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Temple of Doom is celebrating 40 years in 2024


Edmilson

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2 hours ago, Edmilson said:

How will you celebrate ToD's 40th birthday? Re-watching it? Listening to the epic John Williams score? Doing all of those things? :)


Yes! 😄

 

1 hour ago, Andy said:

IMG_9302.jpg


Almost as impressive as my 'Jaws: The Revenge' clipping collection... :lol:
 

1 hour ago, Andy said:

...and even my sister admitted "Yeah, I gotta admit that was pretty cool".


My older brother mocked the 'Jaws: The Revenge' trailer when it came out, and his opinion hasn't changed in 2024...

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34 minutes ago, Andy said:

One thing about the newspaper clippings, the reviews were overwhelmingly positive.


I'm reminded now of the most "positive"—or at least neutral-sounding—review quote Universal could find to put on 'Jaws: The Revenge' ads:

 

"Jaws strikes again!"


 

Well, I was sold on it. lol

 

 

(OK, I'll stop talking about Jaws now.) :lol:

 

 

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29 minutes ago, Groovygoth666 said:

It's interesting to hear that the reviews where positive, I've always heard it was poorly received or at least that was the impression I got. 

 

The king of film critics Roger Ebert really liked it and gave it a 4/4:

 

Quote

Roger Ebert gave the film a perfect four-star rating, calling it "one of the greatest Bruised Forearm Movies ever made. You know what a Bruised Forearm Movie is. That's the kind of movie where your date is always grabbing your forearm in a viselike grip, as unbearable excitement unfolds on the screen...Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom makes no apologies for being exactly what it is: Exhilarating, manic, wildly imaginative escapism. No apologies are necessary. This is the most cheerfully exciting, bizarre, goofy, romantic adventure movie since Raiders, and it is high praise to say that it's not so much a sequel as an equal... You stagger out with a silly grin -- and a bruised forearm, of course."

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Jones_and_the_Temple_of_Doom#Critical_response

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Or in other words, Anything Goes. 
 

Truly, two simple words that sum up this perfect epic of entertaining mayhem, never to be taken as seriously as its predecessor.  Critics often use the phrase “Roller Coaster Ride” metaphorically, and I’d argue that if it didn’t begin with Temple of Doom, there’s no better film that fits that description. Literally. 

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I'll say this for TOD: It has many weaknesses, and almost every one of them can be viewed as a sort of strength. Is it a betrayal of everything Raiders stood for or a sterling example of a second film that's brave enough to do everything differently? Yes, yes it is.

 

And then there are the elements that are just pure strengths, no matter how you slice it. The score, the cinematography, the fight scenes, the mine car chase … there's definitely stuff to love here.

 

I'm sure I'll watch it at some point this year. And the score gets a lot of listening time from me no matter what.

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13 hours ago, Groovygoth666 said:

It certainly could of helped with those controversies.


I wouldn't be surprised if they put an advisory before the movie now...

 

"This movie is a product of its time. It presents depictions that were unacceptable then and are unacceptable now. Rather than not show the movie, we present it as-is to encourage progressive discussions. Yada yada..."

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Yes, God forbid we all learn to be more sensitive to societal representation :sarcasm:. There's plenty of stuff I love about Temple of Doom, but there's also plenty about it that is very much from 1984, and should probably stay there. 

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3 hours ago, Thor said:

Some of the main criticisms at the time related to the film's darker tone, its violence and its happy-go-lucky comic book pace and structure (Looney Tunes maestro Chuck Jones had been involved on storyboard level).

 

I'm sure I've said it before, but I never found Temple of Doom "darker' in the usual sense of the word. Its scarier, more violent but all within the realm, of as you say, "its happy-go-lucky comic book pace and structure" which is characteristic of the entire series. Hence its not dark in the sense that The Northman is dark or even in the sense that The Two Towers is dark.

 

What it is, is its more macabre. And I'm fine with macabre, except that in the case of this particular film, I don't feel like its conducive to the film's goal, which is to have fun.

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20 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

What it is, is its more macabre. And I'm fine with macabre, except that in the case of this particular film, I don't feel like its conducive to the film's goal, which is to have fun.

 

It's also supposed to be a bit scarier than the previous film, which it achieves.

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Temple of Dooms was the last time that Spielberg seemed to take the series kind of serious as an original hero story. All sequels including Last Crusade looked already like a parody of the franchise. 

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Eh. All the Indy films are kind of aware of their own ridiculousness: not the degenerate Marvel sense, Lor forbid, but still. I like the more comedic touch of The Last Crusade the best.

 

50 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

It's also supposed to be a bit scarier than the previous film, which it achieves.

 

It does. I still have trouble disentangling how much of that is Lucas' personal life and how much of that is his, by then, belief that the second film should feel more intense than the first. The timeframe of Lucas' marriage coming undone and the earliest sketched ideas for Temple of Death (as it was initially called) is a little elusive, although for the moment I'm happy to defer to Brian Jay Jones' spectacular biography, which presented them as a one-two punch.

 

Having said that, the fact that some conceptual elements like the "all that glitters is not gold" aspect of both Pankot Palace and Cloud City are mirrored between the two films, alongside comments made by both Lucas and Spielberg, suggest that the autobigraphical motive is certainly not the only factor at play there.

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5 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

There's a difference between being sensitive and over-sensitive. It's a wonderful film.

I don't even know what that means. I think it's enough to say that aspects of it wouldn't fly, if it came out today. It didn't, so I accept its issues, but there is no harm in pointing them out. Some stuff was once ok, and now it isn't. It's fine. That's how it's supposed to work. 

 

It's a very fun movie, with the best cinematography, music, and sets in the series. For want of a couple of lines of dialog, it could be better, that's all.

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1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

Eh. All the Indy films are kind of aware of their own ridiculousness: not the degenerate Marvel sense, Lor forbid, but still. I like the more comedic touch of The Last Crusade the best.

 

 

It does. I still have trouble disentangling how much of that is Lucas' personal life and how much of that is his, by then, belief that the second film should feel more intense than the first. The timeframe of Lucas' marriage coming undone and the earliest sketched ideas for Temple of Death (as it was initially called) is a little elusive, although for the moment I'm happy to defer to Brian Jay Jones' spectacular biography, which presented them as a one-two punch.

 

Having said that, the fact that some conceptual elements like the "all that glitters is not gold" aspect of both Pankot Palace and Cloud City are mirrored between the two films, alongside comments made by both Lucas and Spielberg, suggest that the autobigraphical motive is certainly not the only factor at play there.

 

The earliest story ideas for Temple of Doom are from fall 1981/early 1982, when Lucas had just adopted a baby and was in a "happy" moment of his marriage, as far as we know.

The story conferences were held in April 1982. Lucas wrote the treatment in May 1982. The first draft was delivered in August 1982.

Marcia Lucas asked for the divorce around summer 1982, I believe. It wasn't officially announced until June 1983.

 

So yeah, I don't believe the basic elements from Temple of Doom come from Lucas' personal crisis.

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I also have a topical allergy towards reading biographical antecdotes of the artist's life into the work of art, and especially in the case of Lucas who clearly wants to project a certain image of himself, based on a kind of old-fashioned auteur theory where the artist inherently writes from his own life.

 

But my understanding is Lucas discovered Marcia had had an affair circa January or February of 1982, although they had tried to get over it for some time after that, with Marcia suggesting counseling and Lucas refusing. Its therefore not stretch that it will have had some effect on the gestating story.

 

My understanding is that the concepts Lucas hatched between July 1981 and January 1982 were for other possible films, not for what Temple of Doom ended up being: ideas like a chase on the chinese wall and discovering a "Lost World" (I've seen no convincing evidence that the "Monkey King" and haunted castle premises date from this time). So the idea of the human-sacrificing cult in India would have been hatched subsequently or at least closely to when Lucas learned of the affair.

 

But I do think the idea of "well, it worked so well for Empire" was just if not more forefront in his mind. The biographical spin is probably more apt when we look at the second Ewok film.

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I'm considerably cooler towards the movie, but I do really, really appreciate that Lucas - in cahoots with the Hyucks and Spielberg, surely - clearly endeavoured to make a film as unlike Raiders of the Lost Ark as he could think of.

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To some extent, yes. I mean, he wrote Episode I with one of his early drafts of Star Wars on his desk, so there are parallels to the original and to Jedi, but they're more in the abstract - getting stranded on a desert planet, leading an offensive of primitives and blowing up a space station - and they're probably less important than the differences.

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37 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

The problem with her is the screaming.


That's what Spielberg said.

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9 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

Spielberg even named her character after his willie :lol2:

 

He also bought the infamously named "Rosebud" sled from 'Citizen Kane.'

 

I see a pattern...

 

image.png

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2 hours ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

But frankly, most of the people I've seen take great offence at this film haven't been Indians, but rather the usual sort who are eager to take offence on behalf of someone else.

 

Those sorts of people should be forced-fed Ralph Bakshi's Fritz the Cat:

 

 

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