Indiana Jones

This weekend was spent on Indiana Jones.

With Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull out in the theatres, being someone who grew up watching the archaeologist's adventures, we decided that we needed to catch the latest instalment of the series, as well as refresh ourselves on the past episodes.

So we went to the movies, caught the latest one on the big screen, and also got ourselves a copy of the trilogy at the local DVD store. And went through the first three episodes over the weekend.

Did you know, that while the order the films was made was "Raiders of the Lost Ark", "The Temple of Doom" followed by "The Last Crusade", in terms of story time, "The Temple of Doom" comes first, taking place in 1935, followed by "Raiders of the Lost Ark" set in 1936, then "The Last Crusade" set in 1938. The Last Crusade has a few references to the earlier movies and tried to explain some of the background of our hero, such as why Indy hates snakes and how he got his fedora hat.

What is so catching about Indiana Jones? Well, the story may be simple, there may not be as many clues and puzzles compared to The Da Vinci Code or the National Treasures series. But it is full of action, action that is thrilling and when viewed on the big screen, makes you feel nervous for our hero as well. The "roller coaster" rides, the car chases, escaping certain death, falling from great heights, etc. all make the Indy movies so much more exciting compared to those "solve the puzzle" movies.

Of the 4 movies, the most interesting to me was "The Temple of Doom", with its dark themes of human sacrifice, slavery and cult worship. Being set in India, within a castle, also made it more interesting than cave crawling.

Well, don't just sit there, go watch the movie!