Grab your whip and your hat and slide into the newest pop culture conversation on this episode of the Entertainment Earth Pop Culture Show, “Plastic Soul!” Watch “Indiana Jones and the Missing Toys” here now!
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Plastic Soul: The Entertainment Earth Pop Culture Show.
I’m your host, Jason Lindsay. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love “Indiana Jones”. To be more specific – how much I love Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Indiana Jones and the Perfect Movie: Raiders of the Lost Ark
It’s a perfect movie. It’s in my top five of all time, has been for a very long time.
I think it is truly one of the few perfect movies. Every scene, every moment, it’s like “The Godfather” to me.
Like you could drop in at any moment in the film and still have a brilliant performance, a brilliant storyboarded sequence, the brilliant scene, cinematography, the music, the direction, the cast, the acting, the writing, just kind of firing on all cylinders.
I think, in my humble opinion, that it’s the best thing Spielberg has ever done.
I know, I know, controversial. There’s people out there that love all kinds of stuff of his and he’s obviously still a brilliant filmmaker, but I kind of think that “Jaws”, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” are the trifecta for him.
It doesn’t get much better than that.
And ‘Raiders’ is where I kind of think everything sort of came together.
Humanizing Indiana Jones
It’s got a darkness to it, the script is incredibly tight, the casting is perfect. And you know, Harrison Ford, he did the unthinkable – he took this persona that he sort of had when everyone thought they were going to get the same thing they got in the previous “Star Wars” films- gave us something more human.
People know Spielberg wanted this to be his James Bond film. He always wanted to direct a James Bond film – Lucas had the idea for the character and it all kind of went from there.
But the key to the character was always – it’s how human he was, how vulnerable he could be.
James Bond, we saw it, here and there in films where he was vulnerable or sort of could get hurt or injured or was really in jeopardy. But it sort of, by the time he got to 1981, it sort of became a bit of a cartoon.
Whereas Indiana Jones, when he got hit, he fell down – you felt it, you knew he was in pain.
I like the other ones to varying degrees, but mainly it’s about Harrison Ford.
The Complete Adventures Set
And so, I thought I would bring this out to show off. This is a U.K. edition of the Complete Adventures, all of the “Indiana Jones” films together in one volume, which is not that unusual.
They packaged them together all over the world. They just came out recently on Blu-ray or 4K or I don’t know, I don’t remember.
I think I’ve bought these films in every format, like from 16 millimeter to flip book to 4K. I’ve got about 75 different versions of each of these films, but this is a fun set.
I’m not sure a lot of people would know what this is. It’s not that common. It was out there, but it was a UK exclusive, it’s got all kinds of goodies inside.
It’s got reproduction, Matchbook from the Club Obi-Wan, it’s got some tickets from The Zeppelin. It’s got all kinds of stuff, a little bit of a diary, I think.
But it’s a fun thing to have in my collection.
Indiana Jones Toys
I used to have a massive Indiana Jones collection, like all the Kenner stuff, all the L.J.N. stuff, every book and record, every poster you can imagine – sold it all years ago. But I loved it, I gave it lots of love and it moved on.
Speaking of action figures, everyone knows about the Kenner figures and I’m sure most people have at least the German Mechanic or maybe Belloc in their collection somewhere because those were the common ones.
No, Tote! That was a common one.
But you know, everyone knows that Kenner did the “Adventures of Indiana Jones” line in ‘82 and ’83 and it didn’t do well, but it was a fun line. It was very cool.
L.J.N. did three figures for ‘Temple of Doom’, nothing for ‘Last Crusade’. And then when ‘Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ came out, Hasbro did a big push for action figures.
The problem was they weren’t that great. No offense. I’m glad we got stuff, but they just weren’t that great.
But as the series went on, by the time you got to the characters from ‘Last Crusade’ and ‘Temple of Doom’. The sculpts got much better, the ideas, the design was terrific. So that just kind of died a slow death.
In the years to follow, we really haven’t gotten anything either. The Disney Parks did these exclusive figures.
They did one of Indiana Jones just with a bunch of stuff from different movies. Then this one, that’s more ‘Temple of Doom’ centric that you can only get at the parks, and they’re 6 to 7 inch size like Star Wars Black, but there’s no Star Wars Black line.
Well recently, the first images came out for Indiana Jones 5 directed by James Mongol. But I put it to you that someone needs to do six-inch scale Star Wars Black style figures.
Hasbro, maybe we can get some kind of commemorative line that comes out in time for Indiana Jones 5, and I want ‘Raiders’ and I want ‘Temple of Doom’ and I want ‘Last Crusade’.
You can skip young Indiana Jones Chronicles, we really don’t need that. And you could probably skip ‘Crystal Skull’ too.
But just Indiana Jones, give me Indiana Jones, every which way and all the friends and all the villains and let’s get to it. Okay? So that’s what I’m kind of asking for.
In the meantime, enjoy the images of the U.K. DVD set, it’s a lot of fun.
I had trouble tracking it down, but I got it and now it’s collecting dust on my shelf. But what better way to show it off than to open it up and show it to you folks?
In the comments, maybe let me know what you think of Indiana Jones. What’s your favorite Indiana Jones film?
Do you think ‘Raiders’ is as perfect as I do? Do you have all the toys? Do you want more?
Should I stop talking? Let me know. No, be nice.
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Until we meet again, keep cracking the whip. We’ll see you soon.
