I did. People have read about Frank Darabont. Is it true you liked his script?

Very much. I very much liked Frank’s script. Was it set in the 40s?

It was set in the 50s. With latter-day Nazis coming at Indiana Jones?

Yes. And I quite liked Frank’s script, but George and I had a disagreement over it, and George and I have always agreed to agree. So when we take each other’s temperatures, if I really am passionate about something, George will give in to me, and if George is really passionate about something, I’ll pretty much go his way. And in this case George was passionate that this was not the story he wanted to tell at this point in the Indiana Jones saga. And I think it’s a wonderful script. Is that leaving room open for another one?

Oh, I don’t know. I haven’t even thought about that. I’m still in the cutting room. I can’t even think beyond the next cut. So what stage are you in now?

I’m in my second cut, which means I’ve put the movie together and I’ve seen it. I usually do about five cuts as a director. I haven’t ever directed a film where I haven’t made five passes through the movie, and that takes a long time. And what’s the process? Do you send the fifth cut to George?

I send my fifth cut to [composer] John Williams and the sound-effects people. They will soon be getting the cut, and John Williams will start writing the music. Is editing enjoyable?

I love editing. It’s one of my favorite parts about filmmaking. As long as you have the stuff and you’re not regretting what happened on the set.

Yeah. The best news is that, when I saw the movie myself the first time, there was nothing I wanted to go back and shoot, nothing I wanted to reshoot, and nothing I wanted to add. Do you remember the first time you saw George Lucas?

I met him in 1967. I was a student at Cal State Long Beach. George was at U.S.C. He had made a short film called THX 1138. And there was a film festival, I think involving student films from all over California. They were having it at U.C.L.A., I think Royce Hall. I met George backstage. I was blown away by his short film, and Francis Coppola introduced us. Were you an undergraduate at the time?

I was in my second year at college. There was no film program at Long Beach State, so I was on weekends making 16-mm. films on the side. And I was hanging around Universal. That was ongoing. I put all my classes Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I was shoving 15 and a half units into Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and having no classes Thursday and Friday so I could come to Universal and hang out with the directors and editors and sound mixers. So when you met George Lucas, did you go out for a beer?

No, it wasn’t until a couple of years later that we became friends, because some writing friends of mine, Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins, were very close to George, and they put us together a second time, and that’s when George and I became fast friends. Was it through movies or also a friendship?

It was a shared passion and a personal friendship. George told you the first Indy story in Hawaii?

He had called me up and he said, “Do you want to come to Hawaii? I need to get away for the opening of Star Wars. Do you want to join me?” So I got on a plane, and joined him and his wife, and we were in Hawaii, and we were just waiting for the grosses. Waiting for the morning shows to be reported, because I think the movie opened at 10 o’clock in certain theaters. We got word about three in the afternoon or so, or four in the afternoon. The sun was still up. I remember George got word that all the 10-o’clock-in-the-morning shows had sold out all across the country. And at that point George was the most giddy I had ever seen him in all the years prior to that that I had ever seen him. He was just beside himself, with relief more than anything else. He had been inward for a long time, waiting for those numbers, and then he turned to me, he said, “So what are you going to do next?” And I told him that I wanted to, for the second time, approach [film producer] Cubby Broccoli, who had turned me down the first time, to see if he would change his mind and hire me to do a James Bond movie. And George said, “I’ve got something better than that. It’s called Raiders of the Lost Ark.” He pitched me the story, and I committed on the beach. We started a tradition of building lucky sandcastles. So we used to build sandcastles in Hawaii, and if the sandcastle withstood the first high tide, the film was a hit. If the high tide overran the sandcastle, we were going to have to struggle to make our money back. That was our superstition and that was our tradition. What beach was that?