How awful.
Now, as for the life raft scene, THEY didn’t fall from a plane and slide down a mountain; some of the cheapest looking dummies in film history did! And don’t get me started about the matchsticks with wigs on that rode in the mine cart.
I think I take the middle road some suggest. While not in the ball park of 1 & 3 (both spectacular films in very different ways), it is head and shoulders above many other films. Would the film have been better if Indy had been racing the Nazis to get the stones? (But remember, this was in essence a prequel to the other films.)
When I make a top ten favorite/best films list, it doesn’t matter that #2 was a lesser film, because I never include sequels/series as a second film (e.g.- all three Indy films occupy the #1 spot on MY list, much like Phantom Menace would not make my top 100, but because of the excellence of 1 and 2 it occupies the #4 spot ALONG WITH the others).
The only thing the ToD had over the other films was that it had the best video game come out of it.
The best arcade game. Far and away the best home system game was, despite technological limitations, Raiders of the Lost Ark for the Atari 2600!
I think they were (foolishly) relying on Capshaw and the kid to provide comedy. Instead, they were just annoying. The only thing that provided even the slightest amusement out of either of them was the first time the kid kicked someone: the sidekick throwing a sidekick. It matched up well with a fighting axiom of mine: Being short gives me a good angle for groin shots.
Someone correct me if I’m mistaken in this–I think the film was set in India, and the bad guys were (loosely) based on the thugee cults. Is that correct?
Raiders and Crusade are about evenly matched on my list–there are things I love about both films. Temple doesn’t even make the list.
It was set in India (but filmed in Sri Lanka).
When is Lucas going to get around to putting these three on DVD? I want them more than I want Star Wars.
[tangent] I guess it has to do with remastering them for Dolby. Oh wait. They already were. I guess it is because Lucas needs to finish the trilogy of prequels so he can include “extras”. No wait. Lucas has never been shy about selling us more than one copy of the same product with minor alterations.
When Lucas does issue the first Star Wars trilogy, will it be the originals or the Greedo fired first trilogy?[/tangent]
Yes, the thugees were mentioned in the second movie.
This thread pretty much caught all the problems with the movie, but for me Capshaw’s screaming (which BTW was incessent during the long ride down. When I was pleading for her to put a stopper in it, I realized that I was no longer in the scene anymore. The same thing happened during the ride in the mines – it was exciting, but went on much too long).
No, the scramble in the Club Obi Wan probably encapsulated the charm of this series. You got the suspense thread combined with the humor in which fate is seeming to conspire against Dr. Jones.
But what really nearly me blow my cookies were the heart and the monkey brains scene. It’s one thing to imply it, quite another to show it. They inspired revulsion, and that bile never really left the movie. And, sad to say, watching Indy prowling around that dusty village with the children being returned really didn’t warm my cockles.
What still amazes me about Raiders, however, was just how good it was. I still have to marvel at how well he did it; to take a genre that was long long dead, and not just revive it into something interesting, but turn it into a real gem. Amazing.
Wasn’t this the film that led to the birth of the PG-13 film rating?
ToD didn’t merely mention Thuggee – they were the bad guys.
If you want a REAL film about the Thuggee, check out The Deceivers, written by the underappreciated Nicholas Meyer (of The Seven per cent Solution and the good Star Trek movies) and starring Pierce Brosnan.
Raiders broke my suspension of disbelief only once that I recall: when we were asked to believe Indy survived a voyage from the middle of the Atlantic, through the Mediterranean to the island of Malta, clinging to the outside of a German submarine.
Temple of Doom has those moments throughout.
Besides which, the villains driving the plot were mad cultists.
There was a rash of movies with mad cults as the villains in the mid-80s: Temple of Doom, Young Sherlock Holmes, Dragnet to name three examples.
They were inappropriate villains for the genre in all three of those cases, but besides that, when you find mad cults in a movie, it’s a result of bad, lazy writing; you don’t have to explain motives or emotions. Why did they do that? 'Cause they’re mad! Why did they feel that way? Who knows – they’re mad!
In TOD I thought it would be great if the opening scene villain would’ve lied about the poison in the food. Jones barters for the poison, an exchange is made – so now Jones has the antidote and the villain has the diamond. Jones drinks the antidote as the villain admires the gem, then the villain confesses that his men were unable to get into the kitchen unobserved. The “antitode” is, in fact, the poison meant for his food. Have a nice day, Mr. Jones.
I kept hoping this is what would turn out to be the plot twist. I was thoroughly bored with the entire movie. The only point that I smiled at was when they close the door of the plane to reveal it’s owned by the villain. Then the rest of the movie ruined it for me.
In TOD I thought it would be great if the opening scene villain would’ve lied about the poison in the food. Jones barters for the poison, an exchange is made – so now Jones has the antidote and the villain has the diamond. Jones drinks the antidote as the villain admires the gem, then the villain confesses that his men were unable to get into the kitchen unobserved. The “antitode” is, in fact, the poison meant for his food. Have a nice day, Mr. Jones.
I kept hoping this is what would turn out to be the plot twist. I was thoroughly bored with the entire movie. The only point that I smiled at was when they close the door of the plane to reveal it’s owned by the villain. Then the rest of the movie ruined it for me.
Nah, I thought that was Gremlins (the first one)
Both Gremlins and ToD came out in 1984, and I was always under the impression both films led to the PG-13 rating since both had scenes considered too violent for younger kids, and that not necessarily one or the other was solely responsible.
Both were cited as examples of movies too strong for the PG rating, so a meaningless new rating was created for movies like this. Within a few years, PG movies had all but disappeared. Nearly every movie that, pre-1984, would have been PG is now rated PG-13. PG-13 has for all intents and purposes replaced PG.
And all movies rated PG-13 should be rated R! At least, according to CapAlert 
I never finished that game! Never! I think I’d get to the temple, dork around getting the map to light up and then… well, I don’t recall what I did next, but it sure as hell didn’t involve winning the game. Come to think of it, that E.T. game used to piss me off as well.
Anyway, ToD blows yak. But we knew that. As other have said, it was too dark and depressing and it never suspended my disbelief. In some fashion, and I’m not saying it makes sense, but I found the avenging spirits from the Ark of the Covenant more convincing than the occult crap in ToD. Maybe because most people know of the Ark, but few people know much about it, so if someone says flesh melting ghosts jump out if you open it, we don’t have much cause to disbelieve them. But someone makes up some mystery occult faith we know nothing of, and we roll our eyes at people yanking hearts out. I dunno.
I loved the noise the Atari RotLA game made when Indy walked
tock,tock,tock,tock
Well. I am too tired to argue or debate, in fact I have been all week, which accounts for my low posting frequency here during that time, but I simply cannot let this go by without commenting. The entire Indiana Jones trilogy was great, but ToD was without a doubt the best of the lot. Short Round was cool, the bad guys were just as evil as the Nazis, and for whoever it was who said there was no humor in this film…remember Capshaw’s line: “…I told you to cut it out!” Anyone? Possibly the funniest moment in the whole series.
How did they get to the Atlantic? They leave Cairo(Mediterranean), get boarded by a German U-boat(also, Mediterranean) and go to Malta (yet again, Mediterranean). Also, disel powered subs did not submerge all the time. I’d say its believable it didn’t submerge on the trip to Malta.
Okay, puk, so it wasn’t the Atlantic. The whole voyage was in the Mediterranean. That still leaves us with the fact that the U-Boat apparently not only did not submerge completely, but didn’t even snorkel during the voyage, which was after all a top secret mission.
Besides which, why didn’t any of the sailors in the conning tower see him on the side of the boat?
Not to hijack the thread, of course. ToD was still much worse.