Fixed has secured his nomination for best post of the thread.

I mostly agree with your guys' points, though I still think you're a bit harsh on it. I'd certainly take Temple of Doom over damn near any of the summer blockbusters the last few years. Also, you complain that it takes its sweet time getting to the Temple, but I kind of appreciate the fact that you have all this buildup, and then the last 30-35 minutes is pretty much non-stop action sequences, very relentless and exciting.

Its still a toss-up for me whether Last Crusade is better or not, because the tone in its action sequences is a bit too goofy for me, and I prefer the set pieces in Temple of Doom (also I will never forgive Last Crusade for ruining the Marcus character and turning him from an intelligent former adventurer to a senile buffoon). I think I also appreciate that instead of going the typical sequel route, they took a chance and made a movie that has a different feel, different bad guys, different time period. Last Crusade plays mostly like a watered down not as good version of Raiders, though Sean Connery goes a long way towards making it awesome.

Good commentary, but I wanted to point out that Thuggee is a real cult of Hinduism, not just a product of Lucas' mind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuggee#Re … nd_Thuggee

The principle deity was Kali, the goddess of death.

This! This is what the Zombieland commentary should have been; An intelligent, objective examination of a movie I enjoy. Even though I think the movie works, I can greatly appreciate this commentary because the criticisms are constructive and valid. Great work, guys!

I could be mistaken, but a few times, you guys seem to imply that Short Round first met Indy at the top of the movie. Based on the way they talk to each other (He knows to call Indy "Dr. Jones", for example), I was always under the impression they were already established friends before this movie begins. Am I missing some important exchange in the picture (that's right, I said picture) that disproves this?

Agree 100 % with the DiFers on this commentary. The difference is, though, I've never really liked ToD, even when I was a kid. I was always a Raiders guy then a Crusade guy when I saw that in the cinema. I love both about equally now, despite the way they fecked up Sallah and Brody in Crusade.

I think the difference is that the temple isn't sneaking around in the dark and killing people for a while before being revealed.

Having thuggees sneaking around in the jungle as the heroes travel and then attacking one night, killing and running off the porters, would have probably helped the pacing quite a bit, assuming something else could have been trimmed, like the river run earlier or some of the Lao Che stuff.

My answer is - because the entire trip (including the dinner party scene once they arrive) contributes nothing to the plot, and no vital character info either.     It's all shoe leather, the equivalent of watching characters drive all the way somewhere and look around for a parking space before arriving at a scene that actually matters.     Willie remains annoying, Short Round and Indy continue to bicker, there's a lot of unfunny business with animals and guys in turbans... all just filler, and not particularly entertaining filler.   

A little bit of the trip would have been fine, there's nothing wrong with taking a moment to ride elephants through some nice scenery in an Indy movie - exotic locales are part of the appeal.   But it just goes on too long, for no purpose.   Look, vampire bats!   Which will play no part in the story!    Willie is frightened by them!   Which isn't the least bit new or surprising!

At the dinner we do get a meager few lines of back story about the Thuggees, but even that isn't really necessary - Indy could have covered that info from elephant-back on the trip in, he's usually the knower of all things historical anyway.

So the story doesn't get going again until Indy and Willie flirt (an advancement of character) and Indy gets attacked in his room (a hint, finally, that there's an antagonist in the story... somewhere) which leads - finally - to entering the actual Temple of Doom.    From there until the end, the movie works much better, but it was a long time comin'.

Finally, there's no ticking clock - there's no urgency to the trip because there's no particular time they have to arrive.  And other than "get the Happy Stone back and find the kids if you can" it's not clear what they're going to DO when they get there, or even what the threat is.   It's called The Temple of Doom so it'll probably be unpleasant, but that's all we know.   

Compare that to Raiders, where it's spelled out early on that the Ark of the Covenant is the equivalent of a Holy A-bomb that the Nazis are about to get their hands on.  So right from the beginning the race is on, and the stakes are established.     Even though Indy goes to Egypt via freakin' Tibet, the urgency is still there because we know that he's gotta get the medallion from Marion fast so he can get on down the road.

Last edited by Trey (2011-08-02 23:50:10)

If kids are remaking it, does that mean Short Round should be played by an adult?

The commentary pretty much nailed every complaint I had with the movie.

Just out of curiosity, have there been many prequels that actually WORK? Temple of Doom had the advantage that there had been only one movie so there's not much continuity or character to screw up, but in most cases they create tons of problems where none existed before. Or they fill in character pieces you really didn't need. It doesn't help that they often come when the creator has run out of things to do with the existing characters/world, so they go back and do an origin story or tell stuff hinted at in the real books.

The Horiatio Horblower books are sort of OK, mostly as I read them "in order" as a kid. Coming back to them as an adult and reading them in publication order, not so much

Gentlemen, well done. Once of your best critical commentaries in a long time.

You had me at the canned laughter.