As a lead in to the release of the complete Indiana Jones films on blu-ray later in the month, Paramount will be releasing Raiders Of The Lost Ark into Imax theaters for a limited run from September 8th to the 13th.
The conversion was done at the same that the film underwent its high-def restoration for the upcoming video release and was overseen by director Steven Spielberg.
Although Paramount has yet to make an official announcement about the re-release, Spielberg talked with the New York Times about it, gushing enthusiasm for the opportunity for people to see the film on as big a screen as possible.
For me, it’s always been the bigger the screen, the better… It’s the only marked contrast we have to the generations that are seeing our movies on phones and hand-held platforms. It’s a complete relief to be able to see a film that many people have just experienced on a palm-sized platform technology, suddenly hurled at that them on an Imax-sized screen.
Presumably, Raiders won’t be reformatted to the traditional IMAX 1.43:1 ratio screens but it still should look pretty impressive, as I assume it will also look that way in the subpar, “LieMax” format as well. You can find a complete list of theaters where the film will be screening at the Imax website.
Spielberg noted to the Times that during the restoration process no changes were made to the film outside of remixing the audio for the surround sound capabilities of IMAX.
When the boulder is rolling, chasing Indy through the cave, you really feel the boulder in your stomach, the way you do when a marching band passes by, and you’re standing right next to it…. Raiders is a movie of my own, that I can actually stand to watch from beginning to end. In that sense, it has a special place in my heart. I don’t rewrite it in my mind; I’m not kicking myself for what I didn’t do. I’m just going along for the ride like everybody else. It’s one of the few films that I’ve directed that I can sit back objectively and observe and enjoy with my family or whoever I’m with, or even alone. Most of my other films, I’m hypercritical of them.
