Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981): Favourite Films Series

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 20^th 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 21^st 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.