Changes: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Revision as of 13:39, 20 November 2007

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was released in 1984 as a prequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark. This means that Temple of Doom comes in twenty-third chronologically, if the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles films are taken into account.

Plot Summary

Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.

The film is set in 1935 — a year before Raiders of the Lost Ark. It begins with a musical number and a fight in a nightclub, "Club Obi-Wan". Indy escapes with Willie Scott, a singer, and Short Round, Indy's small friend. Their plane crashes in a village in India, which enlists Indy's help in retrieving the Sankara Stones and the community's children from the forces of an evil palace nearby.

File:Doomcast.jpg

Indiana Jones, Willie Scott, and Short Round.

Initially the palace seems normal enough; they act insulted by his questions about the village's claims. Indy is later attacked in his room by an assassin, which leads him to find a secret door in Willie's room. Beneath the palace is a vast underground chamber where the village rock and two more are held by Thuggees. The cult (who worship the goddess Kali with human sacrifice) uses the village's children to dig for the remaining rocks within the mines of the palace, in hope that with all of them they can rule the world.

Indy, Willie, and Short Round are captured by the Thuggee and separated: Indy sides with the Thuggee after being whipped and tortured to drink the "blood of Kali Ma", Willie is kept as a human sacrifice, and Short Round is put in the mines alongside the village children. Short Round escapes and helps Indy return to his normal self, which allows him to save Willie, take the Sankara stones, and free the children.

Indy and his friends get in a mine car chase with the Thuggees. When they escape, Indy meets up with Mola Ram on an old bridge. Indy breaks the bridge (with the help of a sword) and everyone clings on to the broken bridge for dear life. During the fight with Mola Ram on what remains of the bridge, Indy accuses the evil priest of betraying Shiva. The anger of the goddess apparently causes the stones in Indy's bag to catch fire and two fall to the crocodile-infested river below. As the final stone falls out of the bag, Mola Ram grabs it, but Indy knocks it out of his hand, causing Mola Ram to lose his grip on the bridge railing and fall into the river, where he is eaten by the hungry crocodiles. Indy and his friends triumphantly return to the village with their sacred stone and their children.

Appearances

Characters

Artifacts

Sankara Stones

Locations

Behind the scenes

Production

Most of the filming was done on location in Sri Lanka and at Borehamwood Studios in Hertfordshire, England.

Reaction

Due to the graphic scenes, dark theme, and cultic overtones, this film recieved negative reviews from many critics. The film is much darker in tone than its predecessor (a fact which Lucas attributes to the messy divorce he was going through during the film's production), and has been criticised for being overly violent and scary, as well as for its gross misrepresentations of Indian culture. When making the sequel, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Spielberg was reported to have apologized for the lesser quality of Temple of Doom. Despite its PG rating, it is the darkest Indiana Jones film.

Ratings

Burningheart — Burning heart during the human sacrifice

Some fairly gruesome scenes in Temple of Doom, as well as other PG-rated films of the time such as Gremlins caused a significant public outcry. Spielberg spoke to the MPAA about creating a new rating covering the middle ground between a clear PG and a clear R that his films often found themselves on. This led to the creation of a new rating category: PG-13.

Trivia

Temple of Doom map — Map shown in the movie

The Chinese dialogue in the opening scene is in the Shanghainese dialect.
Though always called "Willie", Capshaw's character is fully named "Wilhelmina", an apparent Lucasfilm in-joke referring to the infamous Wilhelm scream.
Stunt actor Pat Roach — who appeared in two roles as large, muscular henchmen who fight Indy in Raiders of the Lost Ark — also appeared twice in this film: first as the assassin in Jones's room and again as the slavemaster in the mines. Besides Ford, he is the only cast member to return for the second film. (He also had a cameo appearance in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.)
The opening musical sequence was designed by Steven Spielberg to fulfill his desire to direct a Busby Berkeley-style musical number. The song performed is Cole Porter's Anything Goes, translated into Mandarin.

The nightclub in which the opening sequence takes place is called "Club Obi Wan", undoubtedly a reference to a character in Lucas's other famous film series, Star Wars. The club's name is visible when Indy, Willie, and Shorty escape in an automobile.
The sound effects of the mine car scene were recorded from the Disneyland attraction Big Thunder Mountain Railroad's trains going around the track.
When Indy is about to cross the rope bridge, he is stopped by a sabre-wielding Thuggee. He attempts to draw his gun a la Raiders of the Lost Ark but finds that he has lost his gun. A musical cue from Raiders is played.
Indiana Jones is named for George Lucas's dog. In this film, all three leads are named after dogs. Willie was the name of Spielberg's dog, and Short Round was the name of the dog belonging to scriptwriters Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck.
"Indiana Jones and the Temple of Death" was the original title
The monkey brains were Jell-O and whipped cream.
When Indiana finally defeats Mola Ram and takes back the magic stones, he says to him, "You have betrayed Shiva!", whereas when he says the same thing in Hindi, he says, "Tum Shiva ke vishwaas karte ho!", which translates to, "You are faithful to Shiva!" which could be taken either as Indiana suggesting that Mola Ram cannot escape Shiva's power, even in opposition to him or that it is probably a practical joke played by the Hindi-speaking crew.
Some fans believe that the mention of the Japanese bombing of Shanghai is an anachronism, thinking that it applies to an event that occurred in 1937. Actually, the Japanese bombed Shanghai in 1932.

Toy Line

There was a Temple of Doom toy line released by LJN in 1984. The line was very short-lived and only had three figures.

TempleIndyFigure — Temple of Doom Indiana Jones action figure

Novel

There was a novelization of the movie released in 1984.

Home Video

ADVENTURE TIMELINE
previous		next
1935	1935	1936
Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb	Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom	Indiana Jones et le Grimoire Maudit

@@ Line 88: / Line 88: @@
 ===Toy Line===
 There was a Temple of Doom toy line released by [[LJN]] in 1984. The line was very short-lived and only had three figures.
+[[Image:TempleIndyFigure.jpg|thumb|left|Temple of Doom Indiana Jones action figure]]
 ===Novel===
 There was a [[Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (novel)|novelization of the movie]] released in 1984.