Just watched this thing (Raiders) for the first time in about... I'm not sure. Maybe even close to a decade.

F**kin' awesome. Perfect adventure film. This is the textbook for all other filmmakers.

How could this be the same team that put out Kingdom of the Crystal Skull?

Brilliant riposte.

I loved Raiders. One of my all time favorite movies

I agree with Hanzo on this. Raiders of the Lost Ark is a great movie.

Brotoro Johnson is right about Hanzo Johnson being right!

I watched RAIDERS again about a week after suffering through THE KINGDOM OF CRYSTAL METH just to make sure that I hadn't been wrong about how brilliant the former was.

I was not wrong. It's still a masterpiece.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Raiders is the best action-adventure movie made to date.

IAWTP.

It's a perfect film. Flawless. It is pure distilled action-adventure awesome. Great characters, great locations, great set pieces. Amazing.

Raiders is one of my favorites, it had that action serials feel about it......

I remember the theater, and who I was with, we were completely blown away.
The opening completely sucks you in.

It's a great movie. A bit less story than I had remembered, more of a nonstop ride.

I had forgotten that it was nominated for Best Picture.

1981 Best Picture:
"CHARIOTS OF FIRE", "Atlantic City", "On Golden Pond", "Raiders of the Lost Ark", "Reds"

Seems somewhat of a weak year for best picture.

Kinda funny that by 1981, Lucas had two movies he directed-American Graffiti and Star Wars- and one movie he conceived of/produced-Raiders, nominated. I believe the only other movie beyond his initial THX one he had been involved in was Empire, one of the great movies of all-time.

Everything he did was golden back then.

It is a great movie, and it is a non-stop ride, but I watched it prior to the release of Crystal Skull and was surprised to find there was more actual story -- most if it in subtext -- than I remembered.

It's good.

It is great, one of my all-time faves. But it is more of a nonstop ride than you might think. I think some people judge the Indy series (the later ones) a little unfairly sometimes. The series is a clear homage to the serials of the 30's. One thing leads directly to another, with improbable and even madcap escapes and developments. Raiders was so pitch-perfect that I think we sometimes forget if you stay with that material, there's going to be the occasional inflatable raft or flying fridge moment. It's part of what they were going for.

Conceit of the genre.

QFT.

It's a good movie, but I never thought that it was near perfect.

I was 21 when it came out, and my first thought was that it was a nice homage to the action serials. It had too many winks and gags for me to take it as a serious action movie.

I had the similar reaction to Back to the Future. Audiences were applauding it as something totally new and different, when both movies were based on plots and themes that had been done again and again in books, pulps, comics, etc. When I heard, "Oh my God that was so cool when he started to disappear when he was changing history.", all that I could think was, "You moron, that's a basic plot point in almost every time travel story."

My wife was a couple of years younger and didn't have a sci-fi, comic, or pulp background, so she bought Indie hook, line, and sinker. My son's wall still has the original poster that she snagged when the movie was released.

I was 12 and I bought it hook, line, and sinker without realizing any "winks" to the serials. Indy was my big "thing," the movie I unapologetically loved and collected all things associated with it.

Now I can see it more for what it was. It was a classic example of doing this kind of thing right -- the homage is lovingly there, so new viewers can appreciate it without irony, without being "in" on some joke. But with some distance you recognize the devices and conceits that were intentional.

Superhero movies could do a lot worse than Indy -- there's plenty of room to do a self-aware genre movie without it being mocking or self-loathing.

FOOTNOTE: As a boy, I also failed to detect that Star Wars was supposed to be a space opera (or any kind of homage or tribute). I think a whole generation of fans did, as well, causing Star Wars to transform into a legit Star Trek style property.

Bizarro Rob strikes again

I remember feeling Raiders was the perfect movie (not my favorite but perfect). Watching this time with my wife, who the Indy movies are all one big blur , I was partly influenced I think by her comments,

"It's nothing but action, there's no story, it doesn't take a second to breathe."

Years ago, she informed me that when there are extended action scenes in a movie-the kind I like from lightsaber fights, to car chases, to fisticuffs, she has trouble concentrating and begins to zone out. Generally they aren't all that cool or exciting to her, especially if they aren't brief.

Although I have changed her, a bit, on that.

She did enjoy Krystal Skull, enouigh that she wanted to rent it when it came on DVD. (i bought it instead )

I saw Back To the Future at 8 years old (several times) and at the time, it may have been the perfect movie to me. and what was great was people of many ages could enjoy it.

For me Johnny Be Good wasn't nostalgia, it was new.