film, even shooting some second unit material. I would say that this is as much his film as it is Spielberg’s. I’m going to be writing a review of the film’s final shooting script (there’s already a damn good review of the script by Chris Wehner over at Screenwriter’s Utopia.com) in the upcoming week or so, because I think people have the wrong idea in their head about the film. It’s not the action “ride” it’s being sold as. In fact, it may be one of the most challenging and adult big-budget SF films since BLADE RUNNER.
... but I digress.
Point is, Frank Darabont’s such a gentleman that he actually asked us to help clarify about MINORITY REPORT. He doesn’t want anyone attributing someone else’s work to him. He doesn’t want that rumor to overshadow the people who actually wrote the film.
The date that’s being bandied about for the release of a new INDY would be six weeks after the release of EPISODE III, marking the first time Lucasfilm has ever had both STAR WARS and INDY in the marketplace concurrently. If it all comes together this time, then 2005 is going to mark some sort of ground zero for fans of the two franchises. CLONES got me good and ready for the conclusion of my beloved STAR WARS. I just wish I had equal enthusiasm for the return of Dr. Jones. Here’s wishing everyone involved a particularly fertile visit from the Muse. I’d love to be made to eat every one of these words in three years.
"Moriarty" out.
