I clearly haven’t watched enough Indiana Jones since I found your rating surprising, lukcydube56. Raiders of the Lost Arc is rated higher than ESB on Rotten Tomatoes and rated only slightly lower on IMDB.
Last time I saw that movie, I was probably 7 or 8 years old and have little flashes of scenes in my head. Damn.
Raiders is a damn near perfect “fun” action flick. It is a very good and well made film in its own right. But it doesn’t have those extra things that take a movie from very good to 10/10 for me. It doesn’t have the emotional depth of Star Wars, let alone Empire Strikes Back, and nothing as suspenseful as the trench run. It also lacks the creative originality of the galaxy far, far away.
That said, it is still a very well made and entertaining movie.
Everyone’s got their own criteria. According to some, intellectualism is the key to everything and Star Wars lacks enough of it to rate very high.
The original Star Wars is SO visceral and will always reconnect me to my childhood. What does that count for? To some, nothing. But to me it is why I will always hold it in my top 3 of all time.
Ok so Raiders doesn’t have nearly the number of emotional moments. And there are no deep intellectual aspects that you can wax scholarly and endlessly about. But in the aspects that it does choose to take on and emphasize, it is perfectly executed. To say Raiders is somewhat shallow (if I may paraphrase) is both true and irrelevant in the context of the film. It never set out to be a deep film experience. It is one of high adventure and in that regard it didnt fail in any way.