Indiana Jones 4: The Scripts That Weren't
by Tom Burns

[Disclaimer: Although this is an exploration of previous unused Indy 4 scripts, alleged storylines, and information that has appeared online over the years, the aggregated info MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS AND THEORIES about the franchise at large. If you don't want to speculate along with us, we urge you to TURN BACK NOW.]

Script: INDIANA JONES AND THE SAUCER MEN FROM MARS

Writer: Jeb Stuart (writer of Die Hard and The Fugitive)

Authenticity: Pretty good. We know Stuart worked on an Indy script, and the Indy fan community seems to vouch for its authenticity. The real juicy part is that this is one of the few scripts that have made its way to the public that was officially written post-Last Crusade as an Indy 4 candidate AND that uses the special "MacGuffin" that Lucas demanded for Indy's fourth adventure.

Plot: Set in the 1950s, Indy gets left at the altar by his linguist fiancée (no foolin'), so he follows her to White Sands, New Mexico, where he discovers that the U.S. Government has obtained a strange alien knick-knack from a crashed flying-saucer. But both the Russians (and some little green men) want the artifact for themselves.

The Good: Any hardcore Indy fanboy would LOVE the wedding portion of the script - not because Indy takes the plunge (he falls in love very early), but because of all the cameos. Not only does Henry Jones Sr. show up again as the best man, but we get Sallah and Short Round as ushers and Willie Scott and Marion Ravenwood show up to take Indy out drinking after he gets dumped. (The best exchange is when Marion and Willie mentioned that they can't believe that Indy found someone, and Sallah comments, "You mean other than yourselves?") The script also does a nice job of working in references to Indiana's age and how the good doctor is functioning in the 1950s. (We learn that he was an American spy during World War II.)

The Bad: For an Indiana Jones story, there's a disturbing lack of globe-trotting in "Saucer Men from Mars." Aside from an opening sequence in Borneo, Indy travels between New Jersey and New Mexico, and that's it. Talk about the most boring map montage ever. And, like we mentioned, like James Bond in Casino Royale, Indy finally does say "I love you" in this script and it's really early on. The problem is that Stuart never really shows us why Dr. Elaine McGregor is so noteworthy or alluring. She's simply "the girl" in the story, and she makes you long for Karen Allen or, hell, even Allison Doody. Finally, some of the 1950s American government/A-Bomb/Roswell conspiracy stuff is handled pretty heavy-handedly. There's a ridiculous moment where Indy survives an atomic blast at a bomb test site by hiding in a refrigerator. "Duck and cover" was plausible back then, but now... sheesh.

The Ugly: What we've heard about this makes us nervous about the alien aspects of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The aliens within Saucer Men are seemingly beyond generic - an apparent mixture of the aliens from Close Encounters and Signs with even less backstory. It also features a stone cylinder - an ET power source - covered in markings that hint that the aliens have been coming to Earth for centuries. For some unknown reason, it's also a ticking time bomb that needs to be placed in a specific altar on a specific mountain or else... bad stuff will happen. That's all the explanation that's given. The Ark, the Sankara Stones, and the Holy Grail all had centuries of mythology to wrap around those artifacts. This Saucer Men alien icon has nothing - we get weird Communion-esque aliens and a flying saucer dogfight that feels like something out of Independence Day. Thank God, Lucas actually used something out of real archeology - the Crystal Skulls (though their origins are widely debated) - to tie in the alien aspect of Indy 4 rather than this new age mess.

Indiana Jones 4: The Scripts That Weren't Page 3