skyjedi2005:
There are genuine Indiana Jones scenes in that film , but they are few and far between, and i give the success of such scenes to Spielberg, not Lucas who thinks kiddy jokes are so great like nuked fridges and prairie dogs, not to mention jar jar stepping in [stuff]. Or alien saucers.
I'm not the Spielberg fan that I was 15 years ago. Even 15 years ago I would have leaned to the side of Lucas when trying to give credit for who made Indy so great. I'm definitely not the Lucas fan that I was 15 years ago either. So when it comes to assigning blame for ...Crystal Skull, I'm just not sure who is most guilty. Actually, I don't really care to suss it out, and that's not what this post is about.
I took a couple of sick days last month and spent the time in bed to watch some DVD special features that I've been meaning to watch. I busted out the Indiana Jones Trilogy boxset and watched the Bonus DVD. Like most of you, ...Temple of Doom is my least favourite (until recently, that is) movie and the "making of" feature proved to be the most interesting.
Sidebar: It features SS saying that GL claimed he "had 3 of them outlined" when he talked him into making Raiders. SS scoffs at it now, but at the time he believed him. Of course, when they sat down to do Indy 2, they had no idea what to do next.
When it came to coming up with the ideas for Indy 2, GL basically said to SS, "Trust me". SS let him come up the basic plot/set-up for the sequel and select Hyuck/Katz to write the script.
Sidebar: Hyuck and Katz are dragged out of whatever hole they've been in and are interrogated as for why they wrote the worst Indy movie. They sort of have this wide eyed look to them, like they're not quite sure what they did wrong, but they'll fully comply with the interrogator's commands.
SS delcares that he didn't know much about India or Thuggee culture, so he couldn't do much besides go along with what GL and H/K had decided on- though it did make him a little uncomfortable. Flash forward a few minutes and SS is commenting on how "dark" the film was. He repeats how uncomfortable he was with the tone and did what he could to subvert it. The editors of the doco quite wisely then cut to a clip of Temple of Doom: A thuggee heavy is bearing down on Short Round or Willie, who is weilding a big hammer. The heavy takes the hammer and throws it over his shoulder. The camera cuts to three scrawny thuggees standing in line. The hammer lands on the head of the centre thuggee who crumples into a pile. Queue the laughter.
SS continues to talk about how he had to temper the darkness of the film with slapstick humour.
Sound familiar?
So I know that Temple of Doom was a year after Return of the Jedi, and that this technique already seems to be used in RotJ. So, GL wasn't introduced to it on the set of Temple of Doom. But was it reinforced? Was it something that GL learned from SS through their friendship? I wouldn't think the principle is really in place in Raiders at all, but perhaps it was something that they talked about behind the scenes.
Is it possible that SS learned it from GL, instead? Yep. I do suspect George learned it from Steven, however. Not that I can put my finger on the exact reasoning behind that though.
In summary, I see a fair amount of pining for what an SS directed Return of the Jedi would have been. Personally, I'm relieved he didn't. Sure, there are problems with RotJ, but I think SS was more part of the problem than the unapplied solution.
What do you think?
