Indy 4 Team Tells All (well, not really)

Thank goodness you’re here, Indy…and other guy!

Oh my, Indiana Jones is the all the rage over at Vanity Fair this month. But you don’t have to shell out the money to buy the big glossy and then trudge through all the ad pages in order to read the article, because then generous VF folks have it online right here. There are also Q&As with Spielberg and Lucas and a video of the Annie Leibovitz photo shoot which I didn’t watch, because to be honest, I wasn’t that interested. Much more interesting to me was a link to a 2004 article about two best friends who basically spent their entire teen years making a painstaking shot by shot remake of Raiders.

The article is pretty good. The most interesting revelations (to me at least) are that Lucas had the idea for Indy 4’s story back in 1993, while working on the Young Indiana Jones TV show (a friend just got the DVDs of the shows and is enthralled) but when he explained it to Ford and Spielberg, they both passed. But he kept trying and finally got them into it. Also, Spielberg loved the Frank Darabont script but George Lucas hated it and in the end, they decided that Lucas hated it more than Spielberg loved it, and eventually it went with David Koepp’s rewrite.

But enough. I’m sure you all really just want to see the pictures.

I’m happy that Karen Allen looks so happy.

Cate Blanchett, you look great, but why do you have a 1920s Louise Brooks haircut and a uniform that looks more Russo Japanese War than Cold War?

Harrison Ford, you are still the most awesomest archaelogist action hero ever.