the Raiders trilogy: review

On impulse, I purchased the first three Indiana Jones movies, which I think of as the definitive Raiders trilogy before money-grubbing Hollywood got greedy and made both a fourth and a fifth installment (I still haven't seen the fifth and would like to keep it that way). The first three movies, all starring Harrison Ford from back when he was cool, spanned the 80s: "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (later retitled in some circles as "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark," but my Apple TV version carries the original title) came out in 1981; "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" came out in 1984, and "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" came out in 1989, the same year as Michael Keaton's "Batman" and a host of other good, memorable movies. I rewatched all three movies over the past couple of days to see how 2020s Kevin would react to them compared to 1980s Kevin who went through junior high and high school during the 1980s (high school was 1983-1987).

A summary of the trilogy might go like this: Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is a capable, worldly 30-something college professor of archaeology who goes on adventures all over the world as he looks for various relics to store in museums. The first three movies focus on old, religious relics: the Ark of the Covenant in the first movie, a Şankara stone in the second movie, and the Holy Grail in the third movie. Indy has faithful friends in Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott), who works at his university; and Sallah (John Rhys-Davies), the "best digger in Egypt." He has a series of love interests, too: in the first movie, it's Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), who is the daughter of his mentor Abner Ravenwood; in the second movie, it's Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw), a singer; in the third movie, it's Dr. Elsa Schneider (Alison Doody), a fellow archaeologist who also happens to be a Nazi. In each film, there are chases, fight scenes, and turnovers as various people gain and lose possession of the religious items in question, but in the third movie, the formula is slightly altered so that the Holy Grail remains something the principals must quest for before they finally find it.

It's been said that the character of Indiana Jones was conceived by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas as a sort of American response to James Bond, another globe-trotting adventurer. All the films show the imprints of Spielberg's cinematic style, from swooping camera work to zooming facial closeups to characters frozen in place as they yell or scream or significantly gesture. Some have called Spielberg's direction rather obvious and on-the-nose, not to mention mushily sentimental, but he spawned dozens of disciples who share his style, ranging from Robert Zemeckis to JJ Abrams. And Spielberg, active since the 70s with films like "Jaws" (1975), definitely put his stamp on 80s and 90s movies, like it or not.

The three movies are in the swashbuckling spirit of the sort of matinée adventure films that charmed George Lucas in his youth, and from the politically correct perspective of the 2020s, some of the Raiders trilogy's action and dialogue are almost embarrassing to watch and listen to these days. I found this to be especially true with "Temple of Doom," both in the way Willie Scott sounded (screechy, complaining, superficial, damsel-in-distress-y—who does nevertheless come through for our male leads on several occasions) and in how she was treated, what with Indy calling her "doll," "sweetheart," etc., and even little Short Round taking after Indy and calling her "doll" even if he might not have known what the epithet meant. In "Temple," Indy is poisoned in an early scene, and a supposedly comic moment has him drunkenly punching a cigarette girl. This qualified as funny in 1984, I guess; the poor girl was cannon fodder for the surrounding action.

But for all the derision directed at Spielberg, one thing he normally does very well is human relationships. Watching "Raiders of the Lost Ark" reminded me of how perfect the chemistry between Indy and the feisty Marion was (I admit I also had a major crush on the radiant Karen Allen). In the second movie, there was little to no chemistry between Indy and Willie; the two seemed to grow fond of each other too quickly, and mainly as a reaction to the stress of their adventure; one can imagine them both sobering up post-adventure and going their separate ways. Kate Capshaw, who ended up marrying Spielberg in 1991 after meeting him on set during the filming of "Temple of Doom" (they're still married), is also a strong feminist who chafed at her character's traits, and in this case, I'd say she was right to do so. Neither Willie Scott nor her treatment has aged very well; both Marion (first film) and Elsa (third film) were stronger, more solid, more dimensional characters. That said, the second movie's portrayal of the relationship between Indy and his pre-teen companion Short Round (Ke Huy Kwan, who starred in "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once") was warm and touching. In the third movie, while Indy and Elsa shared a betrayal dynamic when Elsa proved to be a Nazi, Indy's relationship with his long-lost dad Henry Jones (Sean Connery, only twelve years older than Harrison Ford) was the most likable thing about Indy.

On the question of likability: my friend Steve doCarmo once griped that the Indiana Jones of the third film isn't very likable at all, but as I watched all three films together, I could see that his unlikability spans all three movies. In "Raiders," Indy meets Marion and has obviously had a sexual relationship with her back when she'd been dangerously young and possibly underage. Indy dismisses her anger by accusing her of knowing perfectly well what she'd been doing. In "Temple of Doom," when Indy first meets Willie, he gets poisoned by a Chinese gangster and threatens to kill her if he's not given a vial of antidote. Later on at the end of the same movie, Indy uses his whip to grab Willie's waist and keep her from storming off. In "The Last Crusade," Indy sneaks into Berlin to get his dad's diary back, takes it from Elsa and grabs her by the throat, grating, "All I have to do is squeeze." We could read that behavior as rooted in his hatred of Nazis, but we could also read the casualness of the throat-grabbing as evidence of his true attitude toward women.

We must, of course, avoid the trap of using current standards to judge older stories and works—a caution you often hear in academe when discussing, say, religious scriptures and legends and their portrayal of certain holy figures and motivations. A particularly touchy subject for Muslims, for example, is the question of Muhammad, a seventh-century figure, and his pedophilia (as moderns would style it): the Prophet was in his fifties when he married Aisha, who was around 6 or 7; some accounts say they had sex when she was about 9, an act that is, to say the least, viewed with disgust in many cultures today. That's a radical example; by comparison, the political incorrectness of the Raiders films looks relatively minor even if it's not exactly excusable.

Karen Allen as Marion; Harrison Ford as Dr. Indiana "Indy" Jones

Rewatching "Raiders of the Lost Ark" reminded me of all sorts of moments: Indy's rival Belloq (Paul Freeman) eating that fly near the end of the movie; Marion wearing that thin, silky nightgown that left nothing of Karen Allen's body to the imagination during that scene on the Bantu Wind when the Nazis board it; Ronald Lacey's Arnold Toht (tot is German for "dead") doing the Sieg Heil gesture with a burned palm; that ending scene with angry angels, sacred lightning, and a pillar of fire. Of course, these days, "Raiders" is also known for the "Big Bang Theory" story criticism that the presence of Indiana Jones in the story does nothing to affect the outcome: whether or not Jones is there, the Nazis do end up acquiring the Ark, and it's God or some sort of divine force or forces that kill all of the Nazis and purify the island. This is, when you think about it, a major flaw of the story, or maybe it isn't: taken theologically, maybe it's a statement about the smallness of any one individual in the face of large events. "Raiders" is also full of continuity errors, many of which got pointed out to me during the VHS era by a movie-geek friend of mine who happened to own a copy of "Raiders" and had seen it enough times that he had combed through its details. The bar fight in Nepal is riddled with mistakes, for example: Indy's pistol switches from a revolver to an automatic and discharges way too many bullets; in the beginning sequence in Peru, Indy's back is covered with tarantulas (seen in shadow) long before Satipo (Alfred Molina, in his first movie role and long before he was Doctor Octopus; Harrison Ford calls his character "Sapito" by mistake) sees the spiders and discovers that he, too, is covered with them. Interestingly, two actors in "Raiders" have two roles: one was Vic Tablian, who played both Barranca at the beginning of the movie (he ends up riddled with poison darts) and the "monkey man" with the eyepatch in the middle of the film. The other was Pat Roach, known for playing bruisers; he was the large Sherpa who attacks Indy in Nepal and throws him around, and he was the bald, burly German mechanic who fights Indy under the flying wing and gets chopped up by a propeller.

Indy faces off against Thuggee forces commanded by evil priest Mola Ram (Amrish Puri)

"Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" left me with mixed feelings as I pondered how unwontedly PC I've become over the years. Willie Scott is definitely an unsatisfying female character, and the portrayal of Chinese and Indian people (the Indian characters, especially the minor ones, were mostly Sri Lankans because Americans Can't Tell and They All Look and Sound the Same to Us) left much to be desired. Indian culture also came in for a drubbing; 80s-era Americans very likely left this movie thinking that Indians engage in human sacrifice; that the goddess Kali is evil and associated with the Indian occult; and that Indians have a hankering for eyeball soup, giant beetles, eel-stuffed snakes, and monkey brains. To its credit, since the time frame of the movie is during the Raj (British occupation of India from the 1850s to 1947), the film shows some Indian characters expressing resentful sarcasm toward some British officials. Aside from that, Indian culture, except for the blighted village that had lost its sacred Şankara stone, comes off as spooky and weird. That sacred stone, by the way, is called Şivalinga in the movie, or basically, "Şiva's penis" as lingam is the Sanskrit word for "phallus." Phallic imagery is, of course, found in many if not most cultures; in the Hindu context, it normally represents the male creative force, and the god Şiva (one of whose epithets is Şankara, but in the movie, Şankara is a priest who talks to Şiva) is both creator and destroyer. The stone also has three lines across it "representing the three levels of the universe" according to Indy—or, really, of one's spiritual or mental state, to wit: sattva (loftiest, most spiritual, blissful, exalted), rajas (passionate, dynamic), and tamas (the most earthly, crude, ignorant, lazy, and unexalted). The Indian actors who played villains in this film were very good sports to do so; I wonder what they thought of the final product. I understand that the actor who portrayed the Hindu priest for the poor village, DR Nanayakkara, was a Sri Lankan who learned his English lines phonetically.

Dr. Indiana Jones, a.k.a. Henry Jones Jr., with Dr. Henry Jones Sr. (Sean Connery)

"Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" drops us back in an unrepentantly Western context with plenty of Latin and medievalism thrown our way, plus hints and images pointing to the Middle East, most powerfully at the movie's conclusion when everyone converges on the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, which sounds vaguely Muslim even though Islam is never once mentioned. While I enjoyed the prickly but increasingly warm dynamic between Harrison Ford's Indy and Sean Connery's Henry Jones, my one major disappointment with this movie was how it turned the character of Marcus Brody into a bumbling, confused, possibly senile fool. Brody gets a good run for about half the film, acting intelligently as an encouraging support for Indy and coming up with useful insights, as we'd expect from a respected scholar. But once we transition into more action, Brody becomes almost completely useless and serves as little more than comic relief for the rest of the film. In fact, if you watch the fourth movie, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," one action scene ends with the statue of Marcus Brody—now deceased but memorialized on campus—having its head "comically" knocked off. That moment actually elicited simultaneous sadness and anger in me: Brody's memory deserved better.

All three movies' flaws aside, the films are still quite entertaining, with "Temple of Doom" probably producing the most discomfort in modern times. And please don't consider any of these films to be templates for pursuing a career in archaeology; Indy and friends often casually commit murder, vehicular theft, and various desecrations during their escapades. Spielberg's editing, which was considered lightning-fast at the time, keeps the pace and action lively, and there are still moments of hilarity both in terms of visuals and of dialogue. As a trilogy, the first three Indiana Jones films hold together fairly well, although once again, "Temple of Doom" has aged the least well. Kids: don't use bullwhips to keep your ladies from storming away. But if you can get past the un-PC moments, these movies will put a smile on your face and make you remember a simpler time.

One last thing I need to talk about as a former student of religion is that it's strongly implied, over the course of three films, that the universe of Indiana Jones is religiously pluralistic. The Ark has power; the Şankara stones have power; the Holy Grail has power. This could be taken to affirm the actual reality of Judaism, Hinduism, and Christianity (how that's possible is something for you to work out on your own), or it could merely imply that, in all three cases, a certain mana (generic term for divine power*) is at work everywhere in the world, so we're caught between divergent (many divine essences coexisting) and convergent (common essence) pluralism. It would have been interesting to see Indy explore other old religions, and not just the major ones: aboriginal, island, etc. would also have been nice, not to mention other significant religions like Taoism, Islam, Shinto, etc. But we have the films we have, and I choose to ignore the final two films in the five-film set; for me, the sacred Indiana Jones canon consists of only three movies, and all of them are still around to be enjoyed.

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*The term mana originally comes from a proto-Polynesian or Maori concept for divine power that proved useful to Western scholars as a generic descriptor for sacred forces found across many different cultures. Whether this constitutes a misuse of the term as a label is a matter for discussion and beyond the scope of this review. By the same token, the word Hinduism was originally more an artifact of Western scholarship than a label used by Indians and other South Asians. The term was later embraced by Indians, but more for its political significance re: the idea of a "Hindu people" as a politically potent bloc.