Raiders of the Lost Ark story conference transcript released

[Rat Boy]

Link and analysis by Mystery Man on Film.

Now here's something that should catch the attention of NBC's Chris Hansen:

Then the discussion turned to how old Marion and Indy were at the time of the affair:

G — I was thinking that this old guy could have been his mentor. He could have known this little girl when she was just a kid. Had an affair with her when she was eleven.


L — And he was forty-two.


G — He hasn't seen her in twelve years. Now she's twenty-two. It's a real strange relationship.


S — She had better be older than twenty-two.


G — He's thirty-five, and he knew her ten years ago when he was twenty-five and she was only twelve. It would be amusing to make her slightly young at the time.


S — And promiscuous. She came onto him.


G — Fifteen is right on the edge. I know it's an outrageous idea, but it is interesting. Once she's sixteen or seventeen it's not interesting anymore. But if she was fifteen and he was twenty-five and they actually had an affair the last time they met. And she was madly in love with him and he...


S — She has pictures of him.

Suddenly, the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull feels less outlandish.

 

[Mr Light]

G is George Lucas? Good lord... he wanted an ELEVEN YEAR OLD GIRL having sex with Indy?!?!?! Oh my gawd!

 

[Dr_Daystrom]

I read the Indiana Jones and the City of Gods script that was floating around on the Internet and was supposedly written by Frank Darabont and real or not, it would have made a much better movie. It has major similarities to the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull but it handles the whole Marion thing differently and there's no son.

http://rapidshare.com/files/121895342/Indiana_Jones_and_the_City_of_the_Gods.pdf

 

[Aragorn]

Wasn't the Darabont script accepted by Spielberg and Ford but rejected by Lucas?

 

[Dr_Daystrom]

Wasn't the Darabont script accepted by Spielberg and Ford but rejected by Lucas?

That's what I read. Supposedly Lucas pushed the son storyline.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

G is George Lucas? Good lord... he wanted an ELEVEN YEAR OLD GIRL having sex with Indy?!?!?! Oh my gawd!

Spielberg comes off sounding pretty weird too

 

[John Picard]

G is George Lucas? Good lord... he wanted an ELEVEN YEAR OLD GIRL having sex with Indy?!?!?! Oh my gawd!

Spielberg comes off sounding worse there, though.

Let's not forget the infamous (incestuous) kiss between Luke and Leia in the original Star Wars.

 

[Christopher]

Let's not forget the infamous (incestuous) kiss between Luke and Leia in the original Star Wars.

At the time Lucas wrote that film, he had no idea that he would end up making Luke and Leia siblings.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

At the time that he wrote (or allowed) the kiss in TESB, however, he probably had a pretty good idea of it.

 

[SeerSGB]

At the time that he wrote (or allowed) the kiss in TESB, however, he probably had a pretty good idea of it.

You're given Lucas to much credit. He's said before that the whole reason for them being related was cause he needed something that would be as big as the the revelation at the end of ESB. So he probably didn't come up with it till right before he wrote it.

 

[TheBrew]

That was a nice read. I like how they kept on bouncing ideas off each other.

 

[DarthPipes]

God, George, that's fucking disgusting!

I think they ultimately settled on 15 when it came to Marion's age at the time she was with Indy. Reading the recent Crystall Skull Visual Dictionary, it put Marion's age at a less-creepy 17 when her and Indy were together.

 

[Christopher]

For what it's worth, I don't see any point where Lucas suggests that Indy actually had sex with the teenaged Marion, simply that they "had an affair." That could mean an emotional affair or "affair of the heart," i.e. a chaste romance. Heck, Wikipedia says that even today, extramarital affairs are more often emotional than sexual. And we are talking about the 1920s here, which, though one of the most sexually liberated decades of the early 20th century, was probably more chaste than modern times.

 

[T'Baio]

I predict that people will be quick to pick on George but generally look the other way about Spielberg.

 

[TheBrew]

I predict that people will be quick to pick on George but generally look the other way about Spielberg.

I know, right? I get what he was trying to do and was just brainstorming. Remember, there are no bad ideas in a brainstorm and they didn't even use 12 years old in the movie. It was modified almost as soon as it was brought up.

 

[John Picard]

Even so, back in Indy's day it wasn't uncommon for a girl in her mid-late teens to marry a much older man. Either way, Lucas sucks at creative writing and needs to STOP.

 

[OmahaStar]

For what it's worth, I don't see any point where Lucas suggests that Indy actually had sex with the teenaged Marion, simply that they "had an affair." That could mean an emotional affair or "affair of the heart," i.e. a chaste romance. Heck, Wikipedia says that even today, extramarital affairs are more often emotional than sexual. And we are talking about the 1920s here, which, though one of the most sexually liberated decades of the early 20th century, was probably more chaste than modern times.

You're using Wikipedia as a reference? Hello?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Either way, Lucas sucks at creative writing and needs to STOP.

QTF.

 

[DWF]

The movie turned out better than expected given all their problems with filming so I don't see the point of complaining about backround of the story especially a story point that didn't make it to the screen.

 

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

At the time that he wrote (or allowed) the kiss in TESB, however, he probably had a pretty good idea of it.

At the time, he was still in the 9 or 12 part serial phase, the "other" was supposed to be his twin sibling who had been smuggled to the other side of the galaxy, who was supposedly going to play a bigger part in the next trilogy, leaving the door open for LUke to actually really flirt with the dark side and bring the sister in. I'm remembering this from reading the "Annotated Screenplay".

Based on everything I read, sometime between ESB and ROTJ, GL changed everything so he could wrap up the story in Jedi.

As far as the story conference goes, what an absolutely fascinating document. It's pretty amazing to see so many of Raiders' iconic moments just be born right there and then by them, spitballing in that room.