Hold onto your fedoras for 14 behind-the-scenes revelations about directorSteven Spielbergand writer-producerGeorge Lucasmade Hollywood history:
1.
And that famous fade-in from theParamountlogo to an actual mountain?
2.Lawrence Kasdan’s original script contains several lines of dialogue during the jungle trek that were cut.
Credit: Lucasfilm
This is where Forrestal cashed in").
Barranca’s exit was originally more elaborateand fatal.
Then Indy jerks the whip and the gun goes off, killing him.
Lucasfilm Ltd.
Indy was originally going to be introduced with a “weird feather” sticking out of his iconic fedora.
Inside the feather’s quill was hidden a tightly rolled map to the temple.
Ultimately, it would have just made the wind-up more elaborate.
Lucasfilm Ltd.
A long woody vine called Old Man’s Beard was used to decorate the outside of the temple.
It’s the same kind used for the Dagobah set inThe Empire Strikes Back.
(Many of theRaiderscrew members were culled fromStar Wars).
The crew’s spider wrangler solved the problem by adding one female to the mix.
“Suddenly all hell breaks loose,” Molina once recalled.
“They’re running onto my face and Steven is going, ‘Shoot!
Alfred, look scared!’
and [I’m all], “I’m scared!
I’m scared!”
The gold idol was actually built with a mechanism inside that moved its eyes to creepily follow Indy.
This effect does not end up visible in the film, however.
The sequence’s most iconic moment is when a giant boulder chases Indy out of the collapsing temple.
He’s an action hero whose appeal is not that he succeeds, but that he just keeps trying.
