With Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny out (and bombing at the box office it looks like) it's high time I take a closer look at my all-time favorite character and frequent avatar. I've long pretended the fourth Indiana Jones installment (Crystal Skull) never happened and the series concluded with Dr. Henry Jones and his son literally riding off into the sunset. It doesn't get any better than that. But, alas, Disney went back to the well and made a fifth film with now 80(!) year-old Harrison Ford. Ah well.
My premise with this post today is pretty simple, let's try to look at what made these movies good in the first place and focus on the best of them, the original, Raiders of the Lost Ark. If you didn't know, the dashing archeologist character was the brainchild of George Lucas, who began work on this film before he got started on Star Wars in the 1970s. He was inspired by the weekly-release episodic serial films from the 30's and 40's featuring a classic hero and villain, action-packed set-pieces and cliffhanger endings. While the eventual result didn't have quite the same format as these old short films you can at least see how they were adapted. Raiders would break-up nicely into weekly serials, but now we get to see it all at once. After Steven Spielberg was brought in to collaborate and direct, along with John Williams to create the score, it became something special.
Here's the story they settled on. In the 1930s, Indiana Jones travels the world seeking artifacts of historical and cultural significance and is willing the risk life and limb to preserve them. (That belongs in a museum!) Between his far-flung journeys he's a professor of archaeology, but prefers being in the field to the classroom. Luckily he receives an incredible tip, two US intelligence officers tell him the Nazis are on the hunt for the legendary Ark of the Covenant in Egypt, enlist him to get it first and provide enough information to get started. There's a personal connection here, the daughter of Jones' mentor, and an old fling, would have the next clue. So he travels to Egypt by way of Nepal, where he retrieves a vital item and the spunky Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen). Once they reach the desert the trouble really begins. Before long the Ark is found, taken and, eventually, opened.
It's incredibly effective as an retro action adventure. Indiana Jones, as played by Ford, is just so cool. It was a terrific idea to turn a job that's typically a fossil-studying bookworm into this whip-toting, glory-seeking action hero, one who's smart and tough but frequently in over his head. He's after something everyone with any connection to Judaism or Christianity is familiar with, the Ark of the Covenant, the housing of the Ten Commandments and a physical representation of the spirit of God. Plus he pitted against a rival, collaborator archaeologist and the Nazis, who are always excellent (if overused) foils.
Then it's so well put together and ends in under two hours. I'll leave a brief description to a film critic I like, because he states it much better than I ever could.
I especially love the opening scene with the idol, and the rolling ball, and the run to the plane. We're shown so much about Indy without having to be told.
It also needs to be recognized how genuine it all looks. That's because, for one, Spielberg only did a few takes for each scene and the result was a rougher film. More importantly, old-school practical effects were how they achieved basically all the action work. They actually performed stunt after stunt and filmed on location. What you're seeing is real, not added after the fact. It's almost jarring to watch a film like this today when so much is done in front of a green screen. Look at this example below, Indy (a double) actually went under the truck while it was driving, and gets briefly dragged behind it, before climbing back up to continue the tussle. (Skip to 5m30s if you want to only see this part.) It's ridiculous, and awesome.
Let's compare this to scenes from the two most recent Indiana Jones movies. We can even have them all be chases. Here's one from Indy 4, the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I probably laughed out loud in the theater during this, and not in a good way.
And one from Indy 5 (released early more or less as a trailer), in theaters now, the Dial of Destiny.
Ignoring everything else, which scene here simply looks the best?
IMO, there's something wrong, purely on principle, with Indiana Jones movies pumped full of computerized graphics and enhancements. They've somewhat lost the point, and it doesn't even look better anyway! What I want to make my main point here is that Indiana Jones films are good, in addition to the plot, humorous exchanges and the rest, because (not in spite the fact) it's a little old fashioned. If the movie isn't in any way grounded and this is forgotten, it isn't going to work.
Go see Dial of Destiny if you want, I won't judge. But make sure you've seen the original ones too, namely Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), get the name right!, the Temple of Doom (1984) and the Last Crusade (1989). Those are when they set the formula and why the nostalgia is being pursued now.
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