Borrowing Blockbusters: The Best, Worst and Weirdest Indiana Jones Knock Offs 

Thanks for all the amazing comments. They warm the cockles even more than The Spear of Destiny. Housekeeping: I don't usually do TV shows, but there are always exceptions; obvious omissions tend to be down to a movie not having much to talk about or show (which isn't necesarily the same as me not liking it); and I don't know why I can't get onboard Cannon's King Solomon mine train, it's my kind of thing in every way. (Still less of an ordeal than Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.)

One of the most underrated channels on RU-vid

Romancing the Stone is classic 90s ITV Saturday/Sunday afternoon entertainment.

When the world of rip-offs and mockbusters needed him most, he returned. Welcome back, you handsome borrowing bastard.

That Child Juicer really needs some safety / warning stickers. There's potential there for someone to really get hurt. For instance if they were wearing a tie and it got caught or a ponytail. The blood is a slipping hazard, also.

Technically the Germans in King Solomon’s Mines are from WWI.

The Ducktales movie is interestingly recursive, since the Scrooge McDuck comics are believed to have been one of the inspirations behind Indiana Jones.

I got the movie Vibes on a whim and the chemistry between Jeff Goldblum and Cyndi Lauper is so perfect and great I thought "They must be friends IRL" ...looked it up.... no they hated each other and he tried to get her fired. A testament to their acting that they're still the most charming on-screen couple of the 80s.

"But by the time the wife jumps out of Jango's coffin to machine gun the villain, I'd made peace with my ignorance." Things I'd never thought I'd hear, but I'm glad I did.

That communication by telephone with a diver at the bottom of the ocean is possibly the greatest terrible thing I have ever seen

I find it hard to believe that "Tales of the Gold Monkey" (1982, Universal) with Stephen Collins wasn't included in this. As a 13 year old I loved the show but I guess it didn't last long.

In 1999 there was Relic Hunter with Tia Carrere.

These are “drop everything” videos. There’s no plans today until this is done. ❤

As most people have expressed in comments on this video and others, thanks for your effort on these precious pieces of entertainment

Your writing and comic timing make this the best "bad movie" channel.

Also.... Requisite In Pace, Louis Gossett Jr. Firewalker Iron Eagle series The Principal ......the list goes on. What an amazing actor

I bet the algorithm doesn't promote these videos because of copyright strikes or potential of strikes. Because this is hilarious and supremely edited, like top notch AAA editing.

We had Allan Quartermain and the Lost City of Gold on VHS when I was growing up. I always remembered thinking to myself “Why is James Earl Jones in this?”

This just made my day! I spent yesterday sick and injured, watched all the videos from the Borrowing Blockbusters playlist during that time. Today I'm feeling better, getting to head out to work and I see this. My man, you NEVER miss! 💯🙏🏾

The thing with brownface/yellowface in these films, I recently learnt that although that I always knew that these films used brownface/yellowface, that the gongman at the start of Temple was a very good friend of my grandfather. MY grandfather was a farmer who got into animal wrangling at Ardmore Studios, and worked on a ton of movies from Spy who Came in from the Cold, Excalibur, Zardoz, the Fu Manchus, Hammer's the Viking Queen, the Commitments, My Left Foot, etc. And he basically befriended all the stuntmen who'd work at Ardmore, and our house became a b and b for stuntmen, and one of the lads who stayed was the gongman, Bill Reed, who was actually a big Irishman.And having watched Temple more than any other film possibly, the idea that I was watching it in my house, not realising that guy had stayed a few yards away on the other side of our garden was astonishing.

YES! Time for Alan Quartermaine and the Raiders of the Public Domain

I am so ashamed that the 'and you'll still be bald' line got a chuckle out of me

How, just how did you put all this together. I can't imagine how difficult this was to research, write and cut together all the footage. Incredible amount of work and time put into this no one can possibly begin to understand not even me. Underrated channel and video.

My Mrs bought me your Bad Movie Bible for Christmas (good woman). Ever since, I've been advising my mates to check out your channel so they can share in my love for terrible, terrible movies. Bravo Sir.

I was literally just finishing up the Vanity Projects video again when I look in my recommended videos and not only is it a fresh Ripoffs video, but one about a series I am 110% Ride or Die for. Ooooh, this is gonna be good!

It's worth mentioning with "High Road to China" that Selleck was cast as Indiana Jones, but Magnum PI was picked up by CBS and he couldn't. We don't need it to imagine what Selleck would have been like as Jones. Selleck has always played Selleck. (Also there's the test footage available). It's such a common fact I wonder how many people who would care don't know it.

From what I recall, Tennessee Buck was mix of soft core and indigenous horror film. Imagine the shock of parents who thought it just a cheesy Indy knock-off. I never considered VIBES an Indiana Jones knock-off. Maybe it's the lack of an alpha male protagonist and all the 80's new age psychic stuff. "King Solomon's Mines" was around the WW1 era. No Not-Zees.

I am a tiny bit surprised that there was no mention of 1987's Crystal Triangle, a rare anime version of an Indy knockoff. It's about a college professor who gets roped into searching for the titular artifact while fighting off the CIA, the Soviets, an ancient race of demons, and the immortal Queen Himiko. It ultimately leads him to a secret spaceship under a Japanese mountain where God (who is a giant space worm) will grant its holder the knowledge and power of the missing 11th commandment. Needless to say, it is A Lot. It is admittedly quite obscure, having only received a single English-subtitled laserdisc release in the early 1990s in the west (although uploads are freely available on RU-vid). It was no more popular in Japan than it was in the US, and the director's career was saved only by the fact that he was also the creator of the popular Dream Hunter Rem OVAs.

You're meant to look at Mrs. Stone, not listen to her.😶‍🌫️

Another great selection. Thanks for all the hard work, always a good day when there's a new one. And one of the few channels I'm excited to watch a 45+ minute video. Longer the better! :D

yes Rob!! ive been watching back through your old videos over the last week or so. i cant wait to watch this!

Welcome back, my man. Felt so long since the last one of these Borrowing Blockbusters videos.

Well, this is an unexpected treat! 😊 Another brilliant and hilariously deadpan documentary! I can’t imagine how much work these are, thank you!

So freaking glad we get a new video! Amazing work as always!

yes! always a treat when a new BMB video drops

I love this latest vid dude! My personal favorite is Temple of Doom. People say it sucks the most but your explanation of him being "More straight forward action hero" made me love the movie more. There was movie released last year in theaters that was trying to be like an Indiana Jones movie, it was called The Dial of Destiny.

Romancing the Stone is not an Indiana Jones knock off. The script was written long before Raiders of the Lost Ark. It did not get made into a movie until after the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Same with the Allan Quatermain movies.

I'm really happy to see another one of these. I wasn't aware there were so many knockoffs of Indiana Jones. I have one criticism though. You don't need to point out various offensive things. We either know and care or we know and don't care that these things are in old movies. If you were going to point it out, I wish you would point out that it's dumb and not focus on how bad and wrong the movie makers were.

I just love your channel, man. Thank you!

Another excellent video. Thank you for doing the hard work of rounding up all these knock offs.

I just love this channel. Another one to infinetly rewatch.

I have no idea how your channel doesn't have so many more subscribers. You're putting out some of the best researched, most entertaining and most interesting documentaries in the film sphere!

It's been a while Rob. Thanks for dropping another awesome video👌👌👌

a new BMB video always sparks joy!

These videos are incredibly well made and this entire channel is criminally underrated. IMHO its content dwarfs many much more popular movie critic channels.

Allan Quartermain and the City of Gold was atrocious. Looped the same song every two minutes, totally wasted James Earl Jones, every prop weapon looked like it was made out of licorice. And then there’s the guy doing a Justin Trudeau cosplay.

I love everything you post, and always go back for a re-watch or three.

Ducktales was based on carl barks' comics which Lucas and Spielberg where bigs fans of and drew inspiration from

"Indiana Jones for the profoundly undemanding" is one of the funniest series of words I've heard in my life.

Man your channel is public service. I had seen bits on some of those movies, but I could never find their titles. Thanks a ton

I watched it on Patreon last week, and you bet I'm going to watch it again tonight. Amazing work as always!

Excellent work. A lot of effort went into this.

This made my day. Thank you! I needed this 😊

I really needed this today. Thank you.

" Fighting in Trees " would be a great name for a nineties indie band ......

This video was just what I needed today. Thank you, sir.

Always a pleasure watching and listening to your videos!

I love your videos! Thank you for posting this.

Excellent stuff as usual. My favourite Indy knock-off is still the Terry's chocolate orange ad, though.

Sir! Your brilliant, poetic,, and alliterative introductions and their captivating delivery!!...written like the refrains of old. Legendary lexical skills my man!

I'd LOVE for you to do one on Rambo.

I always love these! It is absolutely incredible how many knockoffs of every blockbuster there are, and even more incredible how lovable so many of them are!

Rob, you are a continuing bright spark in my movie watching life. Consistently brilliant content and glorious recommendations, thank you sir. But I must ask, any other Silver Lining videos on the horizon?

I can’t tell you how much I enjoy your videos thanks

Only 62k subs!! That’s ludicrous, this channels fantastic.

Thanks for making these videos - you dig up some real gems which I would be otherwise ignorant of : )

Excellent video and thanks for including Chiranjeevi's two movies. The earlier ripoff 'Hero' is more of a spoof of both hollywood and bollywood movies that were popular in India, but Anji is a whole different beast. Besides few ripoff scenes from Indi movies -- the tale of 'Aatma Lingam' aka Sankara Stone is actually a mythical legend in India. The director and producer of Anji were the pioneers of early digital effects in Indian cinema. They originally slated Anji to include over 1000 blue-screen shots and even outsourced the entire visual effects to an American company, which had done all of it, but went bankrupt and closed down its offices, just 2 months before Anji's announced released. The producer of the movie knew about the shut down only when he came to the US and found their offices locked. They somehow managed to get another company and jetpacked the visual effects production in the next 2 months. Even though the story is fine, the bloated effects, shoddy reshoots didn't work and the movie bombed badly.

The Ducktales movies is kinda full circle moment, as the original Uncle Scrooge comics were one of the biggest influences on Lucas and Spielberg when developing the first movie.

Fine video, but you might have mentioned that in creating Indy, George Lucas was also influenced by the 1950s Uncle Scrooge comics that partly inspired DuckTales.

So well done. I need to see more of these knock offs.

I have a soft spot for 'High Road To China', it feels like it could be in the same universe at Raiders but the characters have their own charm.

this dude deserves more subs, love this channel!

Was looking for someone else to scratch my Red Letter Media itch, and i’m glad I found you! You put a lot of effort into your vids

I've been in a Indiana Jones mood for the past couple of days, seeing this video pop up is truly a blessing 👏🏻🙌🏻

"High Road to China" with Selleck was a blast! Highly recommended

This is the first time I've heard of or saw any videos from your channel on youtube. But it's quite excellent. As a side note, though, when you present you remind me of one of my favorite characters from Red Dwarf, Holly, portrayed by Norman Lovett, and I Love it.

I can never watch these 'Borrowing Blockbusters' videos without instantly wanting to look up half the movies mentioned, lol. I've got the 'Videos'/'Movies and TV' Store fired up on my Xbox right now (on my other monitor) and have discovered that, for some reason, Armor/Armour of God _IS on there_ mislabeled and mis-described as Operation Condor. Very baffling! But yeah, now I have a whole bunch of stuff to look into thanks to this very, very entertaining and enlightening video. Wonderful work, as always BMB!

Another great video! I watched Treasure of the Four Crowns when young and it took me decades to figure out title to watch again!

you just pulled McGyver:Atlantis from a deep dark corridor of my psyche. To the light! from tomb to light.

Awesome work, as always! Charlton Heston also had that exact pre-Indy look of the fedora and leather jacket in The Greatest Show On Earth which came out two years before The Secret of the Incas. According to The Fabelmans, The Greatest Show On Earth inspired Spielberg to start making movies.

Absolutely incredible, as always. I feel as if I've just watched 200 bad movies, most of which had CGI snakes

Thanks for mentioning "Vibes", I would always see the thumbnail when browsing for movies but never would have guess what kind of movie it was. I ended up watching it because of this and it was pretty good!

very cool video, i only knew of a few of these but now i am interested in some of the others.

Another fantastic video. Love your work.

I'm a fairly recent subscriber but I've been bingeing and catching up on content of late. Then I realized that I've owned The Bad Movie Bible for several years now. I'm not a book guy at all and that's one of maybe a half-dozen books that I've bought in 20 years at least. Great stuff, great channel!

Your Commentaries are absolutely BRILLIANT.....The amount of coverage and research is commendable. Being able to cover the corruption of cinema, the inability of international markets to evolve, and Sharon Stone is remarkable!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!

I'd also add Fritz Lang's the Indian Tomb/Tiger of Eschnapur for Temple of Doom influences.

I'm not even a minute into this video and I already gave it a 👍 Fantastic work, as always.

This channel is so good it deserves a knock-off channel, discussing bad movies in a genuine bad way, making them look good in the process.

One of the most entertaining borrowing blockbusters youve ever done!

Just Wanted to say thank you. Your videos are so well written and have me dying throughout. I so look forward to your videos😂

Another amazing video, well done Rob. 👏🏼

King Solomon's Mines is a pretty fun movie all things considered, it helped that I watched dubbed in my country's language by VAs that can actually act unlike certain actors in that very film.

YES! Every new upload is like candy to me!

Oh I've been waiting for this!

I love the "I didn't edit this" indicator

31:03 that "guy" is the legendary Peter Falk.

44:24 Your segment on DuckTales made me so happy 🐥⚱️👑

Robert Genty looks like Rob Ager from Collative learning YT channel

Duck Tales is not a 'knock off' of Indiana. Duck Tales is, in spirit, the animated version of Carl Barks original Donald Duck comics, which were an inspiration TO George Lucas FOR Indiana.