“Movie license tie-in” wasn’t always such a repellent phrase in the games industry. At one time, when cinema was still pure, and multiplex was nothing but engineering jargon, it was quite simply a brilliant idea.
The Atari VCS was still dominating the console world when George Lucas and Steven Spielberg first hung a bullwhip on Han Solo’s hip, and lessons learned from the merchandising of Star Wars were fresh in their minds. But digitising Indiana Jones wasn’t purely a financial harvesting of a hit movie – it was a new and exciting entertainment concept. Putting the audience in the grubby old fedora and sending them on a destructive archaeological quest was an evolution in cinematic possibilities.
Howard Scott Warshaw - the eminent game designer famed for making one of the best games of all time (Yar’s Revenge) and one of the worst (E.T.) – was currently between these two legendary/nefarious titles. When the chance to develop a Raiders of the Lost Ark game presented itself to the Atari campaigner, he grabbed it like a solid gold idol. One of the first ever movie tie-in games, much of the proliferation of this brand of merchandising can be tied to Warshaw’s magnificent founding effort.
All anyone (including Spielberg) anticipated was an archaeological twist on the graphics of a run ‘n’ gun platformer; much like the majority of other VCS titles building the industry toward a devastating market collapse. But Warshaw was inspired by the film’s character; intrigued by the strange accessibility of a man who was both an action hero and a scholar; a cynic and a romantic. Any game starring such an enigmatic persona demanded a feat of coding dexterity to rival the scope of Indy’s biblical quest.
Warshaw threw himself into the part – coding in a fedora and lashing a bullwhip at lazy colleagues for inspiration. Adventure had only just been released on the VCS, and its unique questing nature had stimulated the gaming world in a very singular way. But building upon such inimitable gameplay was almost beyond comprehension – Adventure had marked a groundbreaking nexus in game design, and wasn’t to be toyed with casually. Warshaw’s adaptation of Raiders of the Lost Ark took the raw nature of this new genre and tempered it in the crucible of the film’s radiant protagonist; building a world of exploration, adventure and action that was bigger than anything the gaming world had ever seen, yet was simultaneously unshackled from the linearity of a filmic plot. Every Atari gamer in the world got a taste of what it was like to be Indiana Jones.
And everyone was happy. The film had done great business, and the game had crafted a whole new concept in licensing possibilities. The movie created an exciting and dynamic protagonist who was astoundingly accessible to a casual, escapist audience. We saw a man who was immensely fallible; who bled when he was punched and tripped over his own feet. He had a regular job, and wasn’t shored up by fathomless government resources or cheated his way out of difficult situations with superhuman powers. When we saw him taking on the Nazis single handed, toppling the pyramids, fist fighting with Bomber (twice) and blowing up planes, we felt as though with a little more courage, a pinch of extra recklessness and the professional ingenuity of a university tutor, we could all have been Indiana Jones.
He was a comprehensive success, but his popularity began and ended right there. The toys and hyper-merchandising of Star Wars didn’t really lend itself to a 1930’s archaeologist, regardless of his ebullient style. The character and the story’s essence had been captured marvellously in a vibrant thrill-ride of a videogame, and the concept needed nothing else. Despite his tremendous appeal, Indiana Jones was quickly resigned to the history he chased after so enthusiastically.
Until 1984, that is. It’s not a difficult task to argue that Temple of Doom, the first film sequel (technically a prequel, I suppose), was essentially inferior to the original. Indy had been given a comic sidekick, the stunts went beyond extreme and into fantasy and the historical grounding of the plot’s events were far less sturdy. And yet Temple of Doom achieved something spectacular, simply by existing. Suddenly, those fleeting fans of Raiders of the Lost Ark realised that Indiana Jones was a franchise – an enduring brand that promised entertainment beyond entertainment. Least of all at the cinema.
