Raiders of the Lost Ark by Campbell Black

Peacock's-Eye

New member
Everything I've heard about the Campbell Black 'novelization' turns out to be true! This reads like a straight-up period adventure novel, and not at all like a movie tie-in product. Campbell fills in many of the narrative gaps, provides about a dozen scenes not found in the film, and fleshes out the characters with original backstories. Like the Foster 'Star Wars' novelization, this is pre-continuity, so nothing in the book jives with TOD, Young Indy, or the McGregor novels. The whole book has a Philip Marlow meets H. Rider Haggard quality - hard edged, but fun. The prose itself is clear, crisp & minimal.

At any rate, I highly recommend this to any Indy fan, or anyone who loves old fashioned adventure stories. I give this five out of five Indys!

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
:whip: :whip: :whip: :whip: :whip:
 

Michael24

New member
I thought it was disappointing. Well, actually, I enjoyed the first half. Everything from the opening scene up to around the time Indy arrives in Cairo and starts his own search was pretty good and felt like it was its own stand-alone novel. But the second half felt like little more a Cliff's Notes version of the movie, like Black at some point went, "Why I am treating this so seriously? It's just a movie tie-in," and proceeded to just quickly translate the remainder of the film as he could recall it from memory. Too bad, though, because I did think the first half was really good on its own.
 

TalonCard

Member
Peacock's-Eye said:
Like the Foster 'Star Wars' novelization, this is pre-continuity, so nothing in the book jives with TOD, Young Indy, or the McGregor novels.

I'm curious--why do you think nothing in the book jives with the other Indy stuff? I know some of the dating is off (like how long it's been since Indy saw Sallah) but I didn't really see anything that contradicted, say, Young Indy or TOD.

And of course Foster's Star Wars was actually the first piece of what we'd call the Expanded Universe continuity, so it's not pre-continuity--more like the beginning of continuity.

TC
 

Peacock's-Eye

New member
Nah, the "George Lucas' Star Wars novel is all over the place. I can't remember everything, but it includes many lines from the shooting script that GL later obliterated from the continuity. It definitely doesn't jive with the other movies. I haven't read much EU, but the only book I've come across that acknowledges the Foster novel is Stover's RotS novelization, which canonizes "Captain Colton" from that book.

As for RotLA: Young Indy being inspired to pick the whip after seeing a circus lion tamer as a boy. Belloq stealing Indy's doctorate paper. Lots of stuff.
 

Sharlow

New member
I've just brought the omnibus of the three movie books, and I'd have to say that the written story of Raiders was my Fave. TOD and LC were too much like the movies.

Raiders fleshed out the story, gave us a far better insight into Indy, made Marion into a real person, and told us quite a bit of the back story between them, and was all in all a great read.

The other two stories, apart from a couple of scenes in TOD read like the movie script.

Eagerly awaiting my KOTCS book now to see if that gives me any more insights into my favourite adventurer.
 

TalonCard

Member
Peacock's-Eye said:
Nah, the "George Lucas' Star Wars novel is all over the place. I can't remember everything, but it includes many lines from the shooting script that GL later obliterated from the continuity. It definitely doesn't jive with the other movies. I haven't read much EU, but the only book I've come across that acknowledges the Foster novel is Stover's RotS novelization, which canonizes "Captain Colton" from that book.

As for RotLA: Young Indy being inspired to pick the whip after seeing a circus lion tamer as a boy. Belloq stealing Indy's doctorate paper. Lots of stuff.

Changes between the movie script and the novel don't really count; that's a production issue. The EU has since used a lot from that novelization (which is, of course, just as much a part of the continuity as any other novelization.) Some particular elements referenced include the deleted Biggs scenes, the Fire Rings of Fornax, Han's friend Toceppenili, the common ancestry of Jawas and Sandpeople, and Red Leader fighting with Anakin in the Clone Wars.

I know it said that seven-year-old Indy was captivated by a lion tamer and his whip at a circus...but that doesn't exactly contradict Crusade... What does Belloq and the doctorate paper contradict? I've seen that mentioned in the new young adult novel and the Ultimate Guide...

TC
 

Violet

Moderator Emeritus
I enjoyed the novel. It had a very noir flavour to it, which I liked and it was very different to ToD and LC ones (though I enjoyed those two, especially ToD because I had read LC years ago and know it word from word, practically). I like the way Black handles the Marion and Indy relationship and it was amazing how much of the novel was focused on that.

There was little action description when it came to the truck chase and the flying wing fight, but all in all, it was still enjoyable and that Marion and Indy night scene at Sallah's was priceless. I don't know whether that was an invention of Black's or if that was in a draft of Kasdan's. Anyone clarify that for me?
 

Kooshmeister

New member
Having just finished the novelization of Raiders I'm left with some mixed feelings about it. To paraphrase a certain Russian villainess, it's eager to begin and quick to finish.

The first half is simply amazing. The first chapter in the Peruvian jungle takes up numerous pages and seems to even go on for far longer than it actually needs to, then in chapter two, instead of simply going to the scene at the college we suddenly find ourselves in Germany, being introduced to Dietrich way sooner than in the film, as he is given his marching orders by Eidel, and only then do we go to the college and are introduced to the professor persona of Indy, meet Marcus and have the meeting with Musgrove and Eaton.

As the story progresses (more or less) the way we expect it to, Black really takes his time setting up the situation and the characters, cutting from Indy's trip to Nepal to the Tanis dig already underway, making it seem as if the characters are all literally on a collision course with one another.

But towards the end, the truck chase was just getting underway and I suddenly realized the book was almost over. There were hardly any pages left! As I read the last few bits I noticed it just sort of....petered out with a whimper. After all of the buildup in the first half of the book, I honestly got the feeling Black was, towards the end, becoming weary of writing, or possibly he had a deadline to meet, and so he just rushed everything. The scene on the Nazi island in particular was the biggest letdown, especially the opening of the Ark.
 
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Agent Z

Active member
Do we get backstory on the boulder...the workers who helped round it, its motivations, etc etc...? :confused:
 

Kooshmeister

New member
Well, we know who didn't build it. Namely the Hovitos. As the novel has it, the Hovitos revere the Temple of the Chachopoyan Warriors (as it is called there), but are not the Chachopoyan Warriors themselves although there's nothing to say they aren't descended from them. They certainly know of the idol and want it, and kill anyone who would dare enter to claim it before they can. The reason they were helping Belloq is because they believed that after Belloq took the idol from Indy, he would give it to them. Which of course he doesn't, being Belloq.

All we really know about the temple and its builders, the Chachopoyan Warriors judging by its name, is that they were very crafty trap designers who thought of every conceivable contingency, not only installing stuff to kill you while you were trying to reach the idol, but installing the final "failsafes" (the collapsing ceiling and the entrance-blocking boulder) to make sure you wouldn't escape with your prize if you got that far. And this isn't merely from observing the sequence in the film; Indy marvels at how creative the Chachopoyans were every step of the way, both going in and out of the place.

About the only other stuff we learn about this scene is some backstory on the Forrestal character, how he is connected to Indy, and how and when Indy decided to pick up where he left off. If I'm remembering correctly, Forrestal was a professor at the same college as Indy, and after he went missing in Peru, Indy searched his papers and found a piece of the map to the Temple of the Chachopoyan Warriors among them, which sparked his interest. So, viewed this way, Indy's mission was to both obtain the idol and discover what happened to Forrestal. Forrestal himself is described as being a fairly bookish guy, not an outdoorsman at all, and upon finding his speared corpse Indy sadly tells his colleague he "should've stayed in the classroom."

Which, of course, means that for a bookworm with almost zero field experience, Forrestal actually finding the temple and making it as far as the first trap is a feat unto itself. No wonder Indy told Satipo he was "very good." He hadn't thought the old boy'd had it in him to make it as far as he did!
 

|ZiR|

New member
Yeah, it all starts going downhill about halfway through. But I enjoyed it. Especially the beginning parts at the temple and back at college.

James Kahn's novelization of TOD is much better, and is easily the best of the book adaptations for the trilogy, imo.
 

Kooshmeister

New member
I'm going through Khan's Temple of Doom novel as we speak and I already like it a lot better than Black's Raiders. Knowing what it is Indy and Lao Che actually snarl at each other in Chinese after Indy kills Chen is pretty cool.
 

|ZiR|

New member
One of my favorite things about TOD is all the tidbits of Chinese mythology Khan threw in. I love that Short Round thinks Indy is the mortal incarnation of some ancient treasure god, or something. :p
 

Crack that whip

New member
Yeah, I seem to remember enjoying Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom the most of the three novelizations (I haven't read Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull yet; I'm awaiting my copy). I also remember enjoying Rob MacGregor's original Indy novels quite a bit more than his adaptation of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
 

PloKoon

New member
I never could understand the point of films-to-novels. Obviously a way to drench every penny they can from fans, but I mean common... Maybe it's just because I hate reading, I dunno even know how I got in this board. I feel like an outcast.

EVERYONE'S LOOKING AT ME!!!

Hey, put down the pitchforks guys and give em' up smooth. Yeah, I'm leaving now.

:whip:
 

HovitosKing

Well-known member
Interesting opinions, I just finished Campbell Black's Raiders novelization as well as Kahn's Temple of Doom, and I thought Raiders was fantastic all the way through from beginning to end. Loved it. Not only did it offer lots of additional insight and dialogue, but it really amplified the story for me. Temple, on the other hand, I found very annoying in that it spent a helluva lot of time discussing Short Round's and Willie's thoughts, and seemed to be written more for kids (i.e., "Never go on an adventure without your hat.") What? Additionally, Temple was almost word-for-word with the film in terms of dialogue, which got tiresome because I already know the film so well. But to each his own. Last Crusade is next.
 
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