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xxxxFrom the Drafthouse site.x(1982-1988, d. Eric Zala, PG, 115 min, $7.50) In 1982, Eric Zala, Jayson Lamb and Chris Strompolis began filming a shot-for-shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark. They were twelve years old. Six years later, the film was in the can. Fifteen years later still, the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is proud to announce, the theatrical world premiere of Raiders of the Lost Ark: the Adaptation. No other film experience will prepare you for this, Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation is like no other film you have ever seen (except of course Raiders of the Lost Ark). This trio of filmmakers showed more tenacity, originality, heart, courage and skill than ten independent production teams put together, and all before puberty! SEE Indiana Jones grow six inches, drop into a baritone and grow facial hair! SEE Marion Ravenwood develop breasts! SEE the meanest pack of prepubescent nazis ever recorded on film!

MY posting to AICN TalkBack

I remember watching this at BNAT 4. I thought- how cute- Ive seen his kind of thing before- an fan film tribute- unofficial sequel. But as it went along I became more and more amazed. This wasnt 'hardware wars' - They did the WHOLE movie, getting every detail correct- blowing away Roger Corman and Ed Wood away in terms of no budget ingenuity. I was like "these kids are f-ing insane- in a GOOD way." I cant tell you how many sci-fi horror movie ideas my friends talked about making in high school, but we never got off our asses and did ANY of them. I bet a lot of you were the same way. I can also remeber how bad most of my very expensive first film class projects were. These kids had an AWESOME sense of focus and shot composition. Their tech skills at 18 probably blew away most film graduate students. I wish I had had THAT kind of hands on camera experience when I started college? Should they have done something original? At 12?!?! No- it would have been stupid. This first movie was about learning the craft of film MAKING not screenwriting. Every comic book artist learned by copying their favorite pros, every musician learned by practicing their favorite hit songs, and these kids worked out their filmmaking kinks aping Spielberg. Now that theyre grown ups they have an amazing background of experience to draw from. Not just in camera work, but in 'producing' the whole time iwas liek "how did they keep these other kids motivated all this time? My friends would have given up a long time ago"