This is really the perfect action movie.
Compared to other action movies of the time and recent years, this movie really out does them all. Awesome hero, cool fights, great set pieces, and an unmatched score.
shareIt's the best ever
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MovieChat Forums > Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) Discussion > This is really the perfect action movie.
This is an action classic :)
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It's the best ever
shareI wouldn't call it just an action film.
I would say that after I saw this in theater, opening day, I felt that I had just watched the best Action and Adventure film that I have ever seen.
Nothing has topped it yet.
It's like they thought, what are the best elements of a serialized adventure series? How can we take those basic principles and attributes that people loved so much and PERFECT them into this perfect self-contained adventure story, this pristine and sustained experience of suspense, and make a jewel of a film out of it?
In the end, when the credits roll in the warehouse, that was it. Perfect, and as I said, self-contained; but also, it was ready to be followed with more.
Too bad they over-did it with Temple of Doom. They probably thought "Well, it can't be just as good, it has to be even more so", but they really needed a squelch dial on the action and maybe a little more interest in some of the boring dialog, because my attention wanders a bit in that film.
Raiders had it's quiet moments, but not a drop of dialog was squandered. That's what kept the interest and maintained suspense until the next action scene.
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It's essentially the blueprint for Hollywood action movies. The whole Hollywood action movie genre really hadn't developed yet. Everything changed after this movie. Sure, Star Wars had already come and that changed so much. But this was the pure action movie. As you said, this took all of the best elements from the serials and took it to the full length format.
I've watched this movie at least 100 times, and I've probably watched pieces of it at least 200 times. It's one of the few movies that I cannot simply go past if I'm browsing channels. If I see it I have to stop and watch at least 15min of it. It's a perfect movie. Every element of it makes it worth watching. Sometimes I'll stop and watch it just to hear the score. Every single scene is memorable in one way or another. And like you said, not a single line of dialog is squandered.
Temple of Doom was such a disappointment. Too cartoony (among other things).
Too bad they overdid it with Temple Of Doom
Not only did they overdo it in Temple Of Doom but one of the big problems with that movie for me is that the action sequences aren't as engaging or personal because we're rarely seeing Indy up close.
So we get the big stunts in the dinghy, the big mine cart chase (launching from one track to the next), the bridge been split in half but more often than not, we're not actually seeing Indy up close in action, the camera's well away so the stakes never feel as high.
One of the reasons why the action scenes work so well in Raiders is because we're actually seeing a lot of Ford himself (and some cases his double) up close amongst the mayhem.
Like Ford said himself "I wanted to do as much as possible because I was convinced that the audience doesn't want to see the back of the guy's head or him at a distance, they wanted to see his face and eyes".
Temple Of Doom's big set pieces sacrificed a lot of that.
Dodging the arrows firing out of the walls, running from the boulder, the fight around the plane, the truck chase... you feel like you're right there with Indy along for the ride every step of the way in Raiders. share
Dodging the arrows firing out of the walls, running from the boulder, the fight around the plane, the truck chase... you feel like you're right there with Indy along for the ride every step of the way in Raiders.
And something they returned to in The Last Crusade, from the boat chase in Venice, the boat and cycle chase away from the burning castle, the tank chase in the desert, all the way to Indy solving the 3 puzzles to cross over to the knight -- Indy up and front.
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and no clichéd ending where the main good guy fights the main bad guy for 20 minutes
shareand no clichéd ending where the main good guy fights the main bad guy for 20 minutes
... and just when you think he's done, he turns around to kiss the girl, but the bad guy is STILL ALIVE and coming back for one more, and you already know how it will turn out, but yeah sure, let's see that one again.
It works for the Die Hard franchise I guess.
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yeah every action movies has the same dumb ending nowdays
shareYes, it was very good - 8.5
"She let me go."
~White Oleander
Perfect action movie. Perfect blockbuster. Perfect movie. The hero, the cast, the music, the fights and stunts are all perfectly executed. Even the little details like the editing and sound are fantastic. Relentlessly watchable and it is still memorable after I've seen it so many times. This is why it's my favorite movie.
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