Skip to main content
If you were young any time between 1981 and now, chances are you pretended to be Indiana Jones. Chris Strompolos and Eric Zala did. Except they did it for seven years, with a group of amateur actors and special-effects artists, and painstakingly re-created Raiders of the Lost Ark shot for shot. And it is kind of great.
Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation is now the stuff of legend. The film was shot out of sequence, so Indy (Strompolos) goes from prepubescent to young adult and back between wandering the Well of Souls. It's like Boyhood. But with fake blood and, um, not boring.
Now, 35 years later, Strompolos and Zala are the subjects of another film, Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made. It chronicles the pair's crusade to finish the one scene they never shot, the centerpiece fight around a massive Nazi warplane.
Before appearing this Friday at the Hollywood Theatre, Zala and Strompolos talked to AP Film Studies about life in the shadow of the world's most violent archaeologist.
WW: Will Raiders haunt you forever?
Chris Strompolos: We just can't shake it, no matter how hard we try. It's not a bad thing. It'd be one thing if we had pursued a lifelong passion for Smokey and the Bandit. We chose our movie well.
Do you think that's why people are so fascinated, because you're doing what they wanted to do as kids?
Strompolos: There's a very powerful undercurrent of nostalgia. It harks back to when you thought you were invincible.
Eric Zala: Back when we were kids, as far as we knew, we were alone in doing this. Fan films weren't a thing pre-internet.
Why did you decide to go so big for the airplane scene—big budget, tons of time?
Zala: After we decided to do it, we talked at length. Do we go for it like we did when we were kids? The alternative would be to put Chris back in the too-tight chocolate corduroys and re-create our mistakes. Do we make it out of cardboard? That felt false.
Strompolos: We had to build roads, there was no electricity or toilets. There was no infrastructure where we were. A lot of those tasks are more difficult when you're an adult. When you're a kid, it's 'Let's let the cute kids do their thing, and we'll support them.' 'Let's let the cute adults blow up an 80-foot airplane'—that's a harder task.
Aside from singed eyebrows, you guys seem to be unscathed. Were there any permanent injuries?
Strompolos: I played Indiana Jones, and Eric was the director, but he was the one who was always hurt. I got a little heat stroke during the truck scene. The flying-wing scene was an extremely physical scene…my body was shot. But Eric had the most glorious track record of being injured.
Zala: Yeah, from the singed eyebrows to fire to a broken arm. Somehow, I seemed to escape injury this time.
Chris, you're one of six people who has played Indy. They're talking about recasting. What advice do you have for whoever takes the fedora?
Strompolos: There will never be another Indiana Jones. Harrison was Indy. It's different than Bond or even Han Solo…good luck to that kid carrying that torch. Harrison is Indy and Indy is Harrison. My advice is, always keep your hat on.
SEE IT: Chris Strompolos and Eric Zala host a double feature of the Raiders documentary and the adaptation at the Hollywood Theatre. 6:30 pm Friday, June 3. $9.
Also Showing:
Robert Altman's breakthrough MASH is a classic anti-war comedy that makes poignant points about the healing power of humor… until it devolves into a football game, for some reason. Pix Patisserie. Dusk Wednesday, June 1.
Dirty Dancing continues its annual run at local theaters, hearkening back to that magical time in a teenage girl's life when she's seduced by a serial statutory rapist and everyone's just kind of cool with it because he dances hot. Mission Theater. Through Sunday, June 5.
Ferris Bueller—perhaps the best teen movie of all time—turns 30 this year. That means Ferris would be 48, and probably a republican senator, while Cameron would probably be in prison after being duped to take the fall for campaign fraud. Mission Theater. Opens Saturday, June 4.
The Academy rounds out its series of crime classics with Jim Jarmusch's 1986 cult favorite Down By Law, a film that places Tom Waits, John Lurie and Roberto Benigni in a Louisiana prison and lets magic happen from there. Academy Theatre. Friday-Thursday, June 3-9.
Tame by current standards, 1967's Bonnie and Clyde ushered in a new era of American filmmaking, one that confronted its audience with the sex and violence it had long been denied by the studio suits. Laurelhurst Theater. Friday-Thursday, June 3-9.
PSU's 5th Avenue Cinema wraps up another great run with local hero Kelly Reichardt's achingly beautiful Wendy & Lucy . 5th Avenue Cinema. 7 & 9:30 pm Friday-Saturday, 3 pm Sunday, June 3-5.
David Lynch's Blue Velvet, 30 years later, isn't just arguably the director's finest work. It's also the best advertisement for PBR since Swayze danced with a tallboy. Hollywood Theatre. Saturday-Monday, June 3-6.
Cartopia's Night Movies series is back, this year pairing movies with classic X-Files episodes. First up, the pilot episode and the John Candy/Dan Aykroyd classic (depending on how old you were when you first saw it…) The Great Outdoors. No word on whether any of the carts will have a special on gigantic steaks or gristle. Cartopia. Sunday, June 5. Dusk.
There are a lot of things you should know about B-Movie Bingo's latest offering, 1993's Firepower. But the only thing you need to know is that it stars the Ultimate Warrior as The Swordsman, and he's forced into the 1993 version of Thunderdome. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Tuesday, June 7.
Willamette Week