These 'Raiders of the Backyard' Made a Shot for Shot Remake of Indiana Jones

Eric Zala and Chris Strompolos are two best friends who recreated Raiders of the Lost Ark over the course of seven years. The pair started when they were 11 and 12 years old, but didn't finish the project until they were 19.

Amazingly, since they started this project in 1982, they couldn't get a copy of the script of the film, or even get it on VHS, so they started the whole thing from memory, having seen the film twice in theaters. Unfortunately, they had to leave out the airplane scene because they didn't want it to look "cheesy" when it blew up (okay guys, sure). 30 years later they were able to revisit the scene through the power of Kickstarter, and their film is now truly finished.


The video above is a trailer for a documentary about their story that will be shown at this year's SXSW festival.  They were also featured in Vice's American Obsessions series, shown below: