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Why exactly were the Indiana Jones movies so gruesome anyhow? They were homages to 30s adventure serials, but what tradition is the graphic violence pulling from, exactly? The Last Crusade is often remembered as watered down in this regard, but looking back even that one features decapitations and multiple comic relief moments involving bloody gunshot wounds. I'm NOT complaining, just curious. I don't think we'll ever see another movie series with this unique blend of family-friendly adventure, Mortal Kombat fatalities (downgraded to Killer Instinct fatalities halfway through with a "we'd go farther but THEY won't let us" wink), and that particular xenophobia of a grandpa trying to show how not racist he is but actually just being even more racist in the process. Oh, and The Temple of Doom is the best one, and oddly enough being a prequel it almost feels like the only "real" installment in a way. It's the only one where Indy is in his prime, where all the rest all feel like Indy's a seasoned vet going on "one more for old times' sake." It's the opening scene to Raiders except it's the entire movie. Oh and Willie and Short Round and Mola Ram all kick rear end. 
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Jan 2, 2023 10:04
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| # ? May 14, 2024 09:36 |
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Some years back I had a buddy wjo was an Indian expat who was a casual fan of the Indiana Jones movies but had never seen Temple of Doom (it was banned in India for a while). So of course I sat down and watched it with him and had a chat about it.
In general, his impression was that the movie wasn't so much insulting as it was just wildly tasteless, comparing it to a movie where some Indians crash land into America and immediately face a secret sect of the Ku Klux Klan who perform human sacrifice on flaming crosses and our Indian heroes must defeat them to free a bunch of African American slaves while proclaiming "You have betrayed Jesus!" For the most part he thought it was "hilarious and stupid" and should probably run with some kind of disclaimer in case any Indians are watching, though it was probably harmless in the long run. He also admitted that being familiar with the rest of the series (which features Nazis as comic book villains and the Abrahimic god blowing up their heads) probably helped it go down better and that if he hadn't he probably would have been offended by the depiction of the goddess Kali as simply a devil figure, which was the most objectionable part for him (I don't know the specifics but I reckon it's a lot more complicated than that).
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Jan 2, 2023 10:42
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SidneyIsTheKiller posted:
Someone please make this the sequel to RRR.
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Jan 3, 2023 02:26
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Yeah, I really want to see your friend's hypothetical example as a real movie.
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Jan 3, 2023 02:40
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"India Jones and the Plantation of Doom?"  (Though thinking about it seriously, I don't think I could stomach a "KKK human sacrifice ritual" scene no matter how pulpy and tongue-in-cheek, to the point it could sour the whole thing for me)
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Jan 3, 2023 03:03
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SidneyIsTheKiller posted:"India Jones and the Plantation of Doom?" They could do it, just have the KKK's ritual stuff be more implied/spoken of/have the stuff cut away or just happen off screen, but have the scenes of KKK members getting absolutely loving turbo murdered be NC-17 level graphic.
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Jan 3, 2023 05:31
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SidneyIsTheKiller posted:Why exactly were the Indiana Jones movies so gruesome anyhow? I think everyone recognized that this poo poo rules and are images that last and stay with audiences for a very long time. We let marketing execs turn directors and movies SOFT
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Jan 3, 2023 06:45
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You can get away with gruesome when your effects are a step above stop motion. Thats not even really a hit against the movie or anything it just looks very comical.
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Jan 3, 2023 07:18
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SidneyIsTheKiller posted:Why exactly were the Indiana Jones movies so gruesome anyhow? They were homages to 30s adventure serials, but what tradition is the graphic violence pulling from, exactly? I think it's Spielberg. For as much as people peg him as a sentimentalist (though that is part of his makeup) he's got a strong vein of horror running through his work. Obviously Jaws, and maybe Duel are his horror pictures, but there's plenty of stuff in his two Jurassic films that really pushes the boundary of family entertainment. The Lost World in particular is especially vicious at times and I just think he loves scaring the audience. He likes to gross people out a bit and see their reaction. A noble goal if there ever was one.
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Jan 3, 2023 07:44
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SidneyIsTheKiller posted:Why exactly were the Indiana Jones movies so gruesome anyhow? They were homages to 30s adventure serials, but what tradition is the graphic violence pulling from, exactly? They also draw a lot from mid-century WWII adventure movies which tended be a bit (sometimes a lot) bloodier - look at the strain of sadism that runs through The Dirty Dozen and how loving gleefull Where Eagles Dare is about how many Nazi corpses it piles up. He's not thought of as a director of war films, but wartime is the most revisted setting and subject in the The Bergs work.
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Jan 3, 2023 09:26
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Spielberg hates Nazis, melting them is good.
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Jan 3, 2023 13:50
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Spielberg is definitely the person most responsible for the PG-13 rating being introduced. He directed Temple of Doom and produced Gremlins in the same year right before PG-13 was established, it was mostly a response to the kind of movies he was making that were appealing to kids yet still had some pretty gruesome stuff.
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Jan 3, 2023 17:27
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Lots of good replies already! Thanks all.Karloff posted:I think it's Spielberg. For as much as people peg him as a sentimentalist (though that is part of his makeup) he's got a strong vein of horror running through his work. Obviously Jaws, and maybe Duel are his horror pictures, but there's plenty of stuff in his two Jurassic films that really pushes the boundary of family entertainment. The Lost World in particular is especially vicious at times and I just think he loves scaring the audience. He likes to gross people out a bit and see their reaction. A noble goal if there ever was one. The more I think about it the more I think it's a Spielberg thing, too. I recall once seeing interview clips of his family about how young Steven loved to pull pranks and scare them all. It's funny to think that if Jaws had been more of a Halloween-level success rather than the #1 all-time box office champ that we might be here talking about Steven "Master of Horror" Spielberg. Apparently back in the day 20th Century Fox offered him to do Alien and he had to turn it down because he already had too much on his plate, but he did tell them they had a huge hit on their hands and they'd be fools not to continue with the project. Basebf555 posted:Spielberg is definitely the person most responsible for the PG-13 rating being introduced. He directed Temple of Doom and produced Gremlins in the same year right before PG-13 was established, it was mostly a response to the kind of movies he was making that were appealing to kids yet still had some pretty gruesome stuff. Spielberg claims he straight-up invented the PG-13 rating himself! There's a quote from him that goes something like, "I caused the problem, I came up with the solution." (Fun fact: another major title that gets banded about as a factor in the PG-13 rating's introduction is Poltergeist, yet another movie Spielberg The way Spielberg says that makes me think he was feeling a lot more heat than the public even realized. He felt obligated to solve "his problem," the mid 80s saw him suddenly veer into a string of prestige fare like The Color Purple, and his reasons for virtually disowning Temple of Doom really sound more about the sting from the backlash than because he really thinks it's a lousy movie (I know I'm biased). There's another quote from him that's something like, "There's nothing of 'me' in that movie" that even sounds like he's doing some CYOA, like 'that wasn't my idea, I just directed it.' Come to think of it, post- TOD it feels like Spielberg tried to put some distance between himself and the series, at least how he talks about it in public, like it became more "this is George's baby and I just do them as a favor to a friend," though that's even more my conjecture.
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Jan 5, 2023 14:22
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I very distinctly remember seeing Temple of Doom in the theater and coming away from it with absolutely no opinion of Indians and India other than their bad guys were called Thuggee and there was a murder goddess in their pantheon. Oh and thinking that the guy who played Mola Ram was cooler than poo poo and did a great job. Also I didn't like Short Round as a kid, I was there to see Indy! I appreciate him a lot more as an adult. I think the gruesomeness was just part of the era, as well as the crassness. The slasher movie genre was basically formalized at the same time, the aforementioned Gremlins was in theaters, etc. There was a lot of gore; mainstream adventure/action/romance movie Romancing the Stone has a scene where a guy gets his hand bitten off by an alligator and it's very explicit and lingers on his bloody stump. In a PG movie! This is the year of Revenge of the Nerds, Ice Pirates (the "space herpe" movie) etc. So Temple of Doom's gross out dinner and the heart stuff is just swimming in the water of the era, as it were.
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Jan 5, 2023 17:43
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Buttchocks posted:Someone please make this the sequel to RRR. I hadn't seen RRR so it took me by surprise to learn it already has one Indiana Jones connection:  Elsa herself, Alison Doody! And it seems she still hasn't shed her devious ways since Last Crusade 
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Jan 6, 2023 00:54
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SidneyIsTheKiller posted:I hadn't seen RRR so it took me by surprise to learn it already has one Indiana Jones connection: I can’t believe I missed this.
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Jan 7, 2023 04:06
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I was just randomly perusing the Spielberg/ Lucas/ Kasdan writing conference transcript for Raiders (as one does) and came across this little bit that seemed amusing in relation to this thread: L — Let me ask you one thing about this fight, how gory do you guys see this movie? S — Not very. G — Not very. It should be Saturday matinee violence. L — How about death by fire? G — That's okay.
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Jan 12, 2023 13:51
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Yeah, I rewatched Last Crusade a while back and was kind of struck by just how often and kinda casually Indy just up and kills a guy. Sure, most of the time the guy in question is a Nazi so fair enough, but still not necessarily what I'd expected for an ostensibly family friendly adventure movie. Particularly considering that some kills are also kinda played for comedy. https://i.imgur.com/Sajf13v.mp4
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Jan 12, 2023 15:29
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The very first person Indy kills in the franchise is that in that shootout in Marion's bar. He shoots him in the face with a massive blood squib exploding out. After setting him on fire. Raiders was really brutal, honestly. It had an edge that didn't borderline on cruelty like it was in Temple of Doom.
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Jan 12, 2023 17:10
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I don't know if this happened to anybody else but I saw Raiders at a very young age and the melt facing at the end traumatized me for years afterwards Its strange watching it as an adult and seeing how cartoonish it is today, but wooo booy was that rough for a ~5 year old
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Jan 12, 2023 19:14
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Mike N Eich posted:I don't know if this happened to anybody else but I saw Raiders at a very young age and the melt facing at the end traumatized me for years afterwards Oh yeah it absolutely mind-hosed me. Very intense. Also I really don't think it's that cartoonish on a whole. Belloq's head exploding is a bit goofy, but the crushed/melting heads are done pretty straight. Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Jan 12, 2023 |
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Jan 12, 2023 19:17
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SidneyIsTheKiller posted:In general, his impression was that the movie wasn't so much insulting as it was just wildly tasteless, comparing it to a movie where some Indians crash land into America and immediately face a secret sect of the Ku Klux Klan who perform human sacrifice on flaming crosses and our Indian heroes must defeat them to free a bunch of African American slaves while proclaiming "You have betrayed Jesus!" gently caress, though, this would rule. Megaman's Jockstrap posted:I very distinctly remember seeing Temple of Doom in the theater and coming away from it with absolutely no opinion of Indians and India other than their bad guys were called Thuggee and there was a murder goddess in their pantheon. Oh and thinking that the guy who played Mola Ram was cooler than poo poo and did a great job. Mostly similar, though it definitely reinforced the idea that South Asian food was weird and inscrutable. Not that child-me thought anyone was eating eyeball soup or raw monkey brains, but I do remember thinking the hyperbole of it must've spoken to some kernel of reality. Fortunately, I grew up in an area with a massive South Asian population, and quickly learned ToD was a bizarre fever dream and that food from India and Pakistan is insanely delicious. But I can definitely see white people in way more sheltered, homogenous places persisting in this belief into adulthood.
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Jan 12, 2023 22:55
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One cool character moment in Temple of Doom is when the dude begins to get sucked into a rock crusher, Indy briefly actually tries to pull him out. Indiana Jones will kill a dude if he needs to, but just letting that guy get sucked in is a step too far for him.
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Jan 12, 2023 23:01
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Karloff posted:One cool character moment in Temple of Doom is when the dude begins to get sucked into a rock crusher, Indy briefly actually tries to pull him out. Indiana Jones will kill a dude if he needs to, but just letting that guy get sucked in is a step too far for him. That's the difference between Indy and Bond, who he's partially based on. Same thing happened to Benicio and Bond just winced a little if I recall correctly.
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Jan 13, 2023 00:02
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Jimbot posted:The very first person Indy kills in the franchise is that in that shootout in Marion's bar. He shoots him in the face with a massive blood squib exploding out. After setting him on fire. Raiders nearly came away from the MPAA with an R rating. The pillar of fire in front of the exploding head was added so it didn't
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Jan 13, 2023 01:12
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SidneyIsTheKiller posted:a movie where some Indians crash land into America and immediately face a secret sect of the Ku Klux Klan who perform human sacrifice on flaming crosses and our Indian heroes must defeat them to free a bunch of African American slaves while proclaiming "You have betrayed Jesus!"
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Jan 13, 2023 02:06
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a strange fowl posted:give me this movie immediately Speaking someone raised Christian who is from the Bible Belt, "Please oh please give me this movie! I want it so very, very badly!"
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Jan 13, 2023 04:27
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The more I look into it the more my curiosity grows re: Indiana Jones's gruesomeness and how that came about. This 1978 script for Raiders is getting there, but it hasn't quite hit "And then his head motherfucking EXPLODES lol" levels yet. 
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Jan 13, 2023 06:14
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Speaking of old scripts, every Indiana Jones fan owes it to themselves at some point to behold Chris Columbus's bonkers unproduced 1986 script for a third film isntallment. It bears the title "INDY III" but it's affectionately referred to by fans as "Indiana Jones and the Monkey King." Just to be clear, that title does not refer to an artifact or statue or anything, Indiana Jones does indeed meet a real-life monkey king in this proposed film. As well as a plucky young female sidekick who is pretty much Marion, Short Round, Willie, and a small pile of cocaine all mixed together. Probably wouldn't make a good actual Indiana Jones flick but with some modifying I think it has potential for a pretty cool DuckTales movie!
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Jan 13, 2023 06:36
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Karloff posted:One cool character moment in Temple of Doom is when the dude begins to get sucked into a rock crusher, Indy briefly actually tries to pull him out. Indiana Jones will kill a dude if he needs to, but just letting that guy get sucked in is a step too far for him. But maybe that's a really dark interpretation.
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Jan 13, 2023 12:26
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Mike N Eich posted:I don't know if this happened to anybody else but I saw Raiders at a very young age and the melt facing at the end traumatized me for years afterwards My parents bought a VHS copy of it for me when I was 8 because we had all seen and loved the Stunt Showcase Spectacular at Disneyworld, I still have vivid memories of watching that scene in our basement and being traumatised for years.
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Jan 13, 2023 15:20
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SidneyIsTheKiller posted:In general, his impression was that the movie wasn't so much insulting as it was just wildly tasteless, comparing it to a movie where some Indians crash land into America and immediately face a secret sect of the Ku Klux Klan who perform human sacrifice on flaming crosses and our Indian heroes must defeat them to free a bunch of African American slaves while proclaiming "You have betrayed Jesus!" This needs to be a movie made, like, right now.
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Jan 13, 2023 20:34
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SidneyIsTheKiller posted:Just to be clear, that title does not refer to an artifact or statue or anything, Indiana Jones does indeed meet a real-life monkey king in this proposed film. As well as a plucky young female sidekick who is pretty much Marion, Short Round, Willie, and a small pile of cocaine all mixed together. The above is actually a pretty good description of the new Webby's personality. And dammit, now I'm missing Ducktales all over again.
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Jan 13, 2023 20:58
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Indiana Jones films look more fun and adventurous than star wars films, and the set pieces seem super rad. I simply must get around to viewing them!!
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Jan 13, 2023 22:08
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Lampsacus posted:Indiana Jones films look more fun and adventurous than star wars films, and the set pieces seem super rad. I simply must get around to viewing them!! Raiders is so loving good and entertaining, just top tier movie poo poo from start to finish. Temple and Last Crusade are awesome too but Raiders is basically perfect.
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Jan 13, 2023 23:05
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Neo Rasa posted:Raiders is so loving good and entertaining, just top tier movie poo poo from start to finish. Temple and Last Crusade are awesome too but Raiders is basically perfect. Raiders has a master class in chase sequences. Only Cameron came close in Terminator 2 and Miller in Mad Max. Just absolute perfect structure.
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Jan 14, 2023 03:35
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Mike N Eich posted:I don't know if this happened to anybody else but I saw Raiders at a very young age and the melt facing at the end traumatized me for years afterwards I don’t remember this getting to me, but old man Donovan in Last Crusade did.
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Jan 14, 2023 03:46
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Darko posted:Raiders has a master class in chase sequences. Only Cameron came close in Terminator 2 and Miller in Mad Max. Just absolute perfect structure. Speilberg's Duel is up there as well, as is Walter Hill's The Driver. And earlier still John Frankenheimer's Grand Prix redefined how vehicles in motion were filmed for decades and the opening and closing half hours still play very fresh today (The Train, Frankenheimer again, is also terrific and piles up plenty of dead Nazis). High Warlord Zog fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Jan 14, 2023 |
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Jan 14, 2023 04:35
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Payndz posted:The rock crusher guy had a boulder fall on his head right before he got pulled in. I always took that as intense pain releasing him from Mola Ram's control, just as it did with the Maharajah (and Indy himself), which is why Indy suddenly tried as hard as he could to rescue him. Heh. I always thought the same thing. Although I thought his "release" started as he was being crushed.
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Jan 14, 2023 05:15
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Lampsacus posted:Indiana Jones films look more fun and adventurous than star wars films, and the set pieces seem super rad. I simply must get around to viewing them!! The series is a happy medium between the SAGA of the Star Wars movies and the loose episodic continuity of the James Bond movies. I'm real curious what a modern-day film buff's first impression of them would be. On another note, I've done a lot of Temple of Doom apologia in this thread and thought I'd offer some for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull... not the movie itself necessarily (if anything it's aged pretty badly) but for its general reputation. Believe it or not, most people don't (or didn't) hate Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, there's just a REALLY loud minority that do. The thing is that few people truly love the movie, either, so there was never a vocal defense in its favor. In fact, I swear to god it was here, on these forums, where I saw someone coin the term "nuke the fridge" and mention their plan to try to astroturf the phrase into going viral. I'm sure they in fact didn't care for the movie, but it was clear they were mostly going for the thrill of being able to socially engineer the next "jump the shark" and I was a little disheartened to see media outlets report on it uncritically.
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Jan 14, 2023 09:01
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