Sometime in 2009, a PDF started circulating around the internet that got a lot of people all hot and bothered. No, not the uncorrected proofs to 50 Shades Of Grey, but a transcript of a conference between George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Lawrence Kasdan. The conference in question was to hammer out the details of a new film Lucas and Spielberg had dreamt up: a self-conscious throwback to the adventure serials of their youth, using the film techniques of today, and starring Lucas's number one dashing rogue, Harrison Ford. Out of this meeting we, eventually, got Raiders Of The Lost Ark, the first in the Indiana Jones trilogy. Yes, trilogy. You read that right. Don't you dare try and challenge us on that one. Or we'll start crying. It's a pretty fascinating document to read through, especially if you're a film buff (and specifically a screenwriting geek). Seeing the process of creating an iconic character as it happens is almost magical, were it not for the fact that George Lucas keeps butting in with stupid ideas which make pretty much every part of his later career - including, sigh, Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull - a lot less surprising. Lucas leads the meeting, and shoots down most of Spielberg's attempts to inject some levity and character into his proposed plot - tellingly, most of them end up in the finished film. He originally wanted the name Indiana Smith, and for Peter Falk to play him. He also wanted to put aliens and other weird crap in from the off so, really, there's a whole lot of documented proof that anything good with George Lucas's name on was probably good in spite of him.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
