comment #1

Rich S. says ...

Does this mean Phil Kaufman will get a writing credit on this one, too? I understand that the warehouse may have been his only contribution to the original.

comment #2

Ian Sinclair says ...

Hardly. Indiana was the name of Kaufman's dog.

comment #3

Dan Revill says ...

The warehouse was a great ending.
"Who?"
"Top men."

And then the shot of the forklift...it was so perfect.

comment #4

GonePostal says ...

I think the reason that McWeeney and many others, including myself, love that final shot is because of the potential of a giant warehouse filled to the brim with historical and mystical artifacts. The message isn't "And they packed it away and never thought of it again", the message is, somewhere the government is hiding all these incredible treasures and wouldn't it be awesome to hang out there and open those crates.

comment #5

dre says ...

I always loved the warehouse ending to Raiders, the idea that something so powerful was boarded up and tossed away always made me wonder what else was in those hundreds of crates at the end.

comment #6

iamjoe says ...

I disagree. Even as a child, I thought the ending of Raiders drove the point home that the evil side (Nazis!) and the good side (Good Ol' USofA) shared the same characteristics of not being able to learn from the past or to know what to do with a true power. I got an excited feeling with a bit of grim.
And it made Indy seem all the more the classic hero...

comment #7

Rich S. says ...

I always thought that the implication was that those boxes contained all manner of banal gimcrackery to keep anyone from learning that one of them contained an artifact with "powers with which man was not meant to tamper."

comment #8

colby says ...

Am I wrong or wasn't it George Lucas' dog that was named Indiana?

comment #9

Craig Kennedy says ...

Don't misconstrue this as crying about spoilers and whatnot, but one of the reasons I don't go to AICN is because I have no interest in having a future movie prodded, poked and picked apart in the minutest detail before I've ever had a chance to see it.

Is nothing left to surprise anymore?

comment #10

christian says ...

how odd that jeff would this marvelous apt ending a let-down. especially in light of the spectacle action cinema that followed in RAIDERS wake.

my theory is that the final shot is the last gasp of 70's era watergate paranoia before hollywood etc let the just-do-it reagan era wash over them like a tonic.

comment #11

Sean says ...

Christian - Jeff will never express a positive sentiment about Spielberg, so it's not that odd.

comment #12

christian says ...

true dat.

comment #13

erniesouchak says ...

I find it hard to believe this won't be mostly CG.

comment #14

Ogami Itto says ...

One of my all-time favorite movie endings to one of my all-time favorite adventure movies. It's perfect.

comment #15

Joe B. says ...

Wasn't that "location" just an ILM matte painting? And I agree that anything similar will probably be CG augmented...

And I loved that ending as a kid AND now as an adult. A nice quiet capper that hinted volumes, even after all the bang-bang action of the rest of the movie.

comment #16

christian says ...

and it remains spielberg's best ending. ever.

comment #17

DavidF says ...

It's a PERFECT ending and I'll second erniesouchak.

Even in the original it was mostly a matte painting so why, in 2007, would they need to reconstruct it??

And, Sinclair: Colby is right Indiana was LUCAS' dog. It was a malamute or a husky or something...I'm guessing google will turn up pictures of the big guy who also inspired Chewbacca, if you have the time to spare.

comment #18

shepherd12345 says ...

christian: great, great point re the end of an era. bullseye. the shot represents the last of whatever counterculture-y/amblin-y/sugarland-y/pakula-ish vibe was swimming around in spielberg's bloodstream.

comment #19

DavidF says ...

I dunno Christian...that ET ending ain't nothing to sneeze at.
And Minority Report would have been perfect if he'd left on the titles about the murder rate going up after the pre-cogs retired.
Anyway, it's definitely better than other Indiana Jones endings.

comment #20

Rich S. says ...

I hear in the new Indy movie, Shia LeBeouf rushes headlong into certain death from a hail of bullets fired by the Russian baddies....

...only to emerge unscathed from Karen Allen's Boston brownstone in the end.

Oh, wait. That would be Spielberg's worst.ending.ever.

comment #21

christian says ...

"I dunno Christian...that ET ending ain't nothing to sneeze at.
And Minority Report would have been perfect if he'd left on the titles about the murder rate going up after the pre-cogs retired."

ET's ending is nice but not a perfect visual summation. MR's would have been perfect, but that wasn't the ending used. which goes back to my point about the RAIDERS final shot.

comment #22

DavidF says ...

I'll agree it's a DAMNED fine ending (though it occurs to me Jaws is pitch-perfect as well).

I think we can all agree that Wells' description of it as a "let-down" is bordering on absurd.

Anyway, this isn't the first time I've heard a rumour about the Ark surfacing. I'll give em benifit of the doubt that it's not something stupid. I kinda imagine them getting backed into a corner and Indy saying, "Wait - I know the one thing that can help us. Trust me." And then sneaking into the warehouse...Personally, I liked the little nod to Raiders in Last Crusade, when they are in the tunnels under Venice
"What's this one?"
"That's the Ark of the Covenant."
"Are you sure?"
"Pretty sure..."

comment #23

Craig Kennedy says ...

It's funny sometimes the things Wells takes as inarguable fact that are actually the exact opposite. I'm thinking we can offer up the Raiders ending as Exhibit A.

comment #24

Mark says ...

My favorite Speilburg ending is without doubt to Catch Me If You Can. I'll never forget sitting in the theater, praying for the damn thing to finally end, and then finally, 20 minutes later, boom, prayers answered. a truly fine moment and proof of a higher power.

btw, i'm w/ cjkennedy. the reason producers, directors, and their assistants try so hard to guard against people sneaking out info from movie sets is not because they want the audience to have a worse time. they would like to retain the ability to surprise, and i'm all for it, and against Wells reissuing such threads on his site.

comment #25

chicagodad says ...

Besides the whole counter-culture aspect/don't trust the government aspect of it, you could also take away that the FDR government was basically acting to affirm God's will.

Sort of, "God buried the ark in a sandstorm for a reason. We'll bury it in bureaucracy. Best for all concerned."

comment #26

OddDuck says ...

Yeah, seriously, this might be the most wrong Wells has ever been on anything. Truly bizarre.

comment #27

Reedyb says ...

The ending was great. 'Nuff said.

The reason they may have to actually build it this time is if they set any action there beyond a forklift moving in a long shot.

comment #28

Jason says ...

This must have been during Jeff's low thread count days. If he could see it again for the first time today, I'm sure his curmudgeonly sensibility would appreciate the irony in how Raiders ends.

comment #29

Josh Massey says ...

GonePostal hit it perfectly. It isn't so much "the nasty government is burying it again" as a shot that inspires all of us to really want to go snooping in that room.

comment #30

The Movie Man says ...

"This is how they're ending it? Some guy driving a forklift? Shitty, dull, nothing. So the Ark has been ignored and buried by the bureaucrats of the FDR administration...big deal."

If that, at an age I presume to have been around 19 or 20, is your first reaction after seeing RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK for the first time, then I truly feel sorry for you. You are even more devoid of the zest, the it, the love for something that hasn't been pre-ordained to be hip or cool or slick or whatever, than I thought you were.

comment #31

Abbey Normal says ...

Agreed. Wells is bafflingly, appallingly wrong on this. It's a fantastic ending.

For awhile, I actually thought it was an homage to the end of Citizen Kane, when they have that big warehouse of all his crap, and the one valuable thing in the bunch gets tossed in with all the other garbage in the fire (though of course, they don't burn the ark. But it's treated with the same amount of disrespect). But there are many interpretations. And I love the shot of the janitor-type guy...does he have any idea what kind of treasures are in that room? Does anybody?

In fact, I would argue the ending is one of the primary things that elevates the first Raiders so high above the other two (though the four guys riding off into the sunset at the end of Last Crusade--so clearly meant to represent Ford, Connery, Lucas and Spielberg--was pretty great too).

comment #32

Craig Kennedy says ...

You know, it gives me a good feeling to see us mostly agree on something for a change, even if it's in disagreement of the host.

I'm not calling for a group hug or anything, I'm just saying.

comment #33

Ray says ...

Perfect ending.

However, the original warehouse was nothing more than a matte painting. Why on earth are they recreating it in real life now?

www.therecshow.com

comment #34

christian says ...

"Why on earth are they recreating it in real life now?"

because this time they're going in...

comment #35

Pinko Punko says ...

The bureaucracy in that warehouse is like the Spielberg glass half full version of an out of control bureaucracy in Gilliam's Brazil. I mean what other out did he have? He had this movie that kids and adults everywhere really wanted to believe in, in a movie way, but he unleashes the Power of GOD at the end, and this cannot possibly be true in anyones wild imagination, and he puts the genie back in the bottle with the most believable shot of the film. The warehouse has so much possibility, not in the that it is chock full, but that the face melting, awe inspiring power could be real again in a "lost in filing" kind of way. One time Spielberg really knows how to end a movie...they should have put Schindler's speech in there.

comment #36

bluefugue says ...

>Agreed. Wells is bafflingly, appallingly wrong on >this. It's a fantastic ending.

Yeah, I'm stunned at Jeff's attitude on this. The ending to Raiders is absolutely note-perfect. Instead of ending on a note of standard triumph (as Temple of Doom and Last Crusade do), the film takes us into a totally different place than we would expect. Ominous, deeply intriguing -- as we wonder what other mysterious secrets lie gathering dust in that warehouse -- and as an added bonus, created a prototype for the X-Files/conspiracy genre of a decade later. I can't say enough good things about that warehouse scene -- it's a masterstroke.

comment #37

PerfectTommy says ...

For those who were shocked at Wells dissing the Raiders ending, remember it was just a few weeks ago that Wells was scoffing at the Raiders March being used in the trailer believing it was played out. This is one great film he just doesn't seem to get.