The Mine Car Chase

The Mine Car Chase^[2] took place in 1935 as Indiana Jones and his companions, Willie Scott and Short Round fled the Temple of Doom.

Chase participants[]

Behind the scenes[]

"Again, those kinds of set pieces are things like you say that well I always wanted to do this, I have always wanted to do a car chase, I have always wanted to do an airplane chase, I have always wanted to do... so you save those things and you find the right opportunity to put them in."

―George Lucas on saving The Mine Car Chase from Raiders of the Lost Ark to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.^[src]

A mine car chase was written into the climax of Raiders of the Lost Ark where Colonel Herman Dietrich, having survived the opening of the Ark of the Covenant, led a pursuit of Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood, escaping the Nazi island base through underground tunnels with the relic. The idea was abandoned and recycled for the sequel Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom^[3] in an attempt to slash whole set pieces to reach an affordable budget, leading the sequence to be put on a shelf until the second film.^[4]

As a practical joke on director Steven Spielberg; during the filming of the sequence, Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw and Ke Huy Quan popped into frame with ice cream smeared onto their faces from ice cream cones which Ford had brought onto set. Playing along, Spielberg accepted the shot.^[5]

During the Mine Car Chase, when Indy's party and the Thuggee travel through different tunnels in the mine carts, several chasms are visible. However, when Mola Ram floods the tunnels, the water quickly reaches them with little difficulty.^[1]