Temple Of Doom's Downfall: The Villian Mola Rom

For one of the first threads in this forum, I'd like to discuss the reason why I think Temple of Doom ends up as the weakest in the Indy Trilogy.

Not counting the Jar-Jar duo that is Willie Scott and Short Round (Howey Smokes! Cwash Wanding!), I belive the downfall of this film is its weak villian, Mola Ram of the Thugee cult. He seems to be the power behind the throne at Bangcock palace. However, he is introduced into the film almost an hour after the start time, and we learn very little about him, just that he's an evil man who rips out hearts and laughs alot.

I for one would have combined the character Mola Rom with that of the Prime Minister Chattar Lal. Lal was trained at Oxford, and a social and intellectual equal to Jones. However, unlike Jones, Lal had embraced the Thugee cult as his own, but he too was just a bit player.

I belive that if Lal was also the leader of the cult, it would add more weight to his and Indy's back and forth at the Dinner table and allow the villian to be introduced much earlier in the film. In its currenct conception, we don't learn the fate of Lal in particular.

Oh well, my two cents.

 

and I blame the dumb blonde they threw in that movie. No gutso, yelling all the time. No fun

 

I agree, Mola Ram was a pretty weak villain.

But Short Round rocks!

 

He did have the best line in the movie.

"Drop dem Doctah Jones! Dey will be found! You won't!

 

An action film's only as good as its villain. A strong and intelligent villain requires the hero to rise to a challenge; conversely, if the villain is weak, incompetent, or just not there most of the time, an audience will tend to wait for the hero to just get it over with.

 

Mola Ram was kind of lame. But that scene at the end on the bridge with the glowing stones was very cool. I also like how we follow Mola's fall down the cliff side.

 

That's why Raiders was the nest. Well, one of the reasons. Belloq and the Nazis were just so awesome.

 

Last Crusade's villain was okay--I like the idea of a Nazi with his own agenda--but the actor had some weak moments; I love the line, "Wherearethesemissingpagesthismapwemusthavethesepages!"

 

I agree with darthcleo. The dumb blonde ruined the movie. The kid didn't help it either.

Also I didn't think the movie was on the same scale as Raiders and Crusade.

 

I've only seen Temple of Doom once (I have no interest in repeating the experience), and the only thing that really sticks out to me about it has to be the annoying dumb blonde and little kid. That was the main reason why, for me, the movie ranks far below the first and third in the trilogy. On the other hand, Jar Jar in no way ruined TPM for me.

 

Mola Rom was an ok villain, but I never really saw many Indiana Jones villains that were strongly told except for those of Raider's of the Lost Ark[/b].

The entire Indiana Jones story is more about finding lost artifacts and the many adventures that happen along the way, not good vs. evil.
For that formula Lucas dropped in the Nazi's, which gather strong contempt from those viewing by not even doing anything.

 

I like in Crusade when they're on the zeppelin...

"No ticket."

 

Looks like I'm the only one who loved Temple of Doom. I thought Mola Ram was a good villain, though not to the scale of Belloq and the Nazis. He really creeped me out when I first saw the film as a kid, especially in the infamous heart-ripping scene.

 

I also loved the film. So what if the if the main villain wasn't developed to your liking; it was full of action and I was on the edge of my seat the entire time.

 

I too love Temple of Doom. In fact growing up that was always us kids' favorite Indy movie. We watched it over and over. Although now my favorite is Raiders.

And several of the scenes with Mola Ram are absolutely chilling. Including the heart ripping scene and the scene where he makes Indy swallow the liquid that will turn him evil. That scene is alost satanic. Very dark.

Hey, two guys named Spielberg and Lucas made this movie. It can't be THAT bad.

 

Temple of Doom was the best for action period........

I like it a lot.

 

The opening 20 minutes of Doom is one of the best action sequences ever filmed. Period.

 

TOD had a ton of great action, but a shaky script; even as a kid, it bothered me how they introduced Lao Che, then completely forgot about him.

 

Temple of Doom was the first Indy, Spielberg, Lucas, and Harrison Ford movie I ever saw and it's still my favorite. I love it. My favorite scene was the banquet with the eyeball soup and the chilled monkeybrains!

 

I thought Mola Ram was one of the best villains in the "Indiana Jones" series. Not only was he the incarnation of pure evil, but he was a direct physical threat to Indy. Note the great finale where Indy and Mola Ram fight on the suspension bridge. I doubt Rene Belloq or Walter Donovan could have put up a fight like that against Indy.

-Dubya Fett
Fettism of the Day: "Anakin Skywalker: tall, Darth, and handsome."

 

You should be ashamed of yourself! Doom was a awsome move! Hovever, if I sould say one bad thing about it, it would be that it prettymuch is on the same location all the time. Under a temple in India. In Raiders and Crusade they were "moving more around". And ofcourse: No nazis

 

They did have a great start in Shanghi...

 

Just like the SW films ( including TPM! ), I don't take the Indy films quite so serious. They're just fun movies. ESB and Temple of Doom were staples of kid's birthday parties in the 80's, and they bring back memories.

Whenever I sit down to watch the Indy trilogy, I watch 1 per night, and I see it as just one great story, and there's still tons of stuff that makes me laugh in each one.

"We. Are. Going. To die."

My ranking is as follows...

1. Raiders
2. Temple of Doom
3. Last Crusade ( the only one I saw in the theater, when I was 9. )

 

Chatter's fate is unclear in the movie, but in some storyboards and in some scripts he was suppossed to be lowered into the lava pit and would be melted down to a skeleton(Thus fufilling the "melting villain death" cliche, which was kind of absent in Doom)

 

I just presumed Chatter Lal was killed when his back was broken on that wheel.

What I want to know is, how many Thuggee were willfull members and how many were simply zombies under the influence of the Black Sleep of the Kali-Ma? What happened after they were rounded up by the British soldiers? And what about those two Sankara Stones still hidden in the catacombs beneath Pangkot Palace? I smell fan fiction tying up the loose ends...

-Dubya Fett