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Writer's pictureLucas Chiquetto

Nostalgia on the skin and the soul | 20 years of the Tomb Raider

Updated: Jun 22, 2021



Days ago, I watched, for the thousandth time, a very special movie for me. I remember him like it was today. 20 years ago, the internet was not as popular and easily accessible as it is today. Often, we only found out about entertainment news through specialized magazines, which makes information often stop being new.


I remember I was at the cinema in the city where I lived, waiting to see the movie I was scheduled to see, when the Lara Croft Tomb Raider’s trailer movie suddenly appeared.



When I saw the actress Angelina Jolie doing stunts, faces and mouths in the role of the British archaeologist, I got goosebumps from head to toe and couldn't take my eyes off the big screen. She was the perfect Lara Croft. That trailer pleased me a lot as a super Tomb Raider fan. It was love at first sight, for the actress and the movie.


I was so excited about that trailer that I couldn't even pay attention to the movie I had gone to watch anymore.



Since then, all the magazines that had a picture of the actress or the character on the cover, I bought. I remember having over 200 magazines in my wardrobe, which I reviewed from time to time.


Lara Croft Tomb Raider has made Angelina Jolie's career in the world of action movies take off and set fans' hearts ablaze with excitement. Even today, it is not possible to disconnect the name of the actress from the character of the games, even though Alicia Vikander has already “replaced” Jolie in the role of the British archaeologist.



As much as it has completed 20 years since the film's debut, it manages to be current. Special effects are still good. The narrative is still good (I love astronomy, so the story made me even more excited), the fact that she played alongside her father, John Voight, was a milestone in their careers; among other various reasons. Lara Croft Tomb Raider was, for me, one of the best games based on games to date. In the adaptation, some things were changed, but even so, there was a lot of classic Lara Croft in Angelina Jolie and in the movie.


These changes were studied by me, as a graduation conclusion, when I graduated in Social Communication - Advertising and Propaganda. I made it a series of intertextual analyzes about movies, comics and games. And, to finish my presentation at that time, I created a video, which you can check below. Unfortunately, in 2008, when I graduated, we weren't talking about 4K yet, so the resolution isn't very good, but it's worth checking out.


By the way, when I graduated in Management in Marketing and Innovation, my graduation work, of course, also had Lara Croft and Tomb Raider, but within a games context. But that's another story.


This shows a little bit how Lara Croft and Tomb Raider have always been and are still part of my life story.


For me, in every movie I see of Angelina Jolie in theaters, I see a little bit of a Lara Croft who will always be alive inside the heart of that caged-hearted rebel, no matter how old she is. And, of course, within ours as well.


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