There are fans of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas's Raiders of the Lost Ark, and then there are the obsessed. When the film was released in 1981, pre-teen boys everywhere were enthralled with the action, the effects, the coolness of a whip-cracking archaeologist, but none more than three 12-year-olds in Mississippi. Eric Zala, Chris Strompolos and Jayson Lamb decided to funnel their obsession creatively—and make a shot-for-shot remake in their backyard. Remarkably, they did it, although it ended up taking them seven years. Shot out of sequence (creating some alarming moments of, err, character growth, sometimes in the same scene), with meticulous attention to detail and unbridled creativity in set design, "half the fun in watching The Adaptation is seeing how they recreated the film's classic environments. Zala's backyard stands in for the jungles of South America, with a handful of pasty suburban kids for Hovitos. In the other hemisphere, Sallah sure got a lot skinnier, and Snickers the beagle steps in as the traitorous monkey (though he perches admirably on one's shoulder). All the same, for a bunch of teenagers with no experience and almost no money, the final result is quite extraordinary." (Film Threat)
The Turner Classic Movies channel recently did a great piece on the story behind the Raiders Adaptation. Watch it here: www.tcm.com/mediaroom/index/?cid=187535 more at theraider.net/films/raiders_adaptation/. Video projection.
1989, color, 1 hour 40 minutes, USA