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BluRay/DVD Reviews

INDIANA JONES: THE ADVENTURE COLLECTION

By • Jun 10th, 2008 •

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But, as I was saying, most people seem to feel that INDIE 4 is the 4th best entrée in the series, so, as a response to prevailing public opinion, I’m recommending the newly released collection featuring the first three installments, …RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARC, …AND THE LAST CRUSADE, and …AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM.

In comparing the new release of the collection to the last release of the collection, let’s choose THE TEMPLE OF DOOM. Why? Because the opening shots test the red-challenged capabilities of NTSC, almost as if Spielberg were doing it on purpose. And both releases pass with flying colors…and flying silks. Seeing Kate Capshaw’s Busby Berkeley routine (suggested, we’re told in the supplements on the first collection, by Lucas), I realized that, while 1984 audiences still probably remembered those glorious short films that Berkeley gave us, probably next to no one in today’s younger generation would know that Spielberg was paying tribute to a director of the past. They should check out Warner Bros THE BUSBY BERKELEY DISC to enjoy many of those divine numbers in one package.

Both masterings seem similar enough to be identical, unless time has affected the digital master in any way. What’s different, then? Well, the new release has a much more lovely THX announcement up front. I’m serious about that. And there’s a ‘coming attraction’ on the new one – but it’s a coming attrraction for IJ&tKotCS, so I guess that’s okay. The new one also has several supplementals, such as a storyboard/film comparison of the mine-car-race-against-the-water sequence, which isn’t to be found in this form in the old collection. And there are LEGO INDIANA JONES game demos. But the menu is the same, as are the chapter choices, far as I could tell.

What is missing from the new collection is an entire fourth disc, identified in the earlier release, simply, as “Bonus Material.” This disc contains over three hours of back-story on the films, and in the section on TEMPLE OF DOOM, for instance, there is coverage of the mine-car-race scene, with storyboards, but far less extensive. And Spielberg and Lucas, as well as many of the other key people involved, talk to us in 2003 interview footage throughout. Therefore completists would have to own both collections, even though the feature masterings seem identical.

Oh, and of great importance to me, and probably to other apartment dwellers around the country, the new collection comes in those anorexic DVD covers, so that two films equal the space formerly taken up by one. This is becoming more and more of an issue, and I’m glad they chose that packaging format. Otherwise, soon I’ll be sleeping standing up…

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