It’s unlikely that anyone attending the fourth installment of Butt-Numb-a-Thon (2002) can forget what happened during the hourlong breakfast break the preceded the highly anticipated screening of THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS. It was one of the rare instances where the entire BNAT audience knew what what the final film was going to be, so we were all desperate to wake our collective asses up and get ready for the epic middle film in the LOTR’s trilogy.
Those of us who got our breakfast and immediately went back into the theater (this was at the original Alamo Drafthouse location on Colorado Street, mind you) were treated to what we thought was another video short, the type of random weirdness that the Drafthouse franchise is famous for playing before and between features at all of their locations. The few dozen of us still aware and paying attention soon recognized it as a group of kids doing a shot-for-short remake of the opening sequence of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, and by the time the boulder was done rolling, most of the audience had filled in their seats and were cheering at what these kids had accomplished.
But then something even stranger happened: the film kept going. At that point, I remember thinking, “Oh, they’re going to stop once they get to the plane taking off and Indy makes his first of many escapes.” My next immediate thought was “How the hell are these kids going to fake a small-engine plane takeoff from the water?” But they found a way to do it, and after the “plane” took off, the film kept going. And once the BNAT crowd realized we were watching a remake of the entire RAIDERS film, we started to anticipate big moments still to come—the Ravenwood bar fight and fire, the map room full of snakes, the big fight scene between Indy and the massive Aryan species that ends in a plane propeller to the face (it turned out, this scene never got made until very recently), and the opening of the Ark and subsequent face melting.
But at about the halfway point, the film stopped because it was time to watch THE TWO TOWERS, and the booing began. With no real explanation as to what we’d just beheld, it ended up being one of the most talked about BNAT moments of all time, and before long the story of a group of dedicated Mississippi teenagers living out their dream to remake their favorite film. I finally saw the entire ADAPTATION piece in 2005 at a benefit screening in Chicago and got to finally shake hands and chat with two of the primary filmmakers Chris Strompolos and Eric Zala.
There have been articles and books written, and finally a documentary made, about the making of the ADAPTATION, entitled RAIDERS!: THE STORY OF THE GREATEST FAN FILM EVER MADE, which is set to open in theaters and VOD beginning June 17. And in most cities where it’s playing theatrically, there are special double features being set up with the RAIDERS ADAPTATION. I’m set to do an event here in Chicago with Chris Strompolos on June 19 at the Music Box Theatre, so keep your eyes peeled for where it might be playing near you. In the meantime, here’s a just-released special clip from the RAIDERS! doc with more remembrances from that Butt-Numb-a-Thon screening, as told by a few familiar faces who also were there. Enjoy…
