The Indiana Jones Brainstorms: The Insane True Story

[Chris]

Recently, the internet was blessed with a wonderful gift. A few decades ago, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan had 5, 9-hour-long chat sessions where they discussed plot ideas for a story about an archaeologist/adventurer who was handy with a bullwhip. The three spoke, sometimes in short, garbled sentences, and sometimes in wild, minute-long monologues that were positively dense with ideas. The conversations were recorded, transcripts were made and, based on those transcripts, Raiders of the Lost Ark was written.

Let me say right off the bat, (stripped of internet-mandated cynicism), that this story conference is one of the most interesting things I’ve ever read. You’ve got hours upon hours of these three guys just relentlessly spit-balling and the sheer amount of ideas that get thrown around in that room is incredible. Over the course of these 125 pages, you really see Raiders taking shape, and you also see bits and pieces of Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade popping up. They’re just sitting around brainstorming, probably with no inclination that they’re about to create a wildly successful and popular film franchise.

Sure, Lucas is just sort of going off the top of his head here, but, if you look at some of the clumsy, thoughtless lines that actually make it in to a lot of Lucas’s scripts, you’ll notice that there’s not that much of an improvement. There are lines that are worse than the line above that made it into the final draft of the Star Wars films. We learn, I suppose, that when George Lucas makes dialogue up in the spur of the moment, it’s just as shitty as when he actually sits down to really write it. Which is remarkable.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/indiana-jones/

You can watch the writing get progressively worse while George Lucas deteriorates into senility.  Hilarious.

[jinxmchue]

That's got to be a load of satire.

[Chris]

I don't know... if it is, someone spent a LOT of time typing it out.  There's over 100 pages.  Go to the site -- you can download a PDF copy.

[Eupher]

If Obama is all out of ponies, can I get a llama instead?

 

[rich_t]

If Obama is all out of ponies, can I get a llama instead?

 

DU is full of sheep.  Do you want one of them instead?

[Eupher]

DU is full of sheep.  Do you want one of them instead?

No. Sheep are full of stigmas. And sheepshit.

If I can't have a pony, I wanna llama. I mean, if Indiana gets to tip over llamas, there's gotta be a couple extra hanging around, right? Who's gonna miss a llama when most of 'em have been tipped over?