‘Raiders!’ – The Story of An Epic Remake Director Jeremy Koon tells the tale of a decades-long quest to recreate a beloved classic
Written by Eugene Rosenberg
While seemingly well-worn territory, Raiders! takes the familiar “making of a movie” documentary topic into a bold new dimension of meta-reference while fusing several contemporary popular cultural phenomena: homemade remakes of famous movies, the proliferation of viral videos, and growing dedication of genre fan bases. The film itself details the passions and challenges of its subjects over the span of three decades, initially as they remake the seminal Spielberg adventure film Raiders of the Lost Ark as teenagers in the 1980’s. They then unknowingly allow their film to go viral, quite a feat in a pre-Youtube era, before being discovered by film and video geeks and screened publically more than a decade after completing the film and losing track of one another as life sent them on radically different directions. Finally, after coming to the attention of Hollywood and Raiders! director Koons, the subjects reunite and return to their hometown as middle aged family men in 2015 with a singular goal – to film one final scene and complete the entire film shot for shot!
Koons’ documentary crew, follows the auteurs as they struggle with finances, professional and family obligations, and even mother nature to complete the legendary airplane scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Much to their disappointment, finances and parental interference forced them to leave the scene out of their otherwise complete scene for scene adaptation. Even as grown men with crowd-funding and a professional crew, the difficulty of constructing and demolishing a full size airplane presents the documentary with its framing device. Instead of simply producing a homemade video as they did in their teenage production, they resolve to use Hollywood production values and a professional crew. This further complicates an already challenging production, and much is made of how the stress of the contemporary shoot compares with the carefree days of their teenage production. Much like their original adaptation, wherein the actors age and change with each scene, the documentary intersperses scenes from their current production with those from the original adaptation, as well as many different interviews with local observers and interested parties, and of course scenes from the original film. The three degrees of separation from the original source material lends considerable insight into how individuals find inspiration and maintain dedication, the inventiveness of youth and sacrifices of age, and ultimately the nature of the creative process itself.
As director Koons declared after Saturday’s screening, “These guys did everything they could to make the best film they could from age ten [onward]. So naturally they produced their final scene as professionally as possible! And once they decided to do it, their commitment never waved, and that inspired me, my crew, and even Steven Spielberg himself!” From striking up a childhood friendship over the film, to dedicating seven consecutive summers to filming their amateur version, to meeting the famous director, and finally producing a final scene with full Hollywood production values, the documentary allows audiences to meta-cheer across three different films: the original Raiders, the Raiders adaptation, and Koon’s Raiders! documentary, all films that triumps along with the subjects and characters they portray.
Eugene Rosenberg is a writer based in Uptown Manhattan who has taught English and performance at several institutions in New York City, and spent a decade consulting and publishing in Asia. His writing can be found at https://palmhandstories.wordpress.com/
