Raiders of the Lost Ark rerelease?

yes I report on bugs. dancing bugs.

Opened 30 years ago this Sunday. I went on opening night w/ 3 guys from high school who are now Facebook friends. That's also the last night I saw any of them.

Did any of the little-known supporting players go on to greater renown besides Alfred Molina?

(I don't choose to count Rhys-Davies in there, really)

Wolf Kahler, who played Dietrich, enjoyed a lucrative career playing Nazis.

lucrative and still unknown?

He'd pop up in every movie in which the Nazis appeared, and I'd go, "Oh! The guy from 'Raiders'!"

Anyway, I rewatched this a couple of weeks ago and while I love it I still prefer Temple of Doom.

Funny enough I just stumbled upon this today. It's a screen test shot of Tom Selleck and Sean Young performing the bar scene for Raiders. The audio is a bit out of sync.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSyHSgEbNng&feature=player_embedded

Wolf Kahler, who played Dietrich, enjoyed a lucrative career playing Nazis.

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, June 10, 2011 2:53 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Also achieved immortality as the 'echellente' man in this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs7gAxsfK5U&feature=related

His son was in my class at school, he got the piss ripped out of him when the ad first came out.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19735959

ha! i thought that might show up here.

Soderbergh shows you this movie in B&W w/ little sound

http://extension765.com/sdr/18-raiders

Saw this on the big screen for perhaps the first time in 30+ years today. It's, uh, really NOT "great" in any meaningful sense of the word. I direct you to Pauline Kael's review.

also

“Klaus Kinski was also offered the role (of Major Toht), but he hated the script, calling it "moronically shitty".”

Maybe not 'great' but at least better than, say, guardians of the dumbfuck galaxy

lower that bar

The huge WTF grin the boy had on his face when that dude's face melted at the end... been waiting almost 40 years to see that.

Watched this with our ten year old a few weeks ago. Face melting freaked her out bad, she had to sleep with us that night. She likes to think that she can handle the scares and argues with us when we tell her she can’t watch something yet. So it was a little satisfying to sneak in an “I told you so” while consoling her.

Yeah my parents didn't let me watch Raiders till I was 12 or so because of that bit.

The huge WTF grin the boy had on his face when that dude's face melted at the end... been waiting almost 40 years to see that.

39 is a bit old to be seeing ROTLA for the first time but better late than never I suppose ;+)

I first saw this movie when I was 7. I must've seen bits and pieces of it in the theater eight or nine times.

Usually just to see that guy's face melt again.

I'm no horror fan either, but there was something about it only lasting a second or two that kept my curiosity piqued.

I must've seen bits and pieces of it in the theater eight or nine times.

??

I probably saw the entire movie in the theater three or four times.

For the other times:

• I'd go down to the big city on weekends to visit my dad.

• He and his girlfriend would take me, my sister and her children to the movies.

• My older "step-brother" and I would sneak out of Superman II or whatever, and find the theater showing Raiders.

• We'd either watch it to the end and then go back to Superman II, or watch as much as we could before having to rejoin our parents in the lobby.

because your dad wouldn't let you go see Raiders again and again, aiming to get value for money by enriching your young mind with different input, or he'd just buy a ticket for whatever was starting next?

I can not *not* stop and watch this film whenever it pops up on a screen. Saw it opening week as a kid, have watched it countless times and it never gets old. I think it's a masterpiece of fun, efficient and beautifully constructed filmmaking.

Just rewatched all three of these (no, I did not misspeak) over the past couple weeks, for the first time in probably two decades. They hold up pretty damn well as a testament to Spielberg's skill. Surprised to realize that there's like four pages of story spread across those six hours (eg, the entire second half of Temple of Doom is just the protagonists escaping Pankot Palace).

I guess I'll probably watch the fourth one (which I started but never finished) at some point since I have the set. Not exactly champing at the bit.

I saw Raiders at least three times in the theaters, but in total I've seen it soooooo many times. I love it.

I've had the set for several years now and still have never watched #4
Raiders is about as perfect as a movie-watching experience gets

I find Karen Allen such an engaging, natural presence in this and Starman, it's a shame (for movie viewers) she didn't pump more roles out during that period.

pump out

Completely coincidentally, I started watching Knots Landing (shaddupayouface) within the same stretch of time that I watched the trilogy, and Karen Allen had a prominent role in the pilot (apparently never reprised, as this was just before Raiders was filmed).

such a great movie, watched it for the first time when i was 9 or 10 after finding a VHS of it, had a sense it was something i shouldn't have been watching. i thought once indy brought the ark back in the truck the movie was over (surely there couldn't be an action scene better than the truck chase!) so i stopped the tape so i wouldn't get caught by my parents... then got to the final coda with face melting and all a year or so later which i was old enough to handle and thought was ridiculously cool

I told the kids there was no CGI in this movie, so the boy would challenge me any time a poison arrow would whiz by or vodka would get set on fire.

"IT'S SPECIAL EFFECTS. NOT THE SAME THING," I'd reply.

There's one scene where Indy and Sallah about have the Well of Souls dug up, and there's a really cheesy thunderstorm happening behind them. "IT'S A BLUE SCREEN," I had to say to his side-eye.

And then, when Indy fell into the WoS, I kept a close watch for the cobra's reflection on the glass between it and Ford. This time, I couldn't see it. I blamed our 13-year-old TV or my 46-year-old eyes.

But then later, I read online that for the 2008 DVD release, they used CGI to take that reflection out. Please don't tell my son.

because your dad wouldn't let you go see Raiders again and again, aiming to get value for money by enriching your young mind with different input, or he'd just buy a ticket for whatever was starting next?

Probably had something to do with how close the start time of our movie was to their movie.

Also, leaving our five-year-old sisters alone in a movie theater may have also had something to do with our sneaking around the Cinema XIII.

But then later, I read online that for the 2008 DVD release, they used CGI to take that reflection out. Please don't tell my son.

― pplains, Monday, September 14, 2020 5:20 PM (three minutes ago)

lol'd

The tone of this one is so different from the sequels. We're told just enough about what happened between Marion and Indy. Belloq and Indy's antagonism is given just two scenes of exposition. There's just enough enough tension.

I watched this with my kids over the holidays and while I still love it, it ought to be retitled Indiana Jones and His Shitty Treatment of Marion

indiana jones and the fumbled bag

Marion comes across as one of Spielberg's toughest women in her Tibet sequences, then he and Lawrence Kasdan have no idea what to do with her.

Watched this with the family over the weekend. Too slow for the ten year old and the fifteen year old had already told her about the face melting so that surprise was spoiled.

Also, the people in my house like to talk during movies and it fucking drives me crazy. I'm about ready to be done watching movies with them because they won't shut up

I've been trying to download the silent Soderbergh B&W (reverse) color corrected edit with the different score (iirc) to watch on plex, but it's been stuck at 99% for months, alas.

The bar fight in this movie is probably my favorite fight scene in movies.

Unabashedly my favorite Spielberg movie, one of the great action movies of all time. And I don't care what anyone says about it because I saw it in the theater when I was 12 and you can't take that away from me. (Among all the other reasons it hit me when I was 12, Karen Allen in this became one of my first celebrity crushes.)

Her fake-drunk scene with Paul Freeman's a hoot. She threatens him with a knife, he guffaws in her face.

Karen Allen is fantastic in this movie

xxpost All of this!

To go from Marion blowing smoke in Toht's face to Willie in Temple of Doom muttering "Oh, I broke a nail..." is some trick.

I think "Jaws" remains my favorite (incidentally Soderbergh has been teasing a "Jaws" book for years), and may be just a hair more perfect?

Even in 2025, does Harrison Ford remain kinda ... underrated as an actor? He's so perfect in this, the stunts and comedic timing practically Keaton-like, and his tough-guy charm second to none (and impressively distinct from Han Solo, imo).

Harrison Ford is fantastic and always has been; he was my first favorite actor

but it's been stuck at 99% for months, alas.

It’s been on his blog for one hundred and twenty-three months.

Burt Lancaster said in 1981 that he was shocked Ford went un-nominated for a Best Actor Oscar. To do what Ford did with his comedic cues and with his body was the mark of a good actor, he said.

(Lancaster, who might've won in 1981 had Henry Fonda not existed, knew how to give a beau geste)

It’s been on his blog for one hundred and twenty-three months.

Always appreciate getting a sic-splainin', but I said I wanted to download it to put on plex.

Are you under the impression that whoever you’re downloading it from downloaded it from somewhere other than his blog

or from someone else who previously downloaded it from his blog, &c.

I'm sure you know better, because of course you do, but I was under the impression that a few of the things he posted he originally made available to download, at least briefly, and then stopped making them available. Or maybe someone else had a means to download it from his blog, and I don't know how to do that. Maybe you do?

I’m on zing rn. Is the embed still a vimeo?

One thing about Raiders has the subsequent films lack is a filmmaking approach that allows more stuff included for adults, if you will, than just kids and teenagers. There’s a lot of subtle shit you do really catch when you’re a kid who grew up with the film until you see it again older. Things like how Marcus and Sullah help ground the film with a sobriety that contrasts how far out it gets, in ways that using both as comedy characters in Last Crusade undercuts things.

Also one thing I’ve noticed from playing the new Indiana Jones game is that Troy Baker gets young Harrison Ford’s voice down, if only in mannerisms if about a half octave higher in pitch. Baker is able to do Ford’s murmuring to himself, his mutter, very well.

It’s akin to Elliot Gould in _The Long Goodbye_ not giving narration as a classic noir would, but instead letting the audience know what the character is thinking by mumbling to himself aloud.

I have always been impressed by the relative sobriety of "Raiders," especially compared to "Doom." It's ironic that "Doom" is the one that led to PG-13, because despite its horrors it's probably the most childish of the bunch.

xxpost It looks like a vimeo embed, yeah, but I did finally figure it out. I think whenever I first tried to do it years ago whatever extensions I initially came across were too tricky or fussy? Regardless, thanks for the encouragement!

I still like Doom, but watching Raiders reminded me that I'd pushed it away because I'd burned out on it so many years ago. As the first videotape my parents could afford, it got a lot of traction for a few summers.

As the first videotape my parents could afford, it got a lot of traction for a few summers.

Yeah, my dad used to bring home the VCR from the high school athletic dept he helped run just to rent and watch the film, years before we had a home system.

the and The Black Stallion are absolutely burned in my developing brain, and both deserve to be seen on the big screen

'this' and

Another thing that Raiders has that the others really don't match is the outrage - it takes a cartoonishly pulpy premise: "What would happen if the NAZIS got their hands on the ARK OF THE COVENANT? Can our hero stop them?", and the gag is that the answer to the second question is no, but it doesn't matter because the answer to the first is "It would destroy them utterly, because it's a crucial artifact of a religion that they've been practicing abomination against". You can't really do that twice (and they don't really try to)

The Thugee stuff in Doom, especially in the temple, approaches the horror of the last three minutes of Raiders, but no way did it measure up to the Wrath of Yahweh ripping Nazis to death with lightning.

The ending of Raiders is pretty weird! Not the face-melting, but that Indy didn't "beat" the bad guys. The hero is totally subdued during the big climax. That doesn't happen very often.

the and The Black Stallion are absolutely burned in my developing brain, and both deserve to be seen on the big screen

Oh yeah, loved The Black Stallion. I feel like that movie has kind of faded from memory? A classic imo.

Zooey Deschanel's dad was the DP, even as a kid I remember more people talking about the cinematography than the film itself.

xpost Not just subdued, he willingly gives himself up!

i said this in another thread a long awhile back:

i think the increasing, creeping, and subtle sense of dread permeating the quest for the ark is that film's strongest point. the early jones/marcus scenes set it up nicely. love their little shared moment of recognition when the gov't dudes mention "Tanis."

all of the little moments in this film Spielberg throws in, either brief looks or camera movements or framing (this is a film where you really need to pay attention to the foreground of the frame) really add to the overall atmosphere, it's an absolutely crucial touch that lesser directors would skip past.

i think one other part of this film i like is it really feels like Indy and co are facing genuinely daunting odds, they're fighting against what *feels* like an entire Nazi army. In Last Crusade it feels like he's fighting against like...six Nazis, and a businessman.

Also often fighting against some shoddy green screen.

And though Marion is nude when the boat's engine stops you don't know they've slept together until Spielberg allows her this small grin as she grabs her dress.