The ‘Indiana Jones’ Supernatural Horror Movie That Almost Was (2017) | Hacker News Reader

The ‘Indiana Jones’ Supernatural Horror Movie That Almost Was (2017)

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50 pointstintinnabula59 comments

Few greater atrocities in the world of art than the absence of a movie based on the awesome Fate of Atlantis game.

It would have been more epic than anything. After all Atlantis is more of a “Holy Grail” for archaeology than the Holy Grail itself.

At least we got a comic-book adaptation.

Ah, Fate of Atlantis. As a kid, I used to bike to our local library to play it on the library computers - they had a surprisingly decent game selection.

It was either this or another Indy game where you could win any fight by pressing a specific key (causing Indy to instantly knock out the opponent.) I remember learning this trick from a random kid play the game at the same library.

I sometimes wonder if the streaming era has killed that kind of "serendipitous discovery" which was an important part of some of the more important childhood memories.

Fate of Atlantis is the game where you could knock almost any opponent out with a specific key. Later in the game there's an enemy who says something like "that cheap American trick won't work on me" if you try it, so you have to find another way to defeat him.

Yeah but it did do him a lot of damage. I think you have to defeat him by "knocking him out" like five times.

The one I remember had to be crushed by rolling a boulder over him since he couldn’t be defeated by fighting. It’s been a long time, though, and I only remember a few parts.

Yeah. The problem using a shared computer was that any save you made was usually wiped out or overwritten the next time you went over, so I never progressed quite far with the game. Don't recall it mattering too much back then though.

LucasArt games gave you a ton (unlimited?) of nameable save slots though.

> He told Spielberg he had an entire trilogy planned for his old-fashioned hero and they shook hands on the spot. That character turned out to be Indiana Jones, and George Lucas turned out to be a liar.

Yet another reason to doubt that Lucas had already sketched out nine stories when Star Wars was released, much less that they were the source material for Episodes I-III. (And I don't think Disney is even claiming to draw on old unpublished material.)

These ideas and script snippets here are outlandishly horrible.

George Lucas is quite the fountain of ideas, but he needs a partner to help temper his vision.

If he teamed up again with another director like Spielberg, he'd be a powerhouse.

I imagine there are a lot of people like him out there in the world. Tech tree spent 100% in the visionary / idea column, but lacking the well-rounded, sensible pragmatism.

> George Lucas is quite the fountain of ideas, but he needs a partner to help temper his vision.

This. Many say that the Star Wars OT became the great films they were because of George Lucas’ wife, Marcia, who also served as his editor. And actually one can feel the degradation of their relationship by seeing how ROTJ was much worse than the first two movies. (They divorced after releasing ROTJ.)

So now imagine if George did have complete rein of everything... [Vietnam flashbacks while thinking of the 2nd Trilogy and unnecessary remasters]

I'd heard that about Star Wars too, but hadn't understood to what degree it was true before I encountered this article and video: https://www.polygon.com/2017/12/29/16829502/star-wars-wreck-...

Add Gary Kurtz to the list. He said the original plan for ROTJ had no Death Star, and Wookiees instead of Ewoks.

Who proposed the addition of Death Star 2.0 and replacing Wookies with Ewoks? Many people have been criticizing the Ewoks because their role "doesn't make sense" and probably started George Lucas' tendency to pander to children for merchandising purposes.

George Lucas originally planned the trilogy so that the Death Star was destroyed in the third act - and the Wookies were supposed to be a primitive, arboreal species.

However, he wasn't at all certain that A New Hope would be popular enough to fund sequels (remember how risky a big-budget sci fi epic was back then,) so he essentially rewrote the entire trilogy into the first movie. When ANH turned out to be... popular (to say the least,) he wound up retelling the trilogy as he originally intended, as best he could.

And because it had already been established that Wookies were a technologically advanced species because of Chewbacca, he basically just made them smaller and reversed their names (Ewoks.)

Now I'm curious why did he use Chewbacca as Han Solo's partner in the "compressed" ANH... Who was supposed to be Solo's partner?

I'm really curious how Episode IV would have ended. Maybe just rescue Leia and get away, skip the final battle?

It seems possible that a scaled-back Star Wars would have been less popular.

In “The Hidden Fortress”, which Star Wars plot and characters (minus Luke) is mostly based on, “Obi Wan” humiliates “Darth Vader” by refusing to kill him after beating him in their duel. The Emperor horribly tortures Darth Vader for losing, which convinces him to switch sides and help Obi Wan and the princess escape, and the ending is the three of them rejoining the rebellion, ready to fight another day.

There were a lot of drafts for Star Wars, but according to the ones I've read[0] and Screen Rant[1] it was always Chewbacca, so I assume the characterization just changed from draft to draft.

[0]https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Adventures_of_the_Starkille...

[1]https://screenrant.com/star-wars-return-jedi-ewoks-not-wooki...

I guess it'd be hard to film, but it'd be narratively coherent if they happened upon a leftover band of Wookies from a crashed ship or something like that.

George Lucas post 1976 is a mediocre director, and a worse writer. Even before 1976 he wasn't that great either - American Graffiti is a forgetable coming of age movie. If it wasn't made by Lucas of later 'Star Wars' fame nobody would remember it today.

What he is actually known for is being great at worldbuilding once, with Star Wars (beginner's luck?). Middle age took that ability away though after the eighties, like a punk band trying to be relevant in their 40s: only for hardcore fans.

And I say it regretably. I'd too wanted a great Star Wars 1, 2, and 3. That said, most modern S.W. movies are also crap. The J.A. ones were so much a blatant copy of the original story plots as to be useless, whereas Han Solo bordered on camp. Rogue One was somewhat decent though, and I hear good things about the Mandalorean...

Spielberg on the other hand is a true master...

Regarding American Graffiti, it was a huge hit, before anyone heard of Star Wars. It was the number 3 grossing film of 1973 after The Sting and The Exorcist. It made AFI's list of the top 100 movies.

It was a hit (for it's money) but there are tons of hits (with similar acclaim) from back then that are forgotten today.

To be fair, how many non-film buffs know a lot of films from the early 70s today? Star Wars is an exception mostly because it became such a franchise.

It would almost certainly be on my Top 100 list as well. I think it stands up pretty well. Those other two are pretty classic too--although I'm not really a horror film fan.

(That said, I could see people not being able to identify with the where/when the movie was set. I certainly wasn't part of that either but I still really enjoyed it.)

But, yeah, the films Lucas directed go way downhill after American Graffiti and Star Wars.

For those (like me) who were unaware of "AFI's list of the top 100 movies":

> American Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest Movies, selected by AFI's blue-ribbon panel of more than 1,500 leaders of the American movie community

https://www.afi.com/afis-100-years-100-movies/

It is incredible to me that GL could best be celebrated as a world builder yet the Star Wars cannon might be the smallest universe out of any mainstream film series. Part of the reason I lost interest is that they refuse to create something new in the SW universe and constantly just microwave and serve the leftovers of the old movies.

I don't think the size of the universe matters. Marvel has a huge universe but it's mostly derivate, trite, n-th repeatitions of same-old under different names and guises. Star Wars had a cultural significance in a way that Marvel movies never had (but Marvel comics, in their heyday, did, albeit for a smaller niche).

Plus, the Star Wars world was such a good fit for building upon, that it was expanded vastly by hundreds of comics, books, and so expanding "the canon".

>and constantly just microwave and serve the leftovers of the old movies

Funny coming from someone who enjoys Marvel.

Wait did I say I enjoy Marvel movies? If your defense of the Star Wars Universe is to belittle the Marvel Universe (Another "large" but tiny universe) I think you are grasping at straws.

I don't enjoy Star Wars or Marvel movies. I only watch them with friends/family who really love them since they seem to be important to them.

American Graffiti (1973) is very enjoyable. I consider it a great movie. Great ensemble cast. Highly recommended.

I read that in the Star Wars IV movie, the actors refused to read his lines and made up their own ones. Then later for episode one he was so famous nobody dared to refuse his wishes... result is known.

Disagree with you about "American Graffiti". It would be remembered today if for no other reason for the actors that got a career-launch from it. Never mind the 1960's revivalism it kicked off.

Writing-wise, a good chunk wasn't even written by Lucas.

And if you dig into Star Wars you’ll find the it’s success is really a result of others. First edits were laughable until a new edit came aboard to give the movie its trademark style. I’d say SW movies were a success in spite of Lucas not because of Lucas.

The prequels prove the point as those movies were 100% him and quite unwatchable IMO.

This is quite unfair to Lucas. Star Wars was a groundbreaking achievement at the time, and it was due to unique vision of Lucas. He should get credit for that, even if he later made some mediocre movies and angered some fans.

I know Star Wars is said to have been "saved in the editing", but it is quite normal for movies going through many edits and to correct issues in postproduction. Many successful movies need re-shoots after scheduled shooting ends. How many reshoots did Lord of the Rings need?

More fundamentally, the director does not just direct the actors, he direct all roles like editor, cinematographer, sound designer. If he select great people and get them to do their best work to realize his vision, it shows he is a good director. It doesn't mean that a successful result is "because of others". At least not any more for George Lucas than for say Orson Welles.

Sure the prequels were underwhelming, but the newest trilogy was just as bad without the involvement of Lucas. This just shows how well the original trilogy was written - we don't really need to know the prehistory of Darth Vader or Han Solo and we don't need to see the characters return again. The original story arch was perfectly told and satisfyingly resolved.

I think it’s time we consider that George Lucas is a mostly mediocre filmmaker who peaked in 1976.

How Spielberg let Lucas talk him into the fourth Indiana Jones movie is beyond me.

If Lucas gets the blame for Crystal Skull, surely he gets the credit for Raiders of the Lost Ark also?

Lucas had lots of help from Lawrence Kasdan and Steven Spielberg on the Raiders script.

Lawrence Kasdan wrote the script for Raiders, David Koepp wrote the script for Crystal Skull. Steven Spielberg directed both. Lucas was co-creator of the story on both.

You can easily verify this on IMDB.

There's a transcript of an early story conference for Raiders of the Lost Ark, between George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Larry Kasdan where they present and hammer out ideas for the movie. You can actually see what parts of the movie come from whom. What's striking to me are that Lucas has most of what we now know as Indy, with Spielberg mostly tossing in goofy gags--some of which made it and some which (thankfully) didn't.

https://moedred.livejournal.com/2009/03/04/

Older drafts (link from there) are also quite interesting.

An all-Lucas "Raiders" would have looked very similar to what we got, maybe just a bit more serious.

> George Lucas turned out to be a liar.

This seems to be an annoying new trend: people using the word "liar" when someone's prediction didn't come true.

I read it as: Lucas claimed he had fully fleshed out a 3 movie series. In reality he only had Raiders of the Lost Ark plus a few loose ideas for 2 sequels.

> Lucas claimed he had fully fleshed out a 3 movie series

But if that was his belief, then he wasn't lying.

I don’t see how you could honestly and falsely believe that.

So I'm a liar if I don't think Lucas lied?

Sorry, I meant “that”, referring to the belief that one has three fully fleshed out movies. The “you” was a general construction, replaceable with “one”. I.e. I don’t see how anyone could honestly believe that they have three fully fleshed out movies ready, if they in fact do not.

What do you call the alien Indiana Jones movie we got?

Nothing. There was no Indiana Jones movie involving aliens. I recall Shia LaBeouf had a fever dream about it though.

Maybe you mean that?

Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull has what turned out to be aliens and an alien spaceship.

Why are some words in the script written IN ALL CAPS?

That's a standard script format:

https://www.writersstore.com/how-to-write-a-screenplay-a-gui...

Movie scripts follow a very strict format. Always courier 12pt, no bold or italic. Every scene have a standardized header. Characters names and certain other keywords are ALL CAPS. It probably originated in the age of mechanical typewriters, but the format has become completely entrenched and everyone in the industry knows how to read it.

Lots of script guidelines like ("1 page is one minute of screen time", "the first turning point should happen before page 20") assumes a standard script format. So you cannot just change to Times New Roman if you think it is more legible.

I know the script format, I just wasn't aware that there is a freedom to excessively capitalize random words. :)

He's got somewhat of a point though, in the first extract, what's capitalised is "SCREAM", "STUMBLES UPON", "GATHER", "CORPSE", "BROKEN", "FROZEN", "STARE", "WHISPER"

These certainly are "certain keywords" but so are many collections of words. That doesn't help one understand what should or should not be on the list.

As outsiders we don't really have to know the rules, but are they key words, not just "random words"? Is it something to do with how they're either actions that a character takes, a thing that they see, a reaction, etc. i.e. a rough guide to where to point the camera?

Ah OK. Yes you can also capitalize words you want to reader to pay special attention to, but there is not really a standard for that AFAIK. It is just emphasis. You are not really supposed to say where to point the camera in a screenplay, but you can suggest it indirectly by focusing the readers attention on certain things.

> Movie scripts follow a very strict format

> there is not really a standard for that

These statements do do not coincide, in the geek's mind. If it's strict, then there is a standard for that.

Maybe movies is different.

Sorry I was unclear. There is a strict standardized format for scripts, for typography and layout, and certain words and character names are always capitalized. E.g. every scene starts with a capitalized header like:

    INT. TYRELL CORPORATION INTERROGATION ROOM - DUSK

    EXT. OVERHEAD VIEW CITY - NIGHT

The header indicate (1) interior or exterior (2) setting (3) time of day. (The movie Mank actually display these headers on the screen to introduce the flashback scenes. It is an inside joke since it is a movie about a screenwriter.)

Dialogue lines are always indented, and with the character name in capitals:

    Leon's upper lip is quivering.

                            LEON
              Whatya mean, I'm not helping?

                            HOLDEN
              I mean you're not helping!  Why is
              that, Leon?

Now in addition to such capitalization rules, the author can capitalize words the reader should pay special attention to, typically visual or sound cues.

    A blimp is drifting silently over the city reflect-
    ed in an eyeball while we hear the SOUNDS OF THE
    STREET.

But there are no hard and fast rules about which words to capitalize here. The scriptwriter in the article do seem to like to emphasize many words.

That's absolutely fascinating. Do you have any more information or sources on this?

Everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion -- but my goodness what a pile-on in the article and these comments. Looking forward to enjoying the globally-enjoyed and profitable franchises everyone here will be producing soon!

perhaps 2017 should be added in the title?

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