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26. Raiders of the Lost Ark - The Golden Idol

If the opening sequence from Steven Spielberg’s 1981 collaboration with George Lucas (not to mention Lawrence Kasdan and Philip Kaufman) is historic for only one thing, it is, of course, the film debut of Alfred Molina.

Molina was a veteran of the Royal Shakespeare Company when he was cast as the treacherous Peruvian sidekick Satipo and got covered in tarantulas for $2,500 a week. (Don’t feel bad. He got $3 million for Spidey 2.)

I suppose the introduction of the character Indiana Jones is significant as well.

I was actually too scared to watch this sequence as a child. I would hide my eyes and only look when my mother said it was safe. As a result I got a very piecemeal experience of the scene. They go into a cave. Some stuff happens. There’s an idol and he’s running and he has to jump a gorge. Some stuff happens. He’s being chased by a boulder.

That the “stuff” is tarantulas and skewered corpses should not be taken lightly. This flick nearly got an R in its pre-PG-13 heyday. Spielberg throws some gruesome challenges at our hero, and uses his reactions to acquaint us with him.

Harrison Ford, who damn well should have won an Oscar for giving life to this character, takes Indy’s grim determination and adds a touch of incredulity that takes it from a bland “I must soldier on” to “Are you fucking kidding me?” His expression when the rope gives out on him is classic.

And there’s something about sending giant things after your hero that never gets old. Indiana Jones being chased by that boulder is no less iconic than Roger Thornhill being chased by that crop duster. Apparently, when the original 22 ft. fiberglass rock was completed, Spielberg took one look at it and said, “I’ve got a fever, and the only cure is more boulder,” and had the diameter increased another 50 ft.

The self-contained nature of the sequence hearkens back to one of its influences, Spielberg’s early-80’s desire to make a Bond film. It does more than that, though, echoing the larger narrative arc of the film by having Indy leave without getting what he came for.

In addition to the Republic serials that influenced Spielberg and Lucas as children, the scene also owes a debt to Scrooge McDuck, Donald and his nephews dodging booby traps in search of Incan treasure in “The Prize of Pizarro,” a story in a Carl Banks Disney Ducks comic.

See also: Indiana Jones vs. more booby traps at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, “Booty Traps” in The Goonies (just watch the whole thing), Doctor Who gets through some bad-ass logic puzzle booby traps at the end of Pyramids of Mars (yeah, I know it’s a TV show).

Next: More big rocks.