The Drifter said:I couldn't agree more. I can't count how many times I've read how someone tries to pass Raiders off as some sort of intellectual, artsy-fartsy film, when in truth. it's just pure popcorn fun as the other three are.
I've never encountered that myself. But, what I think differentiates Raiders was the serious effort put into a movie that pays homage to a certain predecessor genre. It does take itself seriously in that Kasdan wanted to inject a classiness and nostalgia into it and did it very well. This makes Raiders shine along with everyone elses' contribution of course. Apparently Kasdan had a great criticism of ToD and while I do enjoy ToD I can see his point. Kasdan had a very certain vision for the story and had he written the script for any of the movies following Raiders, I've no doubt he would have continued that style. We would not have got a ToD with all the camp and silliness and gratuitous gore, which was enjoyable but differently a few degrees different from Raiders.