Few people are as uniquely placed to look back at the legacy of Indiana Jones as Joe Johnston. A founding member of ILM on his way to a stellar movie directing career, Johnston came aboard early in the process to help create the world of Henry Jones Jr, and here he talks with Lucasfilm about that process and how exciting it was to finally have the two titans of 70's and 80's cinema - George Lucas and Steven Spielberg - join creative forces. As a founding employee of ILM, Johnston heard about George Lucas’ idea for an adventuring archaeologist while wrapping up work on 1980’s Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. “I remember that George talked about making a movie that was sort of roughly inspired by the serials of the ‘30s,” Johnston says. “George was talking about this film about an archaeologist adventurer guy named Indiana Jones, who was actually named after his dog, Indiana, and that Steven was going to direct it, and that ILM was going to do the effects, of course.” Even before he saw any of the script, Johnston had a good feeling about Raiders. “Well, I knew that because it was George and Steven working together, it was going to be something special,” he says. “Plus, it was really different.” Johnston would find, however, that work on Raiders was very different from what he’d grown accustomed to. “There wasn’t a whole lot of design work to be done on it, because it’s not like on the Star Wars movies where you’ve got these spaceships and hardware and costumes and gear to design. It took place in the ‘30s, so it’s not like you’re designing a whole new world,” he says. Still, Johnston relished the opportunity to step back in time creatively. “It was actually a lot of fun,” he says. “I’m a big fan of that period of history. I love the ‘30s and ‘40s. Cars and buildings, even everyday objects were designed to look beautiful, whether they were efficient or not.” In talking about his appreciation for design from this era, Johnston stops to clarify something. “There’s a misconception of what I do, and I’ve been fighting this for decades. People think I’m a visual effects person. I’m not at all, and I never was,” he says. “I was always a designer. When I worked on Star Wars, the task of designing hardware evolved into sequence design and character design and stuff like that, laying out these action and visual effects sequences in storyboard form. But essentially, I’ve always been a designer. And because I designed the stuff that is then used in these great visual effects sequences, everybody thinks I’m a visual effects guy. I’m not at all,” he says with a laugh. “I love visual effects as a tool to tell a story, but now as a director, all I need to know about visual effects is that anything is possible.” [amazon box="B0BSJRSXSQ"]

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#wcw Jennifer Connelly in The Rocketeer (1991). #jenniferconnelly #therocketeer #jennyblake #joejohnston #rocketeer (at Santa Maria Airport (SMX)) https://www.instagram.com/p/CRVBM-3lCV-/?utm_medium=tumblr

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids 🍯👨🏻⬇️👶🏻🐜 🔎 🔍 🔎 🔍 🔎 🔍 #timehop #abethedino #joejohnston #buenavistapictures #waltdisneypictures #rickmoranis #disney #honeyishrunkthekids #comic #sciencefictionfilm (at Beverly Hills, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/CQfRkm1LV0d/?utm_medium=tumblr

A happy 30th to the fantastic film adaptation of The Rocketeer! #therocketeer #davestevens #joejohnston #billycampbell #jenniferconnelly #seanphillips #popculture #nerdlyfe #collectibles #ilovecomics https://www.instagram.com/p/CQZyUejgKAP/?utm_medium=tumblr

#TheRocketeer, first released in cinemas #OnThisDay in 1991⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ #TitleScreen #OTD #JoeJohnston #BillCampbell #AlanArkin #JenniferConnelly #PaulSorvino #TimothyDalton #DaveStevens #Disney https://www.instagram.com/p/CQZFUmgh1Ns/?utm_medium=tumblr

Happy 30th anniversary to one of the best superhero films! Rocketeer AMP by Dark Design @darkdesignpt Rocketeer poster art by John Mattos