Indiana Jones and Me

Greetings.

With the release of the new Indy movie, I wanted to share my personal history with him, and what makes the Character so special in my humble opinion.

In 1981...Raiders of the Lost Ark was released. The origins of the movie come from a Hawaiian holiday taken by friends George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Spielberg, still smarting from his expensive disaster, 1941, wanted a fun, guaranteed hit to do next. Lucas had always wanted to do a riff on the Saturday Morning movie serials.....and Indiana Jones was born. Most know, that Tom Selleck was hired to be Indy, but Universal wouldn't let him out of his Magnum P.I. contract......so after Spielberg saw Harrison Ford in the Empire Strikes Back......he knew that was his guy. Lucas wasn't sure......he had had Ford in all his previous films (American Graffitti, Star Wars, Strikes Back) so he didn't want to keep going to the well.....but cooler heads prevailed. Since Lucas had been angry with 20th Century Fox for firing Alan Ladd Jr. (The man who championed Star Wars), he let Paramount take care of the film.......and the rest as they say is history.

I for some reason....didn't see Raiders in the theater. I have no idea where my 10 year old head was, but I didn't go. I eventually saw it in a Drive-In......but I have no recollection of paying much attention. It was on HBO that I got to know Indiana Jones. Raiders in my mind is the PERFECT film. It has it all, and then some. There is something very sexy about the search for the Ark of the Covenant, and they translated it perfectly. The DaVinci Code owes much to Indy and his crew. My folks were one of the first to get a Satellite Receiver in the neighborhood, and back in those days, you could get every pay channel for free. (Sweet!!) So on the myriad of movie channels, I watched Raiders incessantly. Actually, I was watching Indy when the feed from HBO went dead. They figured out a blocking device for their signal....and free cable was no more.



Opening Day, May of 1984, I was in the old State Theater in Spokane Washington of Raiders 2. This was in the days before any pre-press for a movie, so I went into it cold....and loved it. But, as I understood more of movies, and what I liked....I discovered that Temple of Doom is not such a good movie. It does have thrills aplenty, and alot to like.....but Short Round, Willie, and the Dark Elements make this the stepchild of the series. In addition, the lack of searching for a historical relic make his search a little less magical. They made up for that 5 years later.



May 1989.....I am graduating from High School. This actually premiered the Friday before my Saturday graduation. I was seriously in hog heaven. My High School days is when I started to become a film maniac. Anything I could get my hands on about movies I would inhale. IF only the internet was around then! I was telling my friend, I guaranteed the Star Trek V preview would be playing before this film, since both were from Paramount....and lo and behold I was right! (The preview was much better than the movie) Last Crusade is a magical film. I have never understood why some are critical of this entry, because I thought, and think it is great! I love the father/son stuff with Connery and Ford. And the search for something as historic as the Holy Grail make this a winner. The last 30 minutes of the film are some of my personal favorite movie moments in history. This also was a good film for me and my father, since it was hard on the both of us for me to leave for college that fall.



Zoom ahead 19 years, and we finally have Indy 4. He's older.........I'm more than double my age since the last one. It is good to see Dr. Jones at the helm of a new movie....which is seriously flawed...but fun nonetheless. The difference between the Star Wars Prequels, and this is I at least had a good time in the theater.

There is talk of Indy 5, and I would welcome it......but hopefully they'll learn their lesson, and have Indy search for something of historical value.

Have a good rest of the week!

Jason