My Concerns for Indy 5 as a Fan and as an Author

Recently Steven Spielberg revealed that the next Indiana Jones movie is not only going to stick with the ongoing story of Indy getting older, leaving Harrison Ford as the title character, but also the story will continue where the Crystal Skull left off.  This concerns me both as an Indiana Jones fan, and as the author of Relic Worlds.

As a fan, I’m concerned for the same reason a lot of people are.  Crystal Skull was awful.  I mean, Star Wars prequels bad.  By declaring that the storyline from this will continue without any acknowledgement of how bad Crystal Skull was, or reassurance that this will be better, Spielberg has revealed a certain amount of tone deafness on his part.  I’m sure he has so many levels of walls around him that he doesn’t hear most of what the public’s saying.  It’s one of the biggest problems with artists reaching a certain level of fame.  But this is one of those times that so many people cried out in horror.  It’s hard to imagine him sticking his head so deeply in the sand.  But he just might have.

As the author of Relic Worlds, I’m particularly worried because Crystal Skull was about Indiana Jones searching for aliens.  This could work greatly in my favor, or greatly against me.  It could give me a lot of great promotion opportunities, or it could cause people to think I’m copying Spielberg.

In any case, it’s clear to me that I need to get the word about Relic Worlds out even more so people know about it before they know much about Spielberg’s next stories for Indy.

http://movieweb.com/indiana-jones-5-continues-crystal-skull-story/

Tales of a Failed Filmmaker – Running Into Spielberg in Vegas

When I moved to Los Angeles in 1995, my mother was moving to the area as well.  She and my father had just gotten divorced, and she was starting where she had left off when she married him in the ‘60s, Loma Linda.  I had met some people who promised to help me get my career started; I just needed to get out to Southern California.

My mom and I were driving in a two van caravan; her in a big mover, me in our family van.  This was the days before cell phones, so when we wanted to chat, we either needed to pull over, or I had to run over to her at a red light.  At one of these interchanges, I accidentally locked myself out, and when the light turned green, I couldn’t get in.  Luckily, my mom had a spare key, and as cars drove by honking, I ran over and got it from her.

I was listening to audiobooks along the way, and as we pulled into Vegas, I was finishing The Diary of Anne Frank.  Great material for Sin City.  As such, my mind was wandering and I was looking down at the sidewalk rather than up at the bright lights.  I remembered something from Schindler’s List and was about to say to my mom “In Schindler’s List…” when I smelled something rank.  I stopped, looked up, and found myself face to face with a drunken stranger I had almost run into.  He was talking to someone beside him as he stared at me, wondering why I had almost plowed into him.  He was wavering a little on his feet, and had clearly drunk a lot.  The smell I had detected was his alcoholic breath.  And it immediately dawned on me.  This was Steven Spielberg.

I froze in place, unsure what to say or do.  My mother hadn’t noticed.  She was further down the sidewalk unaware what I was doing.  Then the light turned green for Spielberg and his friends and they walked across, leaving me behind.  At that moment my mom finally realized I wasn’t with her, and came back to me, asking why I was slack-jawed.  I pointed at the street, at the man in white pants, and said, “Spielberg.”  She looked and recognized him and said, “huh.”

I took it as a good omen, and was walking on cloud nine the rest of the day.  Screw Vegas, I just saw the most successful filmmaker in history on my way to the city of movies.