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Raiders of the Lost Ark – Rewind
Recently I’ve re watched the Indiana Jones films and noticed something’s I didn’t notice before good and bad, either way it’s been a blast, watching some of my favorite and most well loved movies.
The Raiders of the Lost Ark is set in 1936 and even thought it was the first movie in the series, it’s actually the second movie on a timeline, with Temple of Doom being a prequel set in 1935 but released later. The Raiders of the Lost Ark is our first introduction to the character of Dr. Indiana Jones and the movie starts off with one of the best and iconic opening action sequences ever, as we follow Indy while he enters a temple in deep Peruvian jungle in search of some golden idol.
I know that Raiders is one of my favorite action movies because I can never remember what bit comes next or I happen to forget certain details, and that means that it has big re watchability factor. It also has some great music, a good tonal balance in the comedy and seriousness and with the action and the realism. With a cast that includes a feisty heroin Marion Ravenwood played by Karen Allen, and a suitably devious nemesis for Jones in Frenchman René Belloq, played by Paul Freeman, who sides with the Nazi’s in his quest for the lost ark of the covenant.
Infinitely better than the subsequent Temple of Doom, Raiders has a perfect balance of many things and has a relentless pace to the movie that’s so jam packed with good scenes, like I mentioned before its hard to remember them all.
Were going to end on an Interesting snippet of information, can you imagine a world where Harrison Ford wasn’t Indiana Jones, what about if you replaced him with Tom Selleck? Well Selleck was the number one choice for the role after Lucas was wary about casting Ford again, after Ford being in both American Graffiti and the Star Wars movies which were produced by Lucas also. Tom Selleck however could not get out of his contractual obligation for Magnum P.I and Ford was drafted in finally, only three weeks before the shooting of Raiders of the Lost Ark started.