Digging up the Raiders!

Cinema is built on remakes and homages. Yet a bunch of middle schoolers in Eighties Mississippi deciding to remake a movie that was itself an homage to a long-gone genre has become a story that deserves its own documentary.

When Steven Spielberg and George Lucas released Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981, it was a heartfelt tribute to Thirties theatrical serials. Not that Chris Strompolos, then only 10-years-old, knew anything about that lineage. “I wasn’t even aware of the Joseph Campbell hero’s journey and all that kind of stuff. I went from Star Wars to Raiders.”

His friend Eric Zala was equally in the dark. He said, “All I knew was it was from the directors of Star Wars and Jaws.” He didn’t go in with big expectations “but by the time the boulder scene happens, and I see this big, colossal stone rolling after Indy, it just split my brain open. I just didn’t know that movies could make me feel that way, that it could be so thrilling and mind-boggling.”

Strompolos was immediately drawn to two-fisted archaeologist Indiana Jones, who he called “a mythologically, perfectly crafted hero. … He had this dual personality, this bow tie and beautiful suits, and then he’d put on this hat and a leather jacket and a gun and a whip and go off and do noble things. He had girl troubles, and he could get hurt, and he was vulnerable.“

Every kid wanted to be Indy, but it was Strompolos’ crazed idea to grab a camera, some friends, and create a shot-for-shot remake. That sent him, Zala, and their long-suffering cameraman/editor/effects creator Jayson Lamb on what became a 34-year odyssey to make a shot-for-shot remake of the classic. It’s a bizarre tale of optimism, obsession, and friendship as recounted in documentary Raiders! The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made, which screened at SXSW and opens nationally this weekend. And while the film was made in the backyards, back alleys, and gravel pits of Mississippi, the documentary shows the key role played by Austin, and the Alamo Drafthouse. That’s where a surprise showing at the Butt-Numb-a-Thon marathon in 2002 sent the trio on a quest to complete the final missing scene: the famous fight sequence on the BV-83 Flying Wing at the Tanis dig site.

Now (far from coincidentally), Raiders! is being distributed by Drafthouse Films, completing a journey that started one fateful afternoon in 1982, when Zala agreed to be Stromolos’ director, and the Belloq to his Indy. Zala said, “In that moment, in that five-second conversation, we were set in our roles, which we’ve remained in to this day as adults.”

Austin Chronicle: You’ve got the plane scene, and you’re back in Austin with the completed film, and back at the Drafthouse. How does it feel, having completed that circle?

Chris Strompolos: For me, I’m overwhelmingly thankful. There’s not a single shred of this that I disregard. Every step of the way has been truly amazing. But that amazement, and that appreciation, isn’t necessarily in real time. When you’re in the pit, and you’ve had no sleep, and you’re about to blow things up, and you’ve had a traumatic day, and you don’t know if you’re going to finish, and it’s 105 degrees, you don’t really project forward and think, ‘Man, the Drafthouse is going to see this.’ You’re in your moment.

Eric Zala: Now as then, we weren’t looking for nor expecting a big show at the end, or a forum to share our creation. You’re just so focused on finishing the damn thing, to make it happen. But now, being here, so grateful, so amazed and grateful that we crossed the finish line, and succeeded in making it as we always wanted to make it as kids. It’s very gratifying.

AC: The remake was always on your own terms, but then you have a documentary crew, and you’re never going to have that degree of control. Why open it up now?

CS: I think we both, and not that I’m patting us both on the back, but I think we had the foresight that if we told an honest story, and opened up our story in its complete way – darker elements, lighter elements, present elements, past story, current story, with the plane scene being the cornerstone – it all compounded together would tell a much richer, more interesting tale. I think we committed to that.

AC: As much as the documentary is about the film, it’s also about your friendship, and you’re very open about how it’s had its peaks and troughs. But there has to be something more than just the film that keeps you coming back together.

CS: I think Eric summed it up very beautifully a few months ago. It’s a rarity to find that relationship where it’s iron sharpening iron. We make each other better. We push each other really hard, with all of our flaws and broken pieces and strengths and essences and what we’re most powerful with, creatively, and how we collaborate and how we bring certain elements of the creative process together to just get stuff done. We’re much more powerful together as a duo than we are by ourselves.

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Raiders! The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made opens in cinemas and on VOD this week. See listings for review and show times.

For more on the history of the remake, read "'Lost Ark,' Resurrected," May 30, 2003, and our 2015 interview with director Jeremy Coon.