If you don’t know who Damon Lindelof is yet, you best crawl out from that boulder you’ve been living under for the past decade and get your head straightened out. He’s one of the creative geniuses who gave us Lost, changed the way Ridley Scott approached his upcoming Prometheus project, and is currently hard at work penning a sequel to J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot. This dude has some clout.

Everyone has to start somewhere though, and for Lindelof it was when he was eight years old, actively peeing his pants in refusal to leave the theater during a screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981. The boy Lindelof fell in love, and now 30 years later isn’t afraid to confess his undying love for the whip-wielding, fedora-sporting archaeologist.

For the 30th anniversary of the film, a special screening is being held in LA with a very special guest in the form of the film’s director Steven Spielberg, who will be doing a Q&A after the showing. Lindelof, for Hero Complex, wrote a very 11th-grade love letter to the film, an awesome way to show his affection.

I could go on for pages about just the little things. Like the sound you make when Indy punches someone in the face. Or that Marion’s superpower is drinking. And don’t even get me started on the coat hanger. Where did that Nazi even get that thing? Did he special-order it? “I need somezing that vill terrify people when I take it out, but then give them a false zense of relief when I reveal it is simply somezing on vich to hang my coat.” Seriously. The best. But I know you’ve probably heard it all before and therefore, I’ll stick to the big stuff. First and foremost…

I love you because Indiana Jones is a nerd. Granted, a highly capable nerd who knows how to ride horses and fight real good, but still, at his core, Indy is an academic who’s motivated purely by his desire to find and retrieve really cool stuff so he can put it in a museum where other nerds can appreciate it. Also, he wears glasses and gets nervous when hot female students write the words “Love You” on their eyelids. Do you have any idea how much commitment is involved in writing “Love You” on your eyelids? It’s really hard! Not that I’ve ever done it.

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And so, we now arrive at your ending. This, more than anything else, is why my love for you is an undying one. Because we all know how movies like you are supposed to end. The hero fights off a bunch of evildoers, saves the girl, gets the thingamabob away from the bad guys before they can do any harm with it and then say something kinda cool before he rides off into the sunset.

But this, sweet Raiders, is not what you did.

Lindelof’s affections mimic our own in many ways, even those of us who weren’t alive when the film was released. We all love Indy, except for Crystal Skull (::shakes fist in the air:: LUCAS!!!), and Raiders especially holds a place in all of our hearts. Head on over to Hero Complex and check out the whole piece, it’s well worth the three minutes it’ll take you to read it.

If you had the chance, what film’s would you write love letters to and why? Sound off in the comments below.