Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - Ravenwood Question

[Jet Beetle]

Sorry, if this has been discussed before - but watching Burton's Batman got me on a bit of a summer of 89 train - last night I broke out Last Crusade and -
i have more than one early draft of the script where the guy digging up the cross of Coranado at the beginning of the film is said to be Ravenwood - Indy's mentor. They guys call him Ravenwood and his dialogue is headlined with Abner. The lines were not in the movie and the guy got very little dialogue - But, I don't know if this has ever been confirmed - when all was said and done was it still supposed to be Ravenwood?

 

[Treadwell]

No that I've ever heard of. I think that connection was dropped early on.

 

[Apollo]

Nope it was not ravenwood

 

[jlee562]

No, the character's name is actually "Fedora" IIRC. But it's not Abner.

 

[RooBee]

But as you stated, it was meant to be Abner. I read an interview somewhere with someone from the production team, and there this person said that this was the idea. But as we all know, this character was changed into Fedora.

 

[Jedifyfe]

It's a great tie-in though. They should have used it.

 

[Lightning]

If you listen closely, and the subtitles back me up on this, while they are digging the young blond guy calls the Fedora guy "Garth". I think the reason they dropped the idea is that it sort of conflicts with the backstory of Abner as a respected Archeology professor in Chicago a mere 10 years later. I know its similar to what Indy does but looting in the United States for a private collector is different than and digging in a foreign country that doesn't have strict laws on the subject on behalf of a museum.