The “Raiders” Story Conference

By Miss Cellania in Film on Mar 11, 2009 at 9:23 am

The 1978 brainstorming sessions among George Lucas, Lawrence Kasdan, and Steven Spielberg that led to Raiders of the Lost Ark are now available for your reading pleasure. 45 hours of discussion are transcribed in a 125-page .pdf, but you can see the highlights before downloading the whole thing. Here’s Spielberg (S) and Lucas (G) discussing the backstory of Indy and Marion:

G — I was thinking that this old guy could have been his mentor. He could have known this little girl when she was just a kid. Had an affair with her when she was eleven.

L — And he was forty-two.

G — He hasn’t seen her in twelve years. Now she’s twenty-two. It’s a real strange relationship.

S — She had better be older than twenty-two.

G — He’s thirty-five, and he knew her ten years ago when he was twenty-five and she was only twelve. It would be amusing to make her slightly young at the time.

S — And promiscuous. She came onto him.

G — Fifteen is right on the edge. I know it’s an outrageous idea, but it is interesting. Once she’s sixteen or seventeen it’s not interesting anymore. But if she was fifteen and he was twenty-five and they actually had an affair the last time they met. And she was madly in love with him and he…

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  1. Gauldar
    Mar 11th, 2009 at 9:53 am

    George is a total perv.

  2. Leigh
    Mar 11th, 2009 at 10:08 am

    Oh George, why do the good ones always turn out to be in to little girls?

  3. Gauldar
    Mar 11th, 2009 at 10:12 am

    Leigh,

    When you say ‘good’, do you mean guys with more money then they know what to do with?

  4. iamevovled
    Mar 11th, 2009 at 10:18 am

    Eww. Raiders of The Young Panties. Pervs.

  5. SenorMysterioso
    Mar 11th, 2009 at 10:19 am

    who knew they were so pervy

  6. ted
    Mar 11th, 2009 at 10:39 am

    Is that for real?
    This really makes some of the Star Wars stuff creepier considering so much of it seems to be written with kids in mind.

  7. Byrd Brain
    Mar 11th, 2009 at 11:02 am

    I used to believe that the Luke/Leia kissing was done because Lucas didn’t know where he was going with the story. Now I see that it’s just because he’s a perv and was planning on going down a path that I’m glad the Star Wars movies did not actually go down…

  8. Johnny Cat
    Mar 11th, 2009 at 11:06 am

    I’m currently reading the transcript, and it’s full of whacky stuff coming out of their heads, like calling the natives in South America “Mexicans or Arabs or whatever.” And you can tell that Lucas is a control freak, dominating 80% of the 5 day discussion.

  9. Justin
    Mar 11th, 2009 at 11:08 am

    I had never thought about it, but she was kind of young and he was kind of old… *shiver*

    Anyway, the whole thing was all very interesting. I recommend following the link and reading some more of the highlights.

    And don’t judge these guys too hard. It’s called a brainstorming session. You throw out whatever comes to mind even if it is a crazy idea.

  10. dash
    Mar 11th, 2009 at 11:41 am

    It’s fun to see this reference pop up all over the web. Lots of people are posting about, but each website is choosing a different quote section from the script. Makes for fun reading. I’ve been resisting checking out the full script because of it.

  11. Jim Woodring
    Mar 11th, 2009 at 6:35 pm

    Even the younglings?

  12. Johnny Cat
    Mar 11th, 2009 at 10:36 pm

    Having read upwards of 50 pages so far, I gotta give kudos to Lawrence Kasdan for his sly suggestions, which ultimately crafted the perfect story we know today. Example:

    Kasdan: How hip is the arch-rival? At this point our guy apparently knows he needs the staff. He doesn’t know if they’ve found the map. The arch-rival must know about the staff.

    Lucas: You assume he knows this stuff if his mentor found the top of the staff.

    Kasdan: Now why would the arch-rival, upon hearing the news that they found the lost city, immediately say “I’ve got to get that staff put together.”? Why do we have to have such a big lead?

    Lucas: What if we don’t?

    Kasdan: It makes more sense if the arch-rival hasn’t gotten all this stuff before. So it becomes a race all the way.

    -I just love the creative process, and to see Kasdan absorb all the ideas, and make them his own, is refreshing.


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