perpetual memory loss

Earlier this month, before my sojourn to Spain, Pheebs and I had a chance to check out Raiders of the Lost Ark in IMAX. I don’t remember seeing Raiders in theaters when I was a kid, so with this opportunity I made sure to make the time to go see Indie in all his IMAX glory.

After my initial nerdgasm I started to wonder about how a 30+ year old movie gets converted into IMAX, a technology that didn’t even exist at the time. Then I began to worry that one of my favorite movies was about to get ruined and that instead of Nazis there would be just random non-controversial villains, and that all guns would be digitally removed and replaced with bananas.

I’m happy to say that none of that is true. The asshole Nazis are still there, and Indy still shoots homeboy with the sword, then saunters off like Han Solo. The quality of the transfer I would put at a 4.5 out of 5. The only problem is within the first 10 minutes there were a few of the faces do a little Roger Rabbit buggly eyes but although it’s noticeable it’s fairly quick and not terrible. However, by the time the boulder starts rolling until the end credits I didn’t see anything that was weird, and I was completely swept away by the movie. Much more so than many modern films. So perhaps the first few minutes was just a bad transfer, or a problem with that particular reel.

This movie though is still one of the best, funnest movies around. Even though I know the whole thing forwards and backwards it is still a joy to watch over IMAX. Especially, the sequence where Indy fights the Nazi near the plane and subsequently goes after the truck that is carrying the ark. The truck scene is one of my all-time favorite scenes and is what every action movie should aspire to. For me that scene alone was worth the price of admission. I can’t wait to get my Indy blu-ray set and look forward to watching all three again in glorious blu-ray.

For more on Indy in IMAX check out our last episode of fivebeersin (last ten minutes), and our next episode will have even more about our individual Indy in IMAX experiences.

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