David Koepp? Why not Lawrence Kasdan...

You might be of the opinion that he's a weak writer, but at least as far as KotCS goes, I don't see anything majorly wrong with it. I think the movie did a great job of giving us a story that manages to give Indy something important to do, something that obviously goes beyond simply chasing after yet another MacGuffin. I don't know how much of the story elements had already been decided on by George and Steven, but in any event, I enjoyed the movie from beginning to end each and every time of the 4 times I have watched it so far. I don't think there's anything wrong with it, with the story, or with the screenplay.

 

David Koepp is a very weak writer.

Really?

From your first post:

He is a mainstream screenwriter who has lended his talent to many Spielberg films like Jurassic Park and War of the Worlds.

Lended??? The correct phrasing would be He is a mainstream screenwriter who has lent his talent to many Spielberg films like Jurassic Park and War of the Worlds.

I like good, STRONG writing.

 

Oh I'm terribly sorry, I've exhibited poor grammar on a Star Wars message board...what was I thinking? At least I'm not being paid to write for a major motion picture with a multi-million dollar budget and with 19 years of expectations.

Slightly different standard. But yes, I've been careless with my language here.

-Seldon

 

I really, really want to read the Darabont script if someone has that. I read The Monkey King ages and ages ago (I think I was in Junior High... shows how much of my life has been following Indy IV ) and don't really recall much about it. Was there something about a rhino?

Er, anyway... my bro (who is a grad film student) and myself both agreed that what this script absolutely felt like was a patchwork. I think Koepp did a decent job of blending elements together so it doesn't feel too uneven in terms of tone, but part of that is also to Speilberg's credit in direction. I would say for what it is (a script pieced together from the wreckage of many many years of development hell) it ain't that bad. But to the trained script reader, it was abundantly clear that Koepp was doing his damndest to juggle a lot of balls at once.

I tend to go easy on screenwriters because most people have no idea how difficult a job it is. The writers almost never get noticed unless something's wrong with a film, *then* people notice the script is bad But you can NOT make a good film from a bad script. You can make a bad film from a good script, but not the other way around. And a whole lot of what makes great films great is due to the screenwriters, but is usually attributed to the director for often no reason.

Now, Spielberg is a bonafide great director. I've read the script of Raiders, and it's good. Kasdan brings the heart, the charm, the story. It's very good. What is notably lacking are the action segments. They're a lot tighter on film than in the script. Bits of dialogue are cut, shifted... it's really clear than Spielberg and Kahn both deserve the credit for that. And I think this exemplifies what a good film collaboration can be. Kasdan and Spielberg make a great team.

So yeah, I am sad that Kasdan himself couldn't do the script. But the fact of the matter is that it probably wouldn't have been a Kasdan script, it would have still been Kasdan as Script Doctor. Instead that role went to Koepp, who often does script doctoring (although he gets credited for it, unlike a lot of people). I think he does an ok job of it. As good a writer as Kasdan is, I have no idea if he's a good script doctor, which is another talent in a way that not all writers have. I'm not saying Koepp's great at it. He's ok. Could Kasdan have brought more magic? Probably.

But even though I see faults with Koepp's script, I can absolutely imagine the process of this production and the time pressures. If the team had decided a deadline of 2007 a few years earlier, they might have had more time. But honestly any script that goes through that many permutations is going to have issues. There's a whole list of things in this script that I could identify as most likely the result of patching things together, even without reading the other scripts. It's just something I can tell because God knows I've read enough in-production scripts with multiple drafts to know how it works.

The last act is definitely weak. But it is *so* difficult to have a good last act. I mean it's brutal. It's the bane of screenwriters. Everyone just wants to stop at the end of act two I'm not saying this is really an excuse exactly... the other Indy scripts are all better... at the same time, I can't bring myself to be too hard on Koepp because given the circumstances he did a decent job and it could absolutely have been much, much, much worse.

-sj loves kevin spacey

 

Lawrence Kasdan definitely showed a lot of promise early on, but I don't think he's been able to live up to it. I don't think he's written anything all that great since 1988, unless something that he wrote for another director really was butchered after he turned in the screenplay.

 

I would like to read both Darabont's and Shymalan's script. I know that both Spielberg and Ford loved Darabont's script, but Lucas overuled them. I can't remember how Shymalan's script was accepted by the big three.

 

And that, dear friends, is a perfect example of the fact that the Executive Producer is the main man when it comes to decision making.

-sj loves kevin spacey

 

Well, in the case of Indy they had already decided beforehand that no Indy film could be made unless they all liked it. So if Lucas and Spielberg liked a script, technically Harrison Ford could blackball them as well, or if Lucas and Ford like a script Spielberg could blackball them if he didn't like it. It had to be a unanimous agreement.

 

...are you guys sure Shyamalan wrote a script? I'm almost 100% positive that he didn't. I thought they were just "in talks", but nothing ever came of it.

I guess I could be wrong.

 

Apparently a number of ideas for the movie were also in the old Saucermen from Mars script. Its author, Jeb Stuart wrote The Fugitive, Die Hard, 48 Hours, Just Cause. The script is dated early 1995.

http://au.movies.ign.com/articles/033/033968p1.html

 

I loved Short Round in TOD but I don't think it would have been the same to have him back as a grown man.

 

They would have CGI'd him so that he still looks like a kid. And then hire some EU writer to pull some retcon about Short Round having a growth defect, and he was really 39 when we met him in ToD.

I definitely noticed the Saucerman elements in KotCS. It's hard to tell how much of that was Jeb Stuart and how much was George Lucas. For some reason the A-bomb scene has always struck me as a Lucas idea.

 

Was the Darabont script the one that had Indy's brother? Or was that just a rumor all along?

 

I think that was just a rumor.