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The Adventures of Indiana Jones (Raiders of the Lost Ark/The Temple of Doom/The Last Crusade) - Widescreen Customer Reviews (85 - 87 of 140 Reviews)

WOW!
I bought the Widescreen Indiana Jones boxed set as the very first DVDs for my new dvd player - a nothing fancy Sony DVP -NS325.
Luckily, I didn't have any of the problems with any of the discs as being reported by some consumers. This may be a "batch" problem. I must say if it doesn't get edited that I purchased my Raiders set from a local retailer not Amazon.

The set contains some of the most entertaining movies ever made, brought up to 21st century standards for visual and audio quality. Then some of the most in depth, behind the scenes info was put on a separate FOURTH disc.
I've kept my review brief after the hundreds of other reviewers insightful comments. What more is there to say? This is a MUST HAVE set of some of the best films in history. Add the modern processes of transferring images and sound to a disc playable on home equipment that rivals any movie house showing - SIMPLY ASTOUNDING!

John Row

Indy at its best
This DVD collection is one of the best around. Okay some may complain that they wanted the movies separately but as a Trilogy you know you got to see this 3 movies. Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Those 3 are the action/adventures movie that inspire several others franchises which in one way or the other just got copying Indy's adventures.

Raiders of the Lost Ark, is the best, it captures the spirit of the serials of the 30's.

Temple of Doom is the less good of the 3, is a very dark movie and no wonder inspired the PG-13 rating

Last Crusade is more tongue in cheek flick, it has a lot of moments which copy from the other 2 movies. But it has good action scenes.

We must remember that these movies are from the 80's, the SFX are good and pretty avant garde for movies of this era, no wonder it was created by George Lucas the genius behind Star Wars and directed by Steve Spielberg, so this collaboration is a cornerstone in movie history.

The DVD collection is well done with a lot of graphics on the menu screen and cool stuff.

A 4th DVD disc is for the extras: trailers, documentaries, cast and crew interviews. It's an interesting stuff, and you can see its OLD, with flickers and everything, I think it gives value to the documentary rather otherwise. Overall is a good collection.

The downfall, maybe several but most notorious:

*There are no deleted scenes, no director commentaries.

*The sound is good but isn't the best

I think this DVD collection will be greatly appreciated for those (like myself) who watch these movies when they were on the big screen. These are epic movies not because of the movies but because of the culture that was inspired by them.

"Trust me" you will like this DVD collection...

A DVD quest
For many fans and videophiles, the Indy Jones trilogy was the holy grail of DVD, one of the format's few high-profile hold-outs. Paramount has met most of the high expectations with this four-disc set.

The set's first three discs contain restored versions of the Jones films: "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "The Temple of Doom" and "The Last Crusade." The fourth disc packs in more than three hours of bonus materials supervised by director Spielberg and story-weaver Lucas, featuring new interviews with pretty much anyone fans would want to hear from (and then some).

Video and audio get off to a shaky start. "Raiders" (1981) looks OK, but it's a product of its time -- at least there are few visible signs of wear and images are reasonably clear. But it isn't until "Temple of Doom" (1984) that the high quality of these DVDs begins to emerge.

"Doom" is inevitably called "the darkest" Indy film, but from frame 1 it employs a robust color palette to tell its tale of slavery and black magic. The DVD delivers the goods, with rich blood reds and working-in-the-coal-mine blacks. "Last Crusade" (1989) looks like a new film, with sensational, crystal-clear images.

Dialog and music come across clearly on "Raiders," but its surround effects tend to muddy up and distract from the action. "Doom's" audio works better, with clear and discrete surround. "Crusade" sounds as if it were recorded yesterday. All of the films are in Dolby Digital (5.1). Audio and video carry the THX endorsement, naturally.

The DVD docu "Making the Trilogy" -- actually three featurettes strung together -- interviews all concerned, and has amazing footage from every step of the filmmaking process. Check out the audition tape of Tom Selleck and Sean Young (close call, that). The film shoots were well documented, so there's plenty of great footage of the cast and crew at work on classic scenes.

The DVD extras spend a lot of time covering the exotic locations used in the Indy series: Sri Lanka, Jordan, Venice, etc. Featurettes that average about 12 minutes cover stunts, sound, music and special effects. The effects segment reveals plenty of exploding, decaying and melting heads, all done without CGI. One of the series' running gags was use of giant stunt man Pat Roach, who played multiple roles, notably the bald pugilist Nazi in "Raiders." Composer John Williams does his usual great job explaining his work, telling how atonal music helped creep out audiences: "We go to great lengths to scare people." Sound editor Ben Burtt, who won Oscars for his work, tells how a Honda Civic provided the sound of the giant boulder chase that opens "Raiders."

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