Betreff: Re: Indy 4 Pressemap (SPOILER)
For “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” Harlocker and his team assembled a treasure trove of goodies including a Bobber-style motorcycle for Mutt, AK47s and Tacarov pistols for the Russians, a cache of fencing swords, a barn house of animals and, one other indispensable “prop.”
“Indiana Jones’s one weakness is an absolute pathological fear of snakes,” says Harrison Ford. “So, of course, we had to have snakes.”
When shooting “Raiders of the Lost Ark” in 1980, he recalls, “there were laundry tubs of snakes. In one of those containers, you can put maybe 8,000 snakes. We had dozens of these containers in the original scene in the temple in the first ‘Raiders.’”
Luckily, there’s only one snake in “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” But it’s a doozy: a giant Olive Python. “We had the requisite snake, a beautiful snake to us but not to Indy, of course,” Spielberg says with a laugh. “It was a rather large python. The audience wouldn’t forgive us if we didn’t have at least one snake in the movie.” In addition to the real snake (two for shooting purposes), Stan Winston’s studio worked with Harlocker to create a perfect replica out of rubber.
With the help of the Lucasfilm Archives, Harlocker was able to pull together samples of all the original props and build on them. Indiana’s personal items included the whip, the haversack, his gun belt, his whip keep, his journals, his father’s pocket watch and his glasses – and while the glasses would evolve for the film, Indy’s haversack would be the very same one he carried through his last adventure.
Harlocker had Indy’s bullwhips custom-designed by an Australian company to be more versatile for Ford. That made re-mastering the fine art of whip-cracking a bit easier for Ford. “It’s a relatively uncommon skill,” Ford says. “And I wasn’t terribly good at it – but I guess I was good enough for show business when I did it the last time. We had a new whip trainer on this movie who had a different technique. So after a couple of weeks of pretty diligent practice, I was able to get it all back.”
Seeing Indy’s trademark bullwhip brought feelings of nostalgia and excitement to everyone on the set, Spielberg says. “To see Harrison walk on the set, pick up the whip, snap it and wrap it around one of the bad guys was pretty incredible,” he says. “It was amazing to see how fast Harrison was with it – and then to be on the set and see Indy’s rucksack and his other props, well, it wasn’t just nostalgia. That was when I realized we’re bringing this character and everything he’s about back to the audience that grew up with him and to new audiences.”
Chris