By now you are either breathlessly anticipating “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” or you couldn’t care less…which means you’re a Nazi or a Communist perhaps…and you have no love for movies. Hey, I’m just saying.
If you’re one of the people, like myself, who is really starting to get excited about the new movie then you might be interested in what Vanity Fair has to say in the February 2008 issue. The cover is all about Indy and it shows Harrison Ford and Shia (I really love Walgreens) LaBeouf in full costume.
Even better is the fact that the magazine has some new behind the scenes pictures and a really long article which they’ve been nice enough to post online. I took the liberty of providing the pictures for your viewing pleasure (all photographs are by Annie Leibovitz and are copyrighted). I’ve also taken some of my favorite comments out of the interviews with George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Harrison Ford, and added a bit of commentary just for kicks.
The Pictures
George Lucas, Harrison Ford, and Steven Spielberg on the set of the new film in Los Angeles. “Neither of them is ashamed of making audience films,� Ford says of his partners.
Shia LaBeouf and Karen Allen on set in Downey, California. Allen returns as Marion Ravenwood, Indy’s spunky girlfriend from the first film, while LaBeouf joins in�or so rumor has it�as Indy and Marion’s love child.
Set in 1957, the new film pits Indy against Russian Cold Warriors, including Cate Blanchett, whose character, Agent Spalko, looks like the toughest Soviet customer since Lotte Lenya’s Rosa Klebb took on Sean Connery in “From Russia with Love”.
The Interviews
Steven Spielberg
“I’m in my second cut, which means I’ve put the movie together and I’ve seen it,� he says. “I usually do about five cuts as a director. The best news is that, when I saw the movie myself the first time, there was nothing I wanted to go back and shoot, nothing I wanted to reshoot, and nothing I wanted to add.�
Spielberg promises no tricky editing for the new one, saying, “I go for geography. I want the audience to know not only which side the good guy’s on and the bad guy’s on, but which side of the screen they’re in, and I want the audience to be able to edit as quickly as they want in a shot that I am loath to cut away from. And that’s been my style with all four of these Indiana Jones pictures. Quick-cutting is very effective in some movies, like the Bourne pictures, but you sacrifice geography when you go for quick-cutting. Which is fine, because audiences get a huge adrenaline rush from a cut every second and a half on The Bourne Ultimatum, and there’s just enough geography for the audience never to be lost, especially in the last Bourne film, which I thought was the best of the three. But, by the same token, Indy is a little more old-fashioned than the modern-day action adventure.�
Jason Says: See, this makes me feel good. This makes me think that Spielberg gets it. Indiana Jones isn’t Jason Bourne. We like the Bourne movies for what they are and we enjoy watching them, but we don’t want Indiana Jones to be that kind of movie. We want Indy to be the classic kind of movie that we remember the first three being…good old Hollywood filmmaking that relies on solid storytelling, music, action and adventure.
Harrison Ford
“He’s a stubborn sucker,� the actor says, “and he had an idea that he kept pushing into script form, and then they’d run it by me, and I’d usually rebel, and, finally, you know, one script came along that really struck me as being smart, not working too hard to give reference to the other films, but that carried on the stories we had told so far in a logical way. The character was allowed to age, and we found ourselves in a different period of time, and what I read was a great script, so I said, ‘Let’s go, let’s make this one.’ �
Jason Says: Harrison is talking about George Lucas. Apparently everyone wanted to make an Indy movie way back when but Lucas would only consider one idea for the story…his idea, of course. No one else wanted to do the idea. No one. To the point where everyone else walked away from the whole thing for the past 18 years. Lucas persisted and eventually got his way, I guess, since they did eventually use his idea. The bad thing is, Frank Darabont wrote a script that Spielberg loved, but Lucas didn’t like. Hmm…I wonder who is a better judge of screenplays? Needless to say, that screenplay didn’t get used.
George Lucas
“So that put it in the mid-50s, and the MacGuffin I was looking at was perfect for the mid-50s. I looked around and I said, ‘Well, maybe we shouldn’t do a 30s serial, because now we’re in the 50s. What is the same kind of cheesy-entertainment action movie, what was the secret B movie, of the 50s?’ So instead of doing a 30s Republic serial, we’re doing a B science-fiction movie from the 50s. The ones I’m talking about are, like, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Blob, The Thing. So by putting it in that context, it gave me a way of approaching the whole thing.�
“I know the critics are going to hate it. They already hate it. So there’s nothing we can do about that. They hate the idea that we’re making another one. They’ve already made up their minds.�
“The fans are all upset. They’re always going to be upset. ‘Why did he do it like this? And why didn’t he do it like this?’ They write their own movie, and then, if you don’t do their movie, they get upset about it. So you just have to stand by for the bricks and the custard pies, because they’re going to come flying your way.�
Jason Says: I just don’t think Lucas gets it anymore. I’m not sure what he’s talking about with the sci-fi stuff. Let’s hope the others talked him out of doing anything too crazy. I don’t think he’s right about the critics hating it…I think they’re just aware of his recent track record and afraid that he found some way to screw this up… And the fans aren’t upset…yet. If the story is true to Indiana Jones and is at least as good as the last one then I think most people will be happy. You can’t please everyone, George, we all know that.
You can read the full article on Vanityfair.com. They also have full online exclusive interviews with: Steven Spielberg and George Lucas
Welcome back Jason, and good post.
I had no clue Marion was coming back for this and that really makes it seem much more exciting.
Mike Olbinski’s last blog post..Help the WGA writers by purchasing cool stuff on auction
Maybe Lucas was insisting that Jar Jar make a cameo appearance? ya never know it could happen!
Great post, I liked your take on it all….
Ah, the famous Cap’n Schwartz has paid us a visit! An honor indeed! Welcome! Thanks for stopping by.