Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Obsession!



I am a man obsessed. Right now there are two things that haunt dang near my every waking thought. One of them is something that I’ve been trying to shake for a while. The other is something that I just recently stumbled across that I couldn’t help but share.

First and foremost is one of those things that as a writer and as a movie fan is perhaps one of the coolest, most fascinating things I’ve ever seen.

I religiously pour over almost everything that shows up on my favorite website of all time Aintitcoolnews.com. In doing so they offered a link to a website called mysterymanonfilm.blogspot.com. On said website the anonymous writer has somehow gotten his hands on the entire 125 page transcript of the 45 hour (5, 9 hour days) story conference between George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Lawrence Kasdsan in which the three geniuses sat down to flesh out the story and script for a little movie called RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.

Since RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK is my favorite film of all time and this kind of thing almost NEVER sees the light of day I jumped on this like a jack rabbit and printed out the entire thing. As a result over the past couple of days every chance I get I’ve poured over this rare opportunity to gaze into these three minds creating one of the true all time classics.

If you’re an Indiana Jones fan or just a fan of film in general I highly recommend checking out the above mentioned Mystery Man On Film website before Lucas or someone slaps them with a cease and desist order. If you do you’ll find perhaps the two biggest film makers in the history of Hollywood sitting town with a then rookie screenwriter to go over every little thing that would eventually create one of the most iconic movies and film characters of all time.

I dare you not to be fascinated by the way the story takes shape and the insane volume of ideas thrown out in these meetings. You’ll discover how much ideas, stories and characters change as artists begin to try and flesh them out as well as see how this one week helped set up not only the first movie but a large amount of the set pieces that would appear in the following two films.

This is one of those I can’t believe someone unearthed this, jump on it quick before it’s gone type things. Even if you don’t obsessively pour over every last detail like I have if you’re a fan of film you’ll be fascinated beyond belief and get a great look at the inner workings of creativity.

My other obsession boils down to two words: STAR TREK.
I may have mentioned in the past that I’ve probably watched the first trailer that was released at least a hundred times now if not more. Well, there was a new one released over the weekend and it’s even better and made me into even more of a raving lunatic for what I am convinced will be THE movie of 2009.

I’ve been a STAR TREK fan all my life and as such I think I’ve earned the right to say the franchise has needed the swift kick in the back side / shot in the arm that it looks like J.J. Abrams is giving it. This thing looks massive, epic, stunning and most of all fun!

As far as I can tell the film makers have written the exact movie I would if I were charged with rebooting the franchise and trust me that would be one pretty kick ass flick. Throw in the fact that you’ve got Leonard Nimoy reprising the role of Spock and rumors beginning to circulate that some of THE NEXT GENERATION crew makes cameos and I think we’re in store for a movie that will blow away life long Trekkies and newbies alike.

At this rate I can’t get enough of what I’ve seen so far and May can not come fast enough. There is not a single movie I’m more excited about at this point, not even AVATAR and that’s really saying something. If I don’t get to see this thing soon I think I may lose my mind from the anticipation. Here’s hoping it’s worth the wait.
P.S. Sorry but I have no clue how to create a link to get to the website I mentioned so just type in that URL and it SHOULD tak you there... I think.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice, I heard that the original draft was pretty epic and a lot of the stuff that got cut out was used in the later films. I really wish they would have used Kasdan again for Indy 4 though.

I also never got why Paramount never just broke off each series into its own film series like Marvel and DC did with their characters instead of just focusing on one crew? I guess TOS is nearing death about now but TNG crew is still good for a few more films.

Adam said...

Apparently, Kasdan did a little uncredited work on the script for the "love" dialogue.

I think the new Star Trek film is blasphemy. Pure and simple.

Anonymous said...

I never knew that, although that was the best part of the film so I guess I should have figured it.

Chris W said...

At some point soon I'm going to do a post about the INDIANA JONES movie that should have been made.

As for STAR TREK I think they're trying to bring back the magic that has been missing from the franchise for at least a decade if not longer. I know Adam's not alone in thinking "resetting" the franchise is a bad idea. First I'm not entirely convinced that this is a plain and simple "remake" of the franchise. In fact based on what I've read I'm fairly certain it's not. I also think that a lot of the naysayers will change their minds when the film comes out. As a life long Trek fan I totally understand Adam's apprahension but I implicitly trust Abrams and EVERYTHING I've seen, read and heard the likes of Kevin Smith and so on talk about it really sounds like they nailed this thing out of the park. There's a reason Paramount pushed it back till Summer. Based on what I've read by people that have seen it Paramount realized they had something HUGE on their hands so much so that it warranted being a summer tentpole movie. I guess we'll just have to wait until May to see.

Anonymous said...

At some point soon I'm going to do a post about the INDIANA JONES movie that should have been made.

Looking forward to it. I'd have set it somewhere they haven't covered yet like Sub-Saharan Africa or Paupa New Guinea. Take it back to its religious artifact origins and made the Soviets better villians or even use the Chinese Communists instead.

The only thing I would have kept from Indy 4 is his son and Marion but I wouldn't have him marry at the end.