George Lucas Will Not Contribute To The Writing Of “Indiana Jones 5”

Collider has revealed that George Lucas will not be involved with the writing of the script for “Indiana Jones 5”.

From Collider:

David Koepp said he’s hard at work on writing the script for Indiana Jones 5, but one big question that loomed over the film was whether Lucas would be involved. The way the franchise worked in that past was that Lucas would come up with the idea for the movie and Spielberg would execute it. When Indy 5 was announced, Lucas’ name was nowhere to be found. Spielberg subsequently said Lucas would serve as an executive producer on the film, but in speaking with Koepp, the screenwriter revealed that Lucas is not involved in the story of Indiana Jones 5:

“He’s not, to my knowledge. I’ve had no contact with him.”

For most fans of the Indiana Jones series, that George Lucas is not involved with Indiana Jones 5 can only come as good news. “Indiana Jones and The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull” should have been the triumphant return of Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones for one last time. It should have been, but thanks to George Lucas, we got a ton of awful CGI that was reminiscent of what he used in the “Star Wars” Prequels. We also got memorable scenes of Indiana Jones surviving an atomic bomb test by hiding in a refrigerator and being rocketed miles into the air and escaping without a scratch; and Shia Labeouf swinging like Tarzan with a bunch of monkeys that bonded with him because they shared the same haircut.

I’ll be honest though, I’m not crazy that they are bringing back David Koepp, who also worked on the script for “Chrystal Skull”. I feel like his association with his work done on “Indy 4” is reason enough not to ask him back. But according to Collider, Kope says he learned from his mistakes.

From Collider:

“It’s hard because you can learn like if something maybe didn’t work as well as you think it would well we certainly wouldn’t do that again, but you wouldn’t have done that again anyway, you already did it, so it’s hard to say. For me it was the MacGuffin dictates everything, and so we tried to make the best possible choice we could. Not that nobody didn’t try to make the best choice that they could in the past, but we tried to give us the one that gave us the Indiana Jones movie we most wanted to see.”

Let’s hope so.

One thing that I think most can agree with is that with Lucas not being involved, the writing process will no longer be a dictatorship in which Lucas made all script decisions. With the new Lucasfilm, ideas are discussed among the likes of Philip Kaufman (who contributed to all of the Indy films); David Koepp (who has worked on many of Spielberg’s movies); Steven Spielberg, who should have more of an influence in the movie and Lucasfilm president, Kathleen Kennedy, who has taken more of an active role in the development of movies like “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”. I wouldn’t be surprised too if Lawrence Kasdan (“Raiders Of The Lost Ark”, “The Empire Strikes Back”, “The Force Awakens”)  makes a return to the franchise. And of course, some minor input from Indy himself, Harrison Ford.

Lucas will return as executive producer, which should always be the case. Indy really is his character. I still wouldn’t mind if Lucas was involved with the script as long as his ideas are submitted for approval. And no more refrigerators!

Source: Collider