So these kids spent seven years doing a painstaking, shot-for-shot duplication of ROTLA just for their own amusement. Several years later, one of these kids’ college roommate made a copy of the film and it started to circulate around campus. More copies were made and became sort of an underground cult thing at NYU. A copy made its way into the hands of director named Eli Roth (who directed Cabin Fever. Roth brought it to Harry Knowles and suggested that he play it at his “Butt-numb-a-thon” movie festival, telling him he had never seen anything like it.
The film was plugged in at a dead time during the festival to a theater of bored movie geeks:
The director, Roth was so impressed that he sent a copy to Steven Spielberg, who was also blown away by it.
Knowles showed the film again to sold out crowds, and was able to bring in the three kids, now adults, who had made the film. They received a thunderous standing ovation when it was over.
Somehow those kids recreated everything, the snakes, the sliding-under-the-truck scene, they even blew a truck up somehow.
There is a short trailer available at the AICN link which shows the boulder scene, and you can get a little taste of what a great job those kids did.
Unfortunately, there is currently no venue or plan to make the film available for a wide audience. Knowles is pushing on his site for Spielberg and Lucas to make it an extra on the Raiders DVD. I hope that it becomes available somewhere. I would love to see this film. I think it would be especially fun to see in a theater of appreciative fans, rooting for the kids to pull it off, thinking that they’ve got to mess up this next scene, how can they possibly…and they do.
I’d be happy to settle for something on DVD or online, though. This is kind of an amazing story. These kids stuck with this for seven years, and by all accounts turned out a pretty amazing labor of love. I hope I get to see it.
That is single handedly the greatest review of a film I have ever read. I was nearly crying at the end of just the review baby! I can only imagine how good the film is…
My boyfriend called me on Saturday practically giddy about this. He lives in Austin and actually managed to get a ticket and see it. Haven’t had a chance to ask him how it was, though…
Spielberg has seen it and doesn’t seem to have a problem with it. They may not be in violation of any copyright violations if they weren’t trying to make any money off of it, but IANAL. I hpe Lucas and Spieberg don’t try to stop the film from being shown anywhere, they’ll just look like jerks if they do.
Went to see it this afternoon, it really is quite amazing. Especially some of the action sequences. Lots of fun to watch, too… the crowd was going nuts. And the makers were there to take questions after the screening.
There’s no reason to make a fuss about copyright yet… Spielberg has seen it and likes it, and the guys who made it aren’t out to make any money off it. They seemed pretty surprised at the reaction, to be honest. I mean, they got a standing ovation at the end. They couldn’t answer questions about a DVD release because before this weekend I get the impression they hadn’t really thought about it at all.
I hope it gets to tour around a little so more people can watch though. Has to be on a big screen in a crowded theater though.
