Last night at at a theatre in downtown Los Angeles (sprinkled with the likes of Damon Lindelof and Simon Pegg) the LA Times Hero Complex hosted a thirtieth anniversary screening of director Steven Spielberg's beloved homage to the adventure serials of the 1930s -- Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The director was on hand for a conversation with Geoff Boucher following the screening, in which he looked back at the creation of what has become one of our culture's most iconic characters -- Indiana Jones. Mid-talk, the two were joined by none other than Indy himself, Harrison Ford, who offered his own insights about Raiders as well as what may be in store for the future of the franchise.
Suffice is to say that both Spielberg and Ford have said they are "hopeful" about an Indy 5, though Ford did give the caveat that he will, "not be going to Mars."
Details of the conversation will follow below, but first it feels appropriate to reflect that I am probably not alone in being struck by how a film that was (in many ways) born of a sense of nostalgia has now taken a place of not just nostalgic longing, but reverence within the entertainment community.
Many long for, and emulate, the Spielberg films of the late 1970s and early 1980s. This summer alone we have seen several films that were either openly touted as "Spielbergesque" or contained subtle (or in some cases not-so-subtle) references to his films. J.J Abrams' Super 8 was as direct an homage to Spielberg's early sci-fi films as Raiders was to the serials it drew from; and Captain America was, in many respects, the Super-Hero version of an Indiana Jones film (not so much in the character, but the construction of the story, and tone of the film).
I must confess that Raiders is just as entertaining, just as much fun to watch today as it was when I was a little girl who insisted on being given her very own bullwhip with which to rangel wayward helpers on the hunt for artifacts. One of the joys of the screening was the untouched quality of the film print, which allowed us to embrace the event for what it was -- an opportunity to revisit something from our pasts as it truly was, and/or introduce the film to a new generation without the loss of what it had been. Raiders has been restored, of course, but one of the first points that Spielberg stressed was that he had worked from the original negative and had neither removed nor added anything via the use of CGI.
This naturally led to a discussion about the recent (and not so recent) changes that have been made to the original Star Wars series by the man Spielberg calls his best friend, George Lucas. Spielberg initially forestalled giving his thoughts on the alterations calling it a "hot topic." He then said that he felt that Lucas was a great director, and noted that if it weren't for him the we wouldn't have Star Wars or Indiana Jones. He had already joked that after his (fairly unsuccessful) offering, 1941, the only person who would hire him was his friend, Lucas, for Raiders. Spielberg's take is that Lucas is entitled to do whatever he wants to with his films, but that his own experiment with remastering had left somewhat of a sour taste in his mouth:
It was more than great. In a time when we often bestow far more significance on childhood properties than they perhaps carry, we can honestly say that Harrison Ford and Steven Speilberg co-created a character that lives in the hearts of a generation, and changed what we wanted to see from our cinematic Heroes.
When the possibility of revisiting Indy via a fifth installment in the franchise was broached, and one enthused fan whooped from the audience, Spielberg (with a tongue-in-cheek understanding of his fan base) quipped "I think that's the one we didn't alienate with the fourth" to which Boucher responded (in essence) "I think that's Shia."
In truth, the director does seem interested in revisiting the character, and Ford, who eventually said it is a simple and absolute pleasure to play this role and work with Spielberg, seemed more than open to the possibility - though he did say:
As to a Blu-ray release of the Indiana Jones series, the director said only that it would be coming up, and that as soon as Lucas is done with Star Wars, Indy should be next on the docket.
During the course of their talk, Ford and Spielberg touched on topics ranging from who was truly responsible for the famous "just shoot the swordsman" gag; the connection between Raiders and Spielberg's upcoming CGI adventure film Tintin (which he refers to as being, "thirty years in development"); Ford's insistence that Indy feel and express fear (a choice that helped define our concept of a fully-developed Hero); and the state of the industry today -- which Ford calls in some ways "soulless."
The Los Angeles Times will be releasing videos from the event in the coming days, which we will be linking to here, so stay tuned for more from this entertaining and revealing conversation.
A special thanks to Geek Tyrant for the quote transcriptions.
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