PAUL SCHEER

I’ve heard about this film for a long time. In 1982, three friends — Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala and Jayson Lamb — got together to begin a shot-for-shot re-creation of “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” a film that had been released just a year before. Their ambitions were huge — they committed to re-creating every single effects shot, including the giant rolling boulder at the film’s beginning. For the next seven and a half years, mostly on summer breaks, the three made Raiders: The Adaptation, with help from friends and parents. The uncannily accurate reproduction, initially shot on a Sony Betamax rented by Chris’s mom, is replete with a massive fiberglass boulder and Chris’s dog, Snickers, in the part of Indiana’s sidekick monkey.As they got older, Eric and Chris fought over girls and stopped filming, eventually becoming friends again long enough to finish the film. After one screening in 1989, all three forgot about it. The film is now shown around at festivals but screenings are very limited.

Enjoy the 1st 10 minutes of their epic masterpiece. So far it’s amazing. I’ve got to find a way to see the whole thing.