retro trailer: ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’
Take a look back at an old trailer...
Interesting... this trailer actually features music from the actual score of the movie. That never happens, at least not in recent years. You’ll often hear music from another movie, an older movie, over a trailer for a different film, because trailers are typically cut today before a movie is even finished (and the score would be one of the last elements to be finalized). So what was the deal here, I wonder...
But this music... this music is the music of my love of movies. This is the movie that made me realize that movies were gonna have to be my life, that I had no choice in the matter. Damn you, Steven Spielberg.
Interesting, too, how little action there is in this trailer. A trailer cut today for this flick would be all action, no philosophy, no talk of God. It would be all Nazis screaming and the Flying Wing exploding and Indy’s bullwhip and Marion yelling, “I was a child, I was in love!” and slapping Indy. There’s a little bit of that here, but not much.
Ah, there’s something I could fill my time with, if I had time: Making new trailers for old movies. You know, This is how Hollywood would try to sell Indy to us today...
Raiders of the Lost Ark is available on DVD in Region 1 and Region 2.
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comments
posted by Gail (Sat Oct 17 09, 6:01PM)
Great trailer. Oh, but Marion punches. She never slaps.
posted by the rook (Sat Oct 17 09, 6:06PM)
for example, today hollywood would sell "the shining" as a warm hearted family picture...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfout_rgPSA
posted by Grinebiter (Sun Oct 18 09, 6:59AM)
Yes indeed, the Raiders trailer was more of a coherent introduction to the story than a recipe for a headache. But my, do musical tastes differ. I can't stand that frantic type of score, whether then or now. That might be a question of the day, in fact: the movies that don't have scores at all. Can't think of them at the moment, but I'm sure I've watched some.
Rook: that alternative Shining trailer was really something. Reminded me a bit of the way "The Day After Tomorrow" made the end of the world into a Pop-and-Junior bonding movie. :-)
posted by LISA (Sun Oct 18 09, 9:49AM)
a modern trailer definitely would have shown the scene where Indy shots the guy with the big sword and the whole wrath of God scene at the end
why don't they make movies like this anymore?
the last movie I enjoyed in the same way (that thrilled me watching it) was The Matrix
posted by Tonio Kruger (Sun Oct 18 09, 12:20PM)
Apparently because everyone knows that adventure movies don't sell. And that any movie that isn't designed to sell more tickets than the top ten most successful films of all time isn't worth producing...
posted by Ryan (Sun Oct 18 09, 12:22PM)
Ah, quite possibly the best movie ever made.
I really can't stand that voice over guy in the trailer, though, especially when he double clutches on 'RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK' in his most robotic monotone twice at the end.
posted by JoshDM (Mon Oct 19 09, 12:11PM)
Oh man, I totally forgot about that Shining trailer.
posted by LaSargenta (Mon Oct 19 09, 12:55PM)
Oh. My God. That is an amazing trailer for The Shining. WWSKD?
And, I forgot how great the trailer was for Raiders. It reminds me of the bits of the movie that Spielberg put in with the plane flying over the map ... and did he have calender pages being flipped through by a wind? I remember some interview I read with him when it came out where he said he was trying to make a 1930's Saturday Afternoon Matinee Serial in a movie -- and the trailer works in that, too, right down to the stentorious monotone.
posted by Brian (Mon Oct 19 09, 2:11PM)
Ah, those were the days. When Harrison Ford still gave a damn, and Lucas, Spielberg, and Williams were firing on all cylinders.
@LaSargenta: Yeah, Indy happened at the unique intersection in time when Spielberg wanted to do a Bond movie, but Lucas brought him the Saturday matinee hero he'd dreamed up . . . then with Lawrence Kasdan providing the Howard Hawks/Billy Wilder-esque snappy patter and a dash of Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the whole thing just fell together in a way that was so much better than the sum of its inspirations.
There's actually a scanned set of the transcribed Raiders story meeting notes between those three guys floating around the 'nets somewhere. It's compelling reading.