It impressed Steven Spielberg enough to not only send them a letter of congratulations instead of, say, a Cease & Desist, but also invite them to Amblin for an hour of chat and outtakes. He had every right to be impressed; I'm reasonably sure Mr. Spielberg never had to deal with Harrison Ford's voice breaking in between a 3-year hiatus between shots in the same scene, say, nor was he nearly arrested by a store owner who thought that, what with the wagon of hay and Arab-esque street stalls set up in a back alley, he was making a "skin flick." (Wonder what kinds of skin flicks that guy had been watching!)
The film has been screened several times, starting at the Alamo Drafthouse in 2003, but I missed it when it came 'round New England way. I've turned to YouTube several times but haven't found it yet, but BoingBoing did point me to a similar Spielberg-esque kids' project on YouTube called SHARK.
This film was made by a group of 12-year-olds in 1978. It's a Super8 film involving a shark terrorizing swimmers and oddly enough features a very familiar-sounding soundtrack. What the kids lack in technical wizardry (much like Spielberg's mechanical shark, the kids' shark sank early on in production) they more than make up for in moxie. It's a real hoot (the "TNT" made me laugh and applaud at the same time) and beats the stuff my brothers and I were making when we were in our early teens.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L2Igd6uCrA
Still, the Raiders remake eludes me.
