Saturday evening my neighbor invited me over to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) on his outdoor inflatable screen.  My neighbor, his wife, his son, and I had a blast watching this classic under the stars.

Raiders is one of those films that has so many iconic scenes, I sometimes forget the actual order of events.  I experience the same sensation with the original Star Wars (1977) film, which I also watched outdoors with my neighbor and his family:  I know the broad strokes of the story and all of the memorable moments, but I am always amazed by how much I have forgotten between viewings.

I don’t know if anyone else experiences this sensation when watching these modern classics, but I think it accounts, in part, for their enduring freshness (even if Star Wars looks like the 1970s in a samurai-western space opera).  Every viewing feels, in a small way, like seeing the film for the first time.  I suspect it’s due in part to the young age at which I first saw these flicks, and the marked but incomplete impressions they left upon my young mind.

But enough navel-gazing!  Raiders stands the test of time, and I was reminded again how great Hollywood blockbusters used to be.

My older brother once pointed out that the Indiana Jones franchise really played all of its best cards early.  Raiders sees Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood tracking down the legendary Ark of the Covenant, the most important artifact of the ancient Hebrews.  Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) has Indy and company seeking out the Holy Grail, the Cup of Christ (let’s just forget about 1984’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, a film I personally enjoy, but which is somewhat of a letdown in the artifacts department; Indian stones don’t quite have the same archaeological “oomph” as the Ark and the Grail).  After that, what else is there?  A crystal skull?  BOOOOORING!

That’s not to say that the other films aren’t action-packed and fun, but Raiders is quintessential Indiana Jones.  It has all of the key elements:

• International globetrotting
• Indiana Jones being variously and humorously lucky and unlucky
• Indiana’s clever—often desperate—improvisation when things go sour
• Loads of Nazi bad guys, including that one really creepy dude whose face melts at the end
• Easily swayed and clearly-in-it-for-the-money Egyptian coolies
• Cool ancient artifacts and puzzle solving
• Brutal fist fights
• Government bureaucracy and obfuscation
• Heavy drinking
• Marion Ravenwood (clearly the best and most suitable of all of Indy’s love interests)

From start to finish every scene in Raiders is iconic:  from the boulder in the Peruvian temple to the Map Room sequence to the devastating opening of the Ark.  There are myriad others in between (like that brutal airplane fist fight).  George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were trying to capture the spirit of the old serial shorts, and really did so in Raiders:  you could split this film up into a dozen or so shorts and every one would be action-packed, with a nice cliffhanger on the end.

There’s also a payoff to everything in this flick.  When Indy first hops onto the plane in Peru and complains about how much he hates snakes, we know that’s going to come up—and it does when Indy finds himself trapped in a snake-filled treasure room, coming face-to-face—literally!—with a cobra.  Marion’s famous drinking scene in Nepal gets echoed later when she tries to outdrink the French archaeologist and pervert Belloq (and the humorous twist that Belloq is drinking his family’s label, implying he’s used to consuming large quantities of this alcohol).

There is a theory that, had Indiana Jones done nothing, the story would have played out the same—the Nazis would have taken the Ark to the remote island in the Mediterranean; Belloq would have performed the ritual; and everyone present would have been destroyed by God’s Power.  I do not subscribe to this theory, as it doesn’t hold up to even a casual viewing of the film.

For one, Indiana’s influence is key to discovering the Ark in the first place.  Because he is able to get a needed medallion from Marion and have it translated accurately, he is able to infiltrate the Map Room and find the exact location of the Treasure Room.  Belloq’s measurements were off because his staff was too short, and he and his men were digging in the wrong place (much to the chagrin of the Nazi’s on the scene).

Further, because of Indy’s intervention, the Nazis don’t get the medallion from Marion, which leads them to dig using an incomplete “copy” of the medallion on the creepy Nazi’s hand.  That delays the Nazis long enough for Indiana to find the true location of the Ark.  That, ironically, turns the Ark over to the Nazis eventually, but it’s questionable whether or not they would have ever found it.

Finally, had Indy not been involved, the Nazis likely would have killed Marion in Nepal and stolen the medallion.  A major character would have died in the process.  Maybe the rest of the events would have played out the same way, but a very important component of the story would have been lost:  Indiana Jones’s character arc (no pun intended) of repairing his relationship with Marion.  Throughout the film, Indy makes multiple sacrifices to keep Marion alive, even if he temporarily has to leave her in the hands of the Nazis (and, at one point, believes she has died in an explosion for which he was responsible).

If the theorists are correct—and I don’t think they are—it doesn’t matter.  The story is about the journey, not the destination.  Indy and Marion grow over the course of the story, healing old wounds and becoming an impressive team.  As the audience, we get to see all the awesome scenes that allow that growth and healing to occur.

Another point:  Marion Ravenwood is what a “strong female character” should look like.  She is tough and feisty, but still feminine and vulnerable.  She can swig whiskey and gun down a truckload of Nazis without a second thought, but she isn’t flawless, and her abilities are limited and realistic.  She saves Indiana Jones on some occasions, and Indy saves her as well.  She is still a woman—and it’s very clear that the villains view her as a piece of meat to exploit for their own purposes (like the tramp steamer captain who wants to keep Marion so he can sell her into white slavery; even the Nazis find this prospect disgusting).  Indiana Jones didn’t treat her right in the past, but he cares about her and protects her now.

I can’t know what it was like to see Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981, but my first girlfriend‘s (an archaeologist now, of all things!) dad explained it to me many years ago.  He said when the trailers came out, nobody knew anything about it.  “Indiana who?  Whosiana Jones?”  But when they went to see it in the theaters, everyone was blown away.

Those of us born after a certain date (like yours portly) can’t appreciate that mystery, excitement, and newness.  It’s a testament to Raiders‘s staying power that it still remains mysterious, exciting, and fresh to this day.