Product Description

When George Lucas and Steven Spielberg came together to create a no-holds-barred action-adventure movie, a new hero was born - Indiana Jones. The rest is record-breaking box-office history. Now, comes an all-new Indiana Jones film: "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". "The Complete Making of Indiana Jones" offers you a unique opportunity to go on location for an up-close, all-access tour of the year's most eagerly anticipated blockbuster - as well as the opportunity to revisit the first three classics.Inside you'll find: exclusive on-set interviews with the entire cast and crew of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the CrystalSkull", including Harrison Ford, Shia LaBeouf, Cate Blanchett, Ray Winstone, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall and John Hurt, as well as director Steven Spielberg, executive producer George Lucas and screenwriter David Koepp; hundreds of full-colour images - from storyboards, concept paintings and set-design schematics to still photos from all four films, with candid action shots of the productions in progress (an in-depth chronicle of the making of the first three Indiana Jones movies, including transcripts of the original story meetings, cast and crew anecdotes, production photos and information on scenes that were cut from the final films); and, never-before-seen artwork and archival gems from the Lucasfilm Archives. A definitive making-of opus, "The Complete Making of Indiana Jones" is as essential to fans as his trusty bullwhip is to Indy!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17469 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 300 pages

About the Author
Laurent Bouzereau is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and author. Born in France, he now lives in Los Angeles, California. J. W. Rinzler, executive editor at Lucasfilm Ltd., is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Making of Star Wars, as well as The Art and Making of Monster House. He lives in Petaluma, California.

Customer Reviews

Incredible Films, Brilliant book
It's a shame it's taken a fourth installment of the Indy series to get a book of this magnitude made but it's definitely worth the wait.

As a huge fan of this type of book and an even bigger fan of Indy, this publication is my idea of my heaven and each time I picked it up to read I never failed to be impressed. It's not absolutely perfect, there's a level of information provided that at times wanders into the realms of being pointless (minor crew injuries being the most noteworthy) but I'd much prefer a book with too MUCH information than one which leaves me wanting so much more, like many "Making-Of" efforts tend to.

Any book or documentary with Laurent Bouzerau's involvement is guaranteed to be extremely well-researched & highly professional & this Indy book is testament to this. It's beautiful to hold in your hands and if it was any larger it would take more than one person to turn it's pages as it's a heavy product as it is ! As you'd expect with any book licensed by Lucasfilm with Spielberg's involvement it also contains amazing images, many I've never seen before. The text is definitive and although there's a lot of stuff I already knew of, there's lots of new things that even the most knowledgable of Indy fans will learn.

If there was one thing I learnt from this book that I'd already suspected was the difference in opinion between Spielberg, Lucas & Ford on the latest installment. George Lucas insisted that it be a 1950's Alien B-Movie whilst Spielberg was reluctant to tread this path (especially some years back considering his involvement with ET, Close Encounters, etc). Harrison Ford makes no secret of the fact that the only part of the Indy series that he's not fond of is the supernatural, far-fetched stuff, in particular what he calls "little green men". As a big Star Wars fan I'll always hold George Lucas in high esteem but I firmly believe that where Spielberg still understands what an audience wants, Lucas has lost touch and reading of their difference of opinion here cements that opinion. I really enjoyed Crystal Skull but it would have been far more enjoyable without not just the idea but the scope and scale of the alien element of the story. I know Indy is a collaborative effort but it appears to me that eventually Spielberg & Ford wanted to make another installment so much that they almost "gave-in" to Lucas and went down along with his preferred idea.

To summarise, this book is totally absorbing. It's possibly the best book I've read of it's kind & each page was a joy to read. Awesome.

Wonderful Collector Book
I am a huge fan of the "Indiana Jones" series, even though I was slightly disappointed with the most recent film. However, this `coffee-table' style book is a classic keeper! Authors J. W. Rinzler and Laurent Bouzereau piece together all the information any fan could want. From the inception where George Lucas and Steven Spielberg first start the process to the final sequel, there's a ton of information here. It's almost comical the way the storyboards are so carefully and accurately drawn and then filmed. The chronicling of the initial three films is a lesson in production where you get the inside scoop from Spielberg, Lucas and the cast and crew, especially the last ("Crystal Skull") film. I particularly liked the section on "deleted scenes" as some seemed like a good idea and others were just plain silly. This book would make a great present as well.

Must-have for any Indiana Jones fan
This really is a superlative book that covers all four Indiana Jones films with incredible depth. There are a wealth of interviews from cast and crew plus information covering so many aspects of the films (there are also segments of transcripts from discussions between Lucas and Spielberg giving extra insight into the making of the films), combined with a vast array of behind-the-scenes photographs, as well as images of artwork, promotional material and story boards. This book really has it all - 300 full colour pages with almost everything you could want to know about each film. It chronicles the origins of Indiana Jones, from how the franchise was first conceieved through to the making of the latest film. You will be hard-pressed ever to find a book about Indiana Jones as insightful as this - being an official Indiana Jones product on the Lucas Books brand, we get get truly exaustive facts courtesy unbridled access to the Indiana archives. Despite being an official product, the book is refreshingly open and honest about the franchise, discussing criticsms aimed at the the films over the years, as well as disagreements and problems encountered over the years, rather than painting a rose-tinted picture of everything. We all know how well the franchise turned out anyway (despite the somehwhat undewhelming 4th installment which left me rather disappointed). Whatever your opinion of the 4th Indy film, I can confidently say that this book is netiher underwhelming nor disappointing - I can't stress enough how wonderful it is. Without a doubt a must-have for any fan of Indiana Jones.