Early Drafts

Why do good writers do more than one draft?

Because instead of being on a list of the Most Disgusting Characters Ever Created, we’d prefer ending up on the list of 5 Insane Early Drafts of Famous Characters.  (Of course, we’d prefer not to end up on either list.)

Think what list Spielberg and Lucas would have been on if, as in their original concept, they’d left Indiana Jones as a pedophile.

. . . But no possible justification could make Indy anything other than a “sick child molester” if he had boned Marion when she was, say, just 11 years-old. Which is exactly what Lucas and Spielberg originally planned for him.

During a 70s brainstorming session for Raiders, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas seriously considered the idea that Indiana Jones’ backstory should totally include the time he had sex with a girl who still had most of her baby teeth. Lucas commented that it would be “amusing,” to which Spielberg immediately added that it would be even funnier if Marion was this 12 year-old slut who came on to Indy and seduced him!

. . . Other ages were also suggested, but Lucas made it clear that they shouldn’t go higher than 16 with the sex, because then “it’s not interesting anymore.”

That’s why we rewrite, boys and girls.  Because it gives us time to realize that we’ve just had a hideously bad idea that will make our fans want to cover us with pine tar and set us on fire.

Now here’s an idea that might not have been bad.  M0pey vampire Edward Cullen as an action hero . . . ?

. . . when Paramount finally did acquire the Twilight movie rights, it decided to just ignore the books and turn the whole thing into a huge action flick aimed mostly at guys.

Accordingly, its version of Edward had less of him breaking into girls’ rooms to creepily watch them sleep and more of him taking down vampire-hunting SWAT teams from the treetops.

Other major changes to the books included turning the bland Bella into a vampire action-heroine (that is, she’d get to play a character who wasn’t completely useless). But perhaps most interestingly of all, this other Twilight would introduce an original nemesis for Edward — a Korean FBI agent who tracks and hunts vampires across the country. And of course he knows karate — we shouldn’t even need to type that part.

To summarize, Edward Cullen could have been a genuinely threatening vampire murdering swarms of human commandos and getting into martial arts fights. Instead, the only thing he ended up killing was the dignity of vampires everywhere.

I might have watched that, but then I’ve already seen Blade, so probably not.

Elsewhere in the article, you discover why Mr. Magoo originally fought communists, and how Toy Story’s Woody was a violent creep who got lynched by the other toys.