Indiana Jones: Making the Trilogy (2003) (V)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Laurent Bouzereau

Writer:

Laurent Bouzereau (writer)

Release Date:

21 October 2003 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot Keywords:

Character Name In Title

Cast

Karen Allen	...	Herself
Kate Capshaw	...	Herself
Sean Connery	...	Himself
Danny Daniels	...	Himself (archive footage)
Alison Doody	...	Herself
Denholm Elliott	...	Himself (archive footage)
Harrison Ford	...	Himself
Paul Freeman	...	Himself
George Gibbs	...	Himself
Julian Glover	...	Himself
Willard Huyck	...	Himself
Michael Kahn	...	Himself
Lawrence Kasdan	...	Himself
Gloria Katz	...	Herself
Kathleen Kennedy	...	Herself
George Lucas	...	Himself
Frank Marshall	...	Himself
Alfred Molina	...	Himself
Michael D. Moore	...	Himself (as Michael Moore)
Deborah Nadoolman	...	Herself
River Phoenix	...	Himself (archive footage)
Anthony Powell	...	Himself
Jonathan Ke Quan	...	Himself (as Ke Huy Quan)
Norman Reynolds	...	Himself
John Rhys-Davies	...	Himself
Tom Selleck	...	Himself (archive footage)
Roshan Seth	...	Himself
Douglas Slocombe	...	Himself
Steven Spielberg	...	Himself
Robert Watts	...	Himself
Kit West	...	Himself (archive footage)

Runtime:

USA:127 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Company:

Paramount Home Video

Trivia:

This documentary is featured on the 4th disc of The Adventures of Indiana Jones DVD set, released in October of 2003.

Movie Connections:

References E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

Good thing they split it three ways

Each of the Indiana Jones films gets a brand new documentary and nobody mentions the Young Indy Chronicles (which belongs in a museum). There is a great emphasis on the fact that these kind of movies will never be made this way again now that every effect can be done by computer. Note that everybody involved echoes this sentiment except the executive producer. Naturaly the first part reveals the origins of Raiders of the lost ark. The Tom Selleck story even including his screen-test with Sean Young. Alfred Molina is worth mentioning, as he has the most fun recounting his film debut. Meanwhile Harrison Ford looks as if he has had hair implants or something. This must be the first time the famous anecdote about how the Arab sword fight was cut short is left out. Instead we get an even more disgusting story by John Rhys-Davies featuring the only glimpse of a deleted scene on the entire DVD set. There are more snippets of behind the scenes footage, but unfortunately most of them turn out rather embarrassing (Spielberg bothering Indy with a Micky Mouse voice). On the up side, we finally get to see where Artoo and Threepio are hidden amongst the hieroglyphics.

When Willard Huyk and Gloria Katz were asked to work on the Temple of Doom, they were handed a lot of leftover scenes that never make it into the previous film and an order to name every character after a major crew members' pet. Kate Capshaw now claims to have been a serious art house actress before meeting Spiel, but her IMDb credits reveal no such thing. What is blatantly obvious was Stevens infatuation with her: they never stopped flirting on set. Chatter Lal talks more about other pictures on his resume than Temple, while the grown up Short Round still has his speech impediment. Enough time has past to be able to talk about Harrison's torn shoulder muscles, followed by a lot of tiresome apologizing for the fact that this one was "so much darker" and "not as much fun" as Raiders. It is also made clear that Frank Marschall was more like an errant boy than a producer, always getting nasty assignments like bug handling.

After all that complaining about the lack of lightness in the second film, everybody brightens up discussing The Last Crusade. Old footage only shows them fooling around on set (quite a difference compared to Star Wars). Sean Connery tells about the input he had on his character: making him less Yoda and more Sean. There are 1988 interviews with River Phoenix and Denholm Elliott with GREAT BIG DATES IN THE SUBTITLES so nobody would think these people are still alive. By this time they were running out of creepy crawlies and had to breed disease free rats themselves (as well as mechanical ones to set on fire). It is also revealed most of the Nazi uniforms were the genuine article, but the seagulls on the beach had to be played by doves. Spielberg spends a lot of time explaining the last ten minutes of the picture, yet fails to explain how that poor ancient knight felt when realizing he guarded the grail all those centuries for nothing. Neither do they mention that either Harrison's head got bigger over the course of three pictures or his hat decidedly smaller.

8 out of 10