Indiana Jones and the Revenge of the Darabont Draft.
By Burbanked on Jun 13, 2008 in Development Heck, Henry Jones Jr., Movies, Screenwriting, Views and Reviews | 1,389 views |
As I’ve mentioned and speculated again, writer-director Frank Darabont’s rejected Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods draft has reached near-mythic heights of speculation around the bloguverse over the last year or so by fanboys such as myself who wondered why Lucas rejected it and what would come of the final product.
Of course, now we know the answer to both those questions and ultimately it adds up to…well, really not that much.
I came across the draft via Hollywood-Elsewhere, although it’s widely available pretty much everywhere else by now. It keeps popping up and disappearing just as quickly, but if you’re inclined to seek it out and give it a read-through, I’d definitely recommend you doing so because it’s a fairly fascinating study in what’s right and wrong about Crystal Skull.
What I took away from reading it was really three-fold:
- Darabont deeply cared about the material, tried like hell to make it all work, achieved some fair measure of greatness - but also severely fumbled in many other ways.
- Although his draft has some very fundamental differences than the final film, it does not, in the end, avoid a lot of the movie’s basic problems - most notably, why make this thing at all? And again, I think this basic problem falls on Lucas’ shoulders because Darabont is trying to juggle a lot of disparate story elements that have likely been dictated to him.
- In the end, none of this matters. The film is done, released and has begun the long process of establishing its legacy, whatever that turns out to be. What Darabont did or didn’t do with it has all the impact of a fart in the wind.
Still, the script contains enough to excite even a sad sack victim of high expectations like me…
If Darabont was able to achieve one single thing better than the finished film, I think it was to create action sequences that both rang true for the character but also felt fresh and exciting. Of course, I haven’t read Koepp’s draft, and he might very well have made his setpieces jump off the page as well and the film’s problems were found in the CGI-heavy executions and silly comedy bits - but Darabont crafted several action pieces in his draft that didn’t make the movie but really could’ve. His exciting airborne biplane fight, for example, is a thrilling sequence, filled with the kind of reversals and tension-builders that you’d LOVE to see on the screen. It strongly recalls the flying wing sequence from Raiders, and Marion and Indy’s interchanges, as well as some of the stunt beats in this sequence, are just wonderful. Darabont’s version of the warehouse chase and jet sled sequence are also quite a bit more exciting - yet still: one doesn’t know how much the final screenplay fleshed out these bits and how much couldn’t be filmed because of stunt limitations, budgetary concerns, and the rest.
It’s just so hard, so heart-breaking, though, to wonder what might have been.
In general, the violence in Darabont’s draft feels much more true to the franchise. There’s real blood spilled here, more surprise killings. Think back to Raiders where characters bled from sudden and shocking head gunshot wounds or the implied gore of the German mechanic getting hacked to bits in a plane prop. Certainly today’s PG-13 rating could’ve compensated for some of Darabont’s creations here, where we see more old-school movie violence. By page 10, in fact, he unexpectedly kills a character with a gut shot that features surprises, a nice kiss-off line, and all the cinematic elements we’d expect. None of that kind of thing ends up in Crystal Skull.
And Marion! Oh, Marion: she’s just such a better character in Darabont’s treatment, and whether he was given the encouragement to raise her to near-Indy levels of mythic status or not, he really accomplishes that here. She’s more fully fleshed out; more motivated and proactive and believable. Her character’s introduction is SO much better, and she and Indy enjoy a fully-realized progression in their inevitable reconciliation. In other words, it takes more than the two minutes that the finished film gives them to resolve all of their issues and get together. At the same time, Darabont struggles with a similar issue to Koepp in that Indy and Marion really aren’t arguing about anything; they’re simply bickering because that’s what they’re supposed to do. But Darabont has given the pair a greater personal obstacle to overcome, and if his resolution of that obstacle is an easy twist to see coming, I give him a lot of credit for at least setting it up and doing it in a better, more complete way.
You’ve probably read by now that Mutt isn’t in Darabont’s draft at all. It really makes me wonder who wanted this storyline to be given such prominence and screentime, and what kind of story value it was thought that Mutt would bring. Because the Indy/father angle was covered so well in Crusade, where else was this supposed to go, except to give new life to the franchise where it really doesn’t belong?
And let me touch on that for just a minute, because I don’t understand the thinking behind this. If the franchise continues with Mutt as Indy’s successor, what the hell are they going to call these movies? They took such pains to rename Raiders in the DVD boxset so that all of the films could have a serial-like and marketing-friendly titling convention. How can they build future movies around Mutt Williams and still retain the Indiana Jones brand? Will the next film be called Indiana Jones’ Son Mutt and the Continuing Letdown of the Fanbase? Nobody can really think that they’ll go with Mutt Williams and the Audience’s Deep Desire to Die, will they? And if the overall goal was to reimagine the franchise over the long term for a son character, why not just give him his own origin film - bookend it with a Ford cameo if you have to - and let it stand on its own? Why shoehorn Mutt, Marion, Oxley and all that other crap into one overstuffed narrative?
Darabont is able to spend more time on Indy and Marion because there’s no Mutt - but still, he doesn’t quite get a grip on everything else going on. He develops the Indy-as-a-traitor complication much better than the film did, but this still pretty much disappears for most of the story’s middle section. He also includes way too many characters, including some B-level villains who aren’t even introduced until the story’s midpoint. He also crafts far too many references to the franchise’s other movies - as well as, confoundingly, those movies’ marketing slogans - that are too heavy-handed and dopey. Indy’s drunken flailing around the university museum is a prime example of this shortcoming.
But as I said earlier, none of this matters. To me, it simply points up what was possibly an all-too-common occurrence in Hollywood story development:
- Darabont’s draft didn’t quite get them where they needed to go, so they elected to try another route.
- Koepp (and whoever else) was given volumes of notes, hundreds of problematic requirements, tons of pressure to succeed and not nearly enough time to pull it all together.
- By the time the fourth or fifth or twentieth “final draft” was submitted, people probably knew that a lot of it wasn’t working all that well - but too much money had been spent already and there could be no going back.
That’s exactly why they call it “the bottom line”. At the end of the day, it HAS to be about the money: can Paramount, Spielberg, Lucas and all the myriad stakeholders somehow get back all of the time, effort and up-front investment they’ve made to make this all worthwhile? At some point, someone has to make the big decision to forge ahead and get the movie made so that all of these bills can get paid - and more often than not, if story problems exist at the time that the decision gets made, that’s a small price to pay for getting the movie into the multiplex on time.
(Marion Ravenwood screenshot above courtesy of TheRaider.net)
Dedicated screenwriting 101 here: From an interview with Harrison Ford on the MTV Movies Blog in which the inevitability of another Indiana Jones movie is mentioned:
How do I get out of this? I love going to the movies with my boys, opening up their minds to the great pleasures of cinema and all that, but this is a hard one. Please help me: do I suck it up and just go, or can anyone out there provide me with a plausible, kind-hearted, permanent way out? (
© Copyright
James | Jun 13, 2008 | Reply
I’m glad there’s a few people out there that aren’t praising this version as the end-all-be-all great script that INDY IV should have been.
It is definitely much better than the film.
But it’s still problematic. It’s fun. Darabondt nails Indy’s character. Provides a much better Marion. But the story, as a whole, does not feel like an Indiana Jones adventure.
Burbanked | Jun 13, 2008 | Reply
It’s got some great Indiana Jones scenes, though, James…
Ray | Jun 13, 2008 | Reply
Alan and James, you’re exactly right. Darabont got the characters right, and Koepp got the psychic greaser monkeys right. And they both hit paydirt with the flying, radium-proof refrigerator.
Carlo Conda | Jun 13, 2008 | Reply
I guess we all know who is to blame for Indy IV, then, don’t we.
Burbanked | Jun 13, 2008 | Reply
As silly as it is, I don’t mind forgiving the refrigerator bit, Ray. If anything, Darabont motivates it a little better because Indiana tries to run away with the Russians but then realizes how futile it will be. He runs back to Nuke Town and hides in the fridge - but to me it comes off as more desperate, last-ditch tactic that can’t possibly work, but it’s still a better idea than running.
And Darabont pays it off by showing the running Russians getting incinerated while the refrigerator flies by. Preposterous? Of course it is - but the character’s decision to do it comes across as much more believable and the mushroom cloud pays off better than in the final film.
James | Jun 14, 2008 | Reply
It’s not the fridge bit that bugs me.
It’s the 35 pages of opening that feels more like a James Bond opening than an Indiana Jones one. (Indy’s reactions as a character are nailed by Darabondt). It’s the plot, that doesn’t really gel with me.
Why exactly is Indiana an archaeologist in this movie?
Raiders opens with recovering an idol from a temple.
TOD has the dance number, but Indy is trading Nurhachi for a gem. (Weak, yes, but at least it still has some relevance to his profession).
Last Crusade, not only provides a ton of back story on how Indy came to be, but he is also pursuing the Cross of Coronado.
INDY IV — He’s what…? Chilling in a diner, by a military base, then kicking some butt.
I mean, it’s a silly question — but why’s he in that diner? Why’s it by a military base? /shrug I know why he is where he is in the three predecessors.
Openings are so very important to setting up who a character is. I think Darabondt missed out putting that scene first. And instead relied on the fact people already knew who he was and what he did.
…
Yes, there are some very Indiana moments. In fact, the ants are MUCH better in this script. But there are also some very cartoony (even for Indiana Jones) moments.
The giant snake eating Indy whole.
The swinging on the vines is in this script.
Still has aliens.
And Germans.
And Russians.
And Peruvians.
…really should have focused on one.
Mystery Man | Jun 14, 2008 | Reply
Fabulous article, Alan!
Ya know, I agreed with the vast majority of what you wrote.
On this: “…it does not, in the end, avoid a lot of the movie’s basic problems - most notably, why make this thing at all?” Ya know, I have to admit, I brought a lot of my own baggage into the read of his script, and I wonder how much different I’d feel had I not seen the finished film. That feeling of “why do this” was so firmly instilled in me going into the read that I really wish I could’ve approached his script with a fresh mind. It took me longer to warm up to it (because I was annoyed with so many things in the finished film), but, ya know, I think the entertainment value of Indy’s hilarious banter with Marion, particularly during that airplane sequence, which would’ve been SO much fun to watch, would’ve made us all feel and say, “THIS is why we should be seeing this film.” The bottom line is that characters are the heart of every film, and Darabont handled the characters better than anyone else. We would have cared and loved his version more than what we were given, no question about it.
I’m going to save my fire for my “50 Strengths of Darabont’s Draft” on Monday, but this was a great article, Alan. I wholly agreed.
-MM
Burbanked | Jun 14, 2008 | Reply
James: Lots of good points there, and certainly the opening could and probably should have been a bit more archaeology-like. In the finished film, I liked that Indy was persecuted by the US government, so I guess I kind of liked his motivation in Darabont’s draft that he was trying to piece together a way to clear his name. I agree it’s different and a bit out of character, but I gave it some leeway here. You’re absolutely right that a strong opening goes a long way to establishing character.
I agree that the giant snake was too much. The vine-swinging didn’t bother me as much because it’s once, it’s to a believable end - to get across or into the river or whatever - and because NO MONKEYS HELP HIM FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO IT.
MM: Thanks for chiming in here - welcome back!
The biplane fight sequence is probably the best bit in this draft and I agree with you that it might have gone far to make me feel as though the movie was warranted because it would have been so fun. I particularly enjoyed Marion getting knocked out, coming to and reacting to Indy having jumped to the other plane. THAT moment was as clear as day to me and totally in line with the excitement and humor and spirit and CHARACTER of the previous movies as anything.
Ah, what might have been…
MC | Jun 18, 2008 | Reply
When I first heard that Lucas had rejected the Darabont draft, I said that I trusted Darabont’s sense of what was good a lot more than I trusted Lucas’s same sense.
Damian | Jun 22, 2008 | Reply
First of all, Burbanked, thank you for bringing this to my attention. I didn’t realize that the script had been made available online (although I knew such a thing was inevitable). Like you, and every other self-proclaimed fanboy, when I heard that a script written by the talented director had been rejected by Lucas (since apparently Spielberg and Ford loved it) I was understandably bummed. I thought that if anybody could do right by Indiana Jones (not to mention the 1950’s period setting) it was Darabaont. Also, I was naturally curious to see how the script compared to the actual completed film. Naturally then, the discovery of the actual Darabont script makes me feel not unlike Indy felt when he looked upon the Sankara Stones or the shield of the Crusader knight… until I read it.
I think my reaction is not too dissimilar from yours, Burbanked, though perhaps my emphasis would be in different places. I agree that there are some elements that Darabont accomplished better than the finished film (that bi-plane fight is admittedly pretty danged cool) and other things elements that–dare I say it?–are actually inferior. It also has some of the exact same flaws that Crystal Skull did which tells me it wasn’t entirely the writer’s fault (whomever that writer would’ve ended up being). If nothing else, this makes me further appreciate Koepp’s take on it.
For me, a few of the things that didn’t quite work (and some have been mentioned already):
–the incorporation of far too many lines/references from the previous films (and you’re absolutely right about the marketing slogans, Burbanked; that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever). Koepp said in an interview that having a character reference something they said 20 years earlier is one of the worst things you could do as a writer.
–too many characters… particularly the villians whom I had trouble keeping track off (I mean, did we really need Indy to combat Russians AND Peruvians AND Americans AND Germans)? I think I prefer Irene Spalko.
–Marion’s introduction (and revealed marriage to another man) was a little too Casablanca for me. The only thing Indy didn’t do was say “Of all the taverns in all the countries in all the world I could be sitting in, I pick the one that SHE walks into.” On the other hand, Indy’s introduction in the movie is much better than in Darabont’s script.
–the giant snake/bugs made me feel like I was reading the script to King Kong at that point. Oh, and while I’m on the subject, I wanna make a quick remark about Indy’s “getting over” his fear of snakes. In a way I sort of admire Darabont because it’s pretty bold to remove such a beloved trait from such an iconic character (although he does get it back before the story’s over), but just as I wasn’t too thrilled about them losing John McClane’s fear of flying in Die Hard 4, Indy no longer being afraid of snakes is in my mind akin to Bond taking a vow of celibacy. It just ain’t gonna happen. Again, this makes me all the more appreciative of the hysterical snake scene in the film.
–While some of Darabont’s dialogue is, not surprisingly, very sharp and witty, at other times it’s just as cringe-worthy as some of the ones in the film. Plus, there’s no “I Like Ike” line. Another point for Koepp.
–finally, I think I may be the only one in the world who actually liked the Mutt-as-Indy’s-son subplot. Indy’s becoming a father just seemed to me like the next logical step in the life journey of that character (as it is with most of us as well). Maybe they didn’t handle it as well as they could have, but the film was better off for trying.
To try to be fair, Marion does come off better in Darabont’s hands than in Koepp’s, but part of me feels that it’s due simply to the amount of screen time devoted to her and not to a better understanding of the essence of the character.
In the end, Darabont’s affection for the material is certainly clear from his script, but it unfortunately makes it feel very much like a “fan-produced” (a criticism I’ve heard directed at the final film as well).
Burbanked | Jun 22, 2008 | Reply
Hey, Damian - nice to see you lingering around these parts.
I’ll certainly agree with you that Darabont doesn’t accomplish everything well here, and he’s also prone to some of the story’s pitfalls. But I can’t say I agree that reading this helped me appreciate Koepp’s take on it. Maybe it made me feel more sympathy for Koepp because by the time he got this it was damaged goods. I don’t know a damn thing about it, but it sure feels as though he was hired to just connect the dots - Lucas had a set amount of story beats, CGI cues and poorly imagined “jokes” and Koepp delivered what he was told to do. I just can’t get to the point where I appreciate Koepps take, however, because overall I feel as though Darabont respected the characters and the franchise more than the finished product.
And, as Mystery Man points out in his terrific treatise on this subject, this very well might have been Darabont’s first draft. Using his version of the story as a blueprint, this would have gone to some intriguing and compelling places indeed. Ultimately his biggest difference - no Mutt - serves the story better in my opinion. It puts the emphasis on Indy and Marion: what they’ve lost, what they have to overcome and how they find their way back to each other. The Crystal Skull is a TRUE MacGuffin here - it means nothing to the characters and is only a means to an end, which is getting Indy and Marion back together again.
THAT’S the purpose of an Indiana Jones MacGuffin.
Brad hansen | Jun 30, 2008 | Reply
Speaking of karen Allen, I wrote an unsolicited script for Starman 2 back in 1998. It was my first script and I quit college to finish it. It’s been gathering dust ever since. I sent it to Jeff Bridges and John carpenter, although I would prefer if Carpenter didn’t direct a sequel. I wrote some good f/x sequences and some interesting characters. I’m pretty sure I’ll never be involved, but I’d to see the f/x scene from the beach being incorporated, (Jeff’s manager Neil will know the one, totally plagiarised from another movie, but it would look great on film today). If anyone has any questions, email me at hansenfilm@yahoo.ie and I’ll answer them. (Although I won’t give away any plot points. And yes there is a son and indeed, I actually have the perfect casting suggestion!!