Back in 1981, when Raiders of the Lost Ark came out, three 12 year old kids in Mississippi saw it multiple times and became a little obsessed with it. They decided that it would be a great idea to remake the movie shot for shot during the summer. 7 summers later it was finally finished.

I had first heard about this remake 5 years ago. It was so fantastic it just couldn’t be true. I looked around for bootlegs, but it turned out to be as hard as finding a copy of “The Day the Clown Cried“. Who has that kind of patience? Who has the resources to create something so epic? It was a huge Hollywood production, how could 3 kids possibly do such a thing? A few nights ago I saw the proof. It is very real, and they totally pulled it off, and it was one of the best movie experiences I’ve ever had in my life.

You really should watch the trailer that The Belcourt put together for this screening. It looks awful, the sound is unintelligible half the time, and pretty much everything about the movie is bad. But there is so much magic in it. What these kids accomplished is nothing short of spectacular. It really reminded me why I love movies.

Obviously there are some things they couldn’t film, but they’re few and far between. For instance, they decided not to film the scene where the muscled dude gets destroyed by the airplane propeller because they thought it would “look fake” when they had to blow up a model airplane at the end of the scene. I don’t want to spoil any more of it for you because half the fun is trying to figure out how they’re going to pull off the next big scene.

The director Eric Zala was in attendance and did a Q&A session after the screening. He told us that Daniel Clowes (writer of Ghost World) is currently writing a movie about their experience during the 7 years. He told a lot of great stories about the filming. But perhaps the best story was about Steven Spielberg writing a letter to him after seeing a bootleg of it and telling him that not only did he love it, but it actually inspired him. That would be like if I was a teenager and somehow got to compete against Bo Jackson in the many things he knows and he gave me a high five after I kicked his butt. That was a really bad analogy. Man I really love Bo Jackson.

The movie can only be screened at non-profit venues. So if you want to see it then you’ll have to bug your local non-profit art house theater or college and demand that they show it. We’re lucky that George Lucas hasn’t pitched a fit and sued the pants off the filmmakers. There have been rumors since 2004 that it will one day be released in an Indy box set or something. They were filming a lot at the event, it looked like they were filming for a documentary perhaps. So maybe it will get released, but don’t hold your breath. Also it’s better than Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Indy is finally back after nearly two decades. Everyone wants to know: “Is it going to good? Is he too old? Is it really about aliens?” Well… Mostly, no, and yes.

Who doesn’t like Indiana Jones? I even like The Last Crusade. I don’t care what anyone says, when you mix Nazis and early Christian legends you’ve got gold my friend. That’s one of the things I’ve always loved about Indiana Jones, they always based their stories in real history, and the new movie probably packs more history in to it than all the others combined.

So the Nazis are dead, WWII is over, the red scare is in full effect, and Indy is back teaching again. The Commies are after some crystal skull that will grant ultimate power, so Indy gets to save the world again. Nothing new, really. All the things that made the previous movies great are here in full effect. Some one has to put their hand in a dark creepy hole to pull a rope that opens a secret door, there are tons of booby traps, a tribe of angry natives, insane action sequences, Indy’s fear of snakes, Indy fighting with his love while they’re both being held at gun point, more insane action sequences, more historical relics than you can shake a stick at, big bugs, surviving falls from great heights, and even more insane action sequences.

A staple of all Indy movies is the pre-credits action piece. This one is no different, but it was probably the worst one, luckily the action gets much more insane as the film goes on. It takes place in the warehouse that’s at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Keep an eye out for the ark because it makes a cameo. In my mind this is the worst Indy movie there has ever been, but that’s not such a bad thing, because it’s still actually pretty decent. The corniness factor has been upped by a notch or two, George Lucas made them throw in some useless CGI prairie dogs, and there’s a little bit of magic missing that made the previous entries so great. I don’t know what it was, but it just didn’t FEEL like a complete Indy movie.

They’ve been working on this movie for at least 15 years now. The deal was that they wouldn’t do it unless Harrison Ford, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas all agreed on a script. Harrison Ford was easy to please, he just wanted to work again, and Spielberg is a great filmmaker that knows a good story, but Lucas, oh man does that guy suck. Back in 2004 or so Frank Darabont (writer/director of The Shawshank Redemption and The Mist) worked for a whole year on a script. He had been a writer on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles so he knew what he was doing. Spielberg loved it, Lucas hated it. Spielberg couldn’t exactly do the movie without Lucas, so they did even more rewrites. Lucas has proven time and time again that he doesn’t know “good” when it comes to movies. He even says that The Empire Strikes Back is the worst Star Wars movie! He’s been responsible for some amazing advances in CGI and audio, but he should stay out of the creative process. I guess I just really wish I could’ve seen Darabont’s version instead of this one. And I really loathe George Lucas.

Go see it, you’ll have fun, but not too much. Then go see Iron Man again.