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Post by Nalkarj on Jul 8, 2018 22:35:01 GMT
There’s a similar thread in the Star Wars boards, so…here’s one here! @forceghostackbar and politicidal brought a number of scrapped Indy scripts to my attention on Colden’s forum that I found very interesting. The website MentalFloss has synopses for these three: - Indiana Jones and the Monkey King, in which Indy fights ghosts and hunts down a lost city and eternal-life-giving peaches
- Indiana Jones and the Saucermen from Mars, in which Indy gets married to a completely new character (with Marion and Willie at the wedding!), Elaine McGregor, who then vanishes… Later on, they hunt aliens together. Yeah.
- Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods, the closest script to Crystal Skull, in which Indy and a few others are “...lifted by a swirling alien vapor that hypnotizes them.” We also have Crystal Skull’s Marion, crystal skulls, jungle adventure, and Russians.
OK, of these three I think Monkey King has the best concept, but then that may be because there’s one element (a female student of Indy’s who’s in love with him and who sneaks away to join him on an adventure) that I had independently dreamt up as well! Which do you like the best? Does anyone know any more?
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Post by politicidal on Jul 8, 2018 22:39:15 GMT
Monkey King and City of the Gods both sounded interesting. The former only because it was so batshit insane. The rhino vs tank battle sounds like something out of a Jumanji movie;maybe in the upcoming Jumanji 3? There was also a planned Lost World type movie that evolved into Temple of Doom where he found a valley full of dinosaurs in China.
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Post by Nalkarj on Jul 8, 2018 22:41:20 GMT
A valley of dinosaurs in China… Pretty non-Indy-esque, but boy I’d watch it…
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Post by politicidal on Jul 8, 2018 22:53:51 GMT
A valley of dinosaurs in China… Pretty non-Indy-esque, but boy I’d watch it… There apparently was a book where he wound up finding a Triceratops and its infant in Mongolia. The only novel I read was The Philosopher's Stone which was okay but it laid it pretty thick on the arcane alchemy mumbo jumbo and wasn't really all that action heavy.
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Post by Nalkarj on Jul 8, 2018 23:53:47 GMT
The more I heard about the haunted house open, which Lucas apparently loves and which I thought ridiculous the first time I heard of it, the more I’m convinced that it might have been OK after all. Someone at the Raven pointed out that “Masks of Evil” also had the Indy-in-a-haunted-house situation, and I thought it started out pretty well (and then went nuts, but the opening is good). It could have been that they suggest it’s a haunted house but don’t directly show any ghosts or supernatural material.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2018 0:03:34 GMT
All three scripts are available online. I've read them all. Basically, they're all terrible. I love the idea of using the Monkey King legend of Chinese lore... But they totally screw it up, making it take place in Africa instead of China and turning it so weird that it likely would've been a total disaster. The female student is also a shockingly horrible character. There's an actual scene where she tries to hang herself and it's played for laughs. Plus, it opens with a haunted house. Seriously, this is one bad screenplay. I strangely don't remember much about the Saucermen script, but it felt more B-Movie sci fi than Indy. Would've been another disaster. And City of the Gods is basically Crystal Skull... Only some things are better and some things are worse. There is an AMAZING sequence where Indy gets drunk and tries to steal the idol from Raiders out of his own university's museum! It is hilarious! But... Later he gets eaten by a giant snake and a monkey poops on him, so... Hit and miss. All are worth read if you're an Indy fan!
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Post by Nalkarj on Jul 9, 2018 0:11:12 GMT
I haven’t yet finished reading any of the three, @forceghostackbar, but I’ll try to look into them (as well as watching Star Wars, and all this other stuff that’s going on my list!). I think Monkey King looks like it’s better as a concept than as written. Indy drunk, stealing the idol from Raiders? Now that’s just weird enough to work…
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Post by Nalkarj on Jul 9, 2018 0:17:22 GMT
Just read the idol-stealing sequence. It is hilarious! But how’d the museum get the idol?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2018 0:18:14 GMT
I haven’t yet finished reading any of the three, @forceghostackbar , but I’ll try to look into them (as well as watching Star Wars, and all this other stuff that’s going on my list!). I think Monkey King looks like it’s better as a concept than as written. Indy drunk, stealing the idol from Raiders? Now that’s just weird enough to work… The "what could've been" stuff fascinates me. Especially since I honestly could've seen a dozen Indy movies without getting sick of the franchise. The Monkey King could've worked, but they throw all kinds of weird stupid things into the script. Supernatural life giving peaches?! What?! And yeah, that sequence would've been so great... Although it does border on meta-humor/parody.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2018 0:18:44 GMT
Just read the idol-stealing sequence. It is hilarious! But how’d the museum get the idol? Good question!
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Post by Nalkarj on Jul 9, 2018 0:30:34 GMT
I love “what could’ve been” too, @forceghostackbar. The great thing with Indy is that there are so many possible plot-ideas we (and Lucas) can invent… (It’s probably the same for Star Wars as well. By the way, I know I’m taking my sweet time with The Empire Strikes Back—sorry—but I’m [1] intending to watch it with my Star Wars-fan friend who’s in California and [2] I think my uncle may have a VHS of the movie, so I hope that’d be a pre-some-edits copy.)
Oh, Monkey King definitely would have needed edits. But between all three of these scripts I think there’d be at least some good sequences for an Indy movie.
That link from the Raven board has a synopsis from the original draft of Last Crusade—not sure how this would have worked:
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Post by Nalkarj on Jul 9, 2018 0:38:09 GMT
Is the Diane Thomas screenplay available anywhere? (Though I’m that one weird Indy fan who didn’t like Romancing the Stone.)
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2018 4:56:10 GMT
Is the Diane Thomas screenplay available anywhere? (Though I’m that one weird Indy fan who didn’t like Romancing the Stone.) Haven't heard of that one before
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Post by President Ackbar™ on Jul 9, 2018 16:28:55 GMT
Is the Diane Thomas screenplay available anywhere? (Though I’m that one weird Indy fan who didn’t like Romancing the Stone.) Haven't heard of that one before "Never read it?"
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Post by politicidal on Jul 9, 2018 16:49:23 GMT
Not sure why the haunted house is so stupid when he's already experienced the literal power of God right in front of him and beckoned Hindu deities to do his bidding.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2018 18:05:56 GMT
Haven't heard of that one before "Never read it?" Exactly!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2018 18:08:29 GMT
Not sure why the haunted house is so stupid when he's already experienced the literal power of God right in front of him and beckoned Hindu deities to do his bidding. It just comes across as really cheesy in the script, and doesn't fit the tone of the series at all.
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Post by Nalkarj on Jul 9, 2018 18:09:26 GMT
Ah, un momento, amico mio—è possibile che io non capisca quello che vieni di scrivere…Do you mean that you’d never heard of Romancing the Stone or of Diane Thomas’s Indy script?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2018 18:13:23 GMT
Ah, un momento, amico mio—è possibile che io non capisca quello che vieni di scrivere…Do you mean that you’d never heard of Romancing the Stone or of Diane Thomas’s Indy script? Romancing the Stone = Heard of it but... Never seen it. Diane's script = Never heard of it. Never read it.
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Post by Nalkarj on Jul 9, 2018 18:36:44 GMT
Romancing the Stone = Heard of it but... Never seen it. Diane's script = Never heard of it. Never read it. Heh. OK. Got it now. I think I referenced Romancing the Stone in my “Indy-like movies” thread; I’d seen it years ago and not liked it much, but then with all the recommendations I saw it again—but still didn’t like it, unfortunately! I found it more dull than anything else: many of the ideas are excellent, but the script’s not confident in its convictions or something. (No disrespect to Miss Thomas, whose journey to writing the script was a remarkable Cinderella story and whose early death was utterly tragic.) I haven’t yet seen the sequel, The Jewel of the Nile, but I thought the very silly ’85 King Solomon’s Mines and even the pilot episode of the TV show Hooten & the Lady did this kind of African Queen-esque plot better. If I’m remembering correctly, Thomas wrote a first draft of Monkey King for Lucas that Chris Columbus later reworked into his draft. I’d love to know especially where it diverges with the Monkey King we have.
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