Yay for useless trivia floating around in my head.

Sending out the message that it’s not more than naughty to have a relationship with an underage girl is irresponsible, and further proof that GL’s emotional side is severely stunted. If an underage girl (or boy) consents in sex, or is the instigator, it’s up to the adult to say “no”. That’s why adults are adults and kids are kids.

To even argue this on a theoretical level shows a big level of immaturity and naivity (at best)

I always figured Marion was 17-22, and then when RAIDERS takes place she was 27-32. And I don’t recall him messing around with his students, although the students are attracted to him.

“Given all the young girls in Lucas’s oeuvre and the lack of mature women of any kind, this whole element is…interesting.”

Maybe … maybe not … despite what some amateur psychologists think, you can’t always tell very much about an author by their works.

Lucas, Spielberg, Kasdan - all of them are pretty whitebread these days, but if you think back to this late seventies period, and the crowd they ran/worked with (Coppola, Scorsese, etc), pushing the uncomfortability envelope was standard to them. That they toned down the age difference shows their burgeoning maturity by the time the early eighties rolled around - less the young Turks out to shake things up, more the great storytellers.

Evidently Lucas, Spelberg, et al. decided that Indiana Jones should not be that kind of character, and I think Raiders was a lot more enjoyable popcorn flick as a result of that decision. But there’s a world of difference between considering whether he should be that kind of character… and endorsing that type of person as a role model.

As for social norms of the period the movie was referring to, I just did a little research. (gasp!) In 1880, the age of consent for sex in most US states was 10 or 12; in Europe the limits were generally 12-15. By 1920 most US states had raised it to 16 or 18, to more effectively ban teenage prostitution (the women’s suffrage, christian temperance, and anti-child-labor movements all played a hand in this); most European countries ranged from 12-16. Since then the US has trended back a little toward 16; Europe has edged upward to mostly 14-16.

And no one’s even brought up the abuse of the teacher/student dynamic yet…

Who’da thunk it?!?

Seriously, the only one on these comments who makes ANY sense AND knows history was James who said it was a different era and women did get married younger. Back then there were none of the laws that they have today and it was considered ok. Women married earlier and going even further back, when life spans were much shorter to due a wide variety of reasons, they were married off even earlier.

Put down the comic books and read some real history books, dopes.

Also, the early stages of any movie are all about throwing ideas around and trying to hone the material down. Don’t read too much into these transcripts as they are just written words and you don’t know the context in which they were actually saying them. It sounds more like normal guys sitting at a table with a few beers and throwing out ideas for the initial script and having a laugh. The script was also rewritten between Harrison Ford and Spielberg on the plane ride over to start filming since Harrison wanted input. Any movie novelizations or comic adaptations are done so far in advance and sometime have to use earlier scripts to get it done on time hence the problems with having a different ending.

One thing that comes clear from reading the whole transcript is that Indy was supposed to be an ANTI-hero from the start. We clearly see him fooling around with his students in the films and books. A 25-year-old Indy messing around with his mentor’s 17 year old daughter is naughty and inadvisable but well within the realm of stupid stuff that people do.

Messing around with an 11 or 12 year old, however…is a bit weird and skeevy, even if she was a promiscuous ho who threw herself at you.

As I mentioned in my post, Lucas put just this kind of story into American Graffiti, where Carol’s crush on Milner is charming and quite innocent. At one point Milner does come onto her, after which she decides she’d rather go home after all.

Given all the young girls in Lucas’s oeuvre and the lack of mature women of any kind, this whole element is…interesting.

The whole 11-year-old Marion yeah, there’s something seriously wrong with that. But 15 or 16? Give me a break! That would have been 1926. Check your history, people, perhaps even your own personal history… Lots of “girls” age 15 or 16 were marrying men 10 and sometimes even 20 years their senior in those days. My grandmother was 15 when she married my grandfather, age 25. Those were the marrying ages back then.

And I wouldn’t underestimate Spielberg’s input into all this: he did design the Mothership from CLOSE ENCOUNTERS to resemble a giant breast,
AND inserted that quite bizarre “Space Bukkake” scene after Dreyfuss’ Neary entered the craft in the Special Edition version of the film…

Lucas is….craaazy!!! O.O

Arguably Golden Age Captain Marvel went there before either of them, even if the “romance” was unconsummated back then.

Point of fact: 10 years before that, she would have been 17. Under current law in the vast majority of countries (including all but a dozen US states) that’s at or above the age of consent for sex.

I think what’s disturbing here is not so much the idea - they were, at this point, trying to create an anti-hero, after all - but the conversation itself. Lucas seems to be looking at a grown man having sex with an 11 year old as a bad idea rather than child molestation. If Indy has a thing for his college students - or even for 15 year olds - that says fairly icky things about his psychology, which is appropriate for an anti-hero. But if he has a thing for 11 year olds, that makes him a child molestor, which is NOT an anti-hero - that’s just a criminal, period. Lucas doesn’t seem to grasp the distinction.

I wouldn’t be surprised if having raised a couple of daughters changed his perspective on this.

I can’t believe that there is even a debate here. Lucas suggests Indy had an affair with her when she was eleven. Grown man has sex with 11 year old = sexual abuse. Period. So it’s bad and insane that Lucas wanted to have him be a child molester. Adults don’t have “affairs” with children — they engage in criminal sexual behavior. Yes, it’s fiction, Mr. Phillips, fantasy. And it would have been fiction about child sexual abuse. Anybody still not get that?

@gene phillips - ELEVEN-years-old is NOT statutory rape. Eleven-years-old is pedophilia and a FELONY.