Worst '80s "Raiders" Rip-Off

Worst '80s "Raiders" Rip-Off

  • 1986 - The Mines of Kilimanjaro

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1987 - Jane and the Lost City

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    44

Ska

New member
Ah...this thread again!

Just when I finally got Perils of Gwendoline out of my head...(n)
 

Indyologist

Well-known member
You forgot the movie Yellow Hair and the Fortress of Gold. As soon as it came out, I found it instantly stupid w/out even seeing it. The title just blew it. Even the font on the movie poster is an Indy rip-off. If you click on the poster, you'll see she even has a whip. An Indy poser if ever I saw one.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088427/
 

Ska

New member
Ya know, about 4 years ago I saw the Yellow Hair DVD at Best Buy...I almost bought it...just to add to the Indy ripoff collection...but something told me not to.

I figured I'd rent it, but haven't found it yet to do so.
 

oki9Sedo

New member
I think the only reason that awful Allan Quatermain film is being voted the worst is because literally nobody saw the likes of Jungle Raiders and Sky Pirates, and therefore nobody is voting for them.

I've never even HEARD of them, let alone seen them.
 

Katarn07

New member
I've only seen Romancing the Stone. I didn't didn't really like it, but I didn't hate it either so won't vote in the poll.

The poster for Sky Pirates is simply amazing no matter how much the actual movie may suck! He's what Sky Captain would have looked like if he were an American :cool:
 

sarah navarro

New member
indifan101 said:
I hated Romancing the stone! This movie sucked ass! It was the most stupidest thing Iv'e ever seen!
i agree everytime someone asked me about it i say its a rip off,then they say its just because its not harrison ford and i say sure is becuase harrison is the real indy!
 

Stoo

Well-known member
sarah navarro said:
i agree everytime someone asked me about it i say its a rip off,then they say its just because its not harrison ford and i say sure is becuase harrison is the real indy!
You don't like it? It's fun but I guess the humour has aged a little bit.
It was really popular when it came out, that's for sure!
Indyologist said:
You forgot the movie Yellow Hair and the Fortress of Gold. As soon as it came out, I found it instantly stupid w/out even seeing it. The title just blew it. Even the font on the movie poster is an Indy rip-off. If you click on the poster, you'll see she even has a whip. An Indy poser if ever I saw one.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088427/
Yee-HAW! Yes, Indyologist! I know that one and toooootally forgot about it until now!
It came out around the same time as ?Gwendoline? but I?ve never seen it.
If the poll didn?t have a 10-choice limit then I could have included it along
with ?Bloodstone? and ?The Further Adventures of Tennessee Buck?.

The SKAbatula Man said:
Ya know, about 4 years ago I saw the Yellow Hair DVD at Best Buy...I almost bought it...
Looks like you might have done yourself a favour! I?m still curious about it though.
Thanks for letting me know that it?s out on DVD. (Oh...and we all know that you're
really a closet Gwendoline/Yik-Yak fan!):D

oki9Sedo said:
I think the only reason that awful Allan Quatermain film is being voted the worst is because literally nobody saw the likes of Jungle Raiders and Sky Pirates, and therefore nobody is voting for them.

I've never even HEARD of them, let alone seen them.
You are most likely right. SKA and myself may very well be the only ones here
who?ve seen all of these. If there?s anyone else out there, by all means, weigh in!

Actually, the poll should have been ?BEST ?Raiders? Rip-Off?...
Katarn07 said:
The poster for Sky Pirates is simply amazing no matter how much the actual movie may suck! He's what Sky Captain would have looked like if he were an American
Yeah, good ol? Dakota Harris. He was Australian, though. If you like
that then you?d be probably enjoy the adventures of Jake Cutter from
the ?Tales of the Gold Monkey? TV show. It was the 1st rip-off but the
perfect fix for any Indy-starved fan back then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdFN6agkNnQ

Check it out.
 

adventure_al

New member
King solomons mines is currently leading the pole, but while it was a cheesy indy rip off it was still watchable. How can anyone possibly vote it worse than The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik-Yak. I couldn't even sit through all of that, its awful. :gun: :dead:
 

ProfessorChaos

New member
I remember a funny mistake they made in Firewalker regarding the villain of the movie, Coyote. You see... Coyote wore an eyepatch and for the entire first half of the film it was on one side. Then, after he killed some guy and the guy grabbed his eyepatch and almost seemed to move it while he was dying, the thing was on the other side of Coyote's face for the whole rest of the story. That made me laugh so hard, I couldn't take the movie seriously after that. Every time Coyote showed up, I thought: "Come on, we know there's nothing wrong with either of your eyes, so just lose the eyepatch!"

Which, oddly enough, makes me think of the idiotic voice of that swammy character in Alan Quartermain and the Lost City of Gold and how his voice made me laugh hysterically whenever he tried to say Gold and it came out like Goooooold. I could understand it if he was really foreign, but that accent was so obviously fake that I half-expected him to cough and in a Brooklyn voice say: "Oh, mac! I tell ya, these kind of parts just kill my throat!" I'm sure they didn't intend for it to be that funny, but then again... maybe they did. ;)

I guess some movies can't be imitated... and Indiana Jones is definitely way too good for some of the cheap knock-offs they put out back in the 1980's.

You know what more recent Indiana Jones knock-offs I did enjoy, though?
The Tomb Raider movies and the original National Treasure. Those were a lot of fun! Not exactly big-budget blockbuster material, but still good, fun movies in the Indiana Jones style. National Treasure had some things in common with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life tried really hard to be like Raiders of the Lost Ark. I had to respect their effort, as in the end they did manage to hold my interest, which is more than I can say for the 1980's Indy imitators. Plus... Lara Croft could hold any man's interest!
But I digress. *Ahem!* The storylines, in these movies, were very Indy-like.
Just in the Tomb Raider movies alone, you've got plots involving Pandora's Box, Atlantis, and the Illuminati. Then, with National Treasure, you've got a secret treasure hidden by the Freemasons that is wanted by terrorists with their own agenda. All in all, the kind of adventures you would see Indy having.
So, for movies made after the 1980's, those are highly recommended as good!
 

Stoo

Well-known member
Another Obscure '80s "Rip-Off"

"Hunters of the Golden Cobra" (1982)

This is one I used to see on the shelves of video stores but never bothered to rent. 30 years later, it was amusing to finally watch.

It's a search for a golden artifact that takes place at the end of WW2, with old cars, float planes, machine gun fights against Japanese soldiers, confrontations with violent tribes, poisonous blow-darts, caverns filled with lava, a snake-pit, etc.

This is from the same Italian director as "Jungle Raiders". (Ska may be interested to know that the guy who played, Gin Fizz, is in this movie, too.)

Check out the posters. One of them even has the Ark of the Covenant!:eek:

HuntersOfTheGoldenCobra_1982_Double.jpg
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Stoo said:
"Hunters of the Golden Cobra" (1982)

This is one I used to see on the shelves of video stores but never bothered to rent. 30 years later, it was amusing to finally watch.

It's a search for a golden artifact that takes place at the end of WW2, with old cars, float planes, machine gun fights against Japanese soldiers, confrontations with violent tribes, poisonous blow-darts, caverns filled with lava, a snake-pit, etc.

This is from the same Italian director as "Jungle Raiders". (Ska may be interested to know that the guy who played, Gin Fizz, is in this movie, too.)

Check out the posters. One of them even has the Ark of the Covenant!:eek:

That looks like a perfect defintion of "knock-off" rather than "spin-off".

The float plane, snake and Ark. "Hunters" for "Raiders". (The Portuguese title translates as "Robbers").

Antonio Margheriti also directed another spaghetti adventure called The Ark of the Sun God in 1984. Though with no Ark actually involved.
 

Le Saboteur

Active member
Firewalker? Firewalker?! Now there's a movie I haven't thought about in... oh, twenty plus years. For a movie that spends so much time in caves & tombs, they could have spent some money on rock work. It looks like a bad zoo enclosure!

<iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/i19BCkJaWQM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 

JuniorJones

TR.N Staff Member
Le Saboteur said:
Firewalker? Firewalker?! Now there's a movie I haven't thought about in... oh, twenty plus years. For a movie that spends so much time in caves & tombs, they could have spent some money on rock work. It looks like a bad zoo enclosure!

<iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/i19BCkJaWQM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Cannon films. Good bless their cheap cotton socks.
 
Stoo said:
One of them even has the Ark of the Covenant!:eek:
Haven't seen a few of these, but the (art design of the) ark is a shameless theft!

The only thing I didn't like about Romancing the Stone was the Kenny G 80's "jazz". The best job of capitalizing on Raiders...

I remember liking the film, and still marvel at Kathleen Turner before her sex change!

All I kept thinking during the Alan Quatermain flicks were: why would they waste such great locations and (some) nice set/costume design with such crappy fight choreography and dialog...among other things.

Good bump!

Finally, I vividly remember watching Tales of the Gold Monkey hoping it would be a quality show but always came away shaking my head and literally mentioning "lame Raiders ripoff."
 

JuniorJones

TR.N Staff Member
Ark of the Sun God - 1984

Poster image

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7lIUmpCNpQU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Anyone for Ark of the Sun God?
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Stoo

Well-known member
JuniorJones said:
Anyone for Ark of the Sun God?
I've seen that one and it's fun. From the same director who did "Hunters of the Golden Cobra" the year before (pictured above) and "Jungle Raiders" a couple of years later (which I put in the poll and is my favourite of the trio).

The funniest thing is that there is no Ark in this movie! "Hunters of..." was shameless enough to put the Ark on it's poster but this one even has it in the title. No Ark to be found in either film.:rolleyes:

Junior, that image is huge! Anyway you can make it smaller?

P.S. I just noticed that Montana already mentioned "Ark of the Sun God" above in post #34.
 

ListenLiveLong

New member
Stoo said:
"Hunters of the Golden Cobra" (1982)



Check out the posters. One of them even has the Ark of the Covenant!:eek:

HuntersOfTheGoldenCobra_1982_Double.jpg

However, they purposely messed up on the lid's birds, however. I guess it was to make it less obvious that it's a Raiders rip-off, but they failed badly.
 
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