Remember when Harrison Ford was the coolest guy in the world? American Graffiti, Star Wars, Apocalypse Now, The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Blade Runner, Return of the Jedi, Temple of Doom, Witness, Frantic, Last Crusade, Presumed Innocent, Regarding Henry, Patriot Games, The Fugitive, and Clear and Present Danger. That's a hell of a resume from 1973-1994.Harrison also gets me connected from Return of the Jedi to Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Damn, this is a great movie. Action, humor, romance, melting Nazis... what more could you want? Plus, it's at the height of careers for Ford, producer George Lucas, and director Steven Spielberg.
Re-watching this film is like going back to an old friend and a lesson in great movie making. A lesson that Ford, Lucas, and Spielberg should have gone back to learn before making their recent 4th entry in the Indiana Jones catalog, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."
First: the title. It's just "Raiders of the Lost Ark." No "Indiana Jones" in the title at all. Admittedly, Raiders wasn't planned to be a franchise, so there was no need for some name that would grant continuity through the series. But at the time, Lucas was also working through the Star Wars franchise - which, at least at the time, also didn't have "STAR WARS" and silly episode numbers in front if each title. All that came later, along with the ridiculously long Indy 4 title.
Second: the action. Raiders works so well because it's ultimately so believable. When Indy leaps over a pit using his whip, you feel the tension because it's reasonable to see that he would actually be in danger of falling... and also that he could actually make it across the pit with a little skill and luck. Indy can actually outrun the giant boulder. Indy can actually fight the giant bald Nazi guy. Indy is in danger from the actual snakes that surround him and act the way that snakes really act. Sure, we're suspending disbelief that Indy could really be that tough and survive that many incidents. But that's a fairly easy leap of faith to make when watching a movie.
In the Crystal Skull debacle the action just becomes ridiculous. Indy would not survive a nuclear blast - even inside a lead-lined refrigerator. Especially if that refrigerator got blasted across the desert with him in it (can you say Broken Spine?. The leaps and falls in the big warehouse chase scene are too big, too violent to walk away from (and look too computer-generated). And speaking of computer-generated, what the hell were those bugs? Giant fire ants? Do those even exist in real life? Even if they do exist, there's no way they would behave like that - devouring entire human beings in seconds. I definitely would have seen that shit on Discovery Channel by now if it could be true. And don't even get me started on the aliens.
Third: the mythology. Raiders (plus, Temple of Doom and Last Crusade) all rely on accepted mythology based on archaeological fact. The Ark of the Covenant actually existed and was the box that the ancient Jews used to carry around the broken pieces of the original Ten Commandments. Beyond that, the film uses the other myths that surround the Ark about its supernatural powers and use to make any army that carries it unstoppable. These are actual myths taken from real ancient texts.
The "real" Crystal Skulls? A hoax. Proven to be a hoax. Just some crap that guys claimed to have found in South America in the mid 1800s. They've been scientifically tested and proven to have been manufactured around the time they were "discovered." There is no record of ANY legend or mythology about Crystal Skulls in ANY Mesoamerican or other Native American culture. Period. So the movie is all based on hoaxes and sci-fi fanboy crap.
And Indy doesn't even try to quote ancient myths when he's getting the crew from place to place. At least in the original three movies, the screenplay gets through different tasks, challenges, and discoveries by being able to quote some (usually fictional) piece of folklore or highly researched legend. In Crystal Skull, he just makes shit up and it ends up being right. No legends. No myths. No research. Just crap.
OK, I'm spending too much time bitching about Crystal Skull. Just go watch Raiders. It's still awesome.
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