It’s appropriate that the movie begins with a pan down from the night sky, filled with stars, that settles on a familiar forest landscape. It symbolizes E.T.’s arrival on Earth from up there. It also straps us in for a movie that brings science-fiction concepts to our doors
(Lucas resisted casting Harrison Ford for a while, because he didn’t want him to become the Robert De Niro to his Martin Scorsese , but eventually, he couldn’t deny that Ford was perfect .) For Marion, they considered Michelle Pfeiffer, Debra Winger, Mary Steenburgen, Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Seymour, and Barbara Hers
Since Raiders of the Lost Ark DLC Ark was inspired by the pulpy adventure serials of the 1930s , the early conceptual designs for the characters were a lot pulpier. The pulpiest of the bunch was the initial design for the Nazi villain, Arnold Toht. Whereas he’s just a sinister man in black in the final film, he was originally supposed to wear a cartoonishly kitted-out Nazi unif
Karen Allen brings so much humor, heart, and fun to the character. From her first scene where we find her in the midst of a drinking contest, she makes for an unforgettable character who is a welcome addition to this advent
What follows is an intense dramatization of the massacre, in which the Black September terrorist group takes 11 members of the Israeli Olympics team hostage before killing them. The carefully planned opening shot reflects the carefully planned attack we’re about to see play
“Snakes…why did it have to be snakes?” Indiana Jones’ fear of snakes is one of his defining characteristics, and it’s put to excellent use in the narrative of Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indy enters the Well of Souls and finds that it’s filled with hundreds of hissing cobras and pythons. However, as it turns out, neither Harrison Ford not Steven Spielberg are afraid of snakes, so it’s unclear where exactly this character quirk came from. It was a good thing for Ford and Spielberg, because it meant that they could focus on their work during the snake-infested sce
Raiders of the Lost Ark and the rest of Indy’s adventures were inspired by the pulp serial that Spielberg and Lucas enjoyed as kids, which explains the movies’ many anachronistic elements such as unintentional rac
A good example of this in Raiders of the Lost Ark is the prologue where Indy steals an idol from an indigenous tribe because his museum probably needed a new attraction . Even the Ark of the Covenant wasn’t spared, which by the end is just stashed somewhere in Area 51 despite it being a literal Biblical superwea
Both films do an exceptional job of delivering thrilling action sequences . With ambitious set-pieces and largely practical effects, these movies are still exciting to revisit today and marvel at what the filmmakers were able to pull
Raiders of the Lost Ark begins with a giant action scene of Indy trying to escape a temple that housed the Golden Idol. Indiana Jones almost gets crushed by rocks, trapped in the temple, has to outrun a giant boulder, and then runs for his life from the angry locals. Indy runs to a seaplane and they fly off, but things only got worse from there in real-l
Steven Spielberg’s original choice for the role of Sallah, Indy’s international contact who functions as the movie’s comic relief, was Danny DeVito. DeVito was interested in playing the role, but ultimately, the production conflicted with his shooting schedule for Taxi . John Rhys-Davies played Sallah in the end and, although DeVito would’ve done a fine job with the character – especially since he’s Raiders ’ comic relief and DeVito is hilarious – Rhys-Davies’ take on the character was great. Years later, when Raiders had inspired a long slew of copycats, DeVito played a similar comic relief character in a similar action-adventure movie, Romancing the Stone , alongside Michael Doug
The Cold War thriller Bridge of Spies opens with Rudolf Abel, technically the film’s antagonist, looking at himself in the mirror in his cramped New York apartment. As the camera pans out, we realize he’s trying to capture all of his own features in a self-portrait he’s painting. In a matter of seconds, Spielberg establishes that this is a mild-mannered man with a solitary existe
Legend has it that Steven Spielberg was considering directing a James Bond movie before George Lucas convinced him to take on an original hero instead. And Indiana Jones was certainly set apart from other big-screen heroes. He was smarter than the average good guy, and while he got beat-up often, he could handle himself in a fi
While it’s fun to see Indy beat up bad guys, he is first and foremost an archaeologist which is one of the most interesting aspects of the character. The Last Crusade is truly the movie where Indy’s intelligence as a scholar shines thro
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