Jeffrey Boam

You know what they say: it takes a village to write a screenplay.

Okay, maybe that is only true sometimes. But in this case, it took more than one person's totally rad 1980s computer to draft Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Let's look at the writing roster.

Indiana Jones and the Monkey King

Jeffrey Boam gets the official screenplay credit for Last Crusade, but he was the third person to take a crack at the third Indiana Jones film. Christopher Columbus tackled it first. Maybe you've heard of him? No, not the guy who sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred and ninety-two, but the prolific writer, director, and producer Columbus. Before he tried his hand at an Indiana Jones joint, he wrote Gremlins and The Goonies. After, he went on to direct Home Alone, Mrs. Doubtfire, and the first two Harry Potter movies.

In Columbus' version of Indiana Jones 3, which he titled Indiana Jones and the Monkey King, Indiana chases after the Fountain of Youth and battles a Scottish ghost. Along the way, he makes a pit-stop in the Garden of Immortal Peaches, where taking a bite of a peach spells death if you're not pure of heart. Sounds…good?

Indiana Jones…and His Girlfriend the Nun?

Next up was Menno Meyjes, with whom director Steven Spielberg had previously worked on The Color Purple. Meyjes added the Holy Grail and Henry Jones, Sr., into the mix and picked up a story credit. Both additions stayed in the film and became super integral to the narrative.

Meyjes also added a nun named Chantal as a love interest for Indiana. She didn't stay in the film or become an integral part of the narrative. We really dodged a bullet there.

The Perfect Army

Spielberg then brought Boam onboard, a screenwriter who, at the time, was best known for writing Innerspace and The Lost Boys. Boam kept the Holy Grail and Indy's dad, but he put the focus more on the characters than on the Cup of Christ. According to TheRaider.net, Boam thought that's precisely what the first two Indiana Jones movies lacked. Boam explained:

For me the first two movies just didn't have enough character. Indiana Jones has always been a great character but he has always been this being presented full-blown with his leather jacket, hat and bullwhip. I felt that given the opportunity, I could bring an added dimension to the Indy character and basically get inside him and let the audience find out how Indiana Jones became Indiana Jones. With those ideas in mind I felt ready when George [Lucas] said, "Let's sit down and talk about the story.

Boam's script lets audiences get to know Indiana Jones on a much deeper level. The prologue, for example, works as a mini origin story, showing how Indiana got his fedora, whip, and scar. The relationship between Indiana and his father that evolves throughout the movie helps filmgoers understand who Indiana is, why he does what he does, and why he has the principles that he does. Boam creates a relationship between Indiana and Henry that gives context to Indiana's attitude and ethics.

The Ringer

Boam didn't give either man his voice, though. Spielberg brought in a ringer for that: Tom Stoppard, the Tony award-winning playwright and screenwriter who would go on to win an Oscar for writing Shakespeare in Love. Stoppard punched up the dialogue between Indiana and Henry to give it more emotional heft, and he did it without receiving a writing credit. (That's a job, by the way, that another denizen of Lucasfilmland, Carrie Fisher, a.k.a. Princess Leia, often did in Hollywood. The more you know…)

We're not saying that's why Stoppard was knighted in 1997, but it sure is noble.