Jump to content

The awesome but misleading Intro to Anything Goes (Temple of Doom)


King Mark

Recommended Posts

I think it's one of the  best cue opening by Williams ever

 

And when I first heard it I thought it was going to lead into  the most amazing Williams Main Titles/theme ever

 

But it breaks into a dance number...I was very disappointed .I was like wait..bring this music back!

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That dance number.... Halfway thorough it, it cuts to this giant big hall. It can't be part of the seedy night club! It's surreal!

 

What is that? Willie's imagination or dream? But why would they show us that?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree, but I don't think anyone's complained in this thread about the presence of the dance number itself (though a lot of people have).  It's more the fact that the dance number turns into sort of this fantasy with the huge hall. Again, doesn't bother me, but I get why some may find it a little odd in a movie like this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, that's what I meant, you should be enjoying the music, choreography and overall throwback-ness instead of analysing the logistics or realness. It sets up the stupid but over the top fun nature perfectly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Nick1066 said:

 

Well...yes. But it's clearly intentional on Williams part. He's setting up Spielberg's subversive opening by giving the audience something over the top suspenseful, which is supposed to be paid off by the surprise dancing and singing.  If the film didn't open with a dance number, I doubt Williams would have written in this way.  It's very good, and memorable. But not subtle...more like Williams as Salieri. 

 

 

Well said! I agree.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, Will said:

This is a little different but maybe "West Side Story" will be interesting if JW arranges. 

 

Well, the arrangements for the film version of West Side Story are perfect as they are! So are Singin' in the Rain. But those are from the 50s-60s, and the problem is that nobody really writes like that anymore because there's not as big of a demand for it now as there was then. But JW sure as hell can...and did, in his early days (e.g. "A Big Beautiful Ball" from Not With My Wife You Don't). I'd just like to hear more! :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

43 minutes ago, Loert said:

I would have loved for JW at some point to have been involved in a musical with the kind of "big" big band arrangements we see in Anything Goes. Like, imagine what he would have done had he arranged the music for a film version of "An American in Paris". He's so great at that kind of thing but it feels like we haven't seen enough of that side of him.

 

He should do the entire Anything Goes musical!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, Josh500 said:

That dance number.... Halfway thorough it, it cuts to this giant big hall. It can't be part of the seedy night club! It's surreal!

 

What is that? Willie's imagination or dream? But why would they show us that?

It's clearly happening in her mind. That's why the film is rewinding when the dancing girls do the splits.

Willie is a self-important dreamer, and she has an ego, to go with it. She wants more out of life, than to be the moll of a Chinese mafia boss. She wants to hit the big time, but she knows she'll never make it. That's why she overcompensates, with fantasies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, King Mark said:

I think it's one of the  best cue opening by Williams ever

 

And when I first heard it I thought it was going to lead into  the most amazing Williams Main Titles/theme ever

 

 

 

You know what this short opening cue reminds me of? 

 

The brief score snippets JW wrote for the fictional movie in HA2 "Angels with Filthier Souls"! They have the same over dramatic flair! :D

 

https://youtu.be/N935qOPqRzk

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's how I feel about the opening blast, horns and twinkly sounds of the SW main title before the main fanfare begins and after that incredible anticipation, the tempo seems to slow to a crawl and it becomes more "ordinary" sounding. But those first seconds are ASMR central.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/15/2018 at 11:52 PM, King Mark said:

I think it's one of the  best cue opening by Williams ever

 

Yes!

 

On 9/15/2018 at 11:52 PM, King Mark said:

And when I first heard it I thought it was going to lead into  the most amazing Williams Main Titles/theme ever

 

I wish I could have experience the music that way first, on album, but I saw the film many times as a young kid (it was in theaters when I was 4; I grew up watching it on VHS) before I ever heard the OST album.

 

On 9/15/2018 at 11:52 PM, King Mark said:

But it breaks into a dance number...I was very disappointed .I was like wait..bring this music back!

 

The opening dance number is bloody brilliant!

 

On 9/16/2018 at 1:01 AM, Will said:

But JW's "Anything Goes" arrangement is awesome!! Brilliant orchestration.

 

Yes!

 

On 9/16/2018 at 1:17 AM, Josh500 said:

That dance number.... Halfway thorough it, it cuts to this giant big hall. It can't be part of the seedy night club! It's surreal!

 

What is that? Willie's imagination or dream? But why would they show us that?

 

It's Willie's imagination, like her dreams/desires/aspirations of what she really wants to be doing.  The script / novelization makes it clear.

 

On 9/16/2018 at 4:32 AM, Nick1066 said:

Well...yes. But it's clearly intentional on Williams part. He's setting up Spielberg's subversive opening by giving the audience something over the top suspenseful, which is supposed to be paid off by the surprise dancing and singing.  

 

Exactly!  The impact of having the new Indiana Jones film open with a dance number is made ALL the more impactful by Williams' brilliant dark opening logo music appearing first!

 

On 9/16/2018 at 4:32 AM, Nick1066 said:

The whole thing is consistent with the kind of thing they did with the first film, just dialled up to 11...

 

Exactly!

 

On 9/16/2018 at 5:01 AM, Holko said:

If a sudden dance sequence bothers you in Temple of Doom, you're not watching it right. Sit back, turn your brain off, go along with the ride and have fun. It's immensely entertaining.

 

Yes!

 

On 9/16/2018 at 5:54 AM, Quintus said:

It's a fabulous intro because of the song (and arrangement), and I wouldn't change a thing about it.

 

Yes!

 

On 9/16/2018 at 6:23 AM, Stefancos said:

I love the opening number of that film. Both the music and visuals.

 

It sums up the movie nicely too. Everything goes.

 

Exactly!

 

 

On 9/16/2018 at 7:17 AM, filmmusic said:

I love it too!

It's among my top 3 opening title sequences of a movie ever,

 

Definitely!

 

23 hours ago, Josh500 said:

The fact that the dance number is accompanied by the song in Chinese somehow makes it better! It wouldn't have been the same in English. :D

 

Yes!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, Loert said:

I would have loved for JW at some point to have been involved in a musical with the kind of "big" big band arrangements we see in Anything Goes. Like, imagine what he would have done had he arranged the music for a film version of "An American in Paris". He's so great at that kind of thing but it feels like we haven't seen enough of that side of him.

Have any of us heard his Peter Pan musical? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, Loert said:

I would have loved for JW at some point to have been involved in a musical with the kind of "big" big band arrangements we see in Anything Goes. Like, imagine what he would have done had he arranged the music for a film version of "An American in Paris". He's so great at that kind of thing but it feels like we haven't seen enough of that side of him.

 

West Side Story! 

 

Let's pray JW does the score, and not Alan Silvestri or Thomas Newman!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/17/2018 at 3:09 PM, Jay said:

Yea, but it's too bad 1984 technology makes it look kinda fake.  I wonder if they could improve that effect on a future 4K remaster.

 

What do you mean by "fake"?

 

Was the audience supposed to believe that Willie Scott was singing in front of a real life sized "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" cutout?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

48 minutes ago, Jay said:

Yea, but it's too bad 1984 technology makes it look kinda fake.  I wonder if they could improve that effect on a future 4K remaster.

It's been cleaned-up for the Blu box set.

It looked really fake, in 1984, in 70mm.

 

 

 

2 minutes ago, Nick1066 said:

What do you mean fake?

I think that @Jay means that the execution looks fake (which it did/does).

See my above post, for the definitive answer, on the subject.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think it looks anymore fake than lots of other effects of the era...including some in that same film. It's a woman singing in front of a movie title...it's fake, and will look fake, no matter how polished. I never noticed or thought it looked particularly bad.

 

The second two Indy movies were both plagued with some bad effects that ILM had no business putting out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, Nick1066 said:

 

What do you mean by "fake"?

 

Was the audience supposed to believe that Willie Scott was singing in front of a real life sized "Indiana Jone and the Temple of Doom" cutout?

 

Of course not.  I mean the matting doesn't look very good.  Apologies if I used the wrong phrasing.

 

 

18 minutes ago, Richard said:

I think that @Jay means that the execution looks fake (which it did/does).

 

Exactly

 

 

14 minutes ago, Nick1066 said:

I don't think it looks anymore fake than lots of other effects of the era...including some in that same film. It's a woman singing in front of a movie title...it's fake, and will look fake, no matter how polished. I never noticed or thought it looked particularly bad.

 

The second two Indy movies were both plagued with some bad effects that ILM had no business putting out.

 

No, you don't get it.  With today's digital technology, you can add text to a screen and have characters or other other objects move behind or in front of it, and it looks absolutely perfect, like the text is was truly there on the set floating around, you can never tell the difference.  In this film, however, there's a break when she goes in front of it because there's artifacts surrounding her body that ruin the effect.  They didn't pull off the exact effect they wanted.  That's what I'm talking about.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh yea, it's a great idea!  The technology in 1984 just didn't exist to execute it flawlessly.  And honestly, it probably looked perfectly fine in theaters in 1984.  But in the digital world, it looks really fake and COULD be cleaned up if they are so inclined to do so.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's pretty much as good as you can get with manual frame-by-frame tracing if you don't have years to do it. I'm half-and-half on it, it both is a slightly annoying imperfection and showing actual human work behind it through that imperfection, instead of pushing a button in photoshop to perfectly rotoscope it all with algorythms.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Holko said:

That's pretty much as good as you can get with manual frame-by-frame tracing if you don't have years to do it. I'm half-and-half on it, it both is a slightly annoying imperfection and showing actual human work behind it through that imperfection, instead of pushing a button in photoshop to perfectly rotoscope it all with algorythms.

 

Yes, I am sure it was as good as possible in 1984.  And I agree, there is something nice and "human" about the effect as it exists now.

 

But if they went back to the original negative and added the font in fresh via 2018 technology, I probably wouldn't complain at all about the alteration, unless they somehow didn't execute it flawlessly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, Jay said:

No, you don't get it.  With today's digital technology, you can add text to a screen and have characters or other other objects move behind or in front of it, and it looks absolutely perfect, like the text is was truly there on the set floating around, you can never tell the difference.  In this film, however, there's a break when she goes in front of it because there's artifacts surrounding her body that ruin the effect.  They didn't pull off the exact effect they wanted.  That's what I'm talking about.

 

Meh. I get what you mean, I'm just saying it never really bothered me. Still doesn't.

 

I agree that obviously they could pull of the trick more convincingly today. But we both know Spielberg isn't going to touch it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Exactly! It's all fake!

 

I'm sure the effects artists have a word for it, but there's a difference between a special effect that's supposed to recreate something that exists in the real world (e.g. a plane crashing into a mountain) and an effect that in a way breaks the fourth wall and reminds the audience they're watching a film (e.g., the Temple of Doom title, or a camera flying through windows and walls). 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/16/2018 at 6:54 PM, Quintus said:

It's a fabulous intro because of the song (and arrangement), and I wouldn't change a thing about it.

 

Not only is it a fabulous arrangement, but I think it’s reached the pop culture saturation point where it is the definitive arrangement, the one most people think of when (if) they think of Anything Goes.

 

Not sure if this has been posted before but there was this neat nugget in an old interview with the Dancing With the Stars music director:

 

Quote

“Anything Goes” For the Cole Porter classic, producers “picked the version from ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,’ which has a huge orchestra and a hundred women tapping. It took three times longer to do than any other arrangement. At the end the trumpeter was huffing and puffing.”

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Guidelines.