There was a kid in elementary school known as the Dinosaur. Every school has him; he's the dude who probably has autism or whatever and a laser-like focus on doing one specific weird thing obsessively and endlessly. Predictably, this kid's deal was to act convincingly and violently like a dinosaur.

Chris Strompolos was the Dinosaur of southern Mississippi – a class clown with a propensity for dressing like Superman . His primary love, however, was the George Lucas/Steven Spielberg classic Raiders of the Lost Ark. On the bus one day, Chris bonded with another kid named Eric Zala over a comic book of the movie.

That summer, Strompolos called Zala with an idea: to remake the Harrison Ford classic, shot-for-shot. Strompolos was going to be Indy, with Zala as the villain Toht. Zala, the more disciplined and detail-oriented of the two, would handle direction. Pre-production began in 1982 , with a 649-shot description of the of the movie as cobbled together from the comic book, the novelization and their memory, which was aided by an audio-only theater bootleg Zala had taken. Their small arsenal also included Zala's costume design sketches and one pivotal prop – the boulder from the movie's introduction.

About the boulder : it was roughly the same size as that of the original film, but constructed of bamboo and cardboard. Unfortunately, said construction took place in Strompolos bedroom, which posed an interesting problem: they couldn't get the boulder out, and had to dismantle it.

Several years and a few boulders later, after several stops and starts – due to trouble, schoolwork and relationship-ending arguments – the movie was finished. Those young kids were college students now, but Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation was completed. After a premiere in their hometown, Strompolos and Zala kept the film as a curiosity, playing it occasionally for college friends and selected others. Through word-of-mouth circulation, a copy of the tape reached filmmaker Eli Roth, who got the movie played at the 2002 Butt-Numb-a-Thon film festival at Austin, Texas' Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.

The film received applause so great that the Alamo gave it an exclusive three-day engagement hosted by Harry Knowles of the media site AintItCoolNews.com. More impressively, the boys received a letter from Spielberg himself congratulating them on their “loving and detailed tribute.” At this point, the “boys” were 32 years old.

By all accounts, the film is remarkably well done. The acting is notable, the camera work meticulous and the overall effect completely honest in a way only a $7,000 film reach. With Knowles and Roth in their corner, Strompolos and Zala intend to continue filmmaking. The probable project is a movie about the men behind Raiders of the Lost Ark: the Adaptation . It would appear that hard work and an almost creepy dedication to a specific task produces better results when you're lovingly recreating your favorite movie than when you're pretending to be a dinosaur.

see more illustrations by abigail friedman at abigailfriedman.com