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Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

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For other uses, see Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (disambiguation).
FILM
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Temple of Doom Poster

Director(s)

Steven Spielberg

Producer(s)

Writer(s)

Starring

Music by John Williams
Distributor Paramount Pictures
Released May 23, 1984
Runtime 118 min
Budget $28,000,000
Rating PG
Canon G
Timeline 1935
Followed by Raiders of the Lost Ark
"If adventure has a name, it must be Indiana Jones."
―Tagline[src]

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is the 1984 prequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark and chapter twenty-three in The Complete Adventures of Indiana Jones.

Set one year prior to the events in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the story follows Indiana Jones journeying through India to recover a sacred stone stolen from a small village by a religious cult intending to harnass its power, along with four others, to establish the reign of their god in place of all others.

The movie was re-released on VHS video in 1999, on DVD in 2003, and again in 2008 for a Special Edition DVD release.[1]

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

[edit] Prologue: Shanghai, 1935

The film is set a year before Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indy is delivering the remains of Nurhachi to a gangster named Lao Che in a nightclub in Shanghai, China, in exchange for a large diamond. Lao introduces Indy to the club's singer, Willie Scott. After Indy sips his drink, Lao starts laughing ominously as he pulls out a vial of blue liquid. Indy asks what it is, and Lao replies that it is the antidote to the poison he just drank. A brawl ensues, in which Indy's old friend, Wu Han and Lao's eldest son Chen are killed and Indy and Willie escape through the window. After several awnings break their fall, they land in a car driven by Short Round, Indy's kid sidekick. Indy drinks the antidote and a car chase follows, and Willie drops Indy's gun in the ensuing chase. They all board a plane and get away.

Stealing the Sankara Stones

[edit] India

It turns out that the plane was owned by Lao Che, and the captains abandon the plane, leaving the passengers to die. They survive by using a raft as a parachute. They land in India, where they come to a village with no children. The inhabitants explain that the Thugee Cult of Pankot Palace has taken all of their children and their sacred stone that protects the village. They then lend the heroes elephants so they can reach the palace.

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.

The Temple of Doom

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 captured by Mola Ram

Indy and his friends get in a mine car chase with the Thuggees. The trio eventually run through the rest of the mine tunnels, out to an exit at the end of a mountain. Shorty and Willie run to an old bridge, where they meet up with Mola Ram and his henchmen, while Indy fights more Thuggee soldiers on his way to the bridge. Indy then 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. During the fight with Mola Ram on what remains of the bridge, Indy accuses the evil priest of betraying Shiva. Using the dark magic he learned from the Thuggee, the anger of the god 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 it burns his hand, causing Mola Ram to lose his grip on the bridge railing and fall into the river, where he is torn apart and eaten by the hungry crocodiles. Indy catches the then-cool stone.

Indy and his friends triumphantly return to the village with their sacred stone and their children. After Willie tells Indy she is going back to Missouri, he brings her towards him with his whip and they share a kiss, but not before Short Round's elephant sprays them with water.

[edit] Appearances

[edit] Cast


[edit] Other characters

[edit] Locations

[edit] Artifacts

[edit] Vehicles

[edit] Behind the scenes

[edit] Production

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

[edit] 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. Despite its PG rating, it is the darkest Indiana Jones film. It also had been praised for being different to the other films and Mola Ram is considered by even the hardest-to-please critics to be the best Indy enemy to date.

[edit] Deleted Scenes

  • On the way to Pankot Palace, Indy, Willie, and Short Round sing Anything Goes
  • During the scene where the camp in the jungle, a snake lands on Willie's shoulder and she pets it until it falls asleep
  • When Indy sees the snake statue when stealing the stones, he touches the statue in awe
  • Willie makes it back to her room and encounters Chattar Lal and a guard. Chattar Lal then reveals himself as part of the cult
  • While Short Round was digging, a guard nearby gets burned by lava and wakes up from the Black Sleep. Then he is taken away, then Short Round gets the idea of how to wake Indy
  • After Indy rescues Willie, Chattar Lal recovers from his injury and attacks Indy. They jump on the Sacrficial Cage and fight. Indy jumps free but Willie pulls the lever and Chattar Lal is killed when it hit the lava.
  • When Indy, Willie, and Short Round have to get to the mines, they build a bridge to get across the lava.

[edit] Ratings

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. The film has very violent scenes, scenes with bugs which can be disturbing to people with Entomophobia, a particularly graphic scene involving cardiectomy and, just like Raiders, the casual use of profanity.

[edit] Trivia

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 in this film, 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.
Club Obi Wan
  • 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.
  • Some of the bugs in the scene greatly featuring them aren't even from Asia.
  • "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Death" was the original title
  • The monkey brains were custard with food coloring.
  • 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, evideth ka tato, 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.
  • When the map showing the flightpath of Indiana Jones and his companions is displayed, it shows their path goes from Shanghai to Chungking and then onward toward the eastern India-China border, near Burma. However, images show the plane flying over a section of the Great Wall of China, which would not be near their flight path at all.
  • When Indy, Willie and Short Round arrive at the airport, the man who greets them, Weber, is portrayed by Dan Aykroyd. Weber's first name is debatable as it appears as Art in the DVD subtitles, yet others claim it is Earl. In the background of the same scene, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg can be seen handling luggage.
  • This is the only film in the Indiana Jones series not to feature or mention the Ark of the Covenant.
  • Kate Capshaw would marry director Steven Spielberg seven years later.
  • The television show Mythbusters tested the plausibility of two of the film's stunts: using a series of awnings to make a multi-story fall survivable, and using a life raft to make a fall out of an airplane survivable. The life raft stunt was considered busted, while the awning fall stunt was considered plausible.

[edit] 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.

Temple of Doom Indiana Jones action figure

A new Temple of Doom toyline is planned to be released by Hasbro in September 2008.

[edit] Novel

There was a novelization of the movie released in 1984.

[edit] Home Video

Temple of Doom DVD cover

The film was released on VHS, Beta and laserdisc in 1986. It was later reissued on DVD.

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ↑ Classic Indy Rides Again on DVD
ADVENTURE TIMELINE
previous next
1935 1935 1935
Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye
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