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Where Were You In 1984: Kinkella Reviews Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - Ep 132
1.3k Plays11 months ago
Let’s go back to 1984 and experience what it was like to watch Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom through the eyes of a 12 year old. How was the movie received by 1984’s tween culture? How has it aged? Where does it fall in the five movie hierarchy? Listen and learn my friends.
Transcripts
For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/pseudo/132
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Transcript
Introduction to Pseudo-Archaeology Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You are now entering the pseudo-archaeology podcast, a show that uncovers what's fact, what's fake, and what's fun in the crazy world of pseudo-archaeology.
Episode 132 Overview: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
00:00:23
Speaker
Hello and welcome to this pseudo-archaeology podcast, episode 132. I'm your host, Dr. Andrew Kinkella, and tonight we're going to hang out in 1984 and discuss Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
00:00:41
Speaker
All right. So I'm recording this in December. I think it's December 18th or something like that. And Christmas is soon and this will maybe come out December 20th. I am classically late with my recordings. So if the network people
00:01:01
Speaker
Edit this on time and by on time, I mean totally late at the last minute because I sent it to him too late. Then you will hear this on the 20th. Definitely blame them, though, not me. I mean, it's not I'm the talent. OK, so whatever I say goes. So I thought that I would do since it being Christmas in this kind of thing.
00:01:24
Speaker
I think that a lot of us might be watching movies. And I'm like, you know what? I haven't done Temple of Doom. So I thought I'd just
Personal Reflections and Cultural Impact
00:01:31
Speaker
talk about that. And for me.
00:01:34
Speaker
This one holds a lot of interest in various ways. First, I saw Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in the theater when I was 12. And I was pretty sure about this anyway, but I looked back and I believe that Temple of Doom was released on May 23rd, 1984.
00:01:57
Speaker
And i do remember that star wars movies and indiana jones movies tend to be released released right in that late may world and i remember that cuz my brother's birthday is like right there and my brother's four years younger than me. And his birthday it would always be like the day after the movie release or on the movie release always that time.
00:02:19
Speaker
So I remember this and I think I think we're going to look at it through my eyes of the time because I remember this man. So I'm 12, right? I'm what we call a tween in today's lingo. See, I hang with the kids tween, but
00:02:41
Speaker
Here, when I've seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, so that comes out in 1981, I'm like nine, right? At that time, I'm a kid, right? I have a kid brain and I think kid thoughts. And I still loved Raiders of the Lost Ark. I mean, it was awesome.
00:02:58
Speaker
I come into Temple of Doom with a teenage brain. There's a difference there. And honestly, you guys, I remember largely when I shifted from child to teen. There's like a month or two there, but a handful of things happened. I swear to you, I remember watching the Van Halen video jump.
00:03:19
Speaker
And that came out, I believe, January 1st, 1984. So it came out, you know, in sort of in celebration of 1984. The album it's from is from 1984. But I remember watching that video for the first time with David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen. And I swear to you guys, at the beginning of that video, I was a child.
00:03:42
Speaker
And four minutes and four seconds later, I was a teenager. And what I mean by that is I was watching the video and I was just like, that's cool. That's the coolest thing I've ever seen. I want to be that. And I don't even know what that is, but that I want that I want to do that. Like that is the awesomest thing ever. Right. So.
00:04:06
Speaker
It's, I swear to God, it's the, that jump video moment for me. And of course, right around the same time, I remember doing other things like I was looking at girls and then I was looking at girls. You know what I mean? So my eyes, my, my, the way I see this stuff is different with temple to doom. And so
00:04:33
Speaker
Coming into it, after I watched the movie, it was a mixed bag. And we'll get into it in a moment on what the mixed bag has in its bag, which is a mixture of good and bad.
Exploring Cinematic Tropes and Action Sequences
00:04:48
Speaker
But there's aspects to this movie that it's not the greatest Indiana Jones movie ever. Let's be honest. I feel like
00:04:57
Speaker
It opened a lot of doors to possibilities in Indiana Jones that should have remained closed. I think it destroyed forever the tone of what Indiana Jones was, that they did so well with Raiders of the Lost Ark. But I thought
00:05:19
Speaker
We'll just go through the movie cause again, I do have to remind you for the 50th time, I do have a film degree too. So again, as always, if you disagree with me, you're just wrong because you don't have a degree.
00:05:36
Speaker
So how does the movie start to this? It still does follow a lot of the tropes. First, when it opens, we have the Paramount Mountain sign, you know, and it fades into a mountain image on a gong. Right. So good for them. They start with the mountain imagery.
00:05:55
Speaker
And the Gong is part of this show in Shanghai, right? We see a card that says Shanghai 1935, and we go in and we see that sort of Busby Berkeley musical number that Cape Capshaw, who plays Willie Scott,
00:06:13
Speaker
That's the character's name, right? Kate Capshaw is like the lead in this basically a music video for the MTV generation, right? And I think the show starts out with a bang. I really like the number. I think it's cool. I think it's of the time. It's kind of pre-war. It kind of harkens back. Good for them. I think it really works, but then quickly we do get into the excitement. I do find
00:06:43
Speaker
that Temple of Doom is very James Bondy. And we see this here. Because they're doing that sort of end of a previous adventure thing, just like James Bond, right? Kind of starting on the move. So, Indy's there in this club, and he's of course talking to the bad guy and his henchmen, right? And of course, he's trying to get like a jewel.
00:07:13
Speaker
And of course, things go poorly and we're sort of off onto this exciting kind of scene. And I do like this first scene here, this first sort of adventuresome, exciting scene where they drop the diamond in a bunch of ice. Right. So we're in this club and they dump a bunch of ice out of like a ice bucket.
00:07:37
Speaker
And so the jewel gets mixed up with the ice and they do this great sort of crawling through these bits of ice, trying to find the diamond. One guy kicks it. You know, it's I love stuff like this because it doesn't rely on a ton of special effects. It's just fun and and silly, but cool. It does serve the story. Indiana Jones does need to get the diamond. Right. And so I just I think it works.
00:08:05
Speaker
I think that little bit works really, really great. And as we go through this sort of chase for the diamond, we also know that Indiana Jones has been poisoned and he needs the antidote. So it's this sort of diamond versus the antidote thing. And cap shot is, of course, has one of them at one time. Indiana Jones wants to trade. You guys get how this goes. Right. And again, it's it's exciting. It's fast paced. It's cool. But then.
00:08:34
Speaker
But then friends, something happens where the tone of Indiana Jones is shifted forever. In order to escape this,
00:08:48
Speaker
Indy and Willie run use the gong. The gong is spinning. If you can see the gong is rolling, right? A big, huge gong. They're running behind it. So the bad guys are shooting at them. And of course, the bullets are ricocheting off the gong. They run towards a window that crashed through the window and they're like four stories high. And then they fall down a series of awnings that break their fall all the way into falling into a car.
00:09:20
Speaker
It's unbelievable, right? And so they're setting this precedent. And I do think this is where it happens first, because in Raiders of the Lost Ark, this kind of thing never really happened. And I can see how you could burn me on this. You'd be like, well, Kinkela, Indiana Jones was on the outside of a submarine. Or what about that last part where they opened the Ark?
00:09:44
Speaker
I know what you mean, but when we see Indiana Jones on the top of the submarine in Raiders, we don't see him then like on it the whole time or we don't see a scene of him holding on to the submarine while it goes under water or something. It's just sort of understood.
00:10:00
Speaker
that he has gotten into the submarine or has been able to use the submarine for transportation. Right. And the last scene in Rares of the Lost Ark is where they do allow the supernatural to come out. And it's OK because it's contained, right? I know not contained in the Ark, but contained in the movie. You know what I mean? It's OK. They they pop it out and they put it back in. So the rest of the movie has that believability feel to it.
00:10:31
Speaker
This time we're being introed to like, we're not going to be believable. And I think that's a real loss. You know, why do they do this? I think I think a special effects come in. That's a big reason why we see more of this. You know, we're going to use these special effects. Look at this great thing we can do. It's like, yeah, but it's not real. So they fall into this car. And of course, driving the car is short round. One of the great sidekicks of all movies.
00:10:59
Speaker
They then go on a car chase because you need your car chase at Indiana Jones and they end up at an airport. And the bad guy's name is Lao Che, right? And and they get to this airplane and Indiana Jones and Willie Scott get him just in time. And of course, Indiana Jones goes, Nice try, Lao Che. And he closes the door and you see that the airplane is labeled Lao Che Airlines.
00:11:28
Speaker
I love that. I think that joke works. I think it's funny. But on in another tragic spin, one of my students. And it's the same student who asked about Contiki, whose name shall not be said. He owned a song wearing this literally like three weeks ago, a Lao Chi Airlines t-shirt and friends
00:11:55
Speaker
I was gripped with jealousy. I may have been passed out. After seeing that teacher, just all the jealousy in my body at one point, but that's the coolest t-shirt ever. Alouche Airlines t-shirt. Oh, damn. Don't you hate it when your students are more creative than you?
00:12:15
Speaker
It's just, you know what? If he was a good student, he would have bought me that t-shirt and given it to me and not said he did. And then I wear it and then I get all the credit for the joke. But no, no, students just don't understand how to treat their professors these days. Back to the movie, if I can keep going. So.
00:12:41
Speaker
Of course, they they get in the airplane and they're flying all the way to India. So it's this long airplane ride. And I bet a bunch of you guys remember this one. Speaking of unbelievable, of course, the pilots jump out with their
Plot and Character Development
00:12:55
Speaker
parachutes. There's no parachutes and the plane is about to crash into a mountain. So Indiana Jones gets short round and Willie.
00:13:03
Speaker
together and the three of them jump out of a plane in a blow up raft that hasn't been blown up yet and they blow it up as they float down and then they're fine. They've jumped out of an airplane with a with a inflatable raft and then just hit some snow and they're fine. And then then it slides down like a snow
00:13:29
Speaker
snow covered mountain. Right. And then it falls off a huge cliff into some water like 500 feet below, you know, and everyone's OK. And it's like, oh, so unbelievable. And. You know, when they when they did this, this sort of break of tone where it's like, OK, now Indiana Jones is the world of unbelievable stuff.
00:13:56
Speaker
One of the reasons they give for doing it is they'll say stuff like it appeals to a younger audience, right? But I'm 12 watching this. And I swear to you guys, I remember this. I remember as a 12 year old going, oh, you know, I was not cheering along going, oh, that's so awesome. I was like, oh, God, that's so unbelievable. And so what you'll see, you know,
00:14:23
Speaker
People don't give kids enough credit. Kids are used as scapegoats for crappy movies. Right. Oh, it's for kids. Oh, it's kid friendly. No, it's not. Kids like deep movies to kids like maintenance of tone to kids like to know that it's sort of an adult movie. Right. And they're prepared for that. And they want that kids don't want to see something that's quote unquote made for kids, because that's like secret code for this is a shit movie.
00:14:53
Speaker
Anyway, they now they're in a river and they're just chilling on the river and they finally get to a village, right? And the village is all depressed, right? There's no food, they're starving. And they meet like the old man, sort of the chief or the leader of the village. And he tells them that things are going terribly there and they need to get the stone. They need to get the Shankara stone, right? That their village needs to think so things will be better.
00:15:21
Speaker
And of course, this is where we have, if we're looking at the movie in terms of acts and in terms of sort of beats, this is the moment where act one is going to end and act two is going to begin, right? Act one is ending with, OK, now we know why we're here. Now we know what adventure we're going to go on. We've met all our characters and we're like, OK, we're going to go find the stone, the Shankara stone.
00:15:47
Speaker
Right. And so I will say there's there's a bunch of cool quotes.
00:15:52
Speaker
In Temple of Doom, Temple of Doom might have the best one liners throughout. I mean, I've already missed earlier on short round says no time for love. Dr. Jones famous. It's almost pop culture reference now. Right. And of course, when short round asks, what is the Shankara stone? Indiana Jones goes, fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory. And I'll see you guys back on the flip side.
00:16:21
Speaker
Welcome back to the pseudo archaeology podcast episode 132. And I have been discussing slash reviewing slash looking back at my 12 year old 1984 self with Indiana Jones and the temple of doom. And we had just left off on the end of act one where we've had the whole scene in Shanghai. We've
00:16:46
Speaker
Met our characters we've had the plane ride we've had a completely unbelievable jump out of a plane and now we know that we're looking for the shankara stone and i would say honestly. Barring the unbelievable moments in this movie so far so good i like the first part of temple of doom.
00:17:07
Speaker
You know, I like Act One. I like all the Shanghai stuff. Again, barring the unbelievable bits. The characters are good and obviously the acting's great. They all make sense. It's fun. It moves. Gets from place to place. It just it looks cool. But Act Two, my friends, Act Two is where many movies go to die. And this is one of them.
00:17:37
Speaker
What do I mean by that? All right. So now it just slows down and not quite yet, but it's going to get real slow in a minute. So now we're on some elephants. If you guys remember this and I think.
00:17:51
Speaker
As you listen to this, we've all seen who hasn't seen Temple of Doom. Like if I go, hey, Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom and you're like, what? I don't really know that. It's like, are you are you 12? You know, it's like, no, go watch Temple of Doom. But so I think we're reminiscing as we go. If you guys remember, it's like they're riding on elephants are kind of sort of a jungle scene.
00:18:13
Speaker
Here's some vampire bats. They have to camp out. You got your various Willie screams at various animals. Oh, you got another famous quote short round going. Hey, lady, you call him Dr. Jones, right? Willie accidentally grabs a real snake. It's like that would never happen. There's just.
00:18:37
Speaker
There's no reason for some of this, you know, and then of course they go, they finally get to the palace, right? Because we are moving along slowly. We're looking for the Shankara stone.
00:18:48
Speaker
They get the palace and then they have the gross out dinner, right? Where it's like, oh, my God. So it's it's more disgusting food to eat. And this scene, it feels so childish, man. Again, it ends up eating monkey brains. You're like, ooh. And again, even as a 12 year old.
00:19:08
Speaker
I was like, this is lame. Like, this isn't pushing us forward. Right. This is this isn't mature. It's not mature storytelling. You know, like now they're eating some beetles. OK. I do think that there's a funny moment.
00:19:28
Speaker
where short round has his mouth open just because he's so like his mouth open in shock and his gum falls out. And I just think it's a really it's a great bit of comedy. I think that works works really well. Then so we have our gross out dinner. Then we go back to the like the sleeping quarters. And this is sort of the pseudo but not really sex scene where Indiana Jones comes to see Willie. She's sort of standoffish. He has an apple.
00:19:56
Speaker
You know, and he crunches it and she hears and she's like, oh, my God, because they're starving, they haven't eaten anything. And then, of course, they they tease sex, right? But then they they do this detente. They do this like, no, she'll go first. No, he'll go first. They talk this sort of narcissistic detente where they both go to their separate rooms and each thinks the other is going to come for them. And of course, in James Bond style, Indiana Jones gets attacked in his room, right? He gets attacked by like a like an assassin.
00:20:26
Speaker
And so he defeats the assassin, then he runs over to Willie's room to check and see if it's OK. And she is of course does that thing where she's like, I knew you'd come. Oh, but you're acting kind of weird. And as she talks, he's looking for like secret passage or seeing if there's any assassins in there and there's nobody and he feels this wind and he goes to open a secret door.
00:20:48
Speaker
And of course, the secret door has like a carved female statue on it with like prominent boobs. Right. And he pushes the boobs to like open the secret door. And while he's pushing them, you know, Willie, of course, points at her own boobs and goes, I'm here. I'm right here again.
Critiques on Pacing and Storytelling
00:21:08
Speaker
Another.
00:21:09
Speaker
funny one liner sort of thing, a little funny moment, which is on the edge of slapsticky cylinders. But so what that one for me, it works. And I think. Part of the reason that I'm cool with that is it's like character building. It's like the two characters together. You know, you're you're hearing them have some sort of conversation, which is vaguely realistic. It's not just
00:21:39
Speaker
look at these special effects or look at this completely unbelievable stunt. It's funny and it's lighthearted, but in the moment, he's still actively looking for a trapdoor. It makes sense to the scene. So then they go through the tunnel, the tunnel of a ton of bugs, Willie
00:22:03
Speaker
is accused of being too screamy, you know, by other people who watch this, and I get it. I think Kate Kopshaw did a great job of the character. Again, I think all the actors did great, but it's the writing that is hurtful. She's supposed to be that screamy character, and it is one time too many.
00:22:20
Speaker
And by one time, I mean, I mean, seven times too many. But they go through this tunnel and then they get to they see the secret evil ritual. If you guys remember right there, it's the ritual for Kali. And you see the main guy with his like, it's like a bull skull. I don't know, some weird skull with like horns on it. And he's going like Kali Ma Kali Ma. And I got to tell you guys,
00:22:48
Speaker
In 1984, the summer of 1984, every pre-teen kid was going, Kalima!
00:22:58
Speaker
I remember doing that with my brother, with my friends, you know, you'd go, you'd go Kalima and then you'd start reaching for their chest. Right. And why is this? Because we saw in the movie just then this is where the high evil priest takes the heart out of that guy, like pulls it out. Right. And then he gets put on this rack and he gets put down into the fiery pit below and the heart catches on fire, too. Right. At the same time, Kalima.
00:23:28
Speaker
Right. And so, of course, you would use this to torture others, which is what you do. I had this done to me. You guys do it. It's difficult 1980s childhood. You would go to your friend when they're unsuspecting and you'd grab them and you'd go like Kelly Ma. And then you'd take your fingers and just shove them in their chest. Right. Like you're actually trying to take their heart out. And they'd be like, oh, God damn it, man. Stop it. Stop it.
00:23:56
Speaker
And then of course you'd have like bruises on your chest, you know, from the other dude's fingers. It's how we learned in earlier times, okay? It was learning.
00:24:08
Speaker
So anyway, we we see this whole thing. The Indiana Jones and short round and Willie are hiding as they see this. And then the rituals over. And then Indiana Jones goes down there because he's going to grab the stones. And Willie's like, you could get killed, you know, and another one liner by Indiana Jones. He's like, maybe. But not today.
00:24:37
Speaker
That's a badass lie. So Indiana Jones, of course, gets captured and then they force him to drink the blood of the whatever of Kali or, you know, however it goes. And there's this long scene. And you guys do this part right here.
00:24:53
Speaker
This is where the movie for me slows down to such a crawl that I'm like, what were they thinking? I know that Steven Spielberg has largely complained he didn't like this. You know, it's like his least favorite. And I totally get him because I think.
00:25:10
Speaker
It feels like the directing is crappy, but it's Steven Spielberg. He must have his hands tied or it's got that feeling of 30 people worked on this. Oh, we must have. Oh, the studio needs this scene. Like it totally feels like that feels disjointed and this to sign of a bad movie. I bet you guys kind of forget parts right now. I bet you're flipping straight to the like mining car scene.
00:25:38
Speaker
But no, there's a there's some there's like 20 minutes of this or more. I don't know where so. They're trying to get him to drink the blood and he's not. And then the evil little kid whips out like a voodoo doll and starts stabbing the voodoo doll in India. John starts going. And so all of a sudden in this world, I guess voodoo dolls just work like they just work.
00:26:00
Speaker
I don't think a voodoo doll would have worked in Raiders of the Lost Ark. You know what I mean? If somebody in Raiders of the Lost Ark busted out a voodoo doll and stabbed it, Indiana Jones would have been standing there going like, what are you doing? Right, because there was more believability. So it's like you stab them the voodoo doll, Indiana Jones going, ugh. Then they whip them for a while, and they're whipping short round two, and they finally get them to drink it. It takes forever and a day. And then,
00:26:29
Speaker
They grabbed Willie and they're going to sacrifice Willie. Right now, they're just they've revved it back up and they're going to do the same thing and they're putting her on the rack and they're going to bring her down to the fire. Again, it follows just every cliche trope. It's like you know it's going to happen, but it's not fun.
00:26:49
Speaker
Sometimes following cliches is super fun, right? James Bond does a million cliches, but you're waiting for it. There's certain steps you want to see. Indiana Jones has some of these, too. And you're rewarded because you're a longtime viewer and you want to see them, right?
00:27:05
Speaker
But in this, it's like a slapstick. Like, like, you know that they're going to crank her almost all the way back up and then, you know, it's going to fall down again and then, you know, it's going to come halfway up and it just it keeps going. And what's funny is the chain and the whole.
00:27:22
Speaker
mechanism is super slow anyway so they can't speed it up so it's like oh my god okay they're coming up again oh god and even the music is slow it's like oh like that like ominous evil people music slow down i'm sorry it's just it's so it's i believe the word
00:27:45
Speaker
is interminable. We're going to learn in some words today on the pseudo archaeology podcast, interminable, meaning taking fricking forever.
00:27:59
Speaker
Up and down, up and down, up and down. Indiana Jones, since he's drunk, the blood is now like a zombie. He's zombie and Indiana Jones doing everything bad. But then short round is able to burn him. Right. He has a fire. He has like a torch burns Indiana Jones and the burn snaps Indiana Jones out of it. So he's out of it. And then finally, he's able to fight back. And I remember there's a line there where Indiana Jones says, let's get out of here.
00:28:28
Speaker
And the whole audience is going, yeah, if you mean let's get out of Act Two, I totally agree with you. So you're like, finally, but. Here we come. Um.
00:28:46
Speaker
They do release the kids. The good guys are now starting to win. Oh, the kids, by the way, are all slave laborers, right? They're all like these miners because they've all had to drink the blood of Kali and they're all like mindless zombies just like digging for the other stones. There's supposed to be five stones and they only have three.
00:29:04
Speaker
But now two things have to happen that take doubly forever. First, there has to be a long ass fight with quote unquote, the big guy, capital T, capital B, capital G. Every Indiana Jones movie, Indiana has to fight the big guy. So the big guy comes out and they fight and they fight and they fight and they fight. But. In the middle of it.
00:29:32
Speaker
And only the most focused listeners would have seen this. They're fighting and then the big guy throws like a big, huge hammer. He just throws it away. And then they cut and it clunks on this other guy's head in like a slapstick comedy moment. We're too mature for this crap. Like, I thought this was supposed to be a serious scene where Indiana Jones is trying to fight a guy much bigger than him.
00:30:00
Speaker
but you cut to have a jokey moment. I swear to God, you guys, you know how it feels to me? It feels like, not like Steven Spielberg, feels like George Lucas and the awful stuff he did in Phantom Menace. That feels like George Lucas's fingerprints. I can be totally wrong.
00:30:17
Speaker
But, you know, just this what is this drive for slapstick horribleness that's unfunny and unrealistic? Again, if that huge mallet actually hit that guy in the head for real, he would have been like instantly killed.
00:30:31
Speaker
You know, but now he goes clunk and then he does the wiggly I'm, oh, I'm unconscious. I'm going to, I'm going to be the most indicating actor ever. I'm sure they made him do it. You know, look at me. I'm wobbly. Uh, so they do this.
00:30:48
Speaker
And I know you're shocked when I tell you that Indiana Jones finally wins. They use the voodoo doll some more, but then short round beats up the bad little kid in order to get the voodoo doll. This then is where we have to get out of here and we get to the mining cart ride. You guys remember the mining cart ride? You may still be sitting there watching it, because it goes on forever. And I swear to God, as a 12 year old,
00:31:16
Speaker
As I'm watching this, I'm like, huh, I wonder when they're coming out with the theme park ride on this. I swear to God, I thought that in the theater because it's just like, OK, I see now you're trying to sell a ride of some kind. It just it's so cynical, you know, and.
00:31:40
Speaker
At this moment, is this where Indiana Jones becomes a franchise? You know, is this where it becomes a thing that has to sell to all arenas of selling? Right. It can't just be a good movie, but it has to have this stuff in it so they can pull later, whether it be, you know, books or theme parks or action figures or whatever. It's just.
00:32:05
Speaker
that cart ride takes forever and we've already, they could have literally cut it all out, right? We've already had a big fight with the big guy or they could cut out the big guy fight and go straight to an abbreviated mining cart. But the mining cart is of course completely unbelievable, super fast. It just seems like a roller coaster, you know, and it's just dumb. Then there's a flood at the end that the big bad guy unleashes a bunch of water.
Climactic Scenes and Final Thoughts
00:32:33
Speaker
And then they get out, but they're on the side of a cliff. So they end up on the top of a cliff, basically. But they're out, which brings us to act three. And I'm going to talk about that when we return. All right. Hello and welcome back to the pseudo archaeology podcast, episode one hundred and thirty two. And I am your host, Dr. Andrew Kinkella. We have been exploring Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. And we are now at act three, the final. This is like
00:33:03
Speaker
where the heroes kind of fight back, right? It's the last bit of any movie. Again, if we're looking at something like Star Wars, very obvious act structure. Act three is, of course, the death star battle. Right. So we have the equivalent of that in a way where we had we have to cross a bridge. Metaphorically and in reality, my friends, so.
00:33:29
Speaker
When we last left our heroes, they're at the top of this high cliff and there's this rickety bridge crossing a gorge that has a river way below that's full of crocodiles, of course. And I honestly, I got no problem with this. I think that.
00:33:46
Speaker
I think that act two of Temple of Doom is brutal. It's it's terrible. It's way too long. And it just it just defines what bogged down is. You know, you don't even get confused. You don't even really understand what's quite going on anymore. Like, I know they're trying to get out, but what's going on?
00:34:04
Speaker
At the very beginning of Act Three, Indiana Jones and crew are kind of running over to the bridge. And there's a moment there where there's two guys that have faced off against Indiana Jones and they both have swords. It's a callback to the one guy with the sword in the original Raiders movie that Indiana Jones just nonchalantly shoots.
00:34:25
Speaker
But the callback this time is he reaches over in the same nonchalant manner and his gun is missing. Right. A very fair joke. I like that. I thought that was fair. It was in the mythos of the Indiana Jones world. So why not? So he's still got it. He's got to run away. But anyway, they make it to the bridge.
00:34:43
Speaker
Again, act three, I think it goes OK. So as you remember, most likely Indiana Jones is in the middle of the bridge with bad guys sort of coming towards him on either side. He warned short round in probably Mandarin, I think is what he's speaking that about what he's going to do next. And short round tells Willie.
00:35:04
Speaker
And Willie's like, oh, no, oh, no. They start wrapping their arms and legs in the bridge itself because you realize Indiana Jones is going to cut the bridge. Right. And another famous quote short round. Short run has so many of these. This is where Willie goes, oh, my God, he's nuts. And short round goes, he's not nuts. He's crazy. It's awesome. Who can't like that?
00:35:30
Speaker
Then he, of course, cuts the bridge and everyone falls right to either side. All our main characters, luckily for the story, all fall on one side, on the good side, on the side where they've crossed the bridge kind of side. But now they're dangling. And of course, the final sort of battle between Indy and the main bad guy happens. They beat each other up and down. You know, so you follow a little bit, then you catch yourself, then you follow, then you catch yourself as a bunch of
00:35:57
Speaker
hired henchmen and goons fall off and get eaten by crocodiles. Right. So finally, of course, Indiana Jones informs the main bad guy that he's about to go meet. Oh, no, I got this wrong. You know, sometimes I just talk with you guys and I get excited and I skip when Indiana Jones first catch the bridge famous quote, he goes, You're about to meet Kali in hell.
00:36:25
Speaker
Pretty good. So anyway, so he's beaten beaten up the bad guy, right? He's beaten up the main bad guy and he finally kicks him off. The bad guy, of course, has to have his extra horrible bad guy fall. Very James Bond, right? All the other henchmen's just had a quick fall into the water and then a quick like crocodiles eating them in like one second. The main bad guy has to like skip off the edge of the wall, has to slam it a few times on the way down and then finally he gets eaten too. OK, then.
00:36:55
Speaker
We bring the kids and everyone back home to the village. Indiana Jones and Willie have just sort of a funny, lighthearted couple scene, which I think actually works. This is a trope in Indiana Jones where sometimes it's terrible, though. Sometimes their lighthearted couple scene in some other movies just doesn't work at all. But I think this one does. They just sort of sort of lightheartedly joke with each other, because again, at this point,
00:37:21
Speaker
There's no tension anymore. Everything's cool. They're at the village. Everything's calm. They can joke and it's OK. It goes with the moment. So they joke. But then finally, the final scene, they have a big scream cliche in the best possible sense. Big scream kiss. And that's it. And then super famous Indiana Jones theme music plays. OK. So.
00:37:51
Speaker
What do I think of this? I think you guys got my feeling for this. It's mixed, right? My view of Temple of Doom is no matter what, it's a very uneven movie. It's got some highs. I think the first act is really quite good. It's really fun. It's bright. It moves fast. It's creative.
00:38:12
Speaker
You are intro to the characters. Again, you get short round, which is one of the best sidekicks, you know, I think that short round does the very difficult job.
00:38:22
Speaker
You know, the actor K.Y. Quan, who just won an Oscar, he does a good job of being a kid, but not being like cliche and terrible. Like he's a thoughtful, you know, smart addition to the adventure. And then, of course, Kate Capshaw is Willie Scott. You know, her acting is fine. The acting on all these guys, I think it's top notch. I think they're done in by the script, by weird, uneven asks. I'm guessing from the studio. I have no idea, but it's just
00:38:52
Speaker
It's not really of a piece. It feels oddly stitched together by a corporation. So. When we watched this in 1984 as a 12 year old, me and my friends coming out of it, we were like, eh.
00:39:08
Speaker
It did feel like Indiana Jones kind of jumped the shark because stuff like the mining cart race, you know, this is where Indiana Jones really lost its cool a little bit. You know, it it knocked it down a few notches. It does have great one liners. It does have some dramatic moments, which are nice.
00:39:31
Speaker
The stunts when they're kept normal are cool. Like even the very simple in the beginning look for the diamonds in all these pieces of ice all over the place. It's great. You know, creative and fun. It's at its worst when it has unbelievable stunts and the act to drag is is even for 1984. I'm like, how did this get on screen? What's funny is I've
00:40:00
Speaker
I looked briefly online to other reviews of Temple of Doom. They're a lot different than mine. Like a lot of them are like, oh, it's Indiana Jones is darkest film. I don't think so. I don't think it's dark. It's just sort of I don't know. It's uneven more than it's dark. Like I don't come away being like, oh, boy, Indiana Jones. He's he's probably has a lot of tattoos. He's hardcore. I don't get that.
00:40:29
Speaker
And I didn't get it at the time. You know, I just I thought I thought it hurt the brand of Indiana Jones a little bit. You know, I don't think it's God awful. I just think it's middling. You know, which is sometimes the harshest criticism of all. So in terms of my ranking. Of the five Indiana Jones movies, it's funny, I did this before.
00:40:55
Speaker
Several months ago when I did Indiana Jones, what was it? I don't know, six months ago when I did Indiana Jones five. And I think the ranking is still easy. At the top is, of course, the first one or the third one, depending on your vibe. It's either Raiders of the Lost Ark or it's Last Crusade. I definitely vote number one on the top because Last Crusade, even though it's it's pretty good movie.
00:41:22
Speaker
It does break some of those tonal things. The airplane through the tunnel scene in Last Crusade, it's pretty terrible. Raiders doesn't have any of that. So those are at the top. And then at the bottom is, of course, Indiana Jones four. Right. That one is just it was such a letdown after not seeing Indiana Jones for so long. And I watched it again. I think I did it for this podcast. And it was it just it was it was sad in the middle.
00:41:52
Speaker
you have five and two. And I think it's a really tough battle royale as which one of these I would rank third and which one of these I'd rank fourth. Having had some times like Indiana Jones five, Dyla Destiny sink in,
00:42:11
Speaker
I think at this moment, I go one, three, five, two, four. I think I like Dial of Destiny a bit better than this one. It's very close. I will tell you this. If you said, Andrew, you need to sit in a room right now.
00:42:32
Speaker
and watch one of these two movies. I'm going to lock you in here and make you watch one of these two movies. Which one do you watch? Indiana Jones Five by a Mile. And I know Indiana Jones Five has problems, but it's. There are aspects of movie making that do improve a little in what is that, 40 years, you know?
00:42:52
Speaker
And I do think Indiana Jones five has his problems. I'm not I'm not defending it wholeheartedly, but it moves a little a little better than this one. It still has act two problems, but Indiana Jones five does feel really long. But this one counts in at two hours. Indiana Jones five is two and a half. They both feel horrifically long. I don't know what that says, but
00:43:20
Speaker
At the at the end, and again, my 12 year old self, my burgeoning teenager self. Didn't think this was super, super cool and did intro me, unfortunately, to things like the cynicism of Hollywood.
00:43:38
Speaker
Right. That's what I got. And my friends were kind of like, okay, they're selling this for the fact of selling it to us. Right. It just felt like the quality had slipped and it wasn't some sort of focused, cool, fun adventure thing.
Conclusion and Production Notes
00:43:57
Speaker
It was for the sale for the biggest quote unquote audience possible, you know, and
00:44:05
Speaker
going for that don't work too well. And with that. And with the knowledge of. I want to go to the broadest possible audience, so just realize that as I make fun of Temple of Doom, that I want everyone to listen to me, OK, so it's their problem that they tried for a really general audience. All right, so I'm bummed that they do that. But for me, no, no, no, that makes me cool.
00:44:34
Speaker
I'll talk to you guys next time.
00:45:01
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Cultural Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Rachel Rodin. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.