I watched the bonus materials disc from the new DVD collection last night – actually, just the “making of” video for Raiders and Temple of Doom, plus the featurette on the sound. Some comments:
Apparently all the snakes in the Well of Souls were real; I thought I’d heard that many were rubber. I never noticed the reflection in the glass between Indy and the cobra before they pointed it out.
I’d also never heard before about the engravings of R2-D2 and C-3PO on the wall.
I thought that George Lucas’ role was that the story line was his idea–but apparently he spent a great deal of time on the set. Lucas bounced the story idea off Phillip Kaufmann, whose contribution was that the artifact should be the Ark of the Covenant – for which he got a writing credit.
The sound of the lid being taken off the Ark was a toilet tank being uncovered.
No acknowledgement was given to Stagecoach as the inspiration for many of the truck chase stunts, although this has been stated in previous documentaries on the Raiders stunts. Ditto for the Temple of Doom mine chase, and Buster Keaton’s The General.
And Steven Spielberg doesn’t like ToD very much, which puts him in the company of most fans of the trilogy.