Genre: Action-Adventure/Sci-Fi
Premise: After being left at the alter, Indiana Jones tracks down his would-be wife only to find out she’s part of a top secret military clean-up of a mysterious crashed airplane.
About: This was the biggest Indiana Jones project that never got made. George Lucas was serious about its development, hiring one of his favorite writers at the time, Jeb Stuart, who wrote both Die Hard and The Fugitive. The legend goes that a very busy Spielberg and an even busier Harrison Ford were primed to do the film as soon as Spielberg finished Schindler’s List, but that they didn’t like all this hooky-pooky sci-fi stuff in regards to an Indiana Jones movie and therefore passed. It would take another 13 years before the three titans could find time to finally film another Indy film.
Writer: Jeb Stuart (story by Jeb Stuart and George Lucas) (characters created by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman)
Details: 2/20/1995 (Revised Draft)
There were some comments in my Ant-Man and The Wasp post questioning why people even go to see these giant Marvel films. They’re vapid emotion-free adventures designed solely to sell you merchandise. I pushed back on that because I find Marvel movies to be entertaining and that’s the only reason I physically go to the movies these days. I want to be entertained. I don’t want to spend 20 dollars to watch Jon Hamm in “Beirut.” I’m sorry but I can wait for the small screen for that.
With that said, I see the Indiana Jones franchise the same way commenters see Marvel movies. It’s a franchise that’s dangerously close to sliding into ATFT. Yes, I’m talking about Alien Terminator Franchise Territory. They just announced that the 5th film in the franchise has been pushed back to 2021, this after previously announcing that the co-writer of Solo, Lawrence Kasdan’s son, would be taking over writing duties.
So let me get this straight. They’ve got the co-writer of one of the biggest box office bombs in history to shape a script around a 79 year old action star. Does anybody see anything wrong with this? I’m asking honestly. Do you have any hope that this movie could be good? Because I don’t find any data that suggests it would be.
Which is why I’ve decided to go back to a more innocent time. A time when George Lucas still loved movies. The year was 1995 and George was actively developing the next Indiana Jones film. The reason I’m curious about this script is that it includes aliens, which was George’s only “MUST HAVE” for Indiana Jones IV. A big reason Crystal Skull suffered was because Spielberg didn’t want to do the alien thing. So the two kind of meshed their opposing visions into a single film and, well, you saw what happened.
With Mars, we have George Lucas’s unimpeded vision of how that alien storyline would play out. Let’s see if a potentially great movie was overlooked.
It’s 1949 and good old Indiana Jones is out of the game. Welllllll, at least until he finishes stealing a gold idol in Borneo. After that adventure, Indiana runs into a hot linguist named Elaine McGregor who he’s forgotten he promised to escort upriver to search for an old temple. Indie falls head over heels for Elaine and within a couple of months, they’re getting married!
Except that just before the ceremony, Elaine gets cold feet and runs away with her former boyfriend. Indiana is heartbroken and must hear it from Elaine herself why he wasn’t enough. He gets word that her and her former man, Robert Bolander, have flown to New Mexico, so off he goes.
Once there, he learns that things are more complicated than he assumed. Elaine didn’t run away with Robert because she loved him. She ran away because Robert, a military officer, was working on a top secret project that he needed her help on. After Indy shows up, he learns that Robert and the rest of the army believe they’ve found a crashed flying saucer.
Indy is skeptical until Robert shows Indy an old object from the crashed ship that’s covered in multiple ancient languages. They must translate these languages to see what the object says if they’re going to understand why these aliens are trolling them. But before anybody can do anything, THE RUSSIANS SHOW UP and STEAL THE OBJECT. Not only that, but they take the one person who can figure out the scripture on it – Elaine.
Indy’s able to catch up to his not-quite-wife and recover the object before getting chased through the desert by a flying saucer. At some point, they realize that this object is some sort of timer and when it gets to zero – game over! Pretty soon, the Russians, more aliens, and a suspiciously frantic Robert Bolander are all in pursuit of the timer object. Who will get it? And once it reaches zero, what will happen?
Before I get to the analysis, I need to address something for the Indiana Jones geeks. The NUKE THE FRIDGE scene IS in here. Which I find curious. This version of the script was developed, supposedly, without Spielberg. Spielberg famously copped to adding the “Nuke the Fridge” scene in Crystal Skull. So now I’m wondering if he was just sticking up for his friend. Of course, Spielberg could’ve suggested this scene to George even back then. But it’s always been presented as a scene that came about recently. The mystery deepens, I guess.
Now let’s get down to brass tacks. We need to use brass because all the gold was stripped out of this franchise a long time ago.
Raiders of the Lost Ark was famously constructed as a series of set pieces that Steven Spielberg wanted to shoot. Lay the set pieces out and let some screenwriter figure out how to connect them. Turns out that screenwriter, Lawrence Kasdan, did a pretty good job, since Raiders remains one of the most beloved movies ever.
Saucer Men From Mars attempts to do the same thing. We have a boat chase on the river. We have fridge nuking. We have a military plane being chased by a flying saucer. But there’s one major difference between the two films.
Raiders uses an overarching goal. Saucer Men does not. Raiders has the goal of getting the Ark. That objective dominates the entire movie. Saucer Men has no ultimate objective. It’s more about Indy and Elaine finding a mystery cube and trying to figure it out while running from aliens and Russians.
Why does this matter when building a story off pre-established set pieces? Because when you have a final destination worked out, it’s easy to guide the story to that destination. We know that Indy has to get that Ark. So the story will come to a conclusion once he does. You don’t have that in Saucer Men, which means you’re linking pre-established set pieces randomly. There’s no framework to guide the major story beats to a clear conclusion.
It’s like preparing a meal when you don’t know what you’re trying to make.
What happens in this scenario is that the plot becomes bigger than the characters. You’re not making decisions based on where the characters need to get to. You’re making decisions based on which set piece you need to get to. That’s going to result in a movie where the characters are dragged along. They have no free will (a common theme this week).
I’m telling you. When you give your hero an overarching goal, writing a good script is so much easier.
But there’s a bigger problem here. The character of Indiana Jones isn’t built for this story. George Lucas is obsessed with the idea that every iteration of a franchise has to give us something new. That’s what he did with the prequels. And that’s what he did with Crystal Skull. And I understand where he’s coming from. You don’t want to repeat yourself.
With that said, you created Indiana Jones for a very specific type of adventure. Look at his weapon. It isn’t a gun. It’s a whip. A gun helps you against spies. A whip helps you in a cave. Everything about this character was built around raiding tombs and finding treasure.
Therefore, when you put him in the desert against aliens, everything feels off. This character wasn’t built to fight aliens. He wasn’t built to avoid nuclear missile blasts. As a result, Indiana Jones stops being relevant in his own movie. You could put any alpha male hero in this role and it would be the same.
So there’s a balance here that Lucas ignores. Yes, you have to create something new. But you can’t go so far away from the source that the hero’s unique skills become irrelevant. And this is coming from someone who loves alien storylines. So if there’s anybody who’s going to buy into this premise, it’s me. But I didn’t, and that’s because of this error.
Did I like anything about the script?
I liked the opening boat chase. You had this little steamer being chased by a WW2 PT boat. That was fun. I liked that Indiana got stood up at his own wedding. That was unexpected. Cause now we’re wondering, what woman would leave Indiana Jones? And I liked the design behind the love triangle. Love triangles are often on-the-nose. Two people like the same person. Big whup. But in this case, Robert and Elaine used to be together. She left him. Now, she’s run off with him, but only because he needs her for a top secret mission. Yet we get the sense that he’s slyly taking advantage of this proximity to weasel his way back into the mix. So it’s not as simple as two guys fighting over the same woman. It’s a bit more nuanced.
But there are no game-changing set pieces in the script. Which isn’t surprising. Anything that had a modicum of potential was ushered into Crystal Skull. It goes to show how difficult it is to come up with original set pieces, in that even when something isn’t right for a movie, they’ll put it in there because it’s hard to come up with something better.
One final thought. If they changed just one letter in this title – ONE LETTER – this movie would’ve been awesome. Change the “R” at the end of Saucer to a “Y.” Boom, you have a movie for the ages.
Indiana Jones and the Saucey Men From Mars
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Every time you write a line of description, you have the option of turbo-charging the line. I’ll give you an example. Early in the script, when we’re boating down this river, Stuart describes the crocodiles that are hovering nearby. The functional description of these crocodiles is this: “ALONG THE RIVER – crocodiles, twenty feet long.” It’s a serviceable but ultimately boring line. It does the job and nothing more. Stuart turbo-charges the line, however. This is what he writes instead: “ALONG THE RIVER – crocodiles, twenty feet long and six months between meals.” It’s a small change, but a powerful one. In our minds, these imposing beasts become imposing beasts that are starving and looking for any opportunity to gulp down a human. Always look to turbo-charge key descriptions. It makes a difference.
