Raiders of the Lost Ark 1981
I was 15 years old when Raiders of the Lost Ark came out, about the perfect age. I remember reviews praising the genius of George Lucas (who had already made Star Wars) and Steven Spielberg (who had already made Jaws and Close Encounters) for making a throwback movie with almost nonstop action, completely storyboarded beforehand. It certainly didn’t disappoint, with great action taking place all over the world, a great sense of humor, and starring Harrison Ford who could do no wrong at that point. Certainly I’ve watched the movie since that first time at the theater, but really great movies like this one make an indelible impression anyway. Watching again on blu-ray (needed something noisy for my dogs to drown out the fireworks of the 4th of July), is like a trip down memory lane, happily looking forward to each big set piece. Watching a little more critically now, I think maybe they could have thinned out one or two action sequences, and the really bad looking Ghostbusters style effects towards the end mar an otherwise nearly perfect and timeless movie. It is a shame they were never able to come up with better sequels, though I feel like by putting everything out there in the first one, they made that task almost impossible, and I would rather have one great movie than three or four decent ones.
The blu-ray I bought is a single disc version from 2013 and while it looks fine, it contains almost no extras, just a couple of trailers. I know there are documentaries about the movie, so it feels like they just left the bonus features disc out of the packaging (a 4K version may be coming out in 2021 for the 40th anniversary, which could include better bonus features).
Written: 05 Jul 2020
Owned on: Blu-ray, Digital