Last Update: 27 September 2003
(You need a browser capable of viewing tables to see this page
properly)
Source: FilmJerk
Screenplay Review: ''National Treasure''
Written 06-24-2003 by Edward Havens
Screenplay draft dated April 9, 2003
Previous drafts by Jim Kouf, E. Max Frye and Jon Turteltaub
A young boy, maybe ten years old, is driving a horse-drawn carriage
through
the rain-soaked of Washington DC. It
is 1832, and the boy is taking Charles
Carroll, 96 years of age and the last
surviving signer of the Declaration of
Independence, to the White House, to
see President Andrew Jackson about
a matter of urgency. Carroll dies before
the President can make it outside,
but before the old man passes on, he
tells the young boy, Thomas Gates,
about a great treasure. A grand treasure
amassed throughout the ages.
From the pyramids of Egypt two thousand
years before the birth of Christ,
through the Roman Empire and The Crusades,
brought to the New World over
five hundred years ago. A treasure whose
sole clue lies in one word.
Charlotte. Thus begins what will become
a family curse, as generation
after generation of Gates males search
for Charlotte and the secret treasure.
The story above is told to a ten year
old boy, Ben Gates, by his grandfather
John, one day during a visit to the
rest home the old man lives in. Ben’s father,
Patrick, has tried his best to stop
the madness, but what is stronger than the
bond between grandfather and grandson
when it comes to tales of high
adventure and treasure?
Ben grows up to be an adventurer himself.
Naturally, Ben will go farther
than anyone else in his family ever
had before. During an expedition financed
by a very rich, and thus not quite trustworthy,
British gentleman who is also
seeking the same treasure, Ben discovers
what Charlotte is. This, naturally,
leads to another clue and another mystery
to be solved. At every step, one
clue solved becomes another needing
deciphering. And so it goes, and so it
goes.
This is the basis for “National
Treasure,” the upcoming inevitable Disney/
Jerry Bruckheimer/Nicolas Cage blockbuster,
currently scheduled to invade
motion picture houses in November of
2004. Predestined indeed, as the three
previous films from this trio, “The
Rock,” “Con Air” and “Gone In 60 Seconds,”
have a combined worldwide gross of nearly
$750 million. When you’re dealing
with forces like that, who needs a script
that makes sense? It’s a wonder how
this script spent more than half a decade
in development before finally earning
a green light.
About this treasure. You think the Ark
of the Covenant was the ultimate
treasure? Or maybe the Holy Grail? Forget
that. In “National Treasure,” the
mother of all hunts revolves around
this horde that’s been building for four
thousand years. You name it, this bounty’s
got it. Gold from the Temple of
Solomon? King Alaric II's ransom of
the Athenians? The entire wealth of 5th
century Rome? The Sword of Alexander
the Great? Check, check, check and
double check. About the only things
missing from this loot are the Heart of
the Ocean diamond and anything Dr. Indiana
Jones didn’t already recover
himself.
In fact, the comparisons between the
first in the much-beloved Spielberg/
Lucas series and this new film are plentiful
and hard to ignore. Indiana Jones
had a doctorate in archaeology. Ben
Gates has a Ph. D in history. Indiana
Jones had a female partner-cum-love
interest in Marion Ravenwood, a
beautiful, intelligent, independent-minded
twentysomething woman. Ben
Gates has a female partner-cum-love
interest in Dr. Abigail Chase, a
beautiful, intelligent, independent-minded
twentysomething woman. At a
perilous moment within an Egyptian crypt,
a torch flickers out on Marion. At
a perilous moment within a frozen, semi-capsized
ship, a torch flickers out on
Ben. Dr. Jones’s main adversary
was a rich Frenchman who wants the treasure
for himself, who leaves Jones trapped
to die in a tomb with only one
conceivable way out, straight up, without
a rope . Ben’s main adversary is a
rich Englishman who wants the treasure
for himself, who leaves Ben trapped
to die in an ice cave with only one
conceivable way out, straight up, without
a rope. There are many more similarities
that I’ll leave unsaid.
“Raiders of the Lost Ark”
is a hard act to live up to. Like the NFL and Bill
Walsh’s West Coast offense, many
have tried to emulate the Indiana Jones
playbook, most meeting with utter and
complete failure. Perhaps setting the
adventures in the modern day, without
the extended costs of creating a period
piece, is one way for “National
Treasure” to escape the Indiana Jones curse.
At least, with Disney and Bruckheimer
in control, it won’t suffer the same
budgetary limitations that plagued the
likes of Cannon’s ham-fisted Allan
Quartermain series.
One small advantage “National Treasure”
does have is that it’s major set-piece,
the breaking into the Rotunda in the
National Archives to steal the Declaration
of Independence, which purportedly has
a map to the treasure on the back in
invisible ink, is not the climax or
the main focus of the film, but the transition
from the first to second act. If anything
good can come from the making of this
movie, it’s that it could spark
an interest in American history to a new generation
of people. With visits to Washington
DC, the Ben Franklin Museum and the
Liberty Bell Pavilion in Philadelphia,
plus the USS Intrepid and Trinity Church in
New York, “National Treasure”
has just enough of one foot in the past to make
kids think history might be interesting.
Of course, the film also condones
crimes of high treason, but hopefully
those parts will go over the heads of
impressionable children.
If Bruckheimer, Cage and producer/director
Jon Turteltaub (from whose idea
this film originates) are wise men,
they would get rid of the dozen or so
references to defecation and where that
kind of stuff comes from within the
script. Without Harry Potter or hobbits
or cats in hats next fall or winter,
“National Treasure” could
corner the family demographic if they so decided
to go the PG route.
I’m going to give this screenplay
a C grade, simply because it just has too
much of that deja-vu, been there and
seen that feeling for my tastes, but
I can also see the film being quite
entertaining, as long as you allow yourself
to enjoy the ride.
One final point of order, to prove my
own obsession for detail… could something
like “National Treasure” happen
today? No, not today, the day I write this review.
The Declaration of Independence was
removed from the Rotunda in the National
Archives Building in the summer of 2001
and remanded to a secret location for a
restoration, as the iron-based ink with
which the document was written with was
causing single letters and, in extreme
cases entire sentences, to slip around.
The Rotunda will not reopen to the public
until mid-September 2003, so no, it
could not happen today, for you first
wave of readers seeing this review in the
summer of 2003. But it could by the
time the film finishes production at the end
of the year.
”National Treasure” Scorecard
Director: Jon Turteltaub
Producers: Jerry Bruckheimer, Jon Turteltaub
Executive Producers: Mike Stenson, Chad Oman, Christina Steinberg,
Barry
Waldman, Oren Aviv, Charles Segars
Writers: Jon Turteltaub, E. Max Frye, Jim Kouf, Maryanne &
Cormack Wibberley
Casting Director: Avy Kaufman
Production Start Date: Mid August 2003
Production Locations: Washington, D.C., New York, Los Angeles
US Distributor: Buena Vista