Day 12 Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Since the moment I saw the above trailer, well before the movie came out, I was in love with the concept of Indiana Jones. As a kid I watched Tarzan movies and the Lone Ranger, and I have been a fan of James Bond since I first stumbled onto the paperbacks in the closet, upstairs where my brothers and I had our bedrooms. I love a swashbuckler and everyone knows that if Adventure has a name, it must be Indiana Jones (and Harrison Ford goes along with it).

This concoction of movie serial pastiche, is the brainchild of George Lucas, and was formulated with his friend Steven Spielberg as their own James Bond style adventure character. Lucas remembered the serials that played on a weekly basis at the movie theaters and late night television shows. Several years earlier, he took the concepts of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, and treated them with more seriousness but also a sense of fun to create the Star Wars story. “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, is a successful attempt to repeat the idea but with a different motif. When you mix in ancient lore, with Nazi’s and archeology, you get the seed of a world where a boy’s adventure story can come to life. Gunga Din influenced this character, well before the second film in the series which takes those concepts from the thirties and updates them, but keeps them in the 1930s still.

This weekend is the fortieth anniversary of the release of the film, which was an instant smash world wide and has spawned three completed sequels and is currently shooting a fourth. Octogenarian Indiana Jones will still be cooler than some slick new character created by the latest flavor of the month writer/director. This character has been an icon for four decades and any excuse to revisit with him is okay in my book.

Everyone will have their favorite sequence in the film. Maybe you love the opening which ultimately stands separate from the main plot. So much action happens in that first ten minutes, compared to most films of the time, that you will be hard pressed to catch your breathe before suddenly we are in a shootout, in a bar in Nepal, with the coolest girl you ever wished you had dated yourself (Karen Allen/Awesome). Of course that is just an interlude to a chase and fight through a Cairo marketplace, which is merely a precursor to a thrilling escape from an underground temple. That gives way to a chase on horseback, that ends in a truck fight that mimics “Stagecoach”, and we still have mysticism and melting Nazis in front of us.

I will take one brief moment to address the supposed plot hole that was famously used to deflate the geeks on “The Big Bang Theory”. The idea that nothing Dr. Jones does would change the outcome because the Nazi’s would still get melted anyway, whether he was around or not. This is the kind of thinking that sees no difference between a four hour plane flight and a two or three day road trip. If all you care about s the destination, then you are missing the point. There has to be a struggle, we need to be emotionally connected to what happens, the audience needs to be swept up in the events. You don’t determine the Heavyweight Championship by a flip of the coin. The chance that something a character does will make a difference is what we want, if it ultimately fails, that does not mean it was not worth trying. Look up any definition of “adventure” it will not be synonymous with “outcome”.

I have written about experiencing this movie a few times before:

Here,

and here,

also here,

and yeah, here too.

I saw this movie with my wife at the Alhambra Cinema in the big theater at the corner of Main and Atlantic in my hometown. We went back several more times that summer, with friends, family and by ourselves. The Summer of 1981 was defined by Adventure. You know the film, you know the name. Let’s simply celebrate a cultural Icon, some great film makers, and the idea that going to a movie should engage you emotionally. Internet smartassess need not apply here.