Indiana Jones Loses His Goddamned Hat

Posted in Fun and Crazy, Indiana Jones on December 10th, 2011 by Willie

So, its common knowledge that there are some gaping plot holes in the “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” the first Indiana Jones movie.  One is, how did Indiana Jones know how to close his eyes when the Nazis opened the Ark?  Another is, how did he escape the island when all the Nazis died in the ensuing ghost melting party?  The most famous one is concerns how Indiana Jones got to that island in the first place.  We swim him swim to the submarine, climb on top of it, then the film wipes to the dock the Nazis land in, and Indiana Jones looks really wet.  How in hell did he manage this?  Wasn’t the submarine closed?  Wouldn’t someone notice if he climbed in?  Well, according to the original script, Indiana uses his whip to lash himself onto the periscope and sort of surfs along somehow.  Here is an image with a tiny Indiana Jones model mounted on top of the periscope of the submarine.

The sheer lunacy of this stunt was cut from the final movie, and most people never noticed how Indy made it to the secret Nazi island.  However, it was during the close examination of this scene last night, where I made a startling discovery.  When Indiana Jones swims to the submarine, he no longer has his trade marked fedora.  I made sure to rewind and fast forward a bunch of times, but sure enough, by the time Indiana gets to the secret island, he has no hat.  Then he jumps a Nazi guard, steals his uniform, and definitely has no hat.  Where is the hat?  It’s gone!  But wait, isn’t Indiana never supposed to lose his hat?  They make a point of it in each succeeding movie.  As you know, the opening of “The Last Crusade” is dedicated as the origin story of how young Indiana Jones got the hat in the first place.  Hold up, you’re saying, isn’t Indiana Jones wearing his hat at the end of Raiders?  Surely he must have retrieved it from that boat with all the Jamaican dudes, right?  Actually, if you look closely, that is a different hat, his gray fedora; the hat he uses to wear when he travels.

Holy shit.  There is very little discussion on this matter on the internet, but luckily I found one that attempts to explain what happened to his goddamned hat; his lucky iconic hat, the hat he is NEVER supposed to lose.  According to the “internets,” in the original script, it basically says, ‘when Indy boards the submarine, he “loses his hat once and for all.”‘  In the novelization of the movie, Indy even comments on the fact saying, “Finding the ark cost me my favorite hat.”  Then he laughs…!  Now obviously, after “Raiders” debuted as a smash success, iconography was created, sequels were lined up, and hat mania swept the world.  The conveniently missing hat would never be missing again, and like “Last Crusade” depicts, Indiana would never lose the hat his whole life.  According to further novelization, Indiana would have the hat repaired and reblocked countless times, as a simple felt fedora would never be able to survive the destruction and mayhem Indiana exposed it to.  So, is it a conspiracy?  Does Indiana have a closet full of replacement hats, but acts like he never lost the original to prove his hat keeping badassery?  No, there is a much more boring word for the case of Indiana’s missing hat, retcon.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Star Wars NEW Deleted Footage

Posted in Star Wars on July 22nd, 2011 by Willie

Lets face it, since 1999, “Star Wars” has been a bag of shit.  I was 13 years old when the “Phantom Menace” came, old enough to have my “Star Wars” fantasy life crushed to smithereens by the atrocity that was George Lucas’s Death Star explosion of a movie.  It was sad because I had both the regular edition and special edition tapes, all the computer video games by Lucasarts, and even the collectable card game by Decipher.  Maybe “Star Wars” sucking was a blessing because it forced me to be less of a nerd, but it still was sad, because (to paraphrase Yoda, or old Jewish guys) an epic series it was.  I had read recently that Lucas is releasing the entire saga in theaters in 3D, which seems amazing, until you realize that people are gonna have to wait out the hideous prequels first before he finally gets around to fucking with the originals again.  Speaking of fucking with the originals, to keep this spirit alive, Lucas is including all the deleted scenes that no one has ever seen in the new Blu-Ray release coming out next September.  Will this be enough to get the hardcore fans to shell out another fifty bucks to own the trilogy that they already own in VHS, Special Edition VHS, Special Edition DVD, and non Special Edition DVD?  Probably, because this trailer looks so COOL!   Check it out!

The highlights look amazing!  Here are my favorites…

  • Lando and Chewie trying to make it through that wicked sandstorm.  Is that after they escaped from Jabba the Hutt?  If so that seems amazing!
  • The Ice Creature chasing R2-D2 in Hoth…scary!
  • The best moment, Luke peeling the fake skin on his robot hand back on…GENIUS!  How was that cut??

All in all, my ancient nerd neurons began to fire just looking at this thing, and I hope people just post all the clips to youtube so I won’t have to buy them.  If they do, I’ll post them right here, so stay tuned…Oh! As a bonus, I’m including one of those scenes right now! It’s from “Return of the Jedi,” and it shows Vader trying to contact Luke with the Dark Side while Luke is building his new green lightsaber!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,