What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Raiders of the Lost Ark? The hat? The theme tune? The weird Chinese boy whose presence hasn't really dated very well? No, not that last one, he was in the next film. But the point is this: Raiders of the Lost Ark, the film that introduced Indiana Jones to a grateful planet, was born a fully formed classic. The film is almost perfect, right from its gloriously protracted opening all the way to its ironic, almost downbeat ending.
Dreamed up in the all too brief post-Empire Strikes Back/pre-Howard the Duck golden era of George Lucas's career, Indiana Jones was envisioned as a freewheeling homage to pulpy wartime serials like The Lone Ranger and Hawk of the Wilderness. The casting of Harrison Ford was nothing short of a masterstroke – allowing him to play a more conventional hero than he'd been able to in Star Wars, but still leaving plenty of room for his world-weary cynicism.
Raiders of the Lost Ark is a film from a different era; a Boys-Own era when you were still allowed to have cartoonish Nazis for villains and the phrase "produced by George Lucas" didn't inspire sleepless nights and palpitations. There's romance, there's adventure, there are world-class death scenes and there's definitely no sign of Shia LaBeouf getting chased about by some big ants in the jungle.
