INDIANA JONES AND THE RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK Reaction | FIRST TIME WATCHING

If you care to hear the opinion of a stubborn purist, the first movie didn't have Indiana Jones in the title. It's just The Raiders of the Lost Ark. As happens so often these days, the powers that be feel they have to retrofit the title to more associate a popular movie with the franchise that grew from it.

It's so weird to me seeing adults not knowing these movies. I keep forgetting I have kids your age and they don't either! Holy hell, I feel old!

Young people today (say, under 50) and many reactors don’t understand that this movie was conceived as a tribute to the B adventure movies and serials that George Lucas loved when growing up. It mimics the breakneck pace, variety, cliffhangers, and carefree gaps in logic of those old films. For example, when Indy says, “I’m making this up as I go,” you folks didn’t react at all. When I saw this in the theater in 1981, the audience roared with laughter, because many of us understood that this was the spirit of those old serials. Those of us younger than George Lucas had seen some of them on TV in the 1960s. The revelation of the Ark’s power was explicitly prefigured early in the movie with the illustration and discussion of the “lightning” (or death ray if you prefer). Your bafflement at the final, iconic scene is because you missed the joke that everyone recognized in 1981. In the years just before this movie appeared, huge controversy had raged concerning excessive government secrecy. It was a standing joke that the government had tons of secrets squirreled away in some warehouse. Audiences then loved that ending.

thats what makes indiana and marcus so honorable in this movie, they just want to get the artifacts for historical significance and he truly does give it allto the museum

Why "so weird" about the "I love you" scene? What shocked you about this simple little comic moment?

By the way, the actor who licks the poison in the beginning of the movie, is Doc Octopus in Spiderman movies.

I find it surprising that many reactors do not pick up on the scar of the headpiece in the hand of the Gestapo guy: That's where the Nazis got the copy of the headpiece. But since they only had the front half, as only the front half had burned itself into the hand, they did not know that their staff of Ra was too long.

Indy´s friend, Sallah, it´s played by John Rhys Davies; who also played the dwarf Gimli in Lord of The Rings trilogy.

This movie is ALL practical effects and live stunts. Absolutely amazing.

Watching their generation watch this stuns me as to how much of the movie is actually lost on them. So many things that were just common knowledge and you would instantly get it. I guess too much of a disconnect of culture and things lost in just a few short generations.

As a long time Spielberg and Harrison Ford fan, this is one of my favorite movies. To me, it will always be just Raiders of the Lost Ark. The "Indiana Jones and the" was added after the sequels were released. Everyone always asks why Satipo tasted the poison. The blow dart was likely coated with snake venom. Venom can be toxic if injected into the tissue, under the skin, or into the bloodstream. It has little to no effect in the stomach. Swallowing a tiny amount wouldn't have harmed him. The call letters on the seaplane at the beginning of the film were OB-CPO. Images of C-3PO and R2-D2 can be seen among the hieroglyphs on a wall in the Well of Souls. The scene with the swordsman was written as a long, choreographed fight scene, but Ford, as well as most of the rest of the cast and crew, had developed dysentery and couldn't stand for more than fifteen minutes at a time. They tried several times to film it as written, but couldn't make it work. So they changed it, and an iconic scene was born. Spielberg originally included the coat hanger gag in his film 1941, but it was cut after it received no laughs during early screenings. He vowed to include it in every movie he made until it worked, and this was it. Ford ad-libbed the line "It's not the years, honey, it's the milage." (not included in this reaction) Spielberg is known for giving his actors permission to improvise. The first sequel (prequel, really), The Temple of Doom, is, in my opinion, the worst of the franchise (though I haven't seen the last one yet). The Last Crusade is at least as good as this one, plus it costars Sean Connery. The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull isn't nearly as bad as the haters say, even though it does costar Shia LaBeouf.

No, the Boulder, which is made of lightweight fiberglass never ran over Harrison Ford. I saw it when it was released. The film was originally called "Raiders of the Lost Ark" but George Lucas thought his audience was stupid and added the words, Indiana Jones to the beginning of each film. He did the same with Star Wars. The first film was actually just titled "Star Wars" but he back and added, "A New Hope". I was 26.

Just FYI - the next three films... Temple of Doom is a prequel, set in 1935 (one year prior) - Last Crusade is 1938, and Crystal Skull is 1957. I love that you called the monkey man, Monkey Man. That's his name in the end credits!!!

Just called RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.

One Sunday morning in the spring of 1981, I saw a small ad for a sneak preview of some movie called Raiders of the Lost Ark. The title was weird and then I aw it was by George Lucas AND Stephen Spielberg so I was all in. It was in the middle of the afternoon and the theater was empty except for one other guy who sat down close to the front. I was immediately captivated by this almost as much as I had been for Star Wars a few years before. When it got to the submarine scene I realized that my jaw hurt from being simultaneously hung open in amazement and clenched in dread for an hour and a half! It would be many weeks before advertisements started playing for Raiders, but I spent the entire time up until opening telling everyone I knew what an amazing movie it was.

Who gives a shit about special effects? 1981 had better movie making than 2024. CG doesn't make a movie better.

MY God ... today's people have to have a say on everything. Just take it as an adventure movie as it was meant to be and stop having so many stupid opinions as seeing it through today's warped world !

These are based on the cereal comics from back in the day. Real down and dirt, nitty gritty fast paced like you already assessed. Good stuff guys...

10:03 - That joke is cleverer than most people realize..."eye" love you. 😆

"Raiders of the Lost Ark": An homage to 1930's cliff hanger movies, with enough stunts for THREE such movies. Marion Ravenwood, Indy's equal, who could drink a Neaderthal under the table but was all Woman. This movie convinced a generation of college students to "dig in the dirt" as now-Cool Archeologists. Yep, you could say I liked "Dr. Henry Jones, Jr." from the start.;)