fbpx

What is Lucas’ McGuffin??!!

Share

From IGN FIlmForce
August 21, 2006 – Director Steven Spielberg, creator-producer George Lucas and star Harrison Ford have all admitted that the biggest delay in getting Indiana Jones IV before cameras has been juggling their schedules.

But Lucas has now revealed that fans’ expectations and story points have also played a role in the slow return of the globe-trotting archaeologist to the big-screen.


“I discovered a McGuffin,” Lucas informed Empire Magazine, referring to the old Hitchcockian plot device about something that is only truly relevant because all the characters are after it and thus it advances the plot.

“I told the guys about it and they were a little dubious about it, but it’s the best one we’ve ever foundÂ… Unfortunately, it was a little too ‘connected’ for the others. They were afraid of what the critics would think. They said, ‘Can’t we do it with a different McGuffin? Can’t we do this?’ and I said ‘No’. So we pottered around with that for a couple of years. And then Harrison really wanted to do it and Steve said, ‘Okay’. I said, ‘We’ll have to go back to that original MacGuffin and take out the offending parts of it and we’ll still use that area of the supernatural do deal with it’.”

Lucas also addressed the overwhelming anticipation that Indiana Jones IV has to live up to. “We’re basically going to do The Phantom Menace. … People’s expectations are way higher than you can deliver. You could just get killed for the whole thingÂ…We would do it for fun and just take the hit with the critics and the fans…But nobody wants to get into it unless they are really happy with it.”

Indiana Jones is tentatively slated to start filming in mid-2007 for a 2008 release.

2 Responses

  1. FatAss says:

    Haven’t various sources been saying for years that it’s the fountain of youth? Isn’t that why they said they were actually waiting for Harrison Ford to get older? And I heard vague whispers that Harrison Ford bailed on Gemini Man because it would have some similar moments to Indy IV– Gemini Man has the lead character, a 50 year-old, being pursued by a 25 year-old clone of himself. And that was pretty much stolen (piss poorly) by Star Trek Nemesis…

  2. junktape says:

    Interesting.  I hadn’t heard about that.  I presumed this meant they were going to go after the Ark again…