I’ll start this off by stating that my George Lucas star has pretty much gone supernova in the planet-destroying, no hope-of-survival kind of way. Like so many others (I’m not on the bandwagon, I just help maintain it), I’m worn out on the guy and all his isolated wacky talk, talk, talk. And talk is what he does in a recent USA today report. George Lucas (to cut the guy a break, he’s being interviewed at a charity event) ruminates on Indiana Jones 4 and has let slip some minor details about the whole thing, further revealing what building a self-contained eco-system in the hills of Marin County, California and staffing it with yes-men will do for dereistic thinking.
If you’ve had the benefit of interweb access, you know shooting on Indy 4 begins in June as the production races to various locations across the globe, but now we know that one of those locations will include a waterfall. A waterfall! Great Oogly Moogly. Lucas also goes into some detail about using a creaky-jointed Harrison Ford. I’ve never thought that would be a problem (Lucas isn’t directing with CGI masks, after all), but his explanation is typically Lucas, "He’s not running in any of the movies. He’s either on a horse or driving a car or a motorcycle. And he’ll play his age in this movie with what’s appropriate. The chases are more suspenseful than speedy. Like the rolling ball in the first film — it’s not that he’s running that fast, it’s that there’s a giant ball coming at him. And he will get beat up, which is a tradition for us."
Speaking of giant balls, Lucas also mentions Sen Connery’s old ones still haven’t signed to the film and I couldn’t be more uninterested. Next.
The quote that kindled my ire is how he seemingly (and tone/intent in print can be a tricky thing) gloats at the fact he had nothing to do with the optimism-inducing news that Cate Blanchett had signed to the project. You can thank Spielberg for that one. "That’s who my director wanted, and I always bow to the wishes of my director. I approved it because she seemed like a good idea. When I met her at the Academy Awards, I told her, ‘Hey, you work for me now!’ " I bet you did, George. Thanks for approving that one for "your director". You really cut him a break. Luckily, Spielberg actually knows how to direct more than set pieces and creature designers.
The Pompadoured One also speaks on the Star Wars TV series calling it "bare-bones, action heavy", which could also be used to describe me naked. I’m sure the adjectives are meant to delineate the project from the prequels, but I’m asking myself how that stands as anything different from Vader Tales: The Movie, since the pseudo plotting of those outings constituted bare-bones boring anyway.
Ok. All nastiness on hold, I’m still looking forward to Indy 4 (jaded caution aside, who isn’t?) by way of a Spielberg delivery and the goodwill garnered by the previous three. But man. George needs to "Shhhhhhhhhh".
Read the full article right here.