INDIANA JONES - THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES: BLU-RAY DELUXE BOX SET
Out now from PARAMOUNT HOME ENTERTAINMENT
Reviewed by Ian Trussler
Being
a massive Indiana Jones fan (second
only to Star Wars, of course) I
decided to treat myself to the deluxe box set of the Blu-ray release. Here is my
run down and opinion of what you get for your money.
Housed
in a nice sturdy box made to look like an old leather bound book, as well as
the obvious Blu-ray films set (more on those later) you also get a very nice
selection of extra artifacts. This is what's included:
Reproduction
Grail Diary containing
drawings and notes etc as seen in The
Last Crusade, but also expanded to include Indy's notes and newspaper
clippings relating to all his adventures.
Reproduction
Shield rubbing from
The Last Crusade
Reproduction
photo of
young Indy and Henry Jones Senior (Last
Crusade)
Reproduction
Zeppelin tickets in
false names (Last Crusade)
Reproduction
Match book from
Club Obi Wan (Temple of Doom)
Reproduction
Menu for
the dinner at Pankot Palace (Temple of
Doom)
Reproduction
Airline Ticket from
San Francisco to Kathmandu (Raiders)
Photo
of Indy taken
on Sallah's terrace, inscribed by Marion (Raiders)
Set of
4 Postcards featuring
behind the scenes pictures, one from each movie
Card
Mounted Film Cell -
mine shows Indy confronting the cobra from Raiders
 |
| On location in Tunisia, Harrison Ford takes a break before Indy's action filming begins again. |
On to
the movies now, the main attraction here is that the original three films have
never been available in high definition before and they don't disappoint in the
visual stakes. Each film looks glorious, having been spruced up for this
release. Visually not much has changed to the content, Raiders has an updated matte painting from the scene during the
truck chase, where the Nazi jeep goes over the cliff. This new moment has been known
about for a long time as the UK’s BBC has actually aired a prior unreleased
Blu-ray version of the film on and off these past few years. Temple of Doom looks particularly good
on Blu-ray due to the rich colours used for many of the Thuggee cult scenes, the
opening production number in Club Obi Wan, and the Pankot Palace dinner. UK fans also finally get the long-desired uncut version of Temple of Doom, which
contains the extended scene where Mola Ram plucks out the heart of one of his victims, then converts Indy to cause, and additionally the moment when both Indy and
Short Round are whipped mercilessly. Presumably cut as it featured Short Round
being tortured, it seems odd that the rest of the movie, showing the village
children being whipped regularly by the Thuggee guards in the mines, survives
unscathed. This scene is also notable as it contains the only example of Indy
swearing in any of the movies. One downside to the high definition is on The Last Crusade, much like Return of the Jedi, some of the blue
screen effects seemed rushed on original release and jarred even in the late
eighties. Those scenes look even worse on Blu-ray, the bi-plane scene in particular
looks very bad now and really could have done with improving. Crystal Skull has already had a Blu-ray
release and does look superb, but, when viewed in order, the difference in
style between the late great Douglas Slocombe (Director of Photography on the
original three films) and Janusz Kaminski (Director of Photography on Crystal Skull) is very noticeable.
Slocombe (one of the true greats of cinema) created a rich and deep colour
field favouring very naturalistic lighting whilst Kaminski uses more muted
tones and at times creates an almost artificial look.
 |
| Steven Spielberg has fun with Karen Allen and Harrison Ford directing the finale to RAIDERS. |
Although
almost unchanged visually, the original three films do seem to have had their
soundtracks altered. It could possibly be the sound mix, but I am pretty
certain that some scenes have little extra bits of dialogue added in. George
Lucas has done this sort of thing before with the Star Wars Trilogy, changing lines of dialogue and making use of
alternate takes from ADR sessions, mostly to the films detriment in my opinion.
On the Indy films it's not a big deal but on first viewing it did make me sit
up and think to myself, "Oh, that
didn't used to be in there, that's different."
The
films aside, one of the biggest draws of this set has to be the bonus disc. This
is a somewhat disappointing mixed bag of new material and a lot of rehashed
stuff from previous releases.
The
best extra is an all-new hour long feature called On Set with Raiders of
the Lost Ark. Made up of two half-hour features that can be played back
to back or individually, called respectively "From Jungle to Desert" and
"From Adventure to Legend", this is comprised entirely of on-set
footage from the various sets and locations of Raiders of the Lost Ark, edited in chronological order of the movie
scenes and not necessarily the order in which they were filmed during
production. This is excellent, showing great on-set interviews with all the
main cast and crew, insights into the problems with the production and even
better it features many deleted scenes, such as extra traps during the opening
scenes with Indy and Satipo, the full Cairo Swordsman scene with Harrison Ford
and stuntman Terry Richards, comic scenes between Sallah and Nazi officers, and
at last an explanation as to why there is a sleeping Arab digger slumped in the
scene when Indy and Marion escape the Well of Souls. It would have been nice if
Spielberg had allowed a proper, separate selection of deleted scenes on the disc
but as he has been quite vocal about his dislike of including deleted scenes on
disc releases, so we should be grateful for at least getting this.
Unfortunately, what makes it worse is that although this feature is only about Raiders, under the credits we get tiny
fragments of outtakes and deleted scenes from Temple of Doom and The Last
Crusade.
 |
| Ford and young Ke Huy Quan have fun in Sri Lanka for INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM. |
After
this new feature everything else is re-hash. We do get the previously available
on VHS and shown on TV, original 1981 Making
of Raiders which is good for those that don't have it. Interestingly, on
this feature, the original VHS tape and TV broadcast featured a song called Memories, Friends and 8x10's which references a quote made by stuntman
Terry Leonard during on-set footage of the truck chase. Sadly, this song is
absent from the Blu-ray version, perhaps due to legal issues/copyright
clearances, although the credits still list it and credit the writer and
performer. It would have been nice if we could have had all the other vintage
Making of’s, too, as there are several: another for Raiders called Great Movie
Stunts – Raiders of the Lost Ark
which was released on VHS as a double bill with the original Making of. Frank
Marshall’s Making of Temple of Doom is also sadly missing, along with three different documentaries on The Last Crusade, one of which has previously been a VHS release in the USA.
 |
| Sean Connery adds some ingenious father/son comedy to the mix in INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE. |
Everything
else is pulled from previous box sets of the original three films and from the Crystal Skull individual releases.
Modern Making of’s for all four movies, featurettes on Stunts, Music, Props,
Locations, a very short American Film Institute interview with the three Indy
girls, and some other fluff.
The
movies themselves only have one special feature which is the trailers for each
respective film. Raiders being the
best, featuring three vintage trailers for the first run and for a re-release.
 |
| Old dogs with new tricks. Spielberg and Ford return for one last (?) time in INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL. |
So all
in all, a nice set but disappointing in the amount of new content in regards to
the extras.
My
ratings would be:
Raiders of the Lost Ark Blu-ray transfer: 10/10
Temple of Doom transfer: 10/10
The Last Crusade transfer: 8/10
Crystal
Skull transfer: 9/10
On Set with Raiders of the Lost Ark: 10/10
Other
extras: 6/10
Overall
set rating: 8/10
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