"The Complete Making of Indiana Jones" from Lucas Books/Del Rey

I've just spent 35 dollars on one of the coolest books in my library. It's called THE COMPLETE MAKING OF INDIANA JONES: THE DEFINITIVE STORY BEHIND ALL FOUR FILMS.

300 pages long, with artwork, treatments, photos and detail like I've never seen before, I've been reading this thing for hours and I'm on a film geek high. It's the behind the scenes history of Indiana Jones.

This thing is so detailed I now know that Michael Kahn did the majority of his editing work on Raiders on the Warner Brothers lot in facilities that cost $ 620 a room! Excruciating and boring detail to anyone but an extreme film geek or future filmmaker. Most of the details are of a far more interesting nature, including the great quote from Lawrence Kasdan regarding spending the week of January 23rd-27th 1978 in a house in Sherman Oaks with Steven and George, working out the basic story of Raiders. You can see the handwritten outline Lucas brought to the meeting on lined notebook paper with a three hole punch. Regarding the work they did that week:

I was daunted for maybe the first hour. You know, oh my god, I can't believe I'm in the same room with these guys!

But then the job at hand consumed him, and he got over it.

There's so much stuff here to be enjoyed, this book will keep me busy for weeks to come.

And it goes all the way through the production of Crystal Skull.

I highly recommend it. I'll put some quotes and odds and ends from it in the thread, and if anyone wishes to comment on them, feel free of course.

Between this book and multiple viewings of Crystal Skull, it's gonna be an Indiana summer for JWD.

 

I've been meaning to order this. The book Jonathan Rinzler did for Star Wars was nothing short of the most authoritative "making of" book ever written and I'm glad this is equally high quality (if not as thorough).

 

We already have a thread for the book HERE.