Scan barcode
A review by jstilts
Raiders of the Lost Ark by Walt Simonson
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
Raiders of the Lost Ark is a great movie, but it isn't captured well in this comic adaptation by Marvel. The classic 80s Marvel art style is fine, but the limited length causes many problems which Marvel's lengthy adaptation of Star Wars didn't suffer from.
Similar to the Star Wars adaptation in that they were both created before their respective films were actually released (presumably created from storyboards, the script, set photos and maybe an early rough-cut of the movie) Raiders is interesting in that it also contains scenes cut from the final film (Toht's early death, Sallah's issues outside the Map Room, the details of Indy's sub journey) but that isn't enough to make this essential reading.
Other scenes are compressed, merged or trimmed for brevity, often at the loss of quieter character moments - it probably would have been better to cut entire subplots and let what remains have space to be done properly rather than try and get little bits of everything in.
Conversely lots of new dialogue is added to scenes that had few words in the film, which sounds reasonable except the film and the comic are both visual mediums - there could have been more elegant solutions. This is a shame twice over as the new dialogue is pretty awful.
Similar to the Star Wars adaptation in that they were both created before their respective films were actually released (presumably created from storyboards, the script, set photos and maybe an early rough-cut of the movie) Raiders is interesting in that it also contains scenes cut from the final film (Toht's early death, Sallah's issues outside the Map Room, the details of Indy's sub journey) but that isn't enough to make this essential reading.
Other scenes are compressed, merged or trimmed for brevity, often at the loss of quieter character moments - it probably would have been better to cut entire subplots and let what remains have space to be done properly rather than try and get little bits of everything in.
Conversely lots of new dialogue is added to scenes that had few words in the film, which sounds reasonable except the film and the comic are both visual mediums - there could have been more elegant solutions. This is a shame twice over as the new dialogue is pretty awful.