Indiana Jones and my Vague Recollection of Him
Day three: still going strong.
There’s been a lot of hoopla over the new Indiana Jones movie over the last couple of weeks. And why shouldn’t there be? It’s Indiana Jones. He’s the best. Of all the awesome iconic movie heroes the 1980s brought us — and there’s a lot of them; it’s an era defined best by its iconic male loner hero characters — Indy is by far one of the coolest.
I remember loving the original films when I was a kid. I haven’t seen any of them in years. Sometimes I consider rewatching all three, but I don’t think I ever will. I love the memories I have of these films — the whole pulpy, action-packed, hilarious lot of it. Actually sitting down and going through them again, as the literate douchebag with a critical eye I am now, could have the unfortunate side-effect of overshadowing those childhood memories, thus killing them.
I don’t want to kill them.
I love these movies as I remember them: badly. Here’s a quick summation of all three:
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
I was pretty disappointed that Noah’s Ark never appeared on screen. That would have been a more intriguing premise for an eight-year-old because, well, where the hell would they hide it? In a mountain cave was my guess.
Movie starts out with Indiana Jones screwing up and getting chased by a boulder. There are also snakes in this scene (in the background) and a part where Indiana Jones swings on a rope. This is probably the best part of the movie. After that there are a bunch of boring talking scenes that go on for a while and, then, MORE action! I don’t know the sequence of events, but I do know Indy a) comes face to face with a KING COBRA, b) Shoots a sword guy, c) hides on a boat and d) drives a plane on fire through a city street while a bad guy stands on the front of it!
Most of the movie takes place in Africa. At the end, a guy with a monocole gets his face melted off by a very bright light. Indiana Jones then kisses his girlfriend which is so gross.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Dan Ackroyd is in this and I knew him from Ghostbusters. He disappears really quickly, though, replaced by an asian boy. I really don’t remember much else of this because my mom wouldn’t really let me see it (too scary!) so I had to watch it in bits and pieces at friends’ houses. I know that a dude gets his HEART RIPPED OUT OF HIS CHEST, which meant I had NIGHTMARES FOR YEARS. Then they all went on a mine cart ride like in Donkey Kong Country!
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
My favourite and always will be. Sean Connery is Indiana Jones’ dad! River Phoenix is young Indiana Jones! We learn why Indy hates snakes (reason: he fell into a pit of snakes once!) and has a scar (reason: he cut his face!) and likes to wear that hat (reason: a bad guy gave him a hat!). There’s also a scene where Indy is on a boat and it is raining a lot and I never really knew what was going on because I watched the movie (always) on an old TV that didn’t show dark scenes very well.
Anyway, this movie has a lot to do with religion which, like, whoa — I don’t know why. Indy’s dad is looking for the holy grail but can’t find it anywhere he is looking. I think he looks primarily in Austria for some reason. But he gets kidnapped so Indiana Jones chases after him, first on a plane and then on a SPEEDBOAT. Then the father and son get tied together in a burning room and it’s hilarious. Then they go on a blimp which either crashes or a dude gets thrown out of? Maybe both. I remember Sean Connery operating a mounted machine gun around this part. And also scaring some birds with his umbrella.
Indiana Jones has to fight a tank and then loses. Well, it’s sot of a tie. They both go over a cliff. Everyone thinks Indy is dead but he’s not. He just fell off the cliff. They then finally go to some cave somewhere, I think after seeing Hitler in a giant convention hall. I didn’t know who Hitler was the first time so I asked my mom. I think “Mom, who’s Hitler?” is a big loss-of-innocence moment, if answered honestly.
They get to the cave — the cave with the holy grail in it! Indiana Jones has to pass a bunch of tests to prove he is religious. The only one I remember has him stepping on a bunch of tiles to spell the name of God. The name of God, I was blown away to realize, is not ‘God’. It started with an ‘i’.
Next: Sean Connery gets shot! But Indiana Jones makes it to the grail where some old knight is hanging out and has been for THOUSANDS OF YEARS. The knight tells Indiana Jones and some bad guy Nazi that they need to choose from all the cups on the table — only one of them is Jesus’. The bad guy chooses first, and picks one with gold and gems in it. He burns to death! Indiana Jones picks the wooden one because, duh, Jesus was a carpenter. Then he goes and fills it up with Coca-Cola from a big pot and drips some on his dad’s bullet wound which magically heals.
Then the ground opens up and a bunch of dudes fall in. Bad dudes, only, though! Everyone else is okay.
The point
See? I can’t imagine losing those memories.
The new Indiana Jones movie, by the way, is kind of bad. Like, it’s fun and all, and I don’t regret paying to see it, but there’s no way this is a classic by any means. I thought returning to Indiana Jones would mean Spielberg would finally be able to do a decent end to one of his flicks again, but he managed to… not do that. He did the opposite. Everything from Shia LaBouef befriending monkeys onwards was kind of unfortunate, really.
But Indy is still awesome.