I put Raiders at the bottom of the trilogy in a heartbeat. That ending is soooooooo stupid.Quoting Winston* (view post)
I put Raiders at the bottom of the trilogy in a heartbeat. That ending is soooooooo stupid.
The Last Crusade was the worst until Crystal Skull came along. So formulaic.
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Run (2020) 64
The Whistlers (2019) 55
Pawn (2020) 62
Matilda (1996) 37
The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976) 61
Moby Dick (2011) 50
Soul (2020) 64
Heroic Duo (2003) 55
A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
As Tears Go By (1988) 65
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Lest my praise of the films as "great" be misread as a minimization of, or tacit indifference towards, these kinds of problems, I'll emend my earlier statement. I do think The Temple of Doom is great but, when I say that, I'm not making a holistic appraisal. I'm specifically thinking of stuff like the "Anything Goes" introduction, which is lovely, and is probably the scene that most often comes to mind when I think of the series, or the bit with the slowly descending ceiling, etc. I don't remember "cartoonish action sequences," and I'm not prepared to accept that as a flaw without revisiting the film. While it has been a while since I watched it, and I can't offer much in the way of specificity, I do remember enough to believe that the charge of racism seems accurate.
So, to be clear: Temple of Doom is the film that fascinated me the most when I was a kid, and I still believe it has great aspects, but it's also problematic. While I don't believe that a problematic film inherently precludes any shade of spectatorial admiration or interest (see the obvious example of The Birth of a Nation), I think that any discussion of the apparent virtues (formal or otherwise) of such films ought to be addressed without seeming to minimize any appalling characteristics.
As for The Last Crusade, I owe that film a revisit as well, but I do remember greatly enjoying its final act.
Last edited by Gittes; 05-17-2015 at 10:42 PM.
They sail out of a plane on a life raft.
I do like the Anything Goes bit.
And run away from a title wave.
Those are both excusable and they are filmed in a way where it sorta works. The insect tunnel, monkey brains feast and sacrifice scene are incredible.
Last edited by Dukefrukem; 05-18-2015 at 12:16 AM.
This was the moment where the series turned to farce. It broke that movie for me.
Gittes, I enjoyed your post but you indirectly sum up the main problem with Temple of Doom: Liking it on any level means making excuses for it.
I've never read any defense of this movie that didn't start with "Yes, but... "
It has good set pieces. The plot is convoluted and worse, boring. It's definitely racist and sexist. There's a weird mean spiritedness to it that can't be explained away so easily.
Well, part of my point is that I definitely don't want to "explain away" any of its egregious aspects. I'm not making excuses for said aspects, either. I mean, there's a clear difference between pointing to the formal éclat of the "Anything Goes" opening and disavowing the film's repellant characteristics. The inoffensive and/or impressive bits exist, and if you're considering the film, I think it's fair to note such aspects. However, those elements should never be mobilized as an excuse that is meant to mitigate the offensive portions.
Last edited by Gittes; 05-18-2015 at 12:23 AM.
I mean it does take place in the 30s... I'd probably excuse most of the sexism from that period. Isn't it intentional?
Yet Raiders takes place half a decade later and has Marion Ravenwood as its female lead.
Willie is a caricature by comparison. A complete bimbo. She doesn't want anything of her own and serves no purpose in the larger story.
I mean, its mean-spiritedness can be easily explained. Both creative were going through divorces, and Lucas thought the film should be "dark" in the same way Empire was.
Any fair defense of the movie must acknowledge the racism and sexism (although the former is more explicit and uneasy than the latter), but at the same time the film still reeks of amazing action filmmaking, especially in the back half with the conveyor scene and mine cart scene and intense bridge finale. That's not an excuse, but it makes it harder for me to dismiss the film entirely.
And while the racism is kinda fucked, is it bad to find that racism kind of interesting for its bewildering presence? Lucas and Spielberg surely knew they were piggybacking on the xenophobic Anglo Saxon biases of early 1900s pulp fiction, and it's like they didn't even care.
Lucas's divorce is the excuse usually proffered to explain the film's darkness (it's what he said about it, jokingly).
I dunno if I can buy that any more, though, especially in comparison with Empire, a film darker in its themes than in its content. (Personally, I think Star Wars is darker than Empire. It had cold blooded murdered, charred corpses, torture, and genocide. But everything was more or less brightly lit and cheerful, so people don't think of it that way).
The point about the weird, colonial retro racism is a good one but then this was also the era of movies like Revenge of the Nerds and Pretty and Pink where date rape was used as a punchline.
Huh. The couple that co-wrote Temple of Doom also wrote Howard the Duck.
Lets not forget the bridge! The fuckin' bridge!!
Not familiar with the latter. I'm legitimately curious: why is this interesting?
It's the kind of movie that often gets called one of the worst movies ever made. Something of a flop. Based on a Marvel comic. One of the first major Lucasfilm productions that wasn't Star Wars or Indiana Jones. Seriously. It's known for being hated. Everybody fucking hated it.
Ah, I see.
If anyone is interested, here's a good piece, by Farihah Zaman, about some of the problems we're discussing. It's a pretty rigorous account. Also considered here is Spielberg's aping of Bollywood filmmaking practices, which is interesting. I like this bit in particular:
Last edited by Gittes; 05-18-2015 at 05:22 AM.
I've now come across claims that, while Temple is the most flagrant example, every single film in the series is racist to some degree. For example, see the following bit from this article:
I can see how this might accord with Indy's visit to Cairo in Raiders, but I can't commit to this idea without revisiting the film. I can recall a lot about what I liked about Raiders and, to a lesser degree, The Last Crusade, but I'm having trouble remembering specific examples of racism in those two films. These questions will be foremost in my mind when I sit down to watch these movies again but, in the meantime, I'm curious about what some of you think about this.
Last edited by Gittes; 05-18-2015 at 05:24 AM.
Temple is super racist, but it's also the most true to its pulp roots.
I like it, despite it's social flaws.
The Last Crusade it really bad.
Yeah, Uncle Scar is getting ready for summer....
“What we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, er... an eating machine. It's really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks and that's all.”
All three of the original Indy's are spectacular. Raiders being the best of course.
Says the guy with the Temple av. Join the Temple love!
They were a freebie mortar set. I'm interested in them too, but they're tiny in comparison to lock n load.
“What we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, er... an eating machine. It's really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks and that's all.”
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