Star Wars. However, he put the idea for the intrepid adventurer to the side until he went on holiday to Hawaii with Steven Spielberg after the release of Star Wars in 1977.
Evidently, Spielberg wanted to make a James Bond movie, but Lucas thought that his idea about a swashbuckling archaeologist would be an even better story idea for him to pursue. He agreed, and after one of Spielberg's few box office disappointments in the form of his period comedy 1941, Raiders of the Lost Ark was his next production. As it turned out, it was a rather arduous shoot, with everyone aside from Spielberg getting food poisoning and Harrison Ford claiming in The Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark Featurette that it was the “toughest job I ever had.” However, the finished movie was an instant classic, hearkening back to the Saturday Matinee features of Lucas and Spielberg’s childhoods.
Despite this raucous reception, things could have been different for Raiders if it were not for a significant intervention before the movie was released. A rough-cut screening of the film provoked a great response, and everyone involved, including Lucas and Spielberg, were happily patting each other on the back for a job well done. According to Duwayne Dunham, who worked as assistant editor on the movie, it was at that point that George Lucas’ wife, Marcia, spoke up and pointed out that they had all forgotten about Marion. The scene on the steps in Washington DC where Indy and Marion decided to go for a drink together was missing. This effectively created a big plot hole because, as Marcia pointed out, as far as the audience was concerned, Marion was still tied to a stake on an island filled with dead Nazis.
Ironically, the missing scene was actually in the script, but Spielberg had not filmed it as he and Lucas didn't think the movie needed it. For all their storytelling brilliance, they had seemingly forgotten that there was a difference between plot and story. After all, the plot of Raiders of the Lost Ark ended with the Ark being taken away by Washington bureaucrats to be looked at by “top men,” but Indiana Jones and Marion’s own story could not have been concluded in the same way.
Obviously, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas agreed with Marcia Lucas’ observation, so the scene was shot and added to the movie - and there should be little doubt that this was the right decision. The absence of such a seemingly small and inconsequential scene would still have affected the audience’s perception of the movie's ending. After all, audiences had grown to love the characters at the heart of the adventure during the movie’s nearly two-hour runtime.
This does not mean that Raiders of the Lost Ark would not have been considered a classic movie. There were too many great action and character moments for that to have happened, not to mention Harrison Ford's performance and an iconic ad-libbed line; however, given the brilliance of the storytelling, the chances are that any ending that did not address Indy and Marion’s story would have caused confusion and a note of dissatisfaction for viewers. As such, Marcia Lucas' intervention had a profound and positive effect on what eventually grew into the Indiana Jones franchise - and saved Raiders of the Lost Ark from a huge plot hole.
