| | | |Chapter 24 in the Complete Adventures of Indiana Jones.
Features: DVD
Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is no ordinary archeologist. When we first see him, he is somewhere in the Peruvian jungle in 1936, running a booby-trapped gauntlet (complete with an over-sized rolling boulder) to fetch a solid-gold idol. He loses this artifact to his chief rival, a French archeologist named Belloq (Paul Freeman), who then prepares to kill our hero.In the first of many serial-like escapes, Indy eludes Belloq by hopping into a convenient plane. So, then: is Indiana Jones afraid of anything? Yes, snakes. The next time we see Jones, he's a soft-spoken, bespectacled professor. He is then summoned from his ivy-covered environs by Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott) to find the long-lost Ark of the Covenant. The Nazis, it seems, are already searching for the Ark, which the mystical-minded Hitler hopes to use to make his stormtroopers invincible. But to find the Ark, Indy must first secure a medallion kept under the protection of Indy's old friend Abner Ravenwood, whose daughter, Marion (Karen Allen), evidently has a "history" with Jones. Whatever their personal differences, Indy and Marion become partners in one action-packed adventure after another, ranging from wandering the snake pits of the Well of Souls to surviving the pyrotechnic unearthing of the sacred Ark. A joint project of Hollywood prodigies George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, with a script co-written by Lawrence Kasdan and Philip Kaufman, among others, Raiders of the Lost Ark is not so much a movie as a 115-minute thrill ride. Costing 22 million dollars (nearly three times the original estimate), Raiders of the Lost Ark reaped 200 million dollars during its first run. It was followed by Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1985) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), as well as a short-lived TV-series "prequel."
"...the kind of movie that first got you excited about movies when you were a kid. (Translation for today's children: It's better than anything on TV.)" Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune
"...Spielberg turns the pure adventure of Saturday afternoon serials into a solidly entertaining spectacle." Howard Karren, Premiere
"Finds the right balance between reverence and wit." Keith Phipps, The Onion A.V. Club
"Spielberg can never top this. Period." Luke Y. Thompson, Dallas Observer
"...Ford gave one of his most memorable performances as Indiana Jones, a dashing Saturday matinee idol for the modern age." Marjorie Baumgarten, Austin Chronicle
"...[Ford] succeeds in fully embodying a comic-book style hero without ever descending into camp." TV Guide
"One of the most deliriously funny, ingenious and stylish American adventure movies ever made." Vincent Canby, The New York Times
Editor's Note
Action-packed and adventure-filled, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK is director Steven Spielberg's loving homage to the Saturday matinee cliffhanger serials of his childhood. When the Allies discover the Nazis are planning to use the Lost Ark of the Covenant as a weapon, the U.S. government enlists archaeologist-adventurer Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) to locate the biblical treasure chest where the remains of the broken tablets of the Ten Commandments were placed. En route, Jones and his feisty ex-girlfriend, Marion (Karen Allen), must escape the clutches of evil Nazis, duplicitous "natives," and a nest of venomous snakes--not to mention the wrath of God. The groundbreaking special effects and furious, never-ending pace make for a stylish whirlwind of a movie, topped off with a fabulous sense of humor. This bare-knuckled, barnstorming, pot-boiling, eye-popping bucket of Technicolor popcorn became Paramount Pictures' highest-grossing film, and deservedly so--RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK is quite simple one of the most enjoyable movies ever made.
| Features | Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound | | Audio: French, Spanish Dolby Digital Stereo | | Bonus Short: Lego Indiana Jones - The Original Adventures | | Dubbed: French, Spanish | | DVD-ROM Feature: Weblink For Lego Indiana Jones - The Original Adventures | | Featurettes: Raiders Of The Lost Ark - An Introduction, Indiana Jones - An Appreciation, & Raiders - The Melting Face! | | Interactive Menus | | Photo Galleries | | Scene Selection | | Storyboard Sequence: The Well Of Souls | | Subtitles: English, French, Spanish |
| Entertainment Reviews
 | Raiders of the Lost Ark - DVD Review By: Christopher Null - filmcritic.com DVD Reviews Published on: 5/2/2008 4:30 PM | |
The story is now an archetype of cinema, aped -- and invariably aped badly -- in countless pop culture projects from The Mummy to Tomb Raider. The elements? A flawed hero, in this case Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), a rough-and-tumble archeologist/professor who's impossible not to like....read the full review |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Paramount |
| Release Date: 9/16/2008 |
| Running Time: 115 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1981 | | Catalog ID: 132824 | | UPC: 00097361328249 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English [CC], English | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen 2.20:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Winner (1982) | | | British Academy Awards, Norman Reynolds, Best Production Design/Art Direction | | | Grammy, John Williams, Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television Special | | | Oscar, Norman Reynolds, et. al., Best Art Direction-Set Decoration | | | Oscar, Richard Edlund, et. al., Best Effects, Visual Effects | | | Oscar, Michael Kahn, Best Film Editing | | | Oscar, Bill Varney, et. al., Best Sound | | | Oscar, Ben Burtt, Richard L. Anderson, Special Achievement Award For Sound Effects Editing | |
Nominee (1982) | | | Oscar, Douglas Slocombe, Best Cinematography | | | Oscar, Steven Spielberg, Best Director | | | Oscar, John Williams, Best Music, Original Score | | | Oscar, Frank Marshall, Best Picture | |
Winner (1982) | | | People's Choice, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Favorite Motion Picture |
| Memorable Quotes| "Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?"----Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) to Sallah (John Rhys--Davies) | | "I don't know. I'm making this up as I go."----Jones to Sallah |
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| | Professional Reviews | Variety
"...[A] fantasy-adventure....An exhilarating escapist entertainment....A vibrant and period-perfect world of wonders..." 06/10/1981New York Times
"...Off and running at a breakneck pace....One of the most deliriously funny, ingenious and stylish American adventure movies ever made..." 06/12/1981 p.C10 Chicago Sun-Times
"...One of the classic entertainments....Its foundations are personal, and passionate....The movie is just plain fun....It's done with a kind of heedless joy..." 04/30/2000 p.5 Premiere
"RAIDERS revived for a new generation the pure cinematic joy of action." 12/01/2003 p.13 ReelViews 10 of 10
Although there are plenty of special effects in the movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark was made in an era when stunt work was more critical than anything added in post production. Ford did many of his own stunts, and ended up with the cuts and bruises to show for them (not to mention a torn ACL)...For composer John Williams, who has long been favored by both Spielberg and Lucas, the chance to work on Raiders of the Lost Ark offered him an opportunity to collaborate with them both, and to add another memorable theme song to his list of credits. In the five-year period from 1977 to 1982, Williams created five of movie-dom's most popular title tracks: Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T....The deserved popularity of Raiders of the Lost Ark resulted in a huge box office bonanza for Paramount Pictures. This is the kind of movie that, even today, audiences immediately fall in love with. It has all the right ingredients: a smart script, a likable hero, a dash of romance, more than a touch of comedy, and a lot of fast-paced action. In 2003, it's a formula, but Spielberg and Lucas were the ones who established the recipe by using ingredients both old and new...Raiders of the Lost Ark is a movie to be savored by viewers of all ages and all persuasions. - James Berardinelli
Chicago Sun-Times 10 of 10
"Raiders of the Lost Ark" is an out-of-body experience, a movie of glorious imagination and breakneck speed that grabs you in the first shot, hurtles you through a series of incredible adventures, and deposits you back in reality two hours later -- breathless, dizzy, wrung-out, and with a silly grin on your face. This movie celebrates the stories we spent our adolescence searching for in the pulp adventure magazines, in the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, in comics -- even in the movies...It's actually more than a movie; it's a catalog of adventure. For locations, it ticks off the jungles of South America, the hinterlands of Tibet, the deserts of Egypt, a hidden submarine base, an isolated island, a forgotten tomb -- no, make that two forgotten tombs -- and an American archaeology classroom...For villains, it has sadistic Nazis, slimy gravediggers, drunken Sherpas, and scheming Frenchmen..."Raiders of the Lost Ark" is a swashbuckling adventure epic in the tradition of "Star Wars," "Superman -- The Movie," the James Bond pictures, and all the other multimillion-dollar special-effects extravaganzas. It wants only to entertain. It succeeds. Watch it with someone you know fairly well. There will be times during the film when it will be necessary to grab somebody. - Roger Ebert
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