That would be a pretty crappy film though, wouldn't it?

It works the same in Star Wars if you remove Anakin....I think.

Please, PLEASE, don't let George Lucas read this!!! Otherwise, who knows how long will Indy 4 be delayed? Maybe they should skip to Indy 5 altoghether!

Hmm..Marion might have gotten a red hot poker shoved through her face though.

Hey wait a second...Ghent...how long have you been purple?

While I agree with the statement from a detached, purely practical viewpoint, I have to agree with greenandwhitejedi. It would be a really crappy movie. Is the writer's point that Indy was nothing more than a vehicle for telling the larger story? Does the writer go on to say that the story wasn't worth telling? Or, was this a statement of how ingenious GL was for creating the story the way he did?

wow, thats pretty funny if you think about it...our beloved action "Hero" was in fact pretty damn inept when you put it THAT way, LOL.

Indy is a lot more interesting than that stupid monkey, though. Glad it ate the bad dates. Monkeys bug me.

But if there was no Indy, then Harrison would have been cast as Marion!

Sure the story worked, but it's really all about Indy - watching him outrun large rolling crushing objects, facing his phobia of snakes, showing off with a good blaster.. I mean pistol at his side, the bullwhip.

A story about Nazis melting themselves with a stolen Ark? Boo-rinng!

Aw...my hero. My hero is useless! *cries herself to sleep every night from here on out.*

But he did have that amazingly cool hat. Perhaps my hero has a purpose after all...

Got to admit, upon reading your headline I was about to post "What a load of rubbish", but reading that piece I totally see what's being said.
How strange, to look at my 2nd fave film ever in a new light after 25 years.
Bet the same can't be said for the other 2 though.

Well, maybe the plot and the actually events would happen much the same, but of coure, the point of the movie is to follow along with Indy and watch him struggle against the bad guys.

I assume the passage from this book is less about criticism of the movie, and more about the academic discussion of how to plot a story.

Also, without Indy, Beloq may have gotten himself killed by booby traps while trying to recover that gold idol, thus robbing the Nazis of their expert.

Yes, it's a purely academic plot study. It's used an example of why HOW you tell the story is more important than the story itself.

Hmmm... Interesting. Good point about the HOW you tell it...

So HOW about this- You write a killer Indy story and I illustrate it! Haha!

Hope all is well!

Matt!

Hey, when you look at it that way, Indiana Jones actually caused World War II because without his interference the ark might have made it to Berlin and been opened before Hitler...

Haha! Funny stuff...