Indiana Jones Is A Child Molester?
It’s weekend where movie info is not so much on the fast lane and it’s slowing down for a short while. But that’s okay, because there’s always something to talk about.. As you know, I hated Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and you can read my review to recap how disappointed I was by the the fourth installment.
But I am a big fan of Indiana Jones, the old trilogy. I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark the other day, on VHS (yes, I still have them in that format) and it’s still as entertaining as the first time I watched it when I was a kid. Marion (played by Karen Allen) has that infectious smile that just melts your heart and gets your guard down. And that was the movie that Americans finally found their answer to James Bond, the archaeologist hero in the man with the big hat, played with such charisma by none other than the legendary Harrison Ford.
But Cinematical read from the recent Raiders of the Lost transcript (which you can download OVER THERE) about a conversation between producers Lawrence Kasdan, George Lucas and director Steven Spielberg when they were brainstorming for the character Indiana Jones, this was back in the 70s while in the process of developing Raiders of the Lost Ark and how they almost made him a sex offender, which would kinda, sorta explains the past love affair between Indy and Marion.
Here’s an excerpt…
George Lucas: I was thinking that this old guy could have been the mentor. He could have known this little girl when she was just a kid. Had an affair with her when she was eleven.
Lawrence Kasdan: And he was forty-two.
George Lucas: He hasn’t seen her in twelve years. Now she’s twenty-two. It’s a real strange relationship.
Steven Spielberg: She had better be older than twenty-two.
George Lucas: He’s thirty-five, and he knew her ten years ago when he was twenty-five and she was only twelve. It would be amusing to make her slightly young at the time.
Steven Spielberg: And promiscuous. She came onto him.
George Lucas: Fifteen is right on the edge. I know it’s an outrageous idea, but it is interesting. Once she’s sixteen or seventeen it’s not interesting anymore. But if she was fifteen and he was twenty-five and they actually had an affair the last time they met. And she was madly in love with him and he …
I wish I could tell you it’s just April fool’s stuff but it’s not April and it’s not meant to fool anybody.
I guess the movie did kinda imply or suggest that Indy and Marion met when she was just a child.. or younger, whichever, but it’s kinda creepy to think that three dudes were sitting and discussing and deciding this to be the untold background of these two characters.
We may never know for sure but a relationship between a 15 year old Marion and a 25 year old Indiana Jones sounds is a bit too much, don’t you think?!
Unless.. it goes along with the time period of the story, supposedly back in the 1930s and 40s some folks must’ve done it and got away with it unlike some of the teachers that get arrested for statutory these days.
I wonder why George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Lawrence Kasdan felt the need to go with this direction?
Does this bit of information change the way you look at Indiana Jones?
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I knew Lucas and Spielberg were out to ruin my image of Indiana Jones (one of the coolest film heros of all time) but not from the get go. Do they not realize that part of his charm is that, while a little naughty, he’ll always going to do the right thing?
Nailing an eleven year old wouldn’t give him “edge” it would make him a legit creep. The weird thing is that, for the thousands of fans that would be appalled by this, there are probably a couple dozen that would think that this just made him cooler.
Oh George, it’s not ‘interesting’ to have a little girl and a grown man developing sexual feelings for each other. It’s flat-out creepy.
It doesn’t change my view of Indian Jones, but it sure changes my view of the three involved. Nice to know that while everyone was enjoying the action/adventure of the movies, they were smarming it up behind the scenes and imagining Jones as a molester. But not REALLY a molester because his victim was a “promiscuous 11-15 year old.”
And now we know their age preference too. Lucas likes them 11 (guess that explains Natalie Portman) and Spielberg likes them no older than 15. Because it’s not “interesting” anymore once they’re 16-17.
Talk about complete bastard creepers.
Hey, thats all on Lucas, Speilberg clearly said “she better be older than twenty two!” and clearly was against the implications of it (volunteering a Marions-fault excuse instantly) while it is George’s quote about “not interesting over 15″…. I do think that they clearly meant, they’ve known each other since 11-12, hooked up at 15, haven’t seen each other in 10 years” and the quotes are slightly out of context, but it is a nice look into George’s mind, considering both the original draft of SW and the PM have the heroes leaving the planet with jailbait-royalty…
First of all, I read that Lucas was saying that Indy would have known Marion from when she was 11, but that they would not have had a relationship until “the last time he [Indy] saw her,” when she was 15.
They clearly mean “more interesting” in terms of the movie, and certainly I would agree–the character of Indy would have been much more complicated and darker, contrary to most heroes of blockbuster cinema, who are as perfect (or nearly perfect) as they are flat. Certainly, it is silly to suggest that just because someone finds an idea aesthetically intriguing, they must morally condone it. I suppose Nabokov was a pedophile, too? (And what of Shakespeare?)
Frankly I’m impressed that Spielberg and Lucas had the balls to consider such a path for the story. I doubt they would today.
Of course, people are fans of the Indy they know now, so I can understand why this seems to threaten the image of the hero they love. It would have been a completely different character, I feel, if they went this route–the relationship between Indy and Marion, which is at the heart of the film in many ways, would seem completely different. How one relates to Indy as the protagonist would not be quite so simple, but this could have opened up other interesting avenues in the story.
Also, saying someone is a child molester for having a consensual affair with a 15-year-old is silly, in the first place.
Glad they did not go with these weird plans. But how about that third Austin Powers film? When Austin goes back to the seventies, he runs into Foxxy (played by Beyoncé Knowles) who blames him for “eight years without a phone calll”. At the time of the release of this film Beyoncé was only 20 years old. So it seems Austin Powers had a sexual relationship with a twelve year old…
Everyone wave hi to the child rape apologist Nate! Hint: sex with an underage child is never, ever, “consensual”. Ever.
Everyone wave hi to the person who thinks there’s no difference between an eleven-year-old and a fifteen-year-old.
On topic, Jesus tits that is one creepy conversation. Seriously, it makes my goddamn skin crawl. I’ve always taken the whole ‘you were just a kid’ thing as her being sixteen or so to his early to mid twenties. You know, the kind of thing that was pretty normal for the time.
I always thought the age difference was weird anyway. I mean he knew her in a father figure role. Even if she is an adult in Raiders their prior relationship makes their current Raiders relationship creepy. Imagine if one of your parents ended up banging a grown up version of a childhood friend. Ewwww.
@Nate: You should learn to read better:
“George Lucas: He hasn’t seen her in twelve years. Now she’s twenty-two. It’s a real strange relationship.”
Lucas is clearly suggesting that he hasn’t seen her since she was ten or eleven. Now she’s 22; he hasn’t seen her in 12 years. 22-12=10. Maybe it’s your math that needs help.