If you have not ever seen the movie
Raiders of The Lost Ark,
WHAT ON EARTH IS WRONG WITH YOU?
It is quite possibly the best movie ever.
This is why*:
- Han Frickin’ Solo in a leather jacket
- World Travel
- Treasure Hunting / Archaeology
- Golden Idols
- Awesome Booby Traps
- Evil French Dude
- Hordes of angry natives with poison dart blow guns
- Snakes on a Plane!
- Shifty Bureaucrats and Government Agents
- Supernatural religious artifacts
- Booze drinking, bar-owning female love interest
- Evil Asian Dude with a branding iron
- Bull whip used as an accurate weapon
- Henchmen with extremely loud and useless machine guns
- FIRE! (thank you, Beavis)
- Superimposed images of a plane over a map used for transitions.
- MONKEYS! Spy Monkeys!
- John Rhys Davies brings class to any movie he is in, even if he is playing an Egyptian with a British accent.
- Evil Monkey Trainer with Eye Patch
- Evil masked dudes with swords
- Cookware used as a weapon – “Frying pans! Who knew!” said my brother.
- BEST AD-LIBBED SCENE : Indy uses his gun.
(If you’ve seen it, you know the scene I’m talking about) - Truck explosions.
- Best use of kids to diffuse a potential armed bloodbath.
- Sad irony – BAD DATES.
- Evil Nazis (is there any other kind?)
- Egyptian Work Songs (at least I think they’re Egyptian)
- Secret map rooms with models of Pyramids and stuff
- More SNAKES! (Very Dangerous! You go first.)
- Fire! Fire! eheh eh ehem (Shut up, Beavis!)
- Drinking contests
- Clever, but scary, collapsible travel coat hangers!
- Egyptian Tombs and Secret passageways
- Skeletons
- Daring Escapes!
- Weird German Aircraft
- Fight Club with Evil German Mr. Clean
- Chicks with Machine Guns
- Death… by Propeller!
- MORE EXPLOSIONS!
- Horses!
- German Army Truck Convoys
- The importance of seatbelts.
- The unreliability of hood ornaments.
- The reason why the Swiss Army now makes bullwhips.
- Boats and Submarines!
- Katanga, the Lando Calrissian of the Sea!
- An RPG Launcher in 1936! (anachronism, maybe, but definitely cool)
- Bondage!
- Nazis performing blasphemy on purpose.
- Whirling Ghosts, Spirits, Supernatural Forces
- Important advice about staring directly at the wrath of the supernatural.
- MELTING FACES!
* If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll know what I mean by most of these references.
* If you haven’t seen the movie, keep this list handy while you watch.
The only thing this movie doesn’t have is space ships and aliens and, well… we all know how well that worked out for Indiana Jones.
Besides, if you want aliens and spaceships, George Lucas has you covered with the Star Wars saga, but watch episodes IV, V, and VI first.
So, do yourselves and your progeny a favor –
Skip the next retro, ball-kicking tattooed party alien prequel dreamy teen vampire 80’s rock 3-D animated time-traveling musical movie re-boot and watch Raiders first so you can make proper movie-viewing decisions in the future.
You’re welcome. 🙂