John August and Mystery Man have already posted about this priceless document: a 125-page typed transcript of a series of 1978 meetings between producer George Lucas, director Steven Spielberg, and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan in which they figure out the story line of their next movie, about an archaeologist hero named “Indiana Smith,” so that Kasdan can go off and write it.

Discovering this transcript has made my week (and it’s only Monday). I recommend it not just to screenwriters but to anyone interested in the process that goes into creating an iconic hero. Reading it, witnessing the characters, scenes and plot points of a familiar masterpiece emerge in real time from the mass of alternative possibilities, gave me chills. I couldn’t help thinking of Michelangelo’s apocryphal advice to “take a block of marble and chip away everything that doesn’t look like a Pieta.”

The classic Well of Souls snakepit scene, for example, is first envisioned as a flood, and evolves from there:

G [Lucas] — And then all the water rushes through?

S [Spielberg] — And he swims out with the water. It’s a waterfall.

G — The only problem with the water is it’s going to be hard to do, and it’s going to be hard to rationalize it. We can’t. We can call it the temple of life and establish that it has a lot of water in it. But, at the same time, it’s like the sand. Plus it’s such a classic thing.

S — What about snakes? All these snakes come out.

G — People hate snakes. Possibly when he gets down there in the first place.

L [Kasdan] — Asps? They’re too small.

S — It’s like hundreds of thousands of snakes.

As they discuss “the girl,” it’s fascinating to see what could have been a stock character take shape into one that sets the bar, not only for all later Indiana Jones movies, but pretty much for action-adventure blockbusters in general for the next thirty years. Some of Marion’s best scenes arise from their struggle to logically justify her presence (or absence) in certain setpieces:

G — We have to figure out a reason for them to take the girl at this point. Before I had it because she was a double agent.

L — Maybe here is where we can save the other thing. The Frenchman wants her, even though she’s not receptive to it. We can do that in a scene when he comes in to question her. Say he’s the Claude Rains character, it makes sense that he’s attracted to Barbara Stanwyck. The German says it’s time to get rid of her, the French guy says no.

G — The big thing with these movies is the damsel is going to get screwed by the bad guy. What we do is, in the interrogation scene the Frenchman is in love with her, coming on to her. The German torture guy could care less: “Get out of my way.” When they push her down into the snake pit, it’s the German guy who does it, and the Frenchman is very upset about it. “The girl was mine.” “She’s a waste of time, and we don’t need her.”

Then there are moments like this:

L — How do you see this guy?

G — Someone like Harrison Ford, Paul LeMat. A young Steve McQueen. It would be ideal if we could find some stunt man who could act.

S — Burt Reynolds. Baryshnikov.

For great commentary and more excerpts, check out Mystery Man’s and John’s posts. MM’s comments section offers various possible links to the full transcript in .pdf and html.

I have no idea how this got on the internet, and I hope Lucas, Spielberg et al don’t mind… but I’m really glad.

I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time the summer I graduated from high school, on a giant screen in Leicester Square in London. I still remember the excitement of that packed theater. To state the obvious, Raiders was the inspiration and template for Prince of Persia… the original 1989 Apple II game, as well as what came after.