Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. What do you all think about it?

Cafe Society
1

I’m opening this thread to avoid hijacking the other one on the new film. My impression is that a lot of people think poorly of Temple of Doom. I admit that it’s not nearly as good as Raiders or Last Crusade, but it’s not anywhere near as bad as Crystal Skull, which a lot of people seem to compare it to. If I was to assign Last Crusade a 10, then I’d give Raiders a 9 in comparison, Temple of Doom a 5, and Crystal Skull a 2.

It has its shortcomings, but there’s no ancient aliens. Mutt is completely out of place for the style of movie Indiana Jones should be, way wore so than Short Round. IMHO Crystal Skull was a complete mess, while Temple of Doom had its good points to go along with the bad.

2

I love it! It’s so over the top and gross with the dinner sequence and the bug cave that it really appealed to my childhood self when I first saw it. The mining escape scene is excellent!

In terms of enjoyment while watching them, I’d actually rank them 2-1-3.

3

You apparently can withstand Kate Capshaw’s almost non-stop screeching. That might be a super power.

(She’s Mrs. Spielberg, by the way…)

4

My biggest problem with it is the dark tone. I don’t mean the subject material, I mean that over half the movie seems be predominantly dark scenes. If they had lit those scenes better, I’d probably rank it at a 7.

5

I definitely don’t like it as much as the first one or the third one. The first of course, was original and really great while the third one was a lot of fun with Harrison Ford playing against Sean Connery.

6

I thought her character got the tone of the movie well. The screeching is the whole point. She’s not used to the sorts of things that Indy encounters on his adventures, so that’s how anyone with her type of personality is going to react. She enhances the “gross outness” of the eyeball soup, the bugs in the cave (especially the centipede), etc.

7

It’s my favorite one. It has great action and Short Round. The opening act is the best of the trilogy (I haven’t seen the fourth one). It’s a fun movie.

8

It’s not as good as Raiders or Crusade, but an 8 compared to two 10s. The first 15 minutes or so until the rubber boat comes to a halt in the river are one of the best action and suspense sequences in movie history. And there’s much more to like. I can stand a bit of screaming for that. Skulls OTOH is complete shite, from start to finish.

9

I like any Indy film, but–Ford should hang it up.

10

I didn’t know that … I can’t imagine being in bed with her and being able to perform with that screech in my ears …

I liked Indy Temple except for Capshaw. I didn’t mind Short Round at all. I even liked Crystal Skull except for a few scenes [like that interminable chase through the jungle] that could get shortened a bit. The aliens were a nice touch, I didn’t mind them after all Indy 1 has the Ark of the Covenant and 3 has the Holy Grail. 2 had those rocks, so whack stuff is in Indy’s wheelhouse.

Though, I think my absolute favorite scene is in Indy 1 where we get a distance shot of Indy at the dig site.

11

I think it sucks more than the Phantom Menace.

First, there are at least two set pieces that were rejected from Raiders for being too unbelievable, (the gong and the life raft parachute) and they were used in the film.

Then the mineshaft escape not only violates any semblance of the laws of physics, it looks like it was written to be used in a video game.

And call it fantasy doesn’t excuse the fact that there’s this huge bone that prevents one from pulling a heart out. You’d think everyone knows this.

Nope, haven’t watched this movie since the first and only time, and never will again.

And as bad as this is, Crystal Skull is actually worse.

12

It was very inferior to 1 and 3 and much better than 4.

13

Eh, maybe the magic chant he says makes the bone just as permeable as the skin. Because reaching into someone’s chest and pulling out their heart with your fist and then the wound healing itself isn’t exactly realistic stuff to begin with.

14

I call that “Filmed in Murkovision™” and it’s especially annoying when it predominates poorly formatted YouTube clips.

The problem is that after the iconic success of RotLA, anything less than a masterpiece would seem like a letdown.

15

You’re hung up on that, and not the fact that the guy gets his still-beating heart ripped out of his chest and doesn’t immediately die?

16

I think this most succinctly sums up my feelings as well.

While I disliked Short Round and Capshaw a great deal, the biggest issues were the suspension of disbelief that failed all the damn time. The unspeakable life raft scene has already been singled out, so no need to do it again, but the other big problem is that unlike 1 & 3, it had capital ‘M’ magic rather than isolated, relic specific and limited magic.

To clarify, in Raiders, the Ark had magic. But no one else did, it was all gee whiz ancient engineering and traps, which, while overblown, was well within the pulp setting and had at least some minimal believability. In last Crusade, again, no magic other than the Grail itself, plus more gee whiz ancient engineering.

In Temple, we have mind control magic, heart ripping / living heartless individuals (briefly), while the magic stones themselves only acted to burn the bag when Indy called out to them - if they have will, couldn’t they have figured out the evil high priest was unworthy rather than some bloody American with only a passing knowledge and connection to the culture?

Crystal Skull actually had potential, if they hadn’t been trying to shoehorn in ‘a worthy heir’ plot, although like everyone else I agree the fridge scene was amazingly stupid. I find the ancient aliens less objectionable than some, although it wouldn’t have been my first choice. Lots of other ideas had been bandied about, including some that ended up in other formats, or ended up as discarded drafts struck me as much more interesting.

Especially the treatment where Marion intruded Indy to their daughter. Because it would have been a great double-take moment where Indy could be forced to live up to some of his past actions towards women (his questionable early relationship with Marion and the casual flirting with female students).

So TLDR: Favorites in order are 3, 1, 2, 4, which I would rate as 9, 8, 5, 3. Temple is still watchable, but so deeply flawed I have zero desire to actively re-watch it. However, I wouldn’t change the channel if it came on, unlike Crystal Skull.

17

I had the impression that all of Mola Ram’s power came from manipulating the Sankara Stones one way or the other, and that without them, he didn’t have any powers. But I agree in general the franchise works better where the actual supernatural stuff is saved for the big finale, instead of showing up all over the place through out the whole movie. Temple of Doom also suffered in that the magic artifact was, AFAIK, made up for the movie, and not based on any sort of real myth. Using a “real” artifact as the basis for the plot constrained them a bit in what sort of powers they gave the artifact, while the Sankara Stones were much more, “It has the powers the plot currently requires.”

18

I will fully accept this modification to my comment, and that maybe the powers were all derived from the stones but the story was so internally vague and inconsistent (WHY does pain force people out of the mind control?) that no one really knows (or cares) about how it’s all happening.

19

I thought it was kind of “neat” that in the first movie, the magical artifact was from Jewish mythology while in the third, it was from Christian mythology. Ideally, the grail would have been in the second movie and the third could have involved something from Islamic mythology. That would have made for a Abrahamic trilogy.

20

:slight_smile:
I might be one of those people that thinks the head retains consciousness for a short bit after the guillotine.