Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom
Tuesday, November 4th, 2008
The idea of there being more than one Indy movie was born long before the first film became a hit. While the second movie wouldn’t have got the greenlight if it hadn’t been for Raiders rapturous reception, even in 1977, when Lucas tapped Spielberg to helm the flick, he told the director that if he agreed to make one, then he’d have to agree to make a trilogy. While Spielberg initially believed this meant Lucas had three stories in mind (as he had for Star Wars), it turned out that, in Spielberg’s own words, “George did not have three stories in mind and we had to make up subsequent stories.” Lucas also felt the movie should be darker in tone than Raiders, in the same way The Empire Strikes Back was darker than Star Wars. However both Lucas and Spielberg have since suggested the sinister tone may have had as much to do with the end of their marriages to Amy Irving and Marcia Lucas respectively.
Various plot devices were considered, including going up against the Monkey King in China and a haunted castle in Scotland. However with the logistics of filming in China proving impossible and Spielberg worried the haunted castle idea was too close to Poltergeist, the script gradually melded the various ideas with the legends of the Indian Thuggee cult to become Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom. As it was meant to be a prequel to Raiders (partly because Lucas didn’t want the Nazis as villains again), they also came up with a new set of supporting characters, leaving Indy as virtually the only holdover from the first movie.
Despite its setting, the filmmakers were denied permission to film in Northern India as the government were concerned that the script presented the country in a bad light, sensationalising a long dead part of its history. They would only approve filming if script changes were made and they were given certain privileges over the final cut. As a result much of the movie was made in Sri Lanka, while Macao doubled for the movie’s Shanghai set opening and filming also took place in England and America.
Compared to the first movie, Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom got a rather mixed reception from critics on its 1984 release. Vincent Canby in the New York Times remarked that it was “Too shapeless to be the fun that Raiders is,” while others complained that it was racist (indeed it got banned in Indian for its allegedly “Racist portrayal of Indians and overt imperialistic tendencies”). However that didn’t stop audiences flocking to it, with the movie grossing $333 million during its initial run in cinemas. This time around though its Oscar reception was more muted, winning Best Visual 
Effects, but only getting one other nomination, for John Williams’ score. Since its release, it hasn’t just been the critics who’ve had reservations about Temple Of Doom, as even Spielberg has said he finds it “Too dark, too subterranean and much too horrific,” while Kate Capshaw, who played Indy love interest Willy, has described her character as, “Little more than a dumb screaming blonde” (however the duo did get something out of it, as they later married).
It’s also Temple Of Doom (along with Gremlins) that helped inspire the Motion Picture Association Of America to create the PG-13 rating, to deal with movie that fell in between what was sensible at either PG or R.
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