30th Anniversary of Temple of Doom

some aicn articles...

Fortune and Glory: Ain't It Cool Celebrates the 30th Anniversary of Temple of Doom! - Ain't It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.

Fortune and Glory: Quint writes about why Temple of Doom is the best prequel ever made! - Ain't It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.

Fortune and Glory: Frank Marshall shares stories & rare photos from the making of Temple of Doom! - Ain't It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.

 

Fortune and Glory: Posters of Doom! Drew Struzan speaks! Unused concepts! And Crazy foreign posters! - Ain't It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.

 

Fortune and Glory: Harry geeks out all over John Williams' magnificent score for Temple of Doom! - Ain't It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.

 

Again where has the time gone?

I didn't see this in the cinema on its original release, but my dad got a pirate copy back in 85 or 86 (funny how that made me popular at school with everyone wanting to watch the film).

My first thoughts were that it wasn't as good as Raiders. Theres a big lull from when they land in India to when they discover the temple. Its not as epic or sweeping in its locale as Raiders or TLC even. However whilst it may not be the best Indy movie, it still sets the benchmark very high in its genre and very few action adventure films can touch it. That alone is testament to how good Raiders was before it and also to how good this film is. Its great entertainment. Harrison Ford was arguably at his peak then?

In fact I would go so far as to add that the 80's were a great time for films as kid growing up. Even now I would say that TOD and also Jedi set the template for action movies in the years to come.

 

i wanted to see it but my parents wouldn't let me.

 

some more.. if you're jones fan i highly implore you to read these (even if you dont care for TOD). they may be a little long but they talk about the greatness of one of the most maligned sequels of all time. the great "indiana jones and the temple of doom."

FORTUNE AND GLORY: 'In Defense of Willie Scott' by Nordling

FORTUNE AND GLORY: Take a look at some rare and beautiful Temple of Doom concept paintings!

Doctah Jones! Or, How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love 'Temple of Doom' By Moriarty - Ain't It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.

 

Frankly, I thought Nordling's "defense" of Willie Scott still made her seem inferior to Marion Ravenwood and Elsa Schneider. And I found that annoying. I am so sick and tired of this notion that in order for a female character to be "strong" and "likeable", she has to behave like a man. It's still sexism. So what if Willie screamed her head off in "The Temple of Doom". Marion did the same in "Raiders of the Lost Ark", when confronted with snakes and Elsa did the same when confronted with rats and Walter Donovan's bizarro death. And at least none of them followed Indy's example in "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" by squealing like a pig, which he did when confronted with a snake.

Willie Scott was not interested in being a tomboy or an art historian. She was a showgirl who wanted either a wealthy husband or a successful career. If she couldn't have one, she would settle for the other. Willie had lived a life of poverty and didn't want to return to one. Why is that so wrong? And if there is one thing I can say about Willie is that she was a survivor. Was she annoying? Yeah. Marion, with her bombastic faux-machoism and Elsa with her calculating smugness, were also annoying. Ad the most annoying of them all was Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones, who possessed an array of flaws that seem boundless. But I still love him, just as much as I love Marion, Elsa and Willie.

By the way, when I first saw "Temple of Doom", I didn't like it. It seemed nothing like "Raiders". When I saw it for the second time - my father dragged us back to see it - I fell in love with it, and the movie became my favorite "Indiana Jones" flick of all time. After thirty years, it still is.

 

I still rank Temple of Doom as, collectively, Spielberg and Lucas' most sincere monster id. Something deep from within their psyches. It's also perhaps the single greatest, most perfected incarnation of cinematic "pulp adventure" ever rendered. Probably too perfect -- too authentic -- given the many critical and family-oriented grievances that followed in its wake. I saw it theatrically as a little kid, somewhat to my mother's dismay and greatly to my father's own boyish delight. It then became a permanent motivator of my childhood imagination from there on. A super-charger: mine eyes would grow wide with scenarios of glowing treasures and Thuggee black magic rituals, and I'd run around the backwoods behind my house, swinging my stick and jumping over ditches and stuff as if I was caught up in the danger of it all.

 

here's anther article from the series...

FORTUNE AND GLORY: Quint reports on an early draft of Temple of Doom! - Ain't It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.

 

more... this is about as in-depth a set of articles we'll ever get about tod.

FORTUNE AND GLORY: Writers of Doom! Quint interviews Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz! - Ain't It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.

FORTUNE AND GLORY: Papa Vinyard discusses the trauma that is "Evil Indiana Jones!" - Ain't It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.

FORTUNE AND GLORY: Quint gathers together a ton of fun Temple of Doom behind the scenes photos! - Ain't It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.

FORTUNE AND GLORY: 1984 Steven Spielberg on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom! - Ain't It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.

 

last article.

Fortune and Glory is a wrap, but here's a complete list of the articles plus an interesting note... - Ain't It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.

 

As is the norm for UK TV there was a countdown on Channel 5 of the best 80's movies, (no I don't know what it was based on). Strangely TOD was in the top 10, with no sign of the other Indy movies or the SW movies anywhere.

 

Well, if it was the '80s, ANH was out before then (1977). Only ESB and RoTJ came out in the '80s. I'm surprised ESB didn't make the list though.

 

probably the best 80's films that got a bad rap.

 

I would have expected ESB to be in there. I think TOD got such bad publicity because it was so different in tone to Raiders.

 

TOD is a masterpiece - I remember seeing this as a kid in the theater back in '84 & being hugely impressed. Though I'm sure most will disagree with me on this, I actually like TOD slightly better than Raiders. The opening dance sequence @ "Club Obi-Wan", followed by the chaos in the nightclub with the diamonds/ice/antidote, then the chase through the streets of Shanghai, which concluded (temporarily) by the plane trip was truly incredible. Also obviously liked the rest of the film, including the heroes jumping out of the plane with only a life-raft, the "sledding" down the hill, the gory dinner, the search for the Sankara stones, etc.

One of the many things I liked about this film was that it was completely different from Raiders in every way (similar to the extreme differences between ANH & ESB); it was much darker & more disturbing in tone.

I'm glad that back in the late 200X's we finally got a solid TOD soundtrack, which included the entire opening "Anything Goes" sequence, among other songs. It was a long time in coming, since the had only been a limited TOD soundtrack available before that time...

 

I posted this in TLC thread when the discussion turned to the tone of TOD, really I should have posted it in this thread........

Here is the original BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) report on TOD (its in PDF format). I like the opening paragraph on page 5 where the censor discusses Raiders and how much they were looking forward to seeing TOD, and overall it makes for very interesting reading and shows how times have changed in what we find acceptable to us now.

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/sites/default/files/attachments/Indy-Final.pdf

 

I remember seeing Temple of Doom with my friends in the movie theater. We loved it. The audience was clapping, cheering, laughing, etc. I know it's a dark film in many aspects but I don't get the criticism heaved on it by some fans. To me, it felt the most like a 1930s movie serial than any of the others. A thrill ride filled with danger and excitement!

 

I saw this in June or July of 84, when I was six. Or just before turning six. My mom and her high school friend would have family get togethers between 82 and 85. The summer this came out, our family had gone to their home which was in another town and we stayed the weekend. My mom's friend's sons had already seen the film two or three times when they decided to take us to see it. The moms went and did their own thing while the kids watched the film. The youngest, myself and the youngest one of my mom's friend's kids, were a bit too young to see this. So suffice to say, heart rips and the dinner scene were too much. Definitely good reason to institute the PG-13 rating. But that aside, I did enjoy the film then and later on when it made its way to HBO.

 

i saw it three times that year at a big old theater in glendale california ! loved it then and now