General Indiana Jones Thread

Temple of Doom is probably the worst one when it comes to colonialism. Although Indy doesn’t take the Sankara stones for himself, it’s treated as a bad thing that Mola Ram would use them to force the British Empire out of India. And then at the end the British Army shows up as The Cavalry to kill all the bad guys opposing their rule.

The Ark might be considered an unique and special case in regards to "return to its owner" though since it actually belongs to...well... "God".

How do you return something with those circumstances besides waiting for the rightful owner to personally reclaim the thing?

It being buried and forgotten by mankind all together until Judgment Day might be the best way to deal with it.

The Ark was shown to burn away the containers the Nazis put it in, yet in Crystal Skull the Area 51 box is still intact years later.

If that's not proof that God is perfectly okay with it being there, I dunno what is.

Yeah. I just realized that he fell off his "belongs in a museum" mantra for a time since while he had it back in 1912 when he was a kid and failed; he stopped playing by the rules to the point that in 1935, he was selling a Chinese artifact to the Chinese mob—Triads?—for a Diamond; in 1936 he was trying to get the Idle and even if preserving it in a museum, was more interested in the notoriety he'd get for doing so and in 1936, he finally completed what at the time was his life's mission for 24 years: to get the cross and put it in a museum where it should be out of pure principle.

Funny how Temple of Doom being a prequel both kind of messed with the flow of the story while also benefitting it in the long run, isn't it? Haha.

Would be cool to hear to hear Indiana retort with this to an Evil Counterpart to help solidify his motives.

Indiana: "Dou you wanna know why I do this? Risk my neck going the world over pursuing legends and half-remembered myths?"

Rival:"To profit from them?"

Indiana: "To preserve them. To make sure the world's history Isn't lost in some sunken temple or left gathering dust on the the wall of some rich idiot, who'll only measure it's value in money, or be destroyed by some zealot's who don't like contradictions. I do this so the world remembers where it started from, what made us, and who we once were. It's something we all have the right to know."

Never mind how the "Thugee cult" (which never actually existed, for the record) is an old as fuck British colonialist literary trope for generic bad guys in the orient.

I looked up the ending since I've not watched it in years

I feel the pulpy silliness is off the scale!I got a good laugh out of the main bad guy falling into the water below

Edited by Ultimatum on Jan 25th 2024 at 6:56:30 PM

There's A LOT of Temple of Doom that aged poorly by today's standards. Haha. Despite that though, it's a very fun; dark and riotous experience that in no way shape or form should be missed.

Personally what I'd have done for an Indiana Jones adventure set in India is make the main antagonist an expy of Savitri Devi.

Savitri Devi was a French-Born Nazi Occultist who combined Nazism with (extremely bastardized) Hinduism, believing that Hitler was some kind of avatar of Vishnu. During the war she acted as a spy for the Nazis in India.

All in all, a perfect villain for Indiana Jones.

Interestingly, in Raiders, Indy acquires the artifact, but it's appropriated by the government. In Temple, the artifacts get returned to the local villagers from whom they were stolen. In Last Crusade, the artifact remains where it was.

Crystal Skull has the artifact's owners take it back... to space, and in Dial he finally brings one back home (helps that it was part of a Stable Time Loop).

Edited by lbssb on Jan 25th 2024 at 3:05:03 PM

Dial of Destiny's gonna be such a fascinating rewatch. Now that I know what you expect, I'm really wondering how it's gonna play too.

While these are real nitpicks, the movie broke basic rules an Indiana Jones movie shouldn't though: used the current Paramount logo instead of the old one, faded in from the Lucasfilm logo to a door bolt instead of the Paramount logo to a mountain, put most of the opening credits in the end credits instead of running them over the first part of the film, no location/date subtitles at all, end credits don't start over the end of the movie (that Iris out ending was weirdly out of place haha), cast list gets buried near the end but doesn't here (Crystal Skull broke this too) and the reprise of the Indiana Jones theme should end the whole credits and doesn't (Crystal Skull was half and half on this). I know these seem like dumb minor things that shouldn't matter, but consider that whatever you think of the Sequel Trilogy, there are small; basic things that it knew to keep and not change. Those things did make a difference.

Anybody else notice these? Again, I like the movie and want to make that clear.

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Jan 25th 2024 at 12:38:38 PM

I always wanted a "Scooby-Doo" Hoax reveal that Mola Ram was a charlatan and using the (faked) Thuggee cult to scare white people as a plan to take over.

But it should be noted that driving out the British wasn't necessary by 1935. It was the year India had already gained its autonomy and was about to fully leave in ten years. Indy even comments on the fact it's weird a British general was present.

But yes...no real way to save the movie.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jan 25th 2024 at 2:05:51 AM

Yeah no. It was still necessary. Don't downplay it.

I'm fairly certain you're not downplaying the successful move for independence by the people of India so I'm not sure what you's saying.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jan 25th 2024 at 3:15:03 AM

It’s not downplaying India’s reforms by then, so much as it’s more noting that even in the latter years of Britain’s occupation of India it was still capable of wreaking serious damage (notably the 1943 Bengal famine). But this is a whole other topic from Indiana Jones.

Yeah, I'm all for casting down the British that year too.

So my apologies. You're right.

Fuck those guys.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jan 25th 2024 at 3:36:14 AM

Doesn't Ram's plan involve a whole lot more than kicking the British out of India?

Yeah, it's typical world domination.

It's a Fu Manchu plan. The evil "oriental" declaring war on the civilized westerners.

Edited by Diana1969 on Jan 25th 2024 at 5:46:09 AM

Specifically, he wants Kali to throw down the religions of the world.

It is the classic Fu Manchu scenario, but it's also the classic super-villain scenario. The racial/cultural/religious overtones, I suppose, is what make it the Fu-Manchu scenario.

I recall a story from the 80's All Star Squadron (which was set during the early days of WWII and involved DC's Golden Age heroes) where a dude dressed up like an Aztec god was using magic and whatnot to try to dominate Mexico, and set the indigenous population against the Spanish-descended population; Indiana Jones is even mentioned, because the villain apparently had been an archaeologist before he became a super-villain, and he describes Indy as a contemporary (the guy discovered a lost temple, where he found the artifacts that gave him his powers, etc etc). At the end of the story, it's revealed that the guy is a German Nazi who had disguised himself as a Mexican. I wonder if Temple might not have played better if Mola Ram had been revealed to be a Nazi, or maybe an Englishman, who was obsessed with Kali, and who was disguising himself as an Indian.

Well yeah, Fu Manchu's usual bullshit is stuff like uniting the "Asiatic race" against the white man, digging for Genghis Khan's tomb, just some kind of incredibly racist bullshit that is specifically designed to destroy Euro-American culture and assert "Oriental" culture as the top dog.

Mola Ram has a whole spiel about usurping the authority of the Christian God, for crying out loud.

Mola actually had a lot of common with other warlord stereotypes too. He uses drugs, child soldiers, and colonialist rhetoric to cover up his ambitions.

One possible way to fix it (that would require pretty much rewriting the whole thing anyway so kind of proving the point): Have Mola Ram working for/with the British, to locate artifacts for them and propagate the Thuggee myth to spread terror with the child kidnappings and whatnot. The natives would aid and fight alongside our heroes, possibly engineering Mola Ram's defeat themselves.

I don't think he has to be working for the British but they absolutely shouldn't be who shows up to rescue Indy in the end.

If I were to go with the Scooby Doo Hoax, I might even eliminate the world domination plot and just have Mola trying to steal all the artifacts at Pankot Palace with child labor and scaring away people with legends of the Thuggee.