I can’t tell in this release about the next Indiana Jones flick — tentatively scheduled for shooting in 2007, for release in 2008 — if George Lucas is being too coy for coherence, or has finally slipped a cog.
As for the story? “We’re basically going to do The Phantom Menace,” Lucas said cryptically, referring to Star Wars: Episode I.
Okay, those are possibly the most disheartening words anyone could hear …
“People’s expectations are way higher than you can deliver. You could just get killed for the whole thing. … We would do it for fun and just take the hit with the critics and the fans. … But nobody wants to get into it unless they are really happy with it.”
Lucas added: “The ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ situation has freed up an idea for a plot that was originally deemed too incendiary. I discovered a McGuffin. … I told the guys about it, and they were a little dubious about it, but it’s the best one we’ve ever found. … Unfortunately, it was a little too ‘connected’ for the others. They were afraid of what the critics would think. They said, ‘Can’t we do it with a different McGuffin? Can’t we do this?’ and I said no. So we pottered around with that
for a couple of years. And then Harrison really wanted to do it, and Steve said ‘OK.’ I said, ‘We’ll have to go back to that original McGuffin and take out the offending parts of it, and we’ll still use that area of the supernatural to deal with it.'”
Well, whatever the hell that means.
At least Spielberg is still scheduled to direct.
MacGuffin
Not that it sheds any further light, but it made me feel useful.
GL is too caught up in his own mystique. The man is obviously off his rocker.
Disheartening is right. It must be hard for creative people to put down the brush and say; “The painting is done.”
I really don’t get his distain of fans. He’s starting to resemble a ‘modern artist’ who scoffs at common folk while putting up his latest atrocity in front of a local bank or university building.
I was familiar with the term, Amanda (but thanks for the Wikipedia link). I just don’t get its use here.
There’s at least some implication here that the two famous artifacts from Indy I and III — the Ark and the Grail — are MacGuffins, too. I don’t think that’s true, because not only do they have an impact on the story line for what they are (e.g., melting the bad guys like wax fruit), but in Indy III in particular, what they represent — eternal life, the past, an object of desire — is itself a key part of the story.
Would the story have been the same if the artifacts in question had been a chunk of the True Cross, or the Spear of Destiny? The argument is stronger that you could replace the Ark with some other Big Mojo Item interchangably (making it a MacGuffin), but the nature of the Grail seems to affect the story per se in Indy III, so would not be as easily replaced.
Er…
“I discovered a McGuffin. … I told the guys about it, and they were a little dubious about it, but it’s the best one we’ve ever found. … Unfortunately, it was a little too ‘connected’ for the others.”
“As for the story? “We’re basically going to do The Phantom Menace,” Lucas said cryptically, referring to Star Wars: Episode I.”
Could he be talking about the bloodline of Christ? That would fit the bill of a chosen one who is “a little too ‘connected'” at this point.
Aaahhhhh … could be. Except, like, wasn’t that already done recently?
I was thinking in terms of an object — and I was only half-joking about the True Cross (which is a bit more explicitly religious than the Holy Grail, for a variety of reasons).
But the Phantom Menace — maybe Indy digs up …
… Midichlorians?
midichlorians? Gaahh! Stop it! Don’t even joke about that!!!