Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981): Favourite Films Series
I didn’t like Raiders
of the Lost Ark the first time I saw it. I know, you’re probably thinking,
hey Clayton, this is your Favourite Films
Series, did you just make a typo or are you actually insane? Well, neither, as
far as I can tell. When I was very young, I was all about dinosaurs, monsters,
and science fiction. I was one of those very few kids who wasn’t begging their
parents to take them to see Lord of the
Rings in the movie theater in the early 2000’s. Fantasy wasn’t my jam until
I was older, and there is a strong element of the fantastical tied to Indiana Jones, but that wasn’t really
why it didn’t appeal to me during my single-digit ages. I liked paleontology,
not archaeology, and I liked technology, not early 20th century
settings, so I liked things that were from the prehistoric past or the modern
age and beyond. If you know anything about Indiana
Jones, you might begin to see some of the explanation for why I felt the way I
felt.
Or you might still think I was crazy.
Honestly, I look back at my younger self and do think he was
a little crazy not to at least give the movie a chance, but part of the problem
was how overhyped it was. The first Indiana
Jones film is talked about with nothing but praise, so when I sat
down to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark
for the first time, I was primed to find reasons not to like it. I thought some
of the effects were a little goofy, like when Alfred Molina’s character is
impaled on spikes in the opening temple sequence. I also thought it got extremely
boring following that classic opening with the boulder and the natives giving
chase and Jones flying off in the plane with Jock and his pet snake Reggie.
But, when I re-visited the film as a teen, I wasn’t as close-minded. I
discovered new things to enjoy about it, and as I got more and more interested
in things like special effects, screenwriting, and all the films directed by
Steven Spielberg, I came back to Raiders
with not only a newfound appreciation for it, but a newfound enjoyment that I
just couldn’t get as a child.
One of the original posters for Raiders of the Lost Ark has this tagline: “Indiana Jones—the new
hero from the creators of JAWS and STAR WARS” and I’ll be damned if I can’t
think of a more perfect tagline that still functions just as well as it did
upon release over forty years later. The combo of the masterminds Steven
Spielberg and George Lucas gave birth to, like the tagline says, a new hero for
the 1980’s who had the charm and thrill-seeking of James Bond but also the
pulpy adventure intent of the 1930’s film serials Spielberg and Lucas grew up
with and loved. This combo wasn’t by accident, but by design. I had a hard time
connecting the idea that James Bond and Indiana Jones were similar when I was
younger because on the surface they seem so different; one is a suave British
secret agent with guns and gadgets and the other is an American
professor/artifact hunter with a whip and fedora.
I think one of the things I've grown to appreciate the most about
Indiana Jones as a character is Harrison Ford. When I was a kid, I thought he
was fine, but as I saw more and more action films and more and more lead actors
try to be as tough and charismatic and memorable as the best of them, I came to
appreciate just how unique Ford was as that hero. I’m not of the belief that no
one else but him could play the role, but I do think the first movie would not
have worked without him, or led to more films had someone else been cast.
Speaking of more films, even though I’m focused on Raiders of the Lost Ark for this Favourite Films entry, I have to
address the other Indiana Jones
adventures, because it’s a toss-up for me as to which one is my definitive
favourite, Raiders or Last Crusade. The reason I always end up
picking Raiders of the Lost Ark as my
favourite is because it is just so incredibly well put together, with so many
iconic moments, and every element of it works to maximum effect. The fact that
two more movies were made after it that at least live up to the original or
arguably surpass it is astounding (we don’t need to talk about the ones made in
the 21st century), because the bar was set incredibly high right
from the start.
Spielberg has said in interviews he considers The Lost World: Jurassic Park to be the
first true sequel he ever directed, because the Indiana Jones movies aren’t really sequels, they are stand-alone
adventures following the same main character. I don’t know if I
fully agree, but I do believe you can watch any of them in any order and get
equal enjoyment from them all. One of the things that made me rethink Raiders of the Lost Ark as a youth was
watching Temple of Doom, which I saw
for the first time a while after I had tried to watch Raiders for the first time. I found it quite different, and it
hooked me with that opening scene (which also made me realize the James Bond
connection, with him dressed in the white suit, looking and acting more like
007 than he did in the opening of Raiders),
though when I look at it now I can’t say I love it as much as Raiders or Crusade for a few reasons—but, like many others, mainly for how
annoying the character Willie is. As a kid/teen, though, I would have said Temple of Doom was my favourite Indiana Jones movie, and many others
would still say that, which I understand.
The Last Crusade
did not go as dark or as serialized as Temple of Doom, so in many ways feels closer to Raiders
in tone and plot, following the events (a bit) from the first film, unlike the
second, which is a prequel to the first and more removed. The addition of Sean
Connery as Indy’s dad (an inspired bit of casting, given the James Bond
inspiration) is what puts it above Raiders
for many fans, and I get it. The pairing of Ford and Connery is a huge part of
what makes that movie great, but also having a less annoying female to tag
along and a scary moment at the end helped elevate it, too. So, to bring it
back around to Raiders of the Lost Ark,
a couple more reasons why it is my favourite is because it has the best female
character, Marion Ravenwood, played by Karen Allen, and the best villain,
Belloq, played by Paul Freeman. The very ending, too, goes hard and is
genuinely freaky. I’m still fascinated by how they achieved the special effects
to have the Nazis faces melt when they open the Ark of the Covenant. There are
so many effects mixed together for the ending, and while not all of them hold
up, per say, they are all blended quite effectively.
The stuff that holds up the best is how authentic so much of
the action is. My favourite action sequence is the truck chase, with Indy
fighting Nazis in the cab, then eventually crawling under the truck while it’s
still speeding along and using his whip to hang off the back of it. All of the
action is well edited and directed, and it’s paced perfectly, never dragging on
too long or feeling like there’s too much down time between sequences. The
scenes without action (those dialogue scenes that didn’t interest me as a kid)
are well acted and just as well directed as the action, and some of them have
become as iconic as moments like the boulder rolling through the temple or Indy
shooting the guy with the sword in the town square.
Raiders of the Lost
Ark is a blend of adventure, action, thrills, scares, mystery, and intrigue
that had never been done quite this way in film before, despite the whole thing being initially fueled by
old ideas. Just like the two great films mentioned on that poster, Jaws and Star Wars, Raiders is the
best movie of its kind, and I would say no other movie has quite been able to
capture the magic of the first three Indiana
Jones films (not just the first one), even though many have tried and a few
have come close. It’s one of those few series of films where you’ll get diverse
answers as to which entry is the best one, and unlike some of those few, I
wouldn’t say there’s a very clear answer. If it weren’t for later entries that
followed, I would also say Indiana Jones
could still be counted as one of the most solid trilogies of films ever made.
Welcome to the
conclusion of CCC’s GAMERA-THON! I am wrapping up this month of Gamera content with
a fun alignment chart of (almost all) the monsters from all twelve
films.
First up in the category of Lawful Good has to be Gamera.
This is probably the most obvious placement; unlike the Godzilla series, there were never any other monsters who teamed up
to defeat villains. Gamera is a one-turtle wolf pack who fights his battles on
his own, and even though he attacked Japan a couple of times, he’s primarily
known for “his unusual overpowering kindness to children” and has even
sacrificed his own life multiple times in the name of saving humanity.
The category of Neutral Good was a tough one fill, with no
real obvious choices, but the supporting character of Giruge from Gamera: Super Monster is probably the
best fit. She worked for the evil alien Zanon, but used to be part of the
Spacewomen superhero force who defend earth. She is brought back to the good
side by the Spacewomen before the end of the film, though is ultimately
destroyed by Zanon for betraying him.
In the spot for Chaotic Good is the ancient monster Jiger,
who is not as evil as she may appear at first. Jiger was awakened after humans
removed a statue from Wester Island where she was resting, and Gamera tried to
stop them, so she only fought him the first time because of what the humans had
done and because Gamera happened to be there. Then, she left the island and
attacked Osaka because of the humans again—they
took the statue from the island, so still not her fault. She almost killed
Gamera by injecting him with a parasitic offspring, but that’s just her natural
biology, you can’t blame her for that. She was just defending herself and
trying to reproduce. Then, in the end, she was killed by Gamera with that
statue, who was revived by humanity. What about that offspring trying to grow
inside Gamera? They killed it. Jiger may have been destructive, but all the
damage she caused and the distress it brought about for Gamera was all the
product of human meddling.
For Lawful Neutral I’m going with Iris, because this giant
monster started off seemingly good, but then his hatred for Gamera manifested
as a result of his connection to a young girl who hated Gamera, and Iris’
connection/loyalty to her is the real reason he became an adversary for the
giant turtle.
True Neutral is Legion, from Gamera 2, because this extraterrestrial giant monster is not an
invader from another planet with a conscious intent to destroy humanity and
take over the world. Legion has a complicated life cycle, with the main threat
being The Mother Legion. Legion establishes giant flowers with the intent of
spreading across earth, and the movie explains this insectoid creature does
this to spread its seeds across the galaxy, so naturally this would make it
become a threat to the Guardian of the Universe. Legion doesn’t have any
loyalty to any other beings, it is just programmed to spread and survive.
Barugon is the best fit in the Chaotic Neutral spot, because
his existence, just like Jiger’s, is mainly because of humans messing with something
they shouldn’t have messed with. He hatched from an opal stolen from a cave in
Indonesia, which was accidentally left under a heat lamp, and somehow that made
Barugon hatch and grow into a giant extremely fast. Once full grown, he went on
a rampage through Japan, but only fought Gamera out of pure instinct. Yes, he
did cause lots of destruction, but unlike other monsters to come later in the
series, he never seemed to act maliciously unless attacked or provoked, which
keeps him out of the Evil categories, but he definitely was never in the Good
categories at any point, either.
To me, Guiron is the most definitive Lawful Evil monster in
the series, primarily because of his role in the film which bears his name in
the title. The alien women of Terra have Guiron trapped underground, and they
even have a river running over his prison to disguise it, but they can reverse
the water, open Guiron’s enclosure, and let him out whenever they need to
defend their civilization from other monsters. When Guiron is unleashed he’s
obedient to no end. Sure, there might be a bit of mind control going on, but if
Gamera could break free of mind control then he should have been able to as
well if he wasn’t evil. Regardless, Guiron was one mean brute who went out of
his way to chop up the corpse of Space Gyaos into thin slices and became
fixated on killing Gamera even after the last of the Terrans became extinct.
Neutral Evil is the spot that’s hardest to fill with just
one monster, but I’m going with the alien squid monster Viras. You could also
include Zigra, Zanon, and Zedus in this category (all the “Z” villains) but the
reason I went with Viras is because he was the first extraterrestrial monster
in the series who came to earth with the intent to take over the planet. This
sentient species (known collectively as the “Virasians”) saw Gamera as an
obstacle to them taking over and only turned him against the world using mind control
for that reason. They are Neutral Evil because they didn’t have any specific
hatred for just Gamera, they just had an evil plan and wanted to carry out said
plan. Zigra and Zanon were also aliens with the same intent, and Zedus, from Gamera the Brave, was just an angry
lizard who wanted to wreck stuff, and showed up inexplicably.
It doesn’t matter what era of Gamera film or what form he’s in: Gyaos is definitely in the
Chaotic Evil slot. His mission in Gamera
vs. Gyaos is to eat people! He drinks blood, can’t go out in the day, kills
people without remorse, and will even mutilate himself to avoid being killed.
He’s like if Dracula was a giant monster. In the second era, Gyaos wasn’t as
picky when it came to his diet. He would eat any kind of meat, but still
preferred humans, and by the end of the trilogy threatened to take over the
entire planet. It’s no wonder he’s become known as Gamera’s arch nemesis.
That brings
Gamera-thon to an end—but only until the new anime series GAMERA: Rebirth is released! I will be
back to review it shortly after it comes out. Until then, I hope you’ve
enjoyed learning about this series of films and have been entertained by my reviews.
Maybe I’ve convinced a few readers to watch some of these movies, but even if
not, it’s been fun sharing my thoughts and opinions on them this month and
breaking out of the typical marathon of October horror movie reviews to focus
on something different for a while. I've looked at the brief history of the entire franchise, reviewed each film, ranked them from worst to best, and even created this alignment chart just for fun. I'll link everything from this month below in case you missed anything from throughout the marathon. The last thing I'll leave off with is the "Gamera Song" from the 1966 American version of the original film, Gammera: The Invincible.
