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CONTENTS

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The Adventures of Indiana Jones
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

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Interestingly, quite a few infamous “goofs” have now been fixed. For example, when Indiana is staring right into the face of a cobra, lightning strikes and the snake’s reflection is seen in the sheet of glass separating Harrison Ford from the serpent. In this new release the reflection has been digitally removed and the special effects are as they should have been – transparent.

This DVD has been treated to a brand new Dolby Digital 5.1 surround mix. Considering the quality heard in previous releases, and the fact that this is a movie from 1981, audio is generally quite good. John Williams’ classic score is crisp and rich, and the surround channels are used quite a bit. In a few situations I did feel that the surrounds were a bit overbearing in the new mix and sounded too intrusive.

The subwoofer track is used effectively in many instances, but not as much as I would have liked for a movie in this genre. Some sound effects sounded somewhat muffled, while the whole track felt a bit on the bright side. On the other hand, dialogue is rich and clear and easy to discern over everything else, and I heard no static or distortions. Also available on the DVD are French and Spanish soundtracks in stereo, subtitles in English, French and Spanish, and English Closed Captioning.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
The second Indiana Jones movie, actually a prequel to the first, is probably the least popular of the trilogy. But regardless of common opinion, it’s an amazing adventure that excels in its own ways. It improved on the first movie by introducing a much higher level of comedy, a stronger soundtrack, better acting, plus a great number of amazing action sequences such as the plane crash and mine car chase.

This time Indiana begins by trading the remains of the Emperor Nurhachi in exchange for a gigantic diamond, but is double-crossed by an old foe and must run for his life. He and ends up jumping out of a plane in India with a night club singer, and 12 year old boy. After finding his way to an Indian village, he eventually agrees to try and locate their stolen sacred stone... but ends up uncovering a cult planning something sinister.

Although only three years newer than Raiders, it’s amazing what a difference those few years make. Temple of Doom has a much stronger video transfer with less grain, more definition, deeper and richer colors, and even less edge enhancement. Like the first movie, Temple of Doom’s transfer was taken from a perfectly clean master and sports excellent black levels. Detail in dark scenes is also good, something that’s important as much of this movie takes place underground. The average video bitrate is quite high and often peaks out at 10 Mbps. The movie occupies 7.4 gigabytes of a dual-layered disc, with the layer change occurring at 1:00.04 into the entire film, or 0:00.11 into chapter 18.

On the audio side, Temple of Doom fares better than Raiders. The new Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is rich and clear with strong vocals, good (if perhaps a bit light) surround channel usage, excellent vocal panning among the front channels, plenty of subwoofer action, plus crisp and clear dialogue that doesn’t sound overly bright. Williams’ orchestral score is even more extravagant than in the original and comes through quite richly. Overall this is an excellent mix that’s much more engaging than its age would lead you to believe. This movie features the same combination of alternative languages and subtitle tracks as Raiders.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
The most recent of the Indiana Jones series – but hopefully not the last – Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was made five years after Temple of Doom and contained further refinements to the franchise formula. With an even larger dose of humor, many memorable scenes, great action sequences and a powerful soundtrack, Last Crusade is everything that a good adventure movie should be.

In his third big screen adventure, Indiana Jones learns that his father has gone missing while pursuing his life’s work – locating the Holy Grail of archaeological finds... the actual Holy Grail! Once again, the Nazis are after the same treasure for their own sinister purposes and it’s up to Indiana to both rescue his father and locate the cup before anyone else.

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