George Lucas used to be pretty good
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Link of the day:
http://moedred.livejournal.com/2009/03/04/
Transcript of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and another screenwriter coming up with the original Indiana Jones.
It's amusing to me because Lucas is a fucking idea machine in this conversation. Others contribute a detail here or there, but it's really George's show.
You can see why Lucas was considered a movie genius before the prequels tragedy.
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In my opinion Lucas was always full of ideas but he didn't know where to stop. I always found the story of Temple of Doom's development funny where he came up with the following, later abandoned ideas:
- Motorcycle chase on the Great Wall of China
- Hidden valley inhabited by dinousaurs
- The Chinese Monkey King
- Haunted house in Scotland
- Tiger hunt
- People drinking magic blood and turning into superhuman zombies
The following ideas made it into the film, IMO they are not any less weird than the others: - Musical opening number
- Demonic temple in India
- Religious cult
- Black magic
- Human sacrifice
When developing The Last Crusade, he again came up with
- the haunted mansion in Scotland
- Indy battling ghosts and demons
- the Chinese Monkey King resurrecting him from death
- finding the Fountain of Youth in Africa, or the Garden of Immortal Peaches
- pirates
- Nazis with robotic arms
- Henry Jones Sr. ascending to heaven
And he was already toying with Indy and aliens in a script in the 1990s, which already included nuking the fridge. (I've read a funny origin to the nuked fridge element somewhere but I cannot find it now.)
He's basically a big kid.
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You know he's planning a fifth Indiana Jones film now?
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The following ideas made it into the film, IMO they are not any less weird than the others:- Musical opening number- Demonic temple in India- Religious cult- Black magic- Human sacrifice
Add to that jumping from a plane in an inflatable boat.
My favorite Indiana Jones movie.
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Add to that jumping from a plane in an inflatable boat.
There is, oddly, some truth to that:
https://youtu.be/wwfW0UDz0tY?t=26m7s
The weird darkening I guess is a way to get round ContentID
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There is, oddly, some truth to that:
And sand is truly coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.
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Lots of people have ideas. That's one tiny step towards making a good movie.
Lucas was fine before he started to believe his own hype. Ironically, his getting pissed at the studio system and going independent was exactly where his problems started-- as soon as he had nobody vetting his ideas and surrounded himself with yes-men, his work became crap.
It also didn't help that he took a looong break and basically stopped doing any creative work for years and years.
But I think the main problem is once he went independent, he had nobody to rein him in. He needed his scripts/ideas vetted by people not on his payroll. (Which, BTW, he did for the third prequel which is the most watchable of the lot.)
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He needed his scripts/ideas vetted by people not on his payroll. (Which, BTW, he did for the third prequel which is the most watchable of the lot.)
Most watchable, yes, but you can actually notice which scenes were personally written by him, because the dialogue is so painfully bad. He himself admits that dialogue is his weak point. (in addition to speling)
Other funny facts:- Han Solo was in the first draft a lizardlike creature with gills
- C3PO blew up the Death Star
- etc.
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