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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Discussion in 'Lucasfilm Ltd. In-Depth Discussion' started by Binary Sunset, Jan 18, 2015.

  1. darkspine10

    darkspine10 Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Dec 7, 2014
    Another group of Nazis might have discovered the scene, and shipped the ark to somewhere like the Eastern Front.

    Then they just open it, run away, and watch the ghosts do all the work.
     
  2. Kuro

    Kuro Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Oct 17, 2015
    Who’s gonna tell them what happened? The Ark pretty much wiped away all evidence of the bloodshed. There are no bodies. If another group of Nazis found it, it’d fry them as well.

    Besides, I don’t think the Ark works that way. According to the movie’s mythology, it also destroyed that Egyptian Pharoah and we don’t know if he opened it or if God was just pissed at him. What’s to prevent God from wiping out Nazi Germany the way he wiped out the city of Tanis?
     
  3. darthtimetraveller

    darthtimetraveller Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Aug 9, 2015
    The best of the series, and one of the greatest films of all time.
     
    AndyLGR likes this.
  4. Too-Gon Onbourbon

    Too-Gon Onbourbon Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    Jan 23, 2016
    If the film was human someone would have nailed it to a tree in 2014.

    If there was no such thing as Star Wars this would be my favorite film.
     
  5. Force Smuggler

    Force Smuggler Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Bought the DVD of this today at a Toy Show.
     
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  6. Kylo Ren's 8-Pack

    Kylo Ren's 8-Pack Jedi Knight star 1

    Registered:
    Feb 1, 2016
    Agree.
    Absolutely immaculate and perfectly scored.
    A great example of excellent editing, too.

    Lucas himself has said in past interviews that it was his favorite sequence in the entire film.
     
    AndyLGR likes this.
  7. themoth

    themoth Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Dec 5, 2015
    Agreed. Though I find Last Crusade to be the most 'fun'.
     
    ATMachine likes this.
  8. BigAl6ft6

    BigAl6ft6 Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Nov 12, 2012
    [​IMG]

    Sallah with a map!
     
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  9. Sarge

    Sarge Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Oct 4, 1998
    I think he's frustrated cuz he can't find the X.
     
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  10. PymParticles

    PymParticles Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Oct 1, 2014
    "X never, ever marks the spot."
     
  11. JediRoxx

    JediRoxx Jedi Knight

    Registered:
    Jan 30, 2016
    One of those perfect movies within its genre, just like ESB.
     
  12. DavidSword79

    DavidSword79 Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 27, 2015
    As with many others here, Raiders is one of my favorite films of all time.

    Amusing aside: Last night I watched Jodorowsky's Dune, a documentary about "the greatest film never made" in the early 1970s, pre-Star Wars. In the doc, we get to glimpse some of the storyboards (by Jean "Moebius" Giraud) for the film, which were bound in a beautiful book and given to each of the studios around at the time, including Paramount. There is a general discussion about how these boards and the concepts in them influenced other, future films. One of these is Raiders.

    A segment of the storyboards is shown in which a priest in a conical headdress opens some kind of mystery box, which shoots a column of light or fire straight up to the sky. This smoky light seeps out of the box and lashes out at various characters who are standing around watching. The shot compositions and the events themselves are absolutely uncanny in their resemblance to the climactic scene of Raiders.

    I'm not saying Lucas or Kaufman or Kasdan or Spielberg stole the sequence from the Jodo/Moebius storyboard book. But considering what a mish-mash we know Raiders to be, I would not be surprised if Spielberg and/or Lucas were one of many who saw those art boards in the 70s, and incorporated this small section of them into their film.
     
  13. AndyLGR

    AndyLGR Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 1, 2014
    Just thought I'd mention that this all time classic was 35 years ago the weekend just gone.
     
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  14. DAR

    DAR Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 2004
    It's one of the three greatest films ever made. And has the greatest character introduction
     
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  15. DrDre

    DrDre Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 6, 2015
    I really love this film, but it pains me to see what a terrible job was done color grading the official bluray release. I've recently been able to study a number of unfaded 35mm frames from the 1982 theatrical re-release, and it looks nothing like the bluray, which is as revisionist as the OT blurays:

    Bluray color timing:

    [​IMG]

    Original color timing:

    [​IMG]
     
  16. AndyLGR

    AndyLGR Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 1, 2014
    That is an unbelievable difference. However when watching the film I must admit I don't think about it as I don't have a comparison running side by side. I wonder why they changed it to such a degree?

    Heres a shot from my digital version which clearly matches the BD version:

    [​IMG]
     
  17. DrDre

    DrDre Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 6, 2015
    To be fair, most home video releases today look substantially different from their theatrical counterpart. The color timing for the bluray originally was more consistent with the other two films in the trilogy, and pretty close to the 2003 DVD release, but apparently Steven Spielberg was not satisfied with the result, and so it was redone. There were a couple of HDTV broadcasts, that had this earlier color timing, but it too differs substantially from the theatrical color timing, although not as much for most scenes:

    Bluray color timing:

    [​IMG]

    HDTV color timing:

    [​IMG]

    Theatrical color timing:


    [​IMG]
     
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  18. AndyLGR

    AndyLGR Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 1, 2014
    Its a pity I don't have my original video cassettes anymore to compare how that looked.
     
  19. Bob Effette

    Bob Effette Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 20, 2015
    Raiders of the Lost Ark (none of this "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark" nonsense) is my favourite film. It is perfect. It has the most wonderful opening sequence, which sets up the character beautifully. I love how the opening sequence feels like the ending of the last episode of a serial, which is intentional. A timeless classic.
     
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  20. DrDre

    DrDre Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 6, 2015
    The largest color difference between the bluray, and the original theatrical color timing is for the bar fight sequence. The bluray like most home video releases before it has a pronounced red cast, while the original color timing is bluish gray.

    Bluray:

    [​IMG]

    Original color timing:

    [​IMG]
     
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  21. Alexrd

    Alexrd Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 7, 2009
    How exactly is it a terrible job when the color timing of the restoration was supervised by Spielberg himself? Not liking something doesn't make it terrible. That's like saying I did a terrible job painting my house just because I chose a color you didn't like.
     
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  22. theMaestro

    theMaestro Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Oct 16, 2015
    I guess how terrible (or not terrible) it is depends on what metric you're using. If the metric is "how close does this Bluray look to the theatrical release?", then it would be accurate to say that the color timing was terrible. If the metric is "how close does the Bluray look to how Spielberg currently wants it to look?" then you can say that it looks fantastic, since Spielberg himself supervised it.

    Thus, it's not so much "I like this color vs. that color", but rather "I prefer the theatrical color timing vs. the current altered color timing".
     
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  23. DrDre

    DrDre Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 6, 2015
    It's terrible, because in response to criticism about the orange/teal look of the current master, Paramount claimed they changed it to bring it closer to the original theatrical color timing, which after seeing an actual original 35mm print turns out to be a lie. The colors are also inconsistent with the other two films in the original trilogy, who do not have the orange/teal look, and were color graded by the same company, that did the work on the Raiders HDTV broadcast.

    I also personally feel the trend to make the masters for classic films look more modern by applying a modern orange/teal color grading to it, is a worrying development from a film historic perspective, even if Spielberg likes the color grading for this particular film.
     
  24. Alexrd

    Alexrd Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 7, 2009
    That has nothing to do with the fact that Spielberg supervised the restoration and the color timing of the new master. Therefore what you see in the Blu-ray is what Spielberg wants you to see. What's so "terrible" about the movie being color timed the way the director wants it?

    They don't need to be consistent. And they are using old masters.

    Hence why I said: Not liking something doesn't make it terrible
     
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  25. DrDre

    DrDre Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 6, 2015
    I guess you're new in this forum, as you are not familiar with forum members expressing opinions, without continually having to put IMO in every sentence. I think the color timing is terrible, because it's revisionist and in this case dishonest. I'm dead against directors supplanting their original works with "improvements" decades after they were created. I'm also against companies modernizing classic films, while claiming they are preserving the original presentation for posterity. So, IMO Raiders of the Lost Ark has a terrible color timing, and the fact that Steven Spielberg supervised it, doesn't change that one little bit.