Indiana Jones: The 4 Film Collection - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Indiana Jones: 4 Movie Collection



Movie:
4K Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


WARNING: THE SCORES ABOVE ARE A COMBINED SCORE FROM ALL FOUR FILMS, THE INDIVIDUAL SCORES ARE CONTAINED BELOW IN THE INDIVIDUAL SECTIONS OF THE REVIEW

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Movie
Ok, it’s officially a pattern now. Paramount has continued to release films in a non combo pack format, giving us the 4K UHD discs only, and now Blu-rays to make a combo pack. Not the end of the world, but just something to take notice of in further releases from them. With Indiana Jones 5 still in progress, it makes sense for Paramount to take advantage of the press and put out a boxset of their most famous films. Well, their most famous films AND Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which really has to be sold in a boxset, otherwise no one would buy it (well, maybe not THAT bad, but it’s still a cringey entry into the world of Indy). The boxset is very solid, with the additional legacy extras from the 2012 Blu-ray set (the 5th Blu-ray disc includes all the extras, while the 4K UHD discs have a few trailers). There’s some weird revisionism to the audio, but all in all a very nice set that looks stunning in 4K.

Raiders of the Lost Ark
There are very few action films that I consider “perfect” films, but Raiders of the Lost Ark is most definitely one of them. It is the quintessential action film for the last 40 years, and has become as synonymous with being a universally loved classic as Star Wars: A New Hope is. This is the movie that started it all for me as a young boy too. I remember being 8 or 9 years old and going over to my aunt’s house when I was babysat and watching this and the Star Wars trilogy on VHS over and over and over again. So much so that my aunt would beg me to choose another film to watch so she didn’t have to watch it anymore. Full of grand sweeping adventures with a larger than life hero, ala Buck Rogers. Saving damsels in distress, and foils Nazi plans to subvert the supernatural, and of course does so in style. Spawning not one, not two, not three, FOUR sequels (if you count the upcoming 5th movie), it is one of the longest lasting pulp fiction enterprises that Spielberg has ever produced.

Here is where we meet Indian Jones (Harrison Ford), a mild mannered archaeology professor by day, but when the time calls for it, he can get the most prized artifacts of all time out of the clutches of anyone. Aboriginal cultures, corrupt pirates, and even Nazis don’t stand a chance as his trusty bullwhip and charm (and of course a few fisticuffs and gun fights as well) get him out of any situation.

Army Intelligence confides in Doctor Jones that Hitler and the Nazis are close to finding the legendary Ark of the Covenent, which has remained hidden for a millennia, and are going to use its arcane power to unleash a power upon the Allies the likes they have never seen before. Indy needs to go in, foil their plans with the help of ex-girlfriend Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) and make sure the Ark is recovered so that it can no longer pose a threat. Easy? Right?

Goofy, lighthearted, just pure 80s fun, Raiders of the Lost Ark has something for everyone in it. It’s got romance, action, pulp fiction comic lore, and of course cutting edge special effects where Spielberg was firing on all cylinders. Back in the day before the PG-13 rating, it was the film that could span the gap between childish adventure movies and adult action fare, and it did it so masterfully. Considered the best of the 4 Indiana Jones films, Raiders of the Lost Ark is on a level all it’s own, and for good reason. It was new at the time and without sequel fatigue, it was the most refreshing and fun of the batch. The series got more and more comedic as it went along, but Raiders is easily the most balanced and enjoyable one of the series.

The Temple of Doom
The year is 1935, and the place is Shanghai. Indy has discovered the sacred remains of a Manchu dynasty leader and plans to trade them for a sacred stone that he wants. However, plans go awry and Indy, his side kick Shot Round (Jonathan Ke Quan of The Goonies) and a cabaret dancer named Willie (Kate Capeshaw) are forced to make a run for it before the gangster he was trading with catches up to them. Unfortunately for them, the plane they escape on was owned by said gangster, and the pilots ditch the plane mid flight, leaving Indy and his two accomplices to land in the middle of nowhere, near an old Indian village.

The inhabitants believe that Indy is there to save them from a terrible blight, and think that Shiva (their god) has sent him as the savior of their people. A death cult of Indians nearby have stolen their sacred stones, and without them they can not survive. The death cult worship a god known as “Kali” (an evil deity) and it’s not long before Indiana realizes that these stones are exactly what he was trying to get in the first place. The only thing is, he’s got to brave a maniacal head priest, not be sacrificed to Kali, AND get the remaining stones (which he believes to be the Sankara stones) before he and his friends are flayed alive (or burnt in a volcano, not exactly a pleasant scenario either).

The Temple of Doom is a lavishly filmed movie, with some incredible underground shots that are resplendent with red and dusky brown hues. The Indian palace that they visit before the underground caves is incredibly rich and vibrant with colors, and the villains are even crazier than the Nazi Belloq and his associates in The Raiders of the Lost Ark. The movie starts out pretty good, but starts to falter with the inclusion of Willie. She’s an annoying diva that is there to distract the viewer with her blonde hair, big ….yeah… and that SCREAM!!!. Short Round was an attempt to add a side kick to Indiana Jones repertoire, but it was probably the worst addition of the series (well, except for Shia). He is a bit TOO comedic and cliched.

That being said, the movie itself is dark and twisted, with some of the most violent scenes of the entire series. The priest and his acolytes are truly terrifying, and the conflict with the stones is well done. It doesn’t try and rehash the Nazi villains, and actually gives us something fresh and interesting. The older I get, the more I actually elevate The Temple of Doom to probably one of the best of the series, and actually slightly eclipsing the always popular The Last Crusade.

The Last Crusade :
The Last Crusade has long been heralded as the most fun and the most popular of the series. It took the idea of Indy, brought back the fan favorite Nazi villains, and made it bigger, more explosive. And of course added in Sean Connery to round it all out as Daddy dearest. I used to love the film more than any of the series as well, but it wasn’t till I started to look critically and start enjoying The Temple of Doom more that I started looking more critically at The Last Crusade as well and start seeing it’s flaw. Sure, it’s bigger, funnier, and has more action (not a bad thing), but it’s also The Return of the Jedi of the series as well. It rehashes the Nazis as villains due to the poor reception of The Temple of Doom’s Indian villains, and amped up the action to cover it up. Don’t get me wrong, I really do love most of the movie, but the rehashing of old villains and plot, just with more puzzles and twists, means it’s not nearly as special as we would have hoped.

Indy is back again, and this time he’s searching for the Holy Grain. Hitler’s Nazis are after it as well. Indy is approached by antiquities dealer Walter Donovan in hopes of finding the grail. He presents Indy with a startling discovery. A half tablet that shoes clues on the burial ground where the grail was supposedly hidden for hundreds upon hundreds of years. Said chalice is said to hold the key to eternal youth, and on top of that, it would be one of the greatest historical finds in the history of the world. The other half of the tablet is said to be in Venice, and Donovan wants Indy to track it down. For once, Indy isn’t exactly enthused. His father (Sean Connery) has wasted his entire life searching for the grail, and he’d be much better suited for the task. Turns out his good old dad has already been ON the case, as Donovan had approached him first. Now Mr. Jones Sr. Is missing and Indy has to find the clues that his father used to track down the tablet, and hopefully rescue not only his dad, but attain one of the world’s greatest historical artifacts of all times.

You guessed it though. Friends double cross him and turn out to be Nazis, and Indiana Jones REALLY hates Nazis. So more punching ensues. More chases, bigger gunfights, and Henry Jones making wise cracks along the way. It’s a gloriously fun affair, but as I described a paragraph or so above, it’s been done before. Even John Rys-Davies makes an appearance as Sasha to complete the perfect trifecta of recycled ideas. Fun, glorious, over the top, but still rehashed.

The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull :
Sequels are very rarely better than their predecessors, and sequels that come 20+ years later are usually even less so. The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was actually a movie I was kind of excited for back in 2008. It may have been nearly 30 years since Harrison Ford had handled his famous whip, but it was still Harrison Ford coming back as Indiana Jones! To keep with the aging process, they had fast forwarded 25 years into the future since The Last Crusade, right into the middle of the cold war with the ever famous Ruskies as the villains. It was perfect. We had Cate Blanchett hamming it up as a Russian soldier looking to use Indy to get a mythical crystal Skull. Karen Allen was coming back as Marion, and then there was the warning sign. Shia LaBeouf was attached to the project as Indy’s long lost son (riding off the success of his Transformers films).

The movie starts out well enough, but it doesn’t take 15 minutes before you can tell that the shark has been jumped (with Indy surviving a nuclear blast by hiding inside of a lead lined refrigerator). It only gets worse from there though, as Indy gets let go from his teaching position at Marshall college and he’s put out to pasture after the American agents believed he aided the Russians in stealing the device. However, Indy gets tracked down by a wandering motorcycle riding nomad named Mutt (Shia) who brings with him news that Indy’s old friend “Ox” (William Hurt) is missing. Ox was rabidly trying to find a mythical item called the Crystal Skull, which just so happens to be the very same artifact that the Russians are looking for in hopes of turning the tide of the cold war. So naturally Indy goes out on a grand adventure along with “Mutt” (who turns out to be his son of course), and along the way he has to beat up Russian agents, foil a double cross, and return an alien skull to it’s place so inter dimensional aliens can get back to….well… jumping around dimensions.

Oh boy. Yeah, that description is accurate. Indy is gonna meet space aliens and fight the Russians. Now, I get the idea of fighting a brand new villain, and I applaud this action. But holy COW could it have been handled better. We have scenes with Mutt leaping from vine to vine like Tarzan, a ridiculous plot involving aliens and a flying saucer (not that big of a stretch from religious artifacts, but still), and poor Shia can’t act his way out of a paper bag. Even Indy feels stretched thing and poor Ford looks like he could barely hold it together. It’s one of those films that gets royally trashed by most fans, and rightfully so. It was a valiant effort at bringing back the “pulpy” material that made Indiana Jones good, just without any of the heart and soul that really sold the series.



Rated PG by the MPAA (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom) / Rated PG-13 by the MPAA (The Last Crusade, The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull)




Video:

The Original Trilogy:
Due to the fact that the original trilogy were so similar looking, and share such visual similarities AND identical video scores for this release, I’m rolling them into one description. Needles to say the new 4K UHD remasters are nothing short of stunning. I have never in my life seen the movies look this good. The 35 mm film productions are wonderfully grainy, with just the right amount of texture without being swarming or clunky in the grain structure. Details are shockingly clear, with fine pore detail and intimate clothing details showing stuff I had never seen before. There is the obvious issues of green screening and optical effects due to the times (such as the lava pits in Temple of Doom, Dirigible in The Last Crusade) but those aren’t really flaws as much as they are just elements of the times. There appears to be no DNR or other digital scrubbing going on, and all 3 movies are just incredible visually.

Colors with the new Dolby Vision and HDR color grading are immaculate. I always worry when old classics get HDR tweaking, but it’s done very tastefully here, richening and improving individual colors, and taming some of the obviously fake orange blood as well (always been a bane for 80s films). Bold blue skies are incredibly vibrant, and the browns and stone grays inside the underground caverns (such as Raiders when Indy is stealing the statue) look amazing. Gold objects shine and exemplify incredible saturation levels, but also things like water and clothes just look more detailed and less washed out. Blacks are picture perfect and showcase better shadow detail than the film has ever produced on home video. Simply put, these transfers are AMAZING.

The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Premiering over 2 decades after the original trilogy, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull sports the most modern looking encode, and the old optical effects that are noticeable in the previous films, are now much cleaner and smoother due to CGI and modern day models and techniques. It shares a very similar visual aesthetic thanks to Spielberg’s meticulous eye for detail and the fact that it was shot with film stock as well, but it seems cleaner, less grainy, and definitely the sharpest of the bunch. The film’s jungle sequences are awash with greens and browns, and the obvious yellow and brown color grading to make it look like the 50s is done tastefully.

The Dolby Vision grading is excellent as well. This is a rather intense and visceral film color wise, but it’s also a bit muted due to the before mentioned brown and yellow hue. Instead of blatantly making everything super saturated, the powers that be took a more subtle approach, tweaking colors and white levels so everything looks just more vibrant and rich without being gawdy or garrish. Check out the Blu-ray side by side and you’ll notice what I mean. The film looks almost bleached and bland in comparison, with the whites blowing things out of proportion, and the black levels showing some basic artifacts and black crush. Here the white levels are much more balanced, and hand in hand with it comes much better blacks as well (which shows off much more detail by a handy margin).



Audio:

The Raiders of the Lost Ark:
All 4 of the films get a new Dolby Atmos track to enjoy, and the original 3 sound largely similar, with of course some minor differences. The one thing that is consistent across ALL four tracks is that Paramount has once more undergone their controversial stance of remixing the audio and using a completely different bass profile. Much like War of the Worlds the bass profile has been played with a bit, and comes out noticeably softer in many spots. That’s not to say that the movies are dull and baseless, but in Raiders of the Lost Ark I noticed that it sounds very “different”. Bass hits harder in areas that it didn’t before, and some of the standout scenes such as the infamous rolling stone scene, are more tamped down. It’s not something that’s going to make me throw my hands up and throw out the entire track, but it’s rather interesting to listen to. According to the sound designer he felt previous home theater releases had the bass cooked overly hot (which WAS a thing back in the early days of home video) and that it sounded unnatural. So he decided to fix that in this release. Personally I'm with several people who believe they went a tad too far, but I can begrudgingly understand WHY they were tweaked.

However, the rest of the track is excellent. The 5.1 mix was solid enough, but the Atmos track opens up that sound stage just a bit more, allowing overhead rocks to fall down around the listener, as well as the surrounds to act a little more “airy” and light with the directional shifts (such the opening scene in the jungle). Voices are still crisp and clear and overall this is a great sounding mix, just with a weird bass profile.

The Temple of Doom
Temple of Doom is probably the liveliest of the 3 original film, especially with all of the underground sequences with the priest. John Williams’ legendary score (seriously, outside of Star Wars his work on the Indiana Jones movies is awe inspiring) is rippling with power and energy, and the screaming of Kate Capshaw is piercing in it’s sharpness and clarity (whether that’s a good thing is of course up for debate). Localization of special effects is incredible, with people falling into lava, arrows bouncing off of cliff walls, and bullets ricocheting around the listening position. Of the three, Temple of Doom also has the most bass of the original films, and seems the most untampered with as well. Sure, it doesn’t have the crushing bass of the old over cooked DVDs, but it’s very VERY close to the levels that my Blu-ray set enjoyed

The Last Crusade
I’m going to be rehashing just a little bit, but The Last Crusade really is very similar to the previous two films. It’s got a rousing John Williams score, the action is really dynamic with explosions, roaring fires, and boat chases careering all around, and the dialog is above reproach. HOWEVER, this is also the one with the weakest bass as well. Startlingly too, as it is mixed rather low and everyone I have talked to who has viewed it so far has said the same thing. For some reason it was really lowered here, and while there’s plenty of action and some good LFE, it just doesn’t stand out like it really should. Especially considering how much spacial awareness and dynamics the rest of the experience is.

The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Since Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was filmed so much later than the original 3, the sound mixing was a lot newer and more “modern”, and also seems to have been the one that has been tampered with the least in regards to LFE. It’s a near 5 star mix that really rocks the house. It opens up to a heavy duty rock infused car chase, only to transition to a much more nuanced mix when we get back to modern day times with Indy in the warehouse. Voices echo in the big storage room, and LFE is actually pretty punishing when we have the infamously bad nuke/fridge scene. Dynamics are exceptionally wide with a massive range, pushing us into the jungles, an alien ship that literally pulsates with low end energy, and everything just flies at you from all angles. Action effects are in full swing, with gunshots, cars careening over a cavern, and whip sounds coming through with razor sharp clarity. I will say that the LFE (when compared to my Blu-ray) do seem to have been altered and tamped down, but not nearly as much as the previous films for some reason.








Extras:

• On Set with Raiders of the Lost Ark
-- From Jungle to Desert
-- From Adventure to Legend
• Making the Films
-- The Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981 documentary)
-- The Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark
-- The Making of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
-- The Making of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
-- The Making of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
• Behind the Scenes
-- The Stunts of Indiana Jones
--The Sound of Indiana Jones
-- The Music of Indiana Jones
-- The Light and Magic of Indiana Jones
-- Raiders: The Melting Face!
-- Indiana Jones and the Creepy Crawlies (with optional pop-ups)
-- Travel with Indiana Jones: Locations (with optional pop-ups)
-- Indy's Women: The American Film Institute Tribute
-- Indy's Friends and Enemies
-- Iconic Props (Kingdom of the Crystal Skull)
-- The Effects of Indy (Kingdom of the Crystal Skull)
-- Adventures in Post Production (Kingdom of the Crystal Skull)

Final Score: ​

This new set is 95% pure perfection, with only a few quirks that left me annoyed or puzzled. For starters Universal decided NOT to use the cardboard “sleeve” case like they did with the Jurassic Park set and so many others, and instead are using the old Back to the Future style fold out trays. No scratching, easily held, and I rather like it. We even get a new little booklet with artwork as well as the 5th disc from the Blu-ray release for the extras. Nothing new there, but still glad we have them all. Also, the video encodes are nothing short of perfection and are WELL worth upgrading for. I loved every single one of the 4 transfers and was marveling at how well they held up.

Now, on to the minor “bad” things. The major one being the fact that Paramount decided to play with the bass levels and tamped down the LFE in many ways. It’s still there, and it’s not a big deal as the new Atmos mixes are otherwise GREAT, but it is an irritant that us bass lovers will have to live with. Lastly, no Blu-rays to make a combo set. Yes, I know most of us have the Blu-rays, but the compactness of having both formats in ONE case was handy. Is it worth complaining about? Probably not, and I’d rather have this than have Paramount put 9 discs in one case and use their cardboard sleeve method to hold the discs and risk scratching. All in all, this is a great set and except for those quirks, it’s a great pick up for any Indy fan.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Shia LaBeouf, Karen Allen, John Rys-Davies, Paul Freeman, Kate Capshaw, Ke Huy Quan
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Written by: Lawrence Kasdan, George Lucas / Willay Huyck, Gloria Katz / Jeffrey Boam / David Koepp
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 (all 4)
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core) for all 4, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Russian DD 2.0, French, Italian, Japanese Spanish, Russian DD 5.1
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Cantonese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Korean, Mandarin (Simplified), Mandarin (Traditional), Norwegian, Russian, Swedish, Thai
Studio: Paramount
Rated: PG / PG / PG-13 / PG13
Runtime: 115 Minutes / 118 Minutes / 126 Minutes / 122 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: June 8th, 2021

Recommendation: Highly Recommended

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[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I great set of movies to own that is for sure.

 

[Todd Anderson]

I'm glad these films (minus Crystal Skull, which I didn't like) ar getting a proper restore. Well deserved.

Raiders of the Lost Ark is such a classic. It stands the time well, even with the cheesy melting faces at the end!

 

[Michael Scott]

I'm glad these films (minus Crystal Skull, which I didn't like) ar getting a proper restore. Well deserved.

Raiders of the Lost Ark is such a classic. It stands the time well, even with the cheesy melting faces at the end!

that scene creeped me out big time as an 8 year old kid

 

[Epoxy1]

I'm glad these films (minus Crystal Skull, which I didn't like) ar getting a proper restore. Well deserved.

Raiders of the Lost Ark is such a classic. It stands the time well, even with the cheesy melting faces at the end!

Todd, I felt the same way about Crystal Skull, but watching all four films in a row actually wasn't that bad. Outside of three scenes in the film (refrigerator, sward fight, and Tarzan scene), the movie actually wasn't as bad as I remember.

 

[Todd Anderson]

Maybe I should give it another shot!

 

[Epoxy1]

Maybe I should give it another shot!

I would...my wife and I expected to turn it off after 30 minutes and actually ended up enjoying it. Just don't let the three "bad" scenes take you out of the picture