Essentially, E.T. is a movie about the power of friendship. But it’s also one of the few movies that tells us we might not be alone in the universe that isn’t alarmed by that prospect. It depicts alien visitors in a positive light. In fact, in the opening scene, it’s the humans who are hostile. The aliens are scared off by gun-toting cops, leaving E.T. beh
Since he’s based on the likes of Doc Savage, it shouldn’t be surprising to say that Indiana Jones is an outdated archetype. This isn’t just because explorers aren’t famous, but because of his attitude and manneri
All of the Indiana Jones movies have an inventive opening shot that matches the Paramount logo. In Raiders of the Lost Ark , it’s a distant mountain shrouded by jungle mist. In Kingdom of the Crystal Skull , when things went off the rails, it’s a pile of dirt, complete with a computer-generated gop
Spielberg’s WWII epic Saving Private Ryan , the one that induced PTSD attacks in war veterans, opens and closes with the same image: an American flag, blowing in the wind, color-graded with a very bleak, washed-out palette. Some critics have called these shots contradictory to the movie’s message. Saving Private Ryan is poised as an unpatriotic, anti-war film, yet it’s impossible to see the American flag as anything other than patriotic. The desaturated colors could be seen as Spielberg having his cake and eating it,
In 1981, movie-goers were introduced to one of the most iconic action heroes ever to grace the big screen: Indiana Jones. Raiders of the Lost Ark __ was released in June 1981 with Steven Spielberg in the director’s chair and Harrison Ford in the leading role. George Lucas wrote the story, which ultimately consisted of an archaeologist being hired to find the Ark of the Coven
Lucas talked about how he had written a story about a character named Indiana Smith back in 1973 and the two began to brainstorm ideas for what would eventually become Indiana Jones. The name Indiana was also the name of Lucas’ Alaskan Malamute, the same dog that inspired Chewbacca from Star W
Raiders of the Lost Ark features a lot of supernatural moments towards the end of the film, but one of the most chilling scenes comes in the very beginning when Indy is searching for the Golden Idol. Indiana Jones tells Satipo (Alfred Molina) to turn around and his entire back is covered with tarantulas scurrying ab
The Last Crusade has some memorable villains but they’re all just a little too cliché without any real personality. Raiders of the Lost Ark makes Belloq a more complex bad guy while the Nazi officer Toht was a frightening yet weaselly henchman who you couldn’t wait to see get his comeuppa
Jaws opens with a point-of-view tracking shot through the ocean. It could be the point-of-view of the shark, but it looks a lot like the point-of-view of a snorkeler. When we watch this scene as an audience member, we’re taken back to memories of swimming in the ocean. With John Williams’ ominous score playing over it, building suspense, we’re terrif
When Raiders of the Lost Ark collectibles Ark was first sent to the censors to be rated, it was hit with an R rating, because the MPAA felt that the melting face at the end was too graphic. The producers really wanted a PG-13 rating to allow it to become the box office hit that it would eventually become , so a layer of fire was added on top of the shot of the melting face to make it less horrifying and it was given a PG-13 rating. Steven Spielberg didn’t want to cut the melting face scene altogether, because he felt that it was the most impressive special effect he’d ever seen up to that po
Although a lot of his contemporaries, like Francis Ford Coppola and John Milius, tackled the Vietnam War on the big screen while it was still raging, Spielberg avoided explicitly commenting on the conflict in his films until 2017. The Post is really the story of the Washington Post’s battle with the Nixon administration and the power of the free press, but it opens on a U.S. Army base in Vietnam’s Hau Nghia Province in 1
From the minds of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and brought to life on the big screen by Harrison Ford, Indiana Jones is undoubtedly one of the best cinematic heroes of all time. Though he is a professor of archaeology in his day job, Jones spends his spare time traveling the globe and facing danger while recovering long lost artifa
The Indy movies are renowned for their over-the-top sound effects, and there’s one legendary sound designer that we have to thank for that: Ben Burtt. Burtt is also responsible for all the sound effects in Star Wars and the voice of WALL-E. The sound of the snakes slithering in the Well of Souls was created by Burtt sliding his fingers into a cheese casserole. The sound of the Ark of the Covenant’s lid being removed was created by Burtt sliding the lid off the back of his toilet. The sound of the boulder rolling after Indy was actually the sound of a Honda Civic driving over gravel. And famously exaggerated punching sounds were created by Burtt beating a pile of leather jackets with a baseball