Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Summary

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WHAT WENT WRONG – "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom"

Podcast: What Went Wrong
Hosts: Lizzie Bassett & Chris Winterbauer
Date: May 18, 2026
Episode Theme:
A deep dive into the chaotic, controversial, and infamous production of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom—Hollywood’s "feel bad blockbuster" that redefined ratings, revived old stereotypes, and, for better or worse, became a cult classic. Lizzie and Chris examine the behind-the-scenes creative and cultural missteps—from rushed creative decisions and tone-deaf scripts to the legacy of Short Round and the real story behind the iconic heart-ripping scene.

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Main Theme & Purpose

The hosts unpack how the sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark—helmed by blockbuster powerhouses George Lucas and Steven Spielberg—became notorious for its violent tone, problematic portrayals of Indian culture, and direct influence on American movie ratings. They explore why the film, while technically accomplished and featuring memorable performances (notably Ke Huy Quan as Short Round), failed on so many cultural and narrative fronts. Through candid discussion, historical context, and production anecdotes, the hosts grapple with the question: What went wrong?

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Initial Impressions & Enduring Problems

• [02:00] Chris introduces the episode as "the feel bad movie of 1984" and sets up the comparison with The Empire Strikes Back, noting both are infamous "dark sequels."

• [02:40] Lizzie’s take: She finds the film fun but hollow, feeling it lacks the stakes, plot, and emotional resonance of Raiders:

  • "There's almost no plot to this movie. There's basically no character motivation, with the potential exception of the movie's only hero, played by Ke Hui Kwan."
  • [03:30] She criticizes Kate Capshaw ("borderline unwatchable") and the "slapsticky" portrayal of Willie Scott, contrasting the warmth of Raiders with the absence of character stakes here.

• [04:57] Chris shares his childhood fondness, especially for seeing Short Round: "Here was a kid hero with Indiana Jones," relishing the wish fulfillment, but as an adult, he notes the film’s Western lens and offensive exaggerations.

2. Sequel Context & What They Were Trying To Do

• [07:24] Temple of Doom is technically a prequel (set in 1935), a direction driven by Lucas's wish to avoid continuing the Nazi storyline.
• [11:59] Chris lays out the big question: "How did the two men behind the most successful family-friendly four quadrant films of all time... make the feel bad blockbuster of the 1980s? And what went wrong?"

3. Development: Creative Team, Tone, and “Darkness”

• [15:03] Lucas wanted a darker second chapter, inspired by Empire Strikes Back. Spielberg tried to "balance the dark side...with as much comedy as I could afford."
• [17:30] Original screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan refused: "I didn't want to be associated with Temple of Doom. I just thought it was horrible. It's so mean. There's nothing pleasant about it."
• [18:24] Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck, with earlier credits including American Graffiti and dialogue work on Star Wars, were hired—though their fascination with Indian culture isn’t apparent in the finished film.

4. Sources and Cinematic Influences

• [24:32] The biggest influence: 1939’s Gunga Din, full of colonial stereotypes and elements like the rope bridge and cult antagonists, replicated in Temple of Doom.
• Chris: Gunga Din is "classic Hollywood at its most seductive and pernicious" [27:29], with Temple of Doom going all in on its messy, adventurous tone.

5. Iconic Bad Decisions: Plot, Villains, and Stereotypes

• The screenplay recycled many sequences cut from Raiders. Many story elements were leftovers or quick lifts from other projects.

• [28:21] Lucas’s insistence Indy be a "playboy sex criminal" led to different female leads for each film, breaking emotional continuity. Lizzie laments:

  • "What actually works really well about Indiana Jones is he does have emotional connections... and they just keep cutting him off... I don't really understand why."

• [30:33] The infamous dinner scene started as an alternative to a tiger hunt but devolved into a parade of unappetizing, fictitious foods (eyeball soup, monkey brains), lampooning Indian culture.

6. Resistance and Pushback from India & Production Solutions

• [35:52] Both Chinese and Indian authorities objected to the script’s content. The Indian government refused unless changes—removing ‘maharaja’ and villainizing Indian rulers—were made. The production moved to Sri Lanka and British sets instead.

7. Historical Truths and Myths: The Thuggee Cult

• [36:58] Chris explains the real origin of the "thug" and the exaggeration of the Thuggee as a murderous cult—largely a colonial British myth.

8. Casting Stories

Short Round / Ke Huy Quan

• [49:02] The open casting call spanned continents, with Ke Huy Quan (then 12, a Vietnamese immigrant) coming along only as support for his brother. Spielberg saw his audition and stopped the search, loving his infectious personality.

  • Ke Huy Quan: "I was behind the camera coaching him [my brother]... and then they asked me to try."

• [51:21] Lizzie: “He is the shining, beating, ripped-out heart of this movie. Honestly, the only reason to watch it.”

Willie Scott / Kate Capshaw

• [41:44] She was cast after more than a hundred auditions. Capshaw didn’t even want to meet Spielberg initially.
• [43:50] Lizzie: “She just has basically no agency...to cast someone who feels very sweet and soft in a role that has no agency is a tough watch.”

Villains & Indian Actors

• [52:01] Roshan Seth and Amrish Puri (the iconic Mola Ram) were borrowed from Gandhi—international actors with real gravitas, even if critically underused here.

9. Production Chaos & On-Set Mishaps

• [58:00] Spielberg intentionally left some scenes un-storyboarded, hoping to lighten the tone with improvised humor.
• [64:23] Harrison Ford suffered debilitating back pain (herniated disc) during filming, ultimately requiring an experimental chymopapain injection and being temporarily replaced by stunt double Vic Armstrong for weeks—with Armstrong sometimes out-Fording Ford.
• [61:13] Kate Capshaw was traumatized by bugs (and snakes), often resorting to Valium to get through the required scenes.

10. Visual Effects, Pacing, and the MPAA Backlash

• [71:01] Live action sets doubled as amusement park rides; miniatures and innovative SFX dominated the minecart sequence.
• Test screenings horrified parents—particularly the “heart-ripping” scene.
• [73:12] Spielberg argued his films were PG (despite Jaws, Poltergeist, etc.). Yet Temple of Doom was the catalyst for the creation of the PG-13 rating following public outrage and further outrage over Gremlins [76:16].

Notable Quote:

• [74:21] People Magazine:

  "No parent should allow a young child to see this traumatizing movie. It would be a cinematic form of child abuse... there are no heroes connected with this film. Only two villains. Their names are Spielberg and Lucas."

• [76:39] Chris, on the creation of PG-13:

  "Spielberg calls up Jack Valenti... and suggests a new category... three months after Temple of Doom was released, PG-13 is introduced."

11. Criticism Over Cultural and Racial Stereotypes

• [79:09] The film was protested by groups like Seattle’s Citizens Against Commercial Racism and, according to sources, temporarily banned in India.
• [79:21] Both actors and critics (including Kate Capshaw herself) noted the film’s tone-deafness and its failure to clearly handle satire or cultural irony.

Notable Quotes:

• [79:12] Roshan Seth:

  "The joke being that Indians were so smart that they knew all Westerners think that Indians eat cockroaches, so they served them what they expected. The joke was too subtle for that film."

• [80:47] Lizzie’s reaction:

  "It doesn't come across as, like, dark. It comes across as just like a void. It just doesn't have any heart to it."

12. Legacy: Redemptions, Regrets & Short Round’s Long Shadow

• [81:06] Spielberg has distanced himself from the film:

  “There's not an ounce of his own personal feeling in the movie, and that it's his least favorite of the original three... We certainly took it to the extreme. That's kind of what we wanted to do, for better or worse.”

• [83:39] The hosts discuss the role and criticisms of Short Round, noting while he is arguably the film’s hero, the lack of other Asian/Asian American representation at the time problematically made him a stereotype lightning rod in pop culture.

• [85:20] The emotional reunion of Ke Huy Quan and Harrison Ford after nearly 40 years—the Oscar win for Everything Everywhere All at Once is seen as poetic (and overdue) justice for a once-sidelined child actor.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [02:40] Lizzie:

  "It's very fun. There's almost no substance. There's just nothing going on here, really."

• [17:30] Kasdan (on the script):

  “I just thought it was horrible. It's so mean. There's nothing pleasant about it."

• [74:21] People Magazine Review (read by Chris):

  "No parent should allow a young child to see this traumatizing movie. It would be a cinematic form of child abuse... there are no heroes connected with this film. Only two villains. Their names are Spielberg and Lucas."

• [79:12] Roshan Seth:

  "The joke being that Indians were so smart that they knew all Westerners think that Indians eat cockroaches, so they served them what they expected. The joke was too subtle for that film."

• [85:20] Ke Huy Quan recalling seeing Harrison Ford decades later:

  "He raises his finger, points at me... and says 'Are you Short Round?' And immediately I was transported back to 1984 when I was a little kid looking up to him. And I said, 'Yes, Indy.'"

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Important Timestamps & Segments

• [02:00] – Introduction to the film’s shortcomings
• [11:59] – “How did they make the feel bad blockbuster?”
• [17:30] – Kasdan’s rejection of the script
• [28:21] – Why Marian isn’t in the film
• [30:55] – Constructing the infamous dinner scene
• [36:56] – British colonial origins of the Thuggee myth
• [49:02] – Casting and discovery of Ke Huy Quan / Short Round
• [58:00] – Spielberg’s approach and unease with the dark script
• [64:23] – Harrison Ford’s back injury and Vic Armstrong
• [73:12] – MPAA rating controversy and creation of PG-13
• [79:09] – Film’s protests, cultural impact, and bans
• [85:20] – Ke Huy Quan’s reunion and legacy

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Flow & Tone

Engaged, wry, and candid—Lizzie and Chris balance affection and critique, digging into the era’s blind spots and the emotional truth that even spectacular action and set pieces can’t make up for narrative heart or cultural responsibility. Their language and exchanges mirror the openness and darkly comic sense of pop-culture disillusionment characterizing the “What Went Wrong” brand.

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Summary: What Went Right?

Lizzie:

• Ke Huy Quan is the heart and hero of the movie; a magnetic, joyful performer whose later success redeems the movie’s legacy.

Chris:

• Harrison Ford’s commitment despite extreme physical pain, coupled with his warmth toward Ke Huy Quan on set, preserved some humanity in an otherwise cold production.

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Final Thoughts

While Temple of Doom offers some of the franchise’s most iconic moments and technical innovations, its rushed script, mean-spirited tone, and mishandling of cultural subject matter have made it the most debated and fraught entry in the Indiana Jones saga. The episode concludes with the hosts’ “fix” (making the real villains colonial Brits exploiting Indian children), a heartfelt celebration of Ke Huy Quan’s journey, and anticipation for the next “disastrous” Hollywood story.

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Transcript

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[A]

Hello and welcome back to what Went Wrong. Your favorite podcast, full stop that just so happens to be about movies and how it's nearly impossible to make them, let alone a good one, let alone a screaming sequel that left its impact on the ratings system and on Chris's heart, perhaps, as we learned in one of our more recent episodes. I'm one of your hosts, Lizzie Bassett, here as always with Chris Winterbauer. And Chris, what movie do you have for us today?

[B]

Well, the heart ripping joke was right there for the taking. I'm sorry, didn't do it. We're going to move on. We're talking Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Feel bad movie of 1984. I'll save my thoughts for a moment. This is Sequel month, if you guys didn't know. We did a poll in the fall and we offered a number of sequels to films that we've covered and the top two winners were the Empire Strikes Back and Temple of Doom, the second darker entries into the respective Lucas and Spielbergian trilogies. George Lucas obviously spanning both. So Lizzie, I have to ask you, what are your thoughts on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? Thoughts as a child and thoughts as a grown adult person?

[A]

I believe I've seen this, although upon rewatching it for the podcast, I was less certain that I have actually sat down and watched the whole thing prior to now. I grew up on Raiders of the Lost Ark, for sure. That's the one that I remember. I love that movie. Sex Criminal Boat, Indiana Jones aside, this one, as I was watching it, I was like, okay, I remember this image. I remember this sequence. I'm sure I watched clips of it on tv. All to say, I don't think I'd ever actually sat down and watched this whole thing. I have a lot of thoughts and a lot of feelings. Not unlike Kate Capshaw, at least in the feelings department. Maybe not the thoughts. There's almost no plot to this movie. There's basically no character motivation, with the potential exception of the movie's only hero, played by Ke Hui Kwan. But it starts at 11 and it stays there for two hours. There is just almost no variation to it. It's very fun. I certainly enjoyed watching it. I'm so sorry. Kate Capshaw, I know that you are a wonderful actress, performer, artist, wife to Steven Spielberg. I find her borderline unwatchable in this movie. She just screeches her way through the whole thing, and it's so slapsticky and weird, and I don't know why she's there other than that she can't go anywhere else, which isn't really that fun. And it's also like, she probably could go somewhere else if set her mind to it. So I guess where I stood with this is that the first Indiana Jones felt so epic, both on, you know, the fun world traveling scale, but also on what was at stake for the characters and what they were trying to get. And I don't think this movie has that, really. Especially because Short Round does not continue beyond this movie. If this had been kind of his entry into the franchise, and then that character, you know, continues on as sort of Indiana Jones's true love in some ways, which is kind of how they set him up in this movie, which I really like, then I would be more on board for it, but they don't. It kind of just goes nowhere. Fun stunts aside. So I guess that's my review of this. It's very fun. There's almost no substance. There's just nothing going on here, really. So that's it. That's my review. Chris, what about you?

[B]

So I. I did see this movie a lot as a kid, and I think because it felt very taboo and provocative. And as we'll talk about with the rating system, this movie felt far more graphic and violent than the first movie, although I actually don't think it is. I think a Lot of that has to do with if you're seeing Nazis melt. There is a different feeling evoked than seeing an innocent man's heart being ripped out of his chest. So I really liked this movie as a kid. It was. I don't know if it was my favorite Indiana Jones, but it's the one we kind of watched over and over again. In large part because as a. Seeing Ki Hui Kwan as Short Round was really exciting because here was a kid hero with Indiana Jones.

[A]

He's the best part of this movie.

[B]

Yeah. And there was like a very fun wish fulfillment element of it where you think, wow, I could be Indiana Jones's sidekick. That I really liked. Hadn't seen it in a while, rewatched it. I think this movie's, on the one hand, an extremely well crafted roller coaster ride. That's basically what it is. It's just getting you from set piece to set piece. I stand by. I think the first 15 minutes are pretty outstanding. I don't agree with you on Kate Capshaw. I am one of the few people. I like Kate Capshaw in this movie quite a bit. I don't mind Willie Scott. I feel like the as we'll talk, Judy Holiday thing that she's doing is totally fine with me. It's so absurd, but I'm kind of in for it. And yet this movie has all sorts of weird Western lens, sort of exaggerations, fictionalizations, straight up blasphemy when it comes to presenting, obviously, Indian culture. And we will dive into that specifically, specifically from the perspective of folks from that culture later on in this project. So it's a movie that feels very retrograde in many ways. I don't think it's aged as well as the other Indiana Jones films have in very specific ways. And yet I stand by. I still love watching Ki Hui Kwan in this movie. I think Harrison Ford is very good, embracing his darkness in this movie.

[A]

He's totally watchable. I love Harrison Ford. He's very fun. I think he's substantially more fun to watch in the first movie, perhaps because he's not on quite as sure footing. And I know Indiana Jones as a character is very confident in himself, but there was something really alive about watching Harrison Ford find it in Raiders of the Lost Ark. And moments like the guy with the swords, and then Harrison Ford just shoots him. Which famously, we know, was a production issue. But moments like that, unexpected moments like that, I found very lacking in this movie.

[B]

True. All right, well, let's dive in. Cause we'll get into all the Problems. And all the ways in which this movie fell short for a lot of audience members at the time. And a lot of folks were disappointed in both Spielberg and Lucas, and we'll talk about that. To your point about Short Round, specifically, the way in which this movie is so different from the Empire Strikes Back structurally, is that this is technically a prequel. So this exists one year prior to Raiders of the Lost Ark in the chronology, if anybody's unfamiliar. So the Raiders of the Lost Ark, I believe part of this choice was Lucas not wanting to continue with the Nazi storyline. And so if you were to do it one year, in theory, the Nazi threat has only grown on the world stage, so better to do it one year prior before Indy gets involved with the Nazis.

[A]

And it's interesting because, you know, listen, if you want a safe villain, it's a Nazi every time. And they work great in the first movie. To your point, I think the villain element of this movie really doesn't work super well.

[B]

I agree. Well, I think it's the weakest part of this movie by far. It's the weakest, most racist part of this movie by far. And I have a pitch.

[A]

I was gonna ask you. Who would you have made the villain?

[B]

There's an easy pitch, but let's save it.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And it's actually a pitch I think they could have done. Meaning it's easy to always pitch movies from the past when there were different value systems, et cetera.

[A]

Is it a communist?

[B]

No, but I actually think there was a pitch available to them maybe. And you can tell me if you agree or disagree, and we'll go from there.

[A]

Okay, Last thing. This movie requires an enormous suspension of disbelief in the fact that somehow. Which part, hon? Not the heart ripping out of the chest. It's the fact that everyone in this tiny rural town in India speaks English. Why? Why would literally everyone speak English?

[B]

Come on.

[A]

Some, like, use subtitles anyway. And how does Harrison Ford know about their stone? Whatever. It's just you have to make so many leaps so fast to get to where they're going in this movie. And it's fine. I did it. It's just. It doesn't feel as smart as Raiders of the Lost Ark did. Also, it's the Ark of the Covenant. We all know what it is. I don't know what the fuck this stone is anyway. Continue.

[B]

Yeah, I think that they obviously. The Ark of the Covenant, famously pitched by Philip Kaufman in the original film as the MacGuffin, and then they return to religious iconography with the Holy Grail in the third film and they return to Nazis as well.

[A]

So yeah, stick with that.

[B]

Yeah, they found the formula. They were trying to mix it up in this movie, make it the Holy Grail. Come on guys, don't disagree with you, but let's get into the why. Because they were trying to do something very specific with this movie. I think in some ways it's successful. In many ways it's not.

[A]

Does it promote a roller coaster?

[B]

Well, and there's some specific references cinematically and in terms of film history that we need to talk about as well before we dive in. Of course, the Details Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is an action adventure film ostensibly directed by Steven Spielberg. It is the second entry into the ongoing Indiana Jones series. It was penned by screenwriting duo and married couple Gloria Katz and Willard Heick, who we have discussed on the Howard the Duck episode.

[A]

Uh oh.

[B]

They're oft collaborators with George Lucas. It was based on a story by George Lucas, although I think there was input from a lot of folks on the story. And it was produced by Lucas, Robert Watts, Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy. It stars of course, Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, Kate Capshaw as Willie Scott, yes, as Lungs, as we'll call her, KE Hui Kwan as Short Round, Amrish Puri as Molla Ram, Roshan Seth as Chatter Lal, and many, many more. It was released in the United States on May 23, 1984 after a premiere on May 8 in Westwood, California. It was produced by Lucasfilm, distributed by Paramount pictures and the IMDb logline reads in 1935, Indiana Jones is tasked by Indian villagers with reclaiming a sacred stone stolen from them by a secret cult. Lizzie's shaking her head. She disagrees or she does not approve?

[A]

I don't approve. A child trafficking cult. Which I guess is a real cult, except I don't think they were child trafficking anyway. Continue.

[B]

Sources for today's episode include, but are not limited Indiana Jones Making the trilogy, the 2003 documentary the Making of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Official Collector's edition the 1984 making of magazine Temple of An Oral history published in 2012 by Empire, the Complete Making of Indiana Jones by J.W. rinzler and many, many more articles, retrospectives and interviews with those involved in the film. So Lizz, the question remains. How did the two men behind the most successful family friendly four quadrant films of all time.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, E.T.

[B]

and Star wars make the feel bad blockbuster of the 1980s? And what went wrong? So to tell the story of the Temple of Doom, the darkest entry in the Jones franchise, we need to head back to an unexpectedly dark moment for our heroes, or anti heroes. It's June of 1981, and Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are back in Hawaii as they are off to return whenever they have a movie that's about to be released. And they're waiting to see how Raiders of the Lost Ark will be received if it does. Well, according to Lucas, Spielberg is on the hook for two more. Not contractually, but Lucas made him promise that if he directed one, he would direct a second and third because Lucas claimed that he had three stories in mind. Spielberg agreed. And now they waited on the verdict from audiences, and they engaged in a superstitious tradition. They built a sandcastle, and they waited to see how long it would take the waves to destroy it. And this time, it lasts a pretty long time. And they think this is a sign Raiders is gonna work. But the opening for Raiders of the Lost Ark was not quite as strong as they were hoping. It made $8.3 million in its first weekend. Spielberg later said that he thought they'd failed. And I think he was just a bit sensitive because do you remember what movie he directed before Raiders of The Lost Ark?

[A]

1941.

[B]

That's right. Which seemed to prove that Hollywood's golden boy who had done Jaws and then Close Encounters of the Third Kind, was fallible. But then something wonderful happened. Nothing. Raiders of the Lost Ark held steady in its second weekend at $8 million. And it was back atop the box office in its sixth weekend. And it only dipped to $6.4 million, which is less than a 20% dip across six weekends. Nowadays, if your movie dips only 20% from weekend one to weekend two, that would be a miracle. This is over six weeks. It spent most of the following nine weeks as the number one film in the country. 40 weeks in the top 10. As you mentioned, Lizzie. Very fun ride of a movie. I think people were enamored with Indiana Jones. And by October, it had become Paramount's biggest movie ever. Passing Grease.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[B]

Yeah. It was in theaters for 10 months, brought in over $200 million, and was the highest grossing film of 1981. People couldn't get enough of it. Pulpy, throwback action archaeologist, adventurer. Ripped from the serials of George Lucas youth. Marion Ravenwood. Maybe she was a little too young, but they didn't really focus on that in the movie. Thank God. The pair didn't have much time to celebrate because they were both extremely busy. Spielberg's producing Poltergeist. He's directing ET And Lucas is writing and producing Return of the Jedi and the three stories Lucas said he had in mind for Indiana Jones. Turns out that maybe wasn't entirely accurate. And he actually only had one idea for Indiana Jones.

[A]

I feel like that's the story of George Lucas.

[B]

These aren't the droids you're looking for. That's just him constantly is trying to like, Jedi mind trick into his collaborators. I feel like, well, it works. It does. So he doesn't have a script, he doesn't have a story, but he has an idea. The next Indiana Jones is going to be dark in the same way that the Empire Strikes Back was the dark second chapter of Star Wars.

[A]

I'm so confused because the end result isn't really the end result. Feels more like a cartoon than Raiders of the Lost Ark does. Raiders of the Lost Ark feels darker to me, maybe because of the emotional trajectory of it.

[B]

I would argue Temple of Doom is far darker.

[A]

Yeah, I guess there's child tragedy and loss and heart ripping out and it's just, I don't care maybe is the problem.

[B]

Like Indiana Jones technically becomes evil during Temple of Doom and slaps short round across the face.

[A]

30 seconds.

[B]

I'm just saying, if you're a child, that's very shocking to see this, you know, as a youngster, he's in very

[A]

good shape, has lovely arms, he's shirtless. When he's evil, I should specify.

[B]

Let's talk about that. So here's the way Spielberg remembers it. My job and my challenge was to balance the dark side of this Indiana Jones saga with as much comedy as I could afford. Now it does seem like George was the one pushing for the darker, more morally ambiguous version of Indy, which he done. If you remember our discussions of the earlier development meetings between Spielberg, Kasdan and Lucas, which you guys can read a transcript of online, it always felt like George was pushing for the more debonair, morally ambiguous, James Bond esque sex criminal Indiana Jones. Now, Lucas remembers things a little bit differently because Lucas and Spielberg were both in a pretty bad mood. Quote, part of it was, I was going through a divorce. Steven had just broken up, and we were not in a good mood, so we decided on something a little more edgy. To be clear, he had not yet gotten divorced, but things were very strained with Marcia Lucas and she would privately ask him for a divorce. In mid-1982, Spielberg was on and off again with actress Amy Irving. So according to Lucas, this is a foliage a joker folie a deux situation.

[A]

Great.

[B]

Okay. His first idea kind of fun is to set the movie in a haunted castle in Scotland.

[A]

It's just Rocky Horror Picture Show.

[B]

It is, yeah.

[A]

Indiana Jones. Okay.

[B]

Spielberg says, I just made Poltergeist. I don't really want to do a ghost Indiana Jones movie. And so Lucas says, okay, okay, let's move the story to Asia. We're going to open it in China and then move it to India. Along the way, Indy would recover something stolen from a village, and then he decides whether or not to give it back. And he's going to be in a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad mood the entire time. And Lucas says, this is a great story, but I don't want to write it. We need to hire a writer. And Lizzie, who would be the obvious choice to write this script?

[A]

Laurence Kasdan.

[B]

Lawrence Kasdan, the scribe of Raiders. Although again, due credit to Philip Kaufman for coming up with the Ark of the covenant. MacGuffin.

[A]

Go back to that. How about the Shroud of Turin? It's gotta be able to do something. I don't know.

[B]

That's right. Kasnan, it seems, could sense that the vibes were off with this one from the beginning. And this is from the man who'd just written the darkest Star wars, but this movie was just too dark for him. Star wars, singular. Yes. As he later put it, I didn't want to be associated with Temple of Doom. I just thought it was horrible. It's so mean. There's nothing pleasant about it.

[A]

Okay, I agree.

[B]

I think Temple of Doom represents a chaotic period in both Spielberg and Lucas lives. And the movie is very ugly and mean spirited. And George said, well, shut up, Lawrence. Go away. So he reached out to two writers he'd worked with many times. Willard Heiked and Gloria Katz. Now, Lizzie, you made a bit of a face when I said Howard the Duck, But I will remind you, Heike and Katz were Oscar nominated for their work penning American Graffiti. George Lucas first foray into human emotions, and they'd done polishing and dialogue work on the first Star Wars. These are two very accomplished writers.

[A]

I know it's just the duck condoms and the duck breasts. It's a lot to move past.

[B]

I don't know if I could have done better. I'm just gonna say it like the source material. Who knows? They have a project in development. Hell with George Lucas. The Radio Land Murders, which would get made in the early to mid-1990s. But writing an Indiana Jones movie with Steven Spielberg to direct, this is as close to a sure thing I feel as a Screenwriter could imagine. And they had a funny history of almost working with Steven Spielberg. The first time, Steven Spielberg had asked them to adapt a book called Flushed with Pride, about Thomas Crapper, who invented the toilet, supposedly. So they wrote a treatment. They sent it to Spielberg. He said, this is great. Let me send it to my agent. And then they hear nothing. And finally they call Steven and they say, steven, what happened to Thomas Crapper? And he said, oh, my agent told me that if this is the kind of film I want to make, he doesn't want to represent me.

[A]

Oh, no.

[B]

So that project does not come to fruition. They were looking for a director for their follow up to American Graffiti. Lucky lady for Fox. And they think, guys, we should hire Steven Spielberg. They tell the producer, go watch Sugarland Express. It's Spielberg's theatrical debut. Fox digs it. They meet with Spielberg and he says, I'd love to make it, but I'm on the hook to make this shark movie. I wish I could do it. I wish I could get out of it. And of course, that becomes Jaws the third time. They go to lunch with Spielberg and Spielberg says, I want to do a movie about what would really happen if a spaceship landed on La Cienega. And Heike and Katz are like, I don't know about that, Steven. So they basically pass, and that becomes Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Yeah, back to Temple of Doom, which at this point is called Temple of Death. Lizzie's Face.

[A]

It just. You needed to spend a little bit more time in Hawaii on this one.

[B]

So Hayke and Katz didn't just know Lucas and Spielberg. They weren't just Oscar nominated writers. According to them, they were very interested in Indian culture, which is not super apparent from the finished film. But more on that later. So In May of 1982, Heike, Katz, Spielberg and Lucas gather at the Jedi Council, I mean, Skywalker Ranch for four days of story conferences. And for Eich and Cats, they're saying, this is a dream. There's no story, but there's also no studio. They worked on projects where there's, you know, 25 people around a table and you're voting on whether or not to push things forward. In this instance, quote, Steven and George just let you do your own thing. And they're not starting completely from scratch. So if you guys are fans of the Indiana Jones franchise, I'm sure you know this already. But this story features a number of elements that had been developed for Raiders, but ultimately cut from that film. And we talked about this in our episode years ago. Lizzie on Raiders. But an airplane raft escapes, a mini tsunami created by giant vats of water, a minecart chase, a big fight in Shanghai.

[A]

Where does the vat of water come from? Why is it there? Why do we not see it until they dump it out into the mineshafts?

[B]

I feel like they built it, forgot about it. And then Steven said, oh, oh wait, we should shoot that. And it did it. By Spielbergian standards, it's perhaps not that well established.

[A]

Let's say not established at all.

[B]

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[B]

The reference though. I mean, obviously they're pulling material that was excised from the first film. But what they're really doing is pulling a lot of inspiration from a controversial, although somewhat celebrated 1939 film called Gunga Dean. Oh Lizzie, have you ever seen Gunga Dean before?

[A]

I've not seen it, but I am familiar with what it is.

[B]

Yeah, George Stevens directed. I know you're going to cover a film of his soon. Probably most famous for Place in the Sun, Shane Giant. It's based on Rudyard Kipling's poem of the same name. It's set in India.

[A]

Rudyard Kipling, a famously not racist man.

[B]

So Rudyard Kipling, who features into the third act of this movie. It stars Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. And Victor McLaughlin. It is. It's so similar to Temple of Doom. Not just in the fact that Temple of Doom pulls liberally from this movie, including a rope bridge that the characters nearly fall off. The big gong at the beginning of the film is in. Temple of Doom is clearly a reference to the gong that is used at the beginning of Gunga Din to do the credit sequence. The Tuggee cult and the worship of Kali. Those are the antagonists in Gunga Deen and they are the antagonists in this movie.

[A]

Tell me if I'm wrong. That is a real. The Tuggee cult is real, right? Not in the way that we see it in this movie, but it did exist in the 19th century, kind of.

[B]

Let's wait for a second and get to it.

[A]

Okay. Okay.

[B]

So it's interesting the way that Gunga Din presents it. There is a title card that says those portions of this picture dealing with the worship of the goddess Kali are based in historic fact. Not exactly, but we will dive into that in a moment. Again, you just see so many influences here. The whipping of Indiana Jones by the Thuggee Colt in this instance. There's a snake pit in this movie that feels like it influenced the first film. There's many hijinks with elephants. The secret cult location being in one of these amazing, beautiful Indian palaces. There's so much pulled from this movie. Also, this movie's clearly the influence for something like Three Kings by David O. Russell. It's about three British soldiers who are also kind of soldiers of fortune who stumble their way into a situation where they're in conflict with this, quote, Thuggee cult. And then there's a water bearing character, an Indian man who. It's called a beastie, whose name is Gunga Deen, who's obviously played by a white person in Brownface in this instance. Certainly he's the classic, sort of the naive foreign born character who strives to achieve the moral goals of the British and then like, proves their own moral code to them by dying at the end of the film. Think like Quelic in Galaxy Quest, for example. That's what the poem's about as well, the movie. It's entertaining. It's got some amazing set pieces, some amazing cinematography, and tonally it's a bit of a mess in the same way that Temple of Doom is. It just goes all over the place. It's a comedy, it's an action movie. You know, Cary Grant's the only person who seems to know what he's in. He is just doing the shell oil sort of thing the whole time.

[A]

Man, I love Cary Grant. I don't think I've ever seen a movie with Cary Grant in it where even if the movie is an absolute pile of sh. He is so confident in himself and having a good time, he holds it down every time.

[B]

Yeah. By the way, I don't think Gunga de Nin is a pile of shit. It is in some senses. But a review I read that I really agreed with was it is classic Hollywood at its both most seductive and pernicious. I thought that was a great way of describing it. So throughout this process, aside from lifting everything from Gunga Deen, they decide to lift from other movies they're working on. So the opening musical number, I loved that. I love it. That's why I like the first 15 minutes so much.

[A]

Oh, first 15 minutes are great.

[B]

Yeah. So Lucas suggested this, lifting it from Radio Land Murders. So again, they are just moving so quickly for this project that they are just pulling every piece of available material that they can from other references that they already know. They flesh out the Sankara Stones, which are fictional. The religious cult. More on that later. And the character of Willie Scott. Okay, Lizzie. Who else would it make sense to theoretically, maybe bring back for this movie were it not the fact that it was a prequel?

[A]

Karen Allen.

[B]

Exactly. Karen Allen to play Marian Ravenwood. But because it's set a year before the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark and it set up that it's been years since Indy seen Marian Ravenwood in Raiders of the Livestock, you can't really bring her back. Plus, George Lucas wanted Indiana Jones to be a playboy sex criminal like James Bond, so he figured we should have a different female lead in each movie. Enter Willie Scott.

[A]

I don't like that. Again, I think what actually works really well about Indiana Jones is that he does have emotional connections to these people. And then they just keep cutting him off. Like he has a real emotional connection to Marian Ravenwood. He has a real emotional connection to Short Random. And they just cut him off at the knees every time. And I don't really understand why, because Harrison Ford is really good at that.

[B]

Yeah, it's George Lucas.

[A]

I think George Lucas is not like emotional connection. I understood.

[B]

So Willie Scott, a quote, Judy Holiday type character who, like Indiana, was named after a dog, Spielberg's dog in this instance, whose name was Willie. For other characters, they lifted the names of Indian painters, including Mola Ram, who was a famous 17th century painter who definitely did not remove the beating hearts

[A]

from people's chests as far as you know.

[B]

Right. According to one source, George Lucas also pitched, quote, a virginal young princess. There were no takers for that idea. So they came up instead with a young boy. They decided to call him Short Round, which is the name of the child sidekick in the low budget Korean War film the Steel Helmet. And again, also the name of Hyken Katz's. Dog. Okay, short round leads to another idea about a young maharaja. And then finally they add in the story of kidnapped children. Now, regardless of the order of operations, it's again just more and more pastiche. They're pulling from Village of the Damned, for example, when they're making.

[A]

You're putting hats on turbans here, guys.

[B]

So they need something to keep the audience engaged while explaining the evil cult. Hike. And cats pitch a tiger hunt. And Spielberg says, there's no way I'm going to stay in India long enough to shoot a tiger hunt. Little did he know, he's not gonna actually shoot in India at all. They land on the very controversial dinner scene instead. According to Haik, he and Katz were concerned about some of these story elements. Quote, we told George, we know a lot of Indians, we've been to India. I don't think they're going to think this is really so cool. Do you think you're going to have trouble shooting there? And he said, are you kidding? It's me and Steve again. To be clear, this is a very dark movie that's blending some real elements of Indian culture, at least words, with heavy stereotypes, tropes, Western fictionalizations and outright lies.

[A]

Well, maybe we should explain a little bit of what you're seeing in the dinner sequence, just in case anybody doesn't remember.

[B]

So for context, this is a scene in which the esteemed guests at Pankot palace of the Maharaja, which features an emissary, I shall say, Roshan Seth Chatterlal. He's presented as a British PhD emissary. For this Maharaja serves like beetles to suck the guts out of eyeball soup, chilled monkey brains, live eels cut out of a dead snake. To be clear, this isn't a country that has a deeply vegetarian lineage to it. I believe almost 40% of India is vegetarian and over 80% limit meat consumption.

[A]

Also, some of the most delicious food you could possibly eat.

[B]

Yes, exactly. As a vegetation vegetarian, huge fan of Indian food. So according to Haik, though, Steve wanted to do a very dark movie. This was going to be his nightmare movie. Spielberg later said, we all collaborated together in the screenplay. So it wasn't like I was on the outside under protest, but it really went against my nature. In the 80s. I have a really hard time figuring out if Spielberg's doing revisionist history with this movie or if he really was against a lot of these ideas and they were more coming from Lucas.

[A]

I believe him just because obviously Steven Spielberg has covered a lot of supernatural things. But, like, even if you look at something Like Jaws, there is an attention to realism and naturalism. And I think that that's the case across even something like ET Even though I know it's, you know, fantastical, I believe him that this may have irked him.

[B]

So Heike and Katz go back to LA to write and they get a 500 page transcript of their conversations with Lucas and Spielberg in the middle mail and Lucas says get moving because he is afraid that they are going to lose Steven Spielberg. Heike and Katz have both said that Lucas pressured them to finish it as quickly as possible so Spielberg wouldn't be able to back out. And according to one secondary source, Spielberg said at the time that he was considering just co producing the movie with Lucas and not directing it. Spielberg later said he had a lot of concerns about making a sequel. He didn't know if he could top the first one. Could he make it different enough to be creatively satisfying and yet similar enough to attract the same audience? And there's another motivating factor for Heichen Katz, which is that Katz is now pregnant. So they write the first draft in six weeks. They turn it in at the top of August 1982. They turn around a rewrite in mid September. Debbie Fine, a researcher at Lucasfilm, noted a bunch of potential problems. Quote, the maharajah would not eat monkey brain. The torture scenes are very violent, and apparently Steven Spielberg loved it. Heik later said Stephen was amazed he couldn't get out of it because we did it so fast. Now, to be clear, Lucas's fears about Spielberg dropping out were well founded. He'd followed up Raiders of the lost ark with E.T. the extraterrestrial. Released in June of 1982. It quickly became the highest grossing film of all time. Lizzie, how would you describe the tone of ET as it relates to Temple of Doom?

[A]

I'd say they're on either side of the monkey brain from each other. ET Is very much geared towards families, children. You know, at its heart it has the quest to do the right thing. It has, you know, the quest to find your home and your family and the importance of emotional connection. And Temple of Doom just kind of throws all that out into the crocodile river. I did like the crocodile death rolls though. That was good.

[B]

A lot of cuts to crocodile death rolls at the end of this film. Yeah, I agree.

[A]

They were good. I was glad they included that.

[B]

In addition, Spielberg's name was also associated with some darkness and an on set tragedy that we've discussed at length on this podcast.

[A]

Twilight Zone, the Movie.

[B]

That's right. In April of 1982, two months before E.T. hit theaters, Spielberg officially agreed to co produce and Twilight the movie with his friend director John Landis. Before Spielberg shot his segment Kick the Can, which is very Spielbergian and is the one upbeat segment of the four different components of the Twilight Zone movie, there was a horrible and avoidable on set accident on July 23, 1982. Actor Vic Morrow and two young children who were hired illegally, Micah Din Le and Renee Shin Chen were killed on John Landis set. A dangerous helicopter stunt resulted in a crash that killed all three performers. The movie was obviously closely associated with Spielberg's name. One of the crew did claim that Spielberg was on set the night of the accident. He told federal investigators he was never at the Indian Dunes location of Twilight Zone on the night of the accident or at any other time.

[A]

Yeah, and if I remember, because we've covered this in a two part episode from a couple years ago, as far as I remember from our research, there doesn't seem to be any indication that he was there the night.

[B]

He was never directly questioned. He never testified in any of the wrongful death suits that related to the accident. And he later said that 1982 mixed the best ET with the worst the Twilight Zone of his career. And he was about to embark on arguably the most controversial film of his career so far as the sole director. But before he could, they needed to find somewhere to shoot. Now Lizzy, could you imagine some problems trying to get China or India to allow you to film this movie?

[A]

That there the racial insensitivities, particularly towards the Indian culture.

[B]

So the script is set both to China and India. So producer Robert Watts figured they should shoot in India and China. The Chinese government passed and the Indian government didn't love the scripts. So Robert Watts said he tried to compromise and set the movie, quote, in a little principality on the border of India. So it wasn't actually India, end quote. But there were bigger, more fundamental problems that you've pointed pointed out. The government reportedly wanted final cut and asked to make certain changes like removing the word maharaja. I believe, though we could not confirm this, that this is because they did not want people to think that the use of words like maharaja meant that what was being portrayed was not fiction. Maharaja, real word, real part of Indian culture. Eels cut out of snakes being fed to said maharaja. Maharaja using a voodoo doll, you know what I'm saying?

[A]

Got it.

[B]

Not real things being used.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

That is our guess. They also apparently did not appreciate portraying the ruler of Pankot, which is a fictional palace or City as a kidnapper and master of child slaves.

[A]

I would think that that would be the bigger issue. Yeah.

[B]

Or that it misrepresented Tuggee or Thuggee culture as participating in volcano sacrifice and ritualistic heart extraction. All right, Liz, you asked some questions on the Thuggees briefly. Okay, so the word thug, you may not know this. I did not know this traces its roots to the Hindi and Urdu word thag, which means thief or swindler.

[A]

Did not know that.

[B]

And according to npr, this traces back to the Sanskrit verb stagti, to conceal. I apologize if I got that pronunciation wrong. 19th century colonial Brits believed that the Thuggee cult was an organized crime gang of sorts that strangled thousands of people across India. And in Gunga Deen, they make the comment that, quote, the 10,000 strong tuggee colt killed 30,000 people. People. These numbers seem completely made up. They, quote, worshiped Kali, the Hindu goddess of death and destruction, and represented hereditary criminality. Okay, so the Brits, quote, hunted them down. 4,000 thugs were discovered, 2,000 convicted, many sentenced to death. Now, it does seem like there was a phenomenon of frequent highway robbery in India in the 19th century, including a number of deaths by strangulation. But the cult angle of the Thuggees seems to have been largely a colonial British myth. So the Thuggees were the subjects of some 19th century English novels. Like they showed up in Mark Twain's following the Equator and Even in the 1960 film the Stranglers of Bombay, which gives you a sense of how they're being presented. I think that really what this comes down to is that with so few representations of Indian culture in Western media, and specifically India has an enormous film industry.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So the Bollywood film industry, which we have not spoken about. Well, an enormous and diverse film industry that produces an incredible volume of films, very few of which ever breach the border into Western countries, especially the United States. I think you can see why the government would take issue with a number of these elements of the script.

[A]

Yeah. And also like to use the name of the Thuggee or Tuggee cult, for example, like you're using a real thing, or at least something that was real in that it was referenced by the British government, whether or not it was actually a real secret society or organization. It sounds like we don't know know. But you're mixing in just enough, and maybe this is your point about the Maharajah. You're mixing in just enough, quote, unquote, real recognizable words and ideas to make it potentially problematic with how much you are distorting them.

[B]

Yeah. I think the point they're making is like, this is not going to be obviously fictional to a Western audience.

[A]

I think it's a fair point.

[B]

Even though it's obviously fictional to an Indian audience.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So Lucas wouldn't budge, so they decide to shoot in Sri Lanka instead for the location work, and then Elstree Studios in England for all of the stage work. Now, they used miniatures and matte paintings to fill in the palace and the temple. And I think there's a. Certainly, like a reasonable interpretation that Spielberg and Lucas were a bit arrogant given their position within the industry at this point in time. And they may have been miffed that they were turned down by China and given notes by, you know, the Indian government. It's also possible that they were just running out of time. Time because they needed to get this movie going. But Lucas was taking a similar hardline approach back in the United States with Paramount. So according to Barry Diller, the then chairman and CEO of Paramount, Lucas went back on the deal they'd agreed to when they made Raiders. Diller said he'd negotiated terms on Raiders that would ensure Paramount wasn't in the same position as Fox if the film had been successful. Fox had to renegotiate for the sequel rights on Star wars, and Lucas intentionally tried to phase them out as much as possible, which we talked about in Empire Strikes Back. Here's Diller's. I insisted we had the right to make the sequels on the same terms as Raiders, given that the terms on the first movie were so much higher, meaning better than anyone else had ever received. I wanted to retch once and then not have to regurgitate in a new negotiation. If the film was a success, Diller didn't want any new negotiating. And yet here's Lucas insisting they negotiate. So Diller is enraged, and at first he assumes it's coming from Lucas's lawyers. So he calls Lucas and Lucas says, yeah, no, it's me. According to Diller, Lucas believed it wasn't worth it to make the movie if he wasn't going to get more money. According to Diller, he could not believe this. Lucas, who famously refused to live in Hollywood because he hates the backstabbing nature of this company town, is going back on the deal that he signed with Diller. But Diller gave in because he had to. And then he famously called Lucas a sanctimonious, though supremely talented, hypocrite. End quote. So Barry Diller wasn't the only one in a squeeze. Casting director Mike Fenton was running out of Time to find Willie Smith.

[A]

Scott.

[B]

It's early 1983, and he's already seen more than a hundred actresses for the role. One very famous blonde actress who was starting to blow up and would especially blow up in the early 90s.

[A]

Michelle Pfeiffer.

[B]

Great guest, Sharon Stone.

[A]

Sharon Stone was my other guest.

[B]

I believe you. As the story goes, Mike Fenton went jogging with his friend and agent at William Morris, and he suggested his new client, actress Kate Capshaw. So Capshaw's agent calls her up and he says, they're casting the sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark. Steven Spielberg wants to meet. And she said, I don't want to meet him. She's 29. She's a special ed teacher turned model, turned actress. She'd been in a soap opera, a TV movie. She'd done a comedy called A Little Sex Fun Fact, directed by Bruce Paltrow, Gwyneth's dad. Yeah, she was a serious actress. She wanted to do foreign films and art films. She didn't want to do a sequel with some shmeeven. Spielberg, her agent, was, according to Capshaw, very patient and tolerant of my judgment and arrogance. And so we set a time to meet with Steven. She walks into the meeting, and it seems like Spielberg's not interested in meeting her. His back's facing her, and he turns around and he says, oh, you're not who I thought you were. But then he brings her in to read. She tapes her audition, and he's convinced that she's the one. He goes to Ford and he says, I have 19 girls on tape, but I'm only gonna show you one. I put Kate's tape in, and he immediately said, that's the one. I think maybe she was just screaming. It's unclear exactly what the tape was. Again, I really like Kate Capshaw in this movie. I have a condo on Kate Capshaw as Willie Scott Island. I am the only resident.

[A]

No, David enjoyed her, too. I. I honestly think that Sharon Stone may have been able to counteract some of the more, like, maudlin elements of Willie Scott, because Sharon Stone has sort of a cold hardness to her that could have gone up against Harrison Ford in a way that I may have personally found a little bit more watchable. It's not to say Kate Capshaw isn't a wonderful performer and actress. I think she's amazing in the opening sequence. Like, I really enjoyed all of that.

[B]

Although, just want to point out to all of our Mandarin speaking listeners, we do acknowledge that that sequence is gibberish apparent. I mean, really, I'VE heard. What I learned online is they did translate the lyrics to Anything Goes into Mandarin, but because it's such a tonal based language where the emphasis and inflection put on words is as important as, you know, the ordering it would be in Western language it sounds like doesn't make any sense. Gibberish? Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Interesting.

[B]

That's the best I could figure out via Reddit and whatnot.

[A]

She just, she has like basically no agency in this and then to cast someone who feels very sweet and sort of soft in a role role that has no agency is a little bit of a tough watch.

[B]

Interesting.

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[B]

Well, Lizzy, Steven Spielberg told her to watch a movie that we've covered in preparation for this. Is there any movie that you covered that involves a much steelier performer, perhaps, or steelier performance?

[A]

I have a guess please. Is it the African Queen?

[B]

It is the African Queen and maybe that's why she didn't thoroughly read the script because she was busy watching that movie, which, to be fair, the script was mostly action and difficult to picture in your head. More on that in a bit.

[A]

Well, that's a great example though, because in the African Queen, sure she's grossed out by the rough and tumble Humphrey Bogart at the beginning, but she also ends up being the one driving them forward into the jungle.

[B]

By the end of it, she's also the protagonist. It's a very different movie. Yes, I think the biggest hitch in the indie Willy relationship is the fact that ultimately this movie's about Indy in Short round for me, at least 100%.

[A]

And if that's the case, great. Make it more about that and get rid of her halfway through. I'm sorry, she doesn't need to be

[B]

there at the end, and he's like, bye, bye, lady. And she's just gone.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So obviously casting Short round is going to be important. Spielberg says that they held at least eight open casting calls involving 6,000 boys across New York, San Francisco, Hawaii, Toronto, Chicago, Montreal, Hong Kong, London and Los Angeles. Kee Huy Quan was 12 years old when they passed out flyers at his elementary school in Los Angeles.

[A]

He is so cute.

[B]

One of the teachers thought he knew just the kid for the part. Kee's brother, no Kee had been born in Vietnam into a family of Chinese descent and had eight siblings. Now the family was split for a period. Kee and his father and five siblings went to Hong Kong and they lived in a refugee camp when his mother and remaining siblings went to Malaysia.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

This is shortly after the Vietnam War ended. The family reunited in the United States in 1979, and they landed in Sunland Tuhunga, up in the northeast corner of Los Angeles, just northwest of Altadena, where I used to live. Back to the audition. Key tags along with his brother and he says, quote, as he was auditioning, meaning his brother, I was behind the camera coaching him while to do. I had no idea why I was doing that because I didn't even know what was going on. To be clear, I believe he. My guess is he didn't really start learning English until 1979 when he came to the United States. So he's only been speaking English for a few years now. So the casting director asked him to come in and do a read and he said he did, but quote, I couldn't even pronounce the words, but it didn't matter. Spielberg watched his tape and quote, the search stopped at that moment. I just loved his personality. I thought he was a 50 year old man trapped in this 12 year old body. So Kee's mom puts him in a three piece suit and sends him off to meet Spielberg. There's one more audition with Spielberg, Ford and apparently Lucas. And I'd like to play you a clip of young Qi Hui Kwan describing this interaction. After that, I met Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford. I don't know who they are because I don't really see American movies. So Steven told us to pretend to play cards. Had you ever acted before? No. That's extraordinary. There must have been all those child actors waiting for that part. And you just walked in there and got it.

[A]

So cute.

[B]

So he had never seen a Steven Spielberg, George Lucas or Harrison Ford movie prior to this meeting.

[A]

Good.

[B]

So he hadn't seen Star wars he hadn't seen Raiders. He had never acted.

[A]

That's crazy.

[B]

And he's improvised in his second language and possibly third, because actually, now that I think about it, he probably speaks Vietnamese. I know he speaks Cantonese in the beginning of the movie. And then he's speaking in English and he's improvising the scene, playing cards with Harrison Ford. And that's it. It's just a. I cheat small, you cheat big. That's the scene that they're doing.

[A]

He is the shining, beating, ripped out heart of this movie. And he's honestly the only reason to watch it because he is so great. And. And he's great both in terms of his acting, his timing, also his physical comedy and all the action that he's doing. I mean, it really. It is absolutely remarkable.

[B]

That's right. So for the roles of Chattar Lal, who's the advisor to the maharajah, and Molla Ram, who's the Thuggee priest, so to speak, Spielberg and Lucas turned to two actors who had recently appeared in Richard Attenborough's.

[A]

Oh, Gandhi.

[B]

That's right. British Indian actor Roshan Seth. Yeah.

[A]

I was wondering where I recognized him.

[B]

Okay, he plays Nehru.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Who is. He's one of the Indian congressmen who kind of in Act 2, is following Gandhi around and coming around to him. He'd given up acting years earlier. He'd been in the UK for 15 years, and he just was not getting the roles that he wanted. He later told the New York Times that he was, quote, too English for the Indians and too Indian for the English. And so he returned to India and edited a journal. And then Richard Attenborough convinced him to do Gandhi. And then he returned to journalism. But then that movie came out and playwright David Hare shows up in India with a role for him to come do. And he just said, you know what? Okay, I'm coming back to acting. And that brings him back into the world of acting and obviously Temple of Doom and many more. And then you have Amrish Puri, who'd played Khan in Gandhi, Who, Lizzie, if you remember, in the first act of Gandhi, when he's in South Africa, he's a Muslim Indian merchant at the beginning of the film who's helping Gandhi at the beginning of the movie.

[A]

I haven't seen that movie. I remember him less, but I definitely.

[B]

Yeah, he's like, unrecognizable in comparison to all the makeup and the shaved head. But he's a wonderful actor and he's the most experienced actor in this movie by a mile. So Amrish Puri had acted in hundreds of films across his career. He is a Bollywood like known name and he'd also just begun what would come to be known as kind of his villain era. He played this antagonistic smuggler in 1982's Vedatta, which was the highest grossing Indian film of the year, the fifth highest grossing of the decade, adjusted for inflation. He played another big bad in 1983's Hero, and he's not interested in Temple of Death at the time, as it was called.

[A]

Fair enough.

[B]

Indian casting director Dolly Thakor sends stills of him from the 1980 horror Gera Yi. I'm not sure about the pronunciation to Steven Spielberg now. Gera Yi is kind of an exorcist movie done in India. It actually, it reminds me a little bit of something like the Wailing, for example, if you've seen it out of Korea. And honestly, Poltergeist, because a lot of it has to do with the sale of land that has spiritual connections. Brief note also on Doli Thakor, she's like this veteran theater actress, newscaster, journalist, casting director, like, really incredible career in life. And she'd begun her career as a casting director on Gandhi. And so like she's jumping into, you know, Gandhi, Temple of Doom. That's like a big high place to start. So Spielberg sees these stills and he wants putty even more. And we're pulling this from Puddy's book and we had a little bit of a hard time exactly parsing the order of operations here. But it seems like he maybe took offense at the request from casting agents to do a read because it seems like they were almost wanting to make sure he spoke English, which would be very offensive because if you were to just watch the first 10 minutes of Gandhi, you'd see he speaks English.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So he refused to audition or read a page of English text. And he said, come watch me on the set of his new film, which I tried to figure out what it was, but he's in so many movies that I could not figure it out. In fact, some sources claim he was working on 18 other movies while he was working on Temple of Doom. Whichever movie they saw, Purdy was cast, but he had the most difficult schedule to manage. According to producer Robert Watts, quote, this was something I had never come up against. The Indian film industry operates in a manner that would drive me stark raving mad. The actors work sometimes two or even three shifts a day, four hour shifts, and they may work on two or three different films. They'll be in one in the morning and another in the afternoon.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

Crazy.

[A]

Is that why he's barely in this movie? Because there's, like, almost no establishing of him?

[B]

Yeah, I'm not sure. I feel like it makes sense for the character, but it may be. You know, he said they had four different visits. One in Sri Lanka, three in London. And it may be that they just had to write it in strategically because he was unavailable. And he's great. Obviously, in this movie.

[A]

He is great. He's very fun to watch.

[B]

Now, unlike Star Wars, Ford had signed on to the Indiana Jones sequels from the jump. And on the one hand, there was one secondary quote we found where Lucas had said they were gonna do five Indiana Jones movies. And Ford seems to have bristled at that and said, he must be talking to Roger Moore because I didn't know about this. You know, he didn't want to be known as the sequel guy. But on the other hand, I think he had fewer qualms with the material and character of Indiana Jones than he did with Han Solo and Star Wars.

[A]

That makes sense. He's the lead.

[B]

It's also like a recognizable world. He's famously, as he said, george, you can write this stuff, but you can't say it when it comes to the Star wars dialogue. That was not the case with Indiana Jones. In fact, he really likes the Indiana Jones dialogue. And we'll get to that in a second. Generally speaking, outside of Indiana Jones and Star wars, he had not had a big hit. So if you look at Force 10 from Navarone, 1978, mixed reviews. It flops. Hanover Street, 1979, flops. The Frisco Kid with Gene Wilder, flops. More American Graffiti, which I think he's barely in critically flops does not do as well as the first film. Blade Runner, 1982, famously flops both critically and criticism commercially. He has a cameo in E.T. as Elliot's principal, but that gets cut. Apocalypse now was a smash, but he's in it for about 10 minutes.

[A]

Oh, right. I always forget he's terminate with extreme prejudice.

[B]

That's right. He's great in the conversation. But again, it's a tertiary role. So Ford presumably needs Indiana Jones as much as it needs him. But Spielberg's really worried about how Ford's going to receive the script. So according to Heik, they gave the script to Harrison. Right after we finished it, Steve called us up and says, have you heard from Harrison? I said, no, I think he'll probably call you. And Steve says, well, he hasn't called me. I'm really worried. And I said, why? And he said, for one thing, he can make my life really miserable on the set if he's mean to me. But he seemed to be very afraid of Harrison. So Hayke and Katz get the call. Ford wants to meet them about the script, and they get together to do a read through. It's Spielberg, Heike, Katz and Ford. They get to a scene with short round, and Ford hems and haws a bit. And I'll try to do a Harrison Ford. This line of short rounds bothers me. The kid's supposed to be 10. I don't know if he'd say something like this and hike. And Katz say, yeah, but he's a really cocky kid. That's the whole take on him throughout the film. He's wisecracking with Americanisms and so forth. And Ford says, I don't know. It's a great line. I think it's probably something that Indy would say. And they keep reading. They get to another line and he'd say, I think that's probably something Indy would say. And according to Hayk, they would just get to these lines and he'd steal them. Which was so obvious that Spielberg apparently left the meeting to watch TV while Ford poaches short rounds lines.

[A]

Aw.

[B]

So Heike and Katz do rewrites on the final shooting script in the spring of 1983. And according to. According to Katz, she goes into labor 10 minutes after they print the script out to turn it over. Now, Lizzie, you mentioned Spielberg wanting to find, like, moments of levity in the movies that he makes. For example, Spielberg famously storyboards intricately for his movies, and that's, I think, obviously why his action set pieces are so inventive and they're so compelling and you remember them. But for this movie, while he did obviously storyboard all of the action set pieces, I'm sure the Minecart sequence, for example, a lot of the interstitial scenes. He decided not to storyboard because he later said that he was uncomfortable with how dark the story was and he wanted to leave space to, quote, lighten the mood with humor. Another attempt, perhaps to lighten the mood was changing the title from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Death to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which happened just eight days before shooting began, which I do think is a more tongue in cheek, fun title. I think Temple of Death is much darker. So principal photography begins on April 18, 1983, in Sri Lanka, just a week after the Oscars, where Spielberg lost Best Picture and Best Director 2. Richard Attenborough and Gandhi. Yeah, well, perhaps Spielberg and Lucas should have known that they were tempting fate. After all, they were spurning local traditions, working with water, children and animals. Lots of animals in this movie, Lizzie. Harrison Ford said that riding the elephants felt like being stretched out over a medieval rack and not in a fun Jamie Dornan kind of way. Ooh. Now you mentioned his body, Lizzie.

[A]

Yeah, it looked good.

[B]

It looks good. He'd been training with Jake Steinfeld of Body by Jake at a YMCA in Sri Lanka.

[A]

What is Body by Jake?

[B]

That's his brand. He was a trainer to the stars. I think he started with Spielberg and Ford back in, you know, back in the 80s there were some of his first big clients. And then he had, you know, TV series, ton of infomercials and whatnot. Very, very. You'd recognize his face if you saw him. Also, fun fact, he is, I believe, Hailee Steinfeld's uncle. But he started feeling some twinges in his back. More on that in a second. Now, during the campfire sequence on the way to Pankot, an elephant started eating Kate Capshaw's one of a kind dress that she still needed to wear for the opening number of, of the film, which they hadn't shot.

[A]

She had it coming. Man, she is screaming on those elephants.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I gotta say, the sequence where she's like hitting the elephant's trunk away from her. I was so mad. Maybe it's because we just went to the zoo and saw an elephant and it was really beautiful. But I think that's where I lost all faith in Willie Scott.

[B]

Yes, fair. Although Spielberg probably made that choice.

[A]

Not her. I know it's not her. None of it is her fault.

[B]

So the elephants did wreak havoc on the schedule because only the baby elephants could be loaded onto a truck and the bigger ones just had to walk wherever they were going. And it just took as long as it took them to get there. Now back at the hotel, Mike Culling, the animal wrangler, had brought three 15 foot pythons from England. He checked them into a room under the names Mr. And Mrs. Longfellow. And like Indiana Jones, Kate Capshaw hated snakes. Yeah, and she didn't know that there were going to be snakes because she hadn't read the whole script. So producer Frank Marshall took her to visit and pet the snake first. Like exposure therapy. It didn't help. It got so bad that Spielberg, when he saw her shaking in hair and makeup before filming the scene, decided to cut, cut the scene. Which is why we don't have this Kate Capshaw snake scene. There's one brief moment, obviously, with the elephant.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

She was really relieved. And then he said, but you have got to do the bugs. And she's like, what bugs? And Kate, you gotta.

[A]

You gotta read the script, girl.

[B]

Little did Capshaw know Culling would spend two weeks in Sri Lanka collecting thousands of insects to bring back to England. On the lighter side, the bridge at the end of the film was created by British engineers who happened to be building a dam nearby. And the dummies that kick and wave off as they fall were made by the effects team. These are supposed to be done by a specialist in the United States. It slipped through the cracks. So those are just mannequins, like, made from molds filled with very crude battery powered mechanics. Which is why when they fall, they're just like, zing, zing.

[A]

It works fine.

[B]

It's fine. They had one chance to get the shot right, and that's the shot that you see in the movie because they only had so many mannequins. So they said, all right, but what

[A]

are they feeding the crocodiles to get them to do the death rolls? Is it the mannequins? Did they rip them?

[B]

I think it's the mannequins and probably, like hamburger meat they're chumming. The water would be my. They got through the location portion of the shoot without too much trouble. They moved to Elstree on May 5, one day after May 4. And the pain is just around the corner. Capshaw took a balsa wood bat to the eye when Key's prop bat split in two. Resulted in a black eye, but nothing compared to the bugs. Lizzy. The bugs did not take direction, according to Marshall. You can arrange a pile of snakes. That's impossible with bugs. People were also much more scared of the insects. Every once in a while, you'd hear this shriek when the bugs found their way onto the tap dance rehearsal stage. A bad place for a bug to be. The problem was it didn't seem like a lot of thought was put into how to contain the bugs. According to Steven Spielberg, on the first day, they just lay out thousands of bugs, and 75% of them just disappear through the walls and the floors.

[A]

They're bugs.

[B]

On the first day of shooting, they're gone.

[A]

That's disgusting. It's like the horses in Lawrence of Arabia.

[B]

But bugs, well, and these are potentially invasive species, to be clear. Like, apparently 500 snakes had escaped that same location three years earlier on Raiders of the Lost Ark. And now it's just thousands of bugs going with them. They also needed thousands of bugs to even cover 3 square feet. The bugs were kept in a cold room before shooting, and then they'd bring them in under the hot lights, and of course, they'd scatter and hide immediately. They were constantly showing up in the cast and crew's clothes. And Capshot even took a Valium before shooting with them.

[A]

Yeah, 100%.

[B]

Which probably wasn't helping her achieve the direction that Harrison Ford had given her. Harrison was constantly reminding me that I was a gal in a bee movie and that I didn't need to put notes to in the margin. Faster and funnier was all the direction we got.

[A]

Okay, so it's Harrison Ford's fault.

[B]

It's Harrison Ford's fault. Now, to be fair, though, he may have needed the Valium more than anybody because his back pain was getting worse. Now, there's some debate over what exactly was the final straw that broke Harrison Ford's back. But it was either getting jerked around in the mine car or flipping one of the thuggees over his back. Both couldn't have helped. It got to the point where they had to put him on a hospital bed in between takes, and Spielberg realized they couldn't go on like this. But according to some sources, Ford didn't want to see stop filming. So Spielberg called Lucas, who is also in a lot of pain. On the one hand, Return of the Jedi had just come out. It's a massive hit. But it had gotten the most mixed critical reception of all the Star wars films. And Lucas's marriage was officially and publicly coming to an end with Marsha Lucas. So he hops on a plane to England to help sort things out. He later said Harrison was in terrible pain. He would be on a set bed, and then they'd sort of lift him up and get him, and he'd sort of walk through things, and then he'd get back on the bed. And I said, we can't do this. If we have to shut the picture down, we'll shut the picture. Picture down. So they shut it down and send Ford back to the United States to receive medical attention. But they didn't tell Vic Armstrong, Ford's stunt double. So the next day he shows up and goes, where's Harrison? And they go, let's keep shooting with you. And so for the next five weeks, they shot Vic Armstrong as Indiana Jones. And I believe this movie features more Vic Armstrong than any other Indiana Jones movie. And Lizzie, I'd like to show you a photo of these Two men standing next to each other because it is quite crazy.

[A]

Oh, wow. Yep. Go ahead and start rolling.

[B]

So apparently on the first film when they were in Tunisia, Spielberg had gotten within 5ft of Vic Armstrong in the costume, thinking he was Ford.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Like speaking to him as if he was Ford. So he had doubled Ford a bunch of times before. And Ford has even said that Armstrong added things to the character. According to Armstrong, he did all the stuff. Releasing the kids a lot of the mine cartoon sequence, jumping around the gantry and the big fight on the rock crushing conveyor belt.

[A]

Whoa.

[B]

Back in the United States, Ford decided to undergo a new procedure for his back pain called chymopapain injection, where they take an enzyme derived from papayas, inject it into the herniated disc and dissolve part of it.

[A]

Yeah, okay.

[B]

On the one hand, less invasive than surgery. On the other hand, it had just been approved by the FDA months earlier. Ford said his doctor had only done the procedure a handful of times. Times prior. It's no longer used in the United States. And there's a lot of conflicting information out there about why exactly that is. According to the fda, it was not discontinued due to safety concerns. But according to Harrison Ford, quote, they stopped doing it after a couple years because less qualified surgeons were turning people into paraplegics. Dicey. So while Ford is away, work ramps up on the opening musical number, which is great. And they have George Lucas there to help, but he seems to have been a little distant. And I get the sense that George was in his feelings a lot during this period of production.

[A]

Also, like, if there's one sequence that I don't think George Lucas is really going to thrive directing, it's probably this massive, sparkly musical number.

[B]

It's possible. So Frank Marshall says there's this big production meeting to discuss storyboards for the second unit shooting they could do while Ford was out. And halfway through, Lucas just gets up and leaves and he says, well, I guess I'll see you guys later. And Spielberg says, where are you going? And he goes, I've got a guitar lesson. And he just walks out. Okay. Capshaw was originally supposed to do the entire dance with the backup dancers, but the dress was so tight fitting that they just ditched that plan and they just kind of rotate her out and bring the backup dancers in. Which I think works fine and also adds to the joke that, like, Willie Scott's not that talented, maybe, and is, like, doing this, you know, gangster routine as a result.

[A]

Except she sounds great.

[B]

She sounds great. Well, her Mandarin doesn't sound great. She sounds great. Yes. Now, Ford came back to London and Spielberg basically just shot his close ups at this point. So they'd shot a lot of the wides with Vic Armstrong, but to be clear, he was still in pain. And for any haters of Body by Jake out there, he believes it's because Jake had gotten him to such good shape that he recovered so quickly. And also, he looks amazing in this movie.

[A]

Yeah, he looks really good.

[B]

It's probably like P. Carrison Ford from a physique perspective. It's pretty crazy.

[A]

Definitely. And, you know, we talk about this all the time, but, like, think about what his body would probably look like today if this were a modern Indiana Jones.

[B]

Oh, it'd be, you know, body by diebold, body by steroids. Yeah, well, right.

[A]

And it's nice that, like, he doesn't. He doesn't look like that. He looks like a gorgeous, jacked archaeologist.

[B]

He does. Howdy, howdy ho, and welcome to Fantasy Fanfellas. I'm Hayden, producer of the Fantasy Fan Girls podcast and your resident lover of all things Sanderson. And I'm Stephen, your bookish Internet goofball. But you can call me the star smash daddy. And we are currently deep diving Brandon Sanderson's fantasy epic Mistborn. But here's the catch. Steven here has not read Mistborn before. That's right. Hey. Hey. So each week, you'll get my unfiltered raw reactions to every single chapter. And along the way, we'll do character deep dives, magic explainers, and Steven will even try to guess what's next. Spoiler alert. He'll be wrong. News flash, I'm never wrong. Episodes come out every Wednesday, and you can find Fantasy Fanfellas wherever you get your podcast. Podcasts.

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Subscribe on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their products. Podcasts everywhere acast.com. Couple other fun facts. The Minecart set was really an electronically driven roller coaster built onto a soundstage so you could ride on it. It was safe.

[A]

It looks so scary and uncomfortable.

[B]

Yeah. There's also a miniature version for a lot of the longer shots where it's like they jump. Yep. The dinner scene features rubber bugs filled with custard. The monkey heads were filled with custard and raspberries. Raspberry sauce. Okay, so Lucas says he wanted it to be, quote, goofy 30s humor.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And Spielberg says that he'd actually been the one that pitched the idea. What about a meal of the worst stuff you would ever imagine eating as long as you live? But Lucas actually came up with the idea to add the eyeball soup and python full of eels because he and editor Michael Kahn were cutting the movie during production and they said that there wasn't enough gross stuff in there, so they decided to just double down and add more.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So they wrap in August of 83, but there are still 15 more days of live action shooting required for the special effects. And they have 75 scenes to be completed by ILM, which is in a very different position than it had been when it was making Raiders. So in a sense, the company's a victim of its own success. The studios all now see ILM as integral to creating blockbusters, so there's a ton of work. But of course, Temple of Doom hits their desks and it's Lucas and Spielberg, so they can't say no. We're backed up. So similar to the Empire Strikes Back, they hit a bottleneck at the optical printer stage as model Shop supervisor Lorne Peterson described it. Everything had to go through optical at ILM to be composite. And those people were starting to work later into the night, sometimes six and seven days a week. And literally weren't seeing their families.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Now, according to editor Michael Kahn, the first cut was actually too fast. It clocked in an hour and 55 minutes. And they actually added match shots establishing shots to slow the movie down. But Lizzie, the pace was not what bumped audiences. How do you think early test screenings went for the Temple of Doom?

[A]

I'm guessing they took a turn when a beating heart was ripped out of

[B]

a man's chest, as Gloria Katz said. Everybody was appalled.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Haik said that they were getting calls from Michael Eisner, then the head of Paramount. And he said, according to. I'm really worried. Could you guys talk to Steven for us? Because he's not listening to us. It's really violent. End quote. So at this point, there are four ratings. G, P, G, R and X. Which would later become NCC 17. The MPA would often struggle to decide if a movie was suitable for children. Now, Spielberg apparently did slightly tone down Raiders to get a PG rating. And Raiders, by modern standards, would definitely be PG13, at least. Like the melting Nazi face at the end.

[A]

Yeah, for sure.

[B]

I don't think it would be rated R, but I think it would be PG13. So Spielberg appealed to the MPAA to also make Poltergeist PG instead of R, which, by the way, features a man peeling the skin off of his face in the bathroom mirror.

[A]

Yeah. Poltergeist also is just horrifying. So if we're going on the level of, like, maybe things that children shouldn't see, I think that's on the list.

[B]

Also, somehow, pg, Jaws. Spielberg insisted, I don't make R movies. I make PG movies.

[A]

You don't though, either?

[B]

Yeah. Just days before Temple of Doom was released, the MPAA gave it a PG rating. But rumors of a new rating were already brewing. So Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was released in the United States on May 23, 1984, and set a record for the largest one week gross, 45.7 million. It would go on to make $333 million worldwide against roughly a $28 million budget. But Paramount was clearly nervous. They'd added a warning to their newspaper ads. This film may be too intense for young, younger children, but maybe they should have said, a guy's gonna pull another guy's heart out of his chest while it's still beating. Because nobody was expecting that and it really upset a lot of parents.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Spielberg later said everybody was screaming, screaming, screaming that it should have had an R rating. And I didn't agree. People magazine gave it a very harsh review. That I'd like to read. It is an astonishing violation of the trust people have in Spielberg and Lucas's essentially good natured approach to movies. Intended primarily. If they had set out to prove that they could get away with anything, insult the intelligence of viewers and literally make them sick, they couldn't have done it more effectively. No parent should allow a young child to see this traumatizing movie. It would be a cinematic form of child abuse. Even Ford is required to slap Kwan and abuse Capshaw. But then there are no heroes connected with this film. Only two villains. Their names are Spielberg and Lucas.

[A]

Disagree with a couple of points there. I would argue there very much is a hero of this movie, though it is neither Willie Scott nor Indiana Jo

[B]

Ki Hui Kwan, like Short Round, is the hero of this movie 100%.

[A]

I mean, he literally saves them.

[B]

He saves them. He turns Indy. Like his goodness turns indy. I love that. He's the reminder, like, he reuses the flame and then, you know, he's the reminder that pulls him back.

[A]

He saves them at the beginning, he saves them at the end. Like, absolutely. He's the hero. The other thing I disagree with there is essentially saying Steven Spielberg is known for making movies for children. That's just technically not true. I mean, to your point, he broke out with Jaws. That is not a movie for children. Yes, it was a summer blockbuster. But Close Encounters of the Third Kind, also not really a movie for children. That's very much an adult movie. ET Yes, I think Close Encounters, though,

[B]

you could argue is generally child friendly.

[A]

They can watch it, but it is not geared towards children.

[B]

It's mature thematically.

[A]

That's what I mean. Like, if you're gonna call someone a director of children's movies, I actually think you can make more of a case for George Lucas there than you can for Spielberg. I don't think you can make the case for Spielberg on that at all.

[B]

Yeah, I would agree that. I think both of them have one obvious children's oriented movie or Lucas II with Return of the Jedi at this point.

[A]

Yeah, Spielberg has ET Everything else that he's associated with is not explicitly geared towards children.

[B]

I think they are saying Raiders was. But I agree with you that I think Raiders was closer to this in a lot of ways. The point, Lizzie, is that Spielberg's feeling the heat and then gremlins is released and the debate only kicks up. So this is two weeks after Temple of Doom is released comes Gremlins.

[A]

I love Gremlins.

[B]

Oh, it's crazy great. Can you give me your Gremlin? Really quickly? To this day, the best Gremlin I've ever heard outside the movie. The trailers for Gremlins were pretty misleading. Director Joe Dante said they purposefully imitated the color and style of the ET Ads to remind audiences that Spielberg was an EP on this movie. And if you remember, Lizzie, one of the biggest thing that people had complaints about was that this movie features a monologue in which the female love interest reveals that her father died pretending to be Santa Claus.

[A]

Yeah. Cause he gets stuck in the chimney.

[B]

Stuck in the chimney. She discovers him days later.

[A]

Man, I love Gremlins.

[B]

It's so dark. So Spielberg calls up Jack Valenti, who was then the president of the MPAA, and he had developed the rating system in 1968. And if you guys don't know, Jack Valenti, former special assistant to US President Lyndon B. Johnson, famous lobbyist, known hater of the vcr. Fun quote, I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public, as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone. Which is quite a quote. Okay. He's also the father of producer and executive Courtney Valenti, head of film at Amazon mgm. So Spielberg calls up Valenti and says, jack, I'm taking a lot of heat right now. I'm making this quote up. But he apparently calls him up and suggests a new category. And he says that he was the one that suggested they do something like PG13 or PG14. And so PG13 is introduced just three months after Temple of Doom was released. And of course, the first movie to receive the rating.

[A]

Red Dawn.

[B]

Red dawn, starring Patrick Swayze. PG13 may have solved Temple of Doom's violence, but it likely wouldn't have impacted another element which a lot of folks took issue with, which is the film's engagement in racist stereotypes. So there was at least one protest of the movie in Seattle organized by Citizens Against Commercial Racism. Protest organizer Aslam Khan, a political science professor, told a local paper, imagine a child of Indian background confronted with questions from his classmates who have seen Indiana Jones. Do you eat snakes? Do you have voodoo dogs, dolls at home? Why is your religion so stupid? According to several sources, though we could not directly confirm this, the Indian government temporarily banned the film. Now, for his part, Roshan Seth, who plays Chhatar Lal, says he later got a great deal of flack for his participation in the movie. How does an intelligent man like you agree to be in a film that shows Indians dining on beetles and eels? Now, Seth states that Spielberg intended that as a joke, Quote, the joke being that Indians were so smart that they knew. All Westerners think that Indians eat cockroaches, so they served them what they expected. The jo was too subtle for that film.

[A]

I believe that. I believe that. I think you needed something to indicate, though, that that's what was happening.

[B]

If that was the intention, I agree. It's too subtle for the film.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Now, Amrish Putty later said it was a chance of a lifetime working with Spielberg, and I don't regret it even for a moment. I don't think I did anything anti national. It's really foolish to take it so seriously and get worked up over it. Now, people were also very worked up about Kate Capshaw's performance as Willie Scott. She got a lot of. Lot of criticism. Quote, I don't think there was a good review. I was blindsided by it. The thing that surprised me most was that the critics, women critics in particular, were very critical of Willie Scott, as if we were making a political statement and I was doing nothing for my sisters. I found it odd that it was an action adventure film and we were meant to be doing message work. Now, Temple of Doom did win an Oscar for visual effects. It received another nomination for best original score. John Williams. But it's a movie that Spielberg often tries to distance himself from. He's since said that he wasn't happy with it, that. That it's too dark, that, quote, there's not an ounce of his own personal feeling in the movie, and that it's his least favorite of the original three. He said it ended up darker than we thought it would be. Once we got out of our bad moods, which went on for a year or two, we kind of looked at it and went, hmm. We certainly took it to the extreme. That's kind of what we wanted to do, for better or worse. And Lizzy, you talked about how much you like the beginning of the movie. I wonder if a lot of the criticism actually stems from the fact that the movie opens on a real nice high. It does, almost like a joy. This is what Rosanne Seth said. You know, quote, the first 15 minutes of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom are perhaps the greatest 15 minutes in cinema. They're all about what cinema should be, sitting on the edge of your seat in excitement. And I don't disagree that it's one of my favorite openings. Yes, it's maybe my favorite opening of the Indiana Jones series.

[A]

Great opening sequence. You know, it's interesting to me that they keep using the word dark to describe this movie, because it doesn't strike me, I guess because maybe they were trying to counteract it with what they thought of as levity. It doesn't come across as, like, dark. It comes across as just like a void. It just doesn't have any heart to it.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And calling it dark almost like, negates. I think what the actual problem with this movie is.

[B]

I think mean spirited is probably the better way to describe it. Which, even though I do like this movie, I completely agree with that criticism. I would like to end with the heart of the movie. Ki Hui Kwan. Let's get to him in one second. So the legacy of Temple of Doom is complicated, as we talked about, but it's certainly not completely bleak. Amrish Phuti embraced the of shape, and he continued to use that look in a lot of his films. It also allowed him to explore a lot of hairstyles via wigs. I read in subsequent movies, Spielberg and Kate Capshaw married a few years later. He actually did get back together with Amy Irving. Oh, no. They got married, then they got divorced, and then he married Kate Capshaw. I've also seen speculation that he and Capshaw were having, like, an affair on set. But to be clear, I read nothing to confirm that also. And they do seem flirty, like there's an attraction on set. Spielberg was single. To be clear, at this point, is my attention understanding at this point in time? Also, although Lucas, Spielberg and Ford were having a tough time on set, it doesn't seem like any of the bad mood trickled down to Ki Hui Kwan. So he later said of Lucas and Spielberg, they were just really nice, down to earth, humble people watching me do takes. They were by the monitor and were just laughing and having a really good time. In fact, I was never allowed to watch playback. I shot the entire movie without ever looking at myself on screen. He said that when they were on location, he would just hang out in Harrison Ford's room. Harrison Ford taught him how to swim, and he loved that. Harrison Ford just played jokes on Steven all the time, the time on set. So Kwan didn't see Star wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark until after filming wrapped. Only then did he realize how successful Lucas and Spielberg were. And the first time he saw Temple of Doom was at the LA premiere. He'd fallen in love with the movie when he made it, but he fell in love with moviemaking as a career when he saw the movie played back. But the movies can be cruel. So Ki Hui Kwan followed up Temple of Doom with his turn as Data in Goonies, which was another Amblin production. But he faced a drought of opportunities that far too many Asian American actors face. And he did end up taking a 19 year hiatus from acting, turning to stunt and choreography work. And before we wrap him, a brief point when I was trying to look up reactions to this movie, because I always like to get a sense of how do people feel about this movie, you know, do my reactions seem to match other folks or not? There's a lot of criticism, obviously, about the portrayal of Indian culture in this movie, which makes complete sense to me, and I hope we've done a good job exploring on this episode. But there were also a number of people who were saying that they really felt that Short Round was a racist stereotype. Which I wonder if there's a way to parse this in two directions. I disagree. I think he's a great character. I read some people saying, like, you know, oh, they're making him do an exaggerated accent. Having listened to him in interviews at the time, I believe that's the way he spoke. He had just started to learn English. It makes sense for the character. I think he's given the hero's arc in this movie. That's why I loved this movie as a kid. Kids so much. But on the other hand, I did read a lot of people, especially on Reddit and a couple of film critics saying because of the dearth of any. Think about this is the 80s, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You have John Hughes, you know what I mean, where it's like, we're gonna engage in Asian stereotypes for high school students because there is a dearth of any other Asian American representation at the time. It seems like a lot of folks were very frustrated with this movie because they would be the one Asian kid at their school, and then all of a sudden, all their white friends would come up to them and they'd start yelling Dr. Jones in their face as if they are Short Round in the sc. And so the problem becomes the lack of other roles around Short Round and, you know, is what kind of makes the most sense to me. And again, which is this void that Ki Hui Kwan, who's untrained and amazing in this movie, steps into as an actor in Hollywood at the time, you know, he would later say, there's nowhere to go but down from Spielberg and Lucas, which is somewhat true. But really, this should have been like a launchpad, you know what I mean?

[A]

Yeah. Cause he's wondering in this.

[B]

So he takes a 19 year hiatus from acting. He turns to stunt and choreography work. And then of course, the movie he shoots in 2020, which doesn't get released until 2022 by Daniels. Everything Everywhere all at Once brings Ki Hui Kwon full circle. Instead of a 50 year old man in the body of a 12 year old boy, what I love about that movie is that it feels like he's a 12 year old boy in the body of a 50 year old man. And he brings the same joy. Also incredible fight choreography and heart. That's the thing to that movie.

[A]

He's a hero. Like he gets to be a hero. He gets to be a romantic love interest. It's so wonderful.

[B]

Apparently Spielberg has sent him a Christmas gift every year for the last 38 years between making Temple of Doom and now. But he had not seen Harrison Ford in 38 years. And I would like to play you a brief clip of him describing their reunion after Everything Everywhere, all at Once. Well, I haven't seen Harrison Ford in 38 years. So I was scheduled to attend an event called D23 for Disney. And I was told that Harrison Ford was going to be there. And I was in the green room and I was looking around the room trying to see if I can find him. And my assistant came running up to me and says, Harrison Ford is just right outside the green room. And I got really nervous, my heart was pounding. And he says, do you want to go see him? And I said, of course I want to go see him. So I walked out and sure enough, 15ft away, I saw him talking to Phoebe Waller Bridge. And as I get closer, he turns to me and he takes one look at me. And all of a sudden he has that classic Harrison Ford grumpy look like this. And he raises his finger like, then points it at me. And I got really scared because I thought he, you know, he's thinking, I'm a fan. He's going to say, don't you get new me, right? But instead he says, are you short round? And immediately I was Transported back to 1984 when I was a little kid looking up to him. And I said, yes, Indy. And. And that was their reunion. And they hugged and they chatted. And then Ki Hoi Kwan won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his turn in Everything Everywhere all at Once. And when the film won Best Best Picture, Harrison Ford presented the award in a fun conclusion. And that concludes our coverage of Temple of Doom. And Lizzie, before I ask you what went right, can I share my solve? Yes, my Temple of Doom solved. If you were to remake Temple of

[A]

Doom, we've all been waiting.

[B]

The solve is that the Thuggee cult is actually a front created by the British who are exploiting the local children to mine, you know, these materials and find the Sankara Stones. And it could just be like, think Marlon Brando in Apocalypse now, right? It's like one colonial British guy who's gone off the end.

[A]

Chris. If there's another safe villain next to the Nazis, it's gotta be the colonial British. Colonial Brits.

[B]

And I feel like by then we knew that we could make the colonial Brits the villains because they were the villains in Gandhi. And so it just feels like it's sitting. My point is like sometimes it's totally unfair and people have called us out to do revisionist history on some of these movies.

[A]

No, this was just sounds like it was so fast.

[B]

I think it was right there and they just made it too quickly. But I actually do think this is one that and Huycan cats are so talented as writers. I really do love a lot of sequences in this movie, but it feels like they were moving so quickly that they never stopped and really thought they wanted to make Gunga Dean in a 1930s style movie, but they didn't take the time to figure out how to make it feel fresh, I think. And that's like to me, that is ultimately the biggest flaw of this movie. And from that original sin come the stereotypes and whatnot that kind of bog it down. But anyway, I will kick it to you, Lizzie, for what went right.

[A]

Well, my what went right is obvious, by the way. I would have loved to have seen that. I think that would have made this movie excellent and something different and unexpected. My what went right is KE Huy Quan. He is, as we discussed across this whole episode, honestly, he's the only joyful part of this movie to me. He's the only part that I looked forward to every time he came on the physically, he's such a great performer. It is absolutely remarkable that he had not done any acting prior to this. I didn't know that. I just love him. I love the story arc that he ended up getting. I love that he has become a success, although obviously it came far too late. And I wish we had gotten mid career Ki Hui Kwan as well. But I'm thrilled that he's back. I just think that he is a one of a kind performer. And as we've Said he is the hero and the heart of this movie. And without him, I think it's, like, borderline unwatchable.

[B]

I completely agree. I want to give mine to Harrison Ford in this instance. And the reason is, like, look, to be fair, Qi Huy Kwan is very. He's always generous in his interviews. Right. He will never say something bad about anybody. So I want to caveat this, but it sounds like Ford had a really. I cannot imagine doing a role this physical while you're dealing with, like, a herniated disc in your back. And yet it sounds like they had a really lovely, almost parent child relationship on this movie.

[A]

Well, you can tell they like each

[B]

other, and that's really cool because there are some actors and some performers or some crew members or directors who are not interested in any personal relationship beyond the professional one. And there's nothing wrong with that. But this young man is thousands of miles away from home doing his first movie experience with one of the. Unbeknownst to him, one of the biggest movie stars in the world, and he taught him how to swim. And Ki Hui Kwan told a story that I almost put in here, where I believe it's when they're shooting the scene where he. It's either one of the mine cart scenes or when in Wendy slaps him. I couldn't find the context, but he got very scared, and Kehicoan started crying, and Harrison Ford apparently pulled him aside and said, I need you to know I would never hurt you. Like, I will always protect you. I would never. And he said that, you know, having Indiana Jones tell me that, you know, he loved me and he was gonna protect me just made all the difference in the world. And by the way, also kudos to Spielberg. It sounds like he did a very good job in coaching and directing this young actor. And he's very good with kids.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So despite how gnarly this movie is in so many ways, intentionally and unintentionally, it was still a good set for this young performer. And we've covered so many movies where that's not the case.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

All right, Lizzy, if folks are enjoying this podcast, how can they support it?

[A]

Well, you can tell a friend or family member, go listen to what went wrong. They just covered Temple of Doom. It'll rip your heart out. Or if you want to take it to the next level, you can leave a rating or review on whatever podcast you're listening to this on. If you would like more what Went wrong content, you can also subscribe on Apple or Spotify. And you will get at least one bonus episode every month that is not available unless you subscribe. And in fact, this month we have two. We just covered the Devil Wears Prada two. And we will be covering the Mandalorian and Grogu at the end of this month. And if you want to go all the way into the Temple of Doom death, you can join our patreon for just $5. You get everything that I've mentioned previously, plus you get to enjoy the community there. There are polls, there are interactions, there are. There are posts, there's extra credit. There's a lot of things you should join our Patreon.

[B]

There are interactions. What a euphemism.

[A]

You're gonna love it. And for $50 a month, you get everything I've just mentioned interactions, bonus episodes, all of the above. Plus you get a special shout out, just like one of these.

[B]

George Lucas here just wanted to say a few things about Temple of Doom. You know, Steven was. Was. He was fully on board. This movie was as much his idea as it was mine. He also. He also wanted Indiana Jones to be a sex criminal. Don't let him tell you otherwise. Film's a collaborative medium, and you couldn't do it. I couldn't have done it without Stephen. Him without me. And this part podcast couldn't be made without you guys. So. Nate Ashley, Beatrix Earhart, the cast and crew of Win A Trip to Browntown. Mark Bertha, Mary Post's Humans, Frankenstein, Angeline, Renee Cook, Evan Downey, Jose Emilano, Salto Del Giorgio, amy. Olga Schlocker McCoy. You know, I wanted to make experimental films. So this is mostly Stephen, not. Not so much me. Jory Hillpiper, Felicia G. Scott Oshida, Karina Kanaba, James McAvoy, Cameron Smith, Suzanne Johnson, Ben Shindleman, the Provost family. Galen and Miguel, the Broken Glass Kids. And this. You need to remember Willard Heike and Gloria Katz. They were the experts on Indian culture. Not. Not me. David Frisco, Lanti Film it Yourself. Chris Zaka, Kate Elrington, Mzodia C. Grace B. Blaze Ambrose, Rural Juror. Nate the Knife Lena. LJ Did I add the eyeball soup and the eels? Yes. But, you know, my thinking was if you're gonna do it halfway, you might as well go all the way halfway. Greyhound, Brittany Morris, Darren and Dale Conkling, Matthew Jacobson, Grace Potter. J.J. rapido, Lazy Freddy. Sadie. Just Sadie. Ryan Donahue, Adrian Pang Korea. You know, I couldn't have been making these decisions. I was. I was doing guitar lessons, as you guys know, so. Chris Leal Kathleen Olson. Brook. Steve Winterbauer. Don Scheibel, Rosemary Southward. Tom Kristen, Jason Frankel, Soman Chainani. Michael McGrath, Lydia House. Yeah, so, you know, Temple of Doom was. Was. It was all of us, equal amounts.

[A]

All right, thank you so much for that, Chris. Next week we have, you know, a movie that I would argue goes about 10 steps further in terms of the racist depiction of an Asian character. Chris, what do we have coming up?

[B]

We have Breakfast at Tiffany's. We do, but before we have Breakfast at Tiffany's, we're doing a really fun dive into the work that really broke Truman Capote out. Yes, I know he was already broken out, but the work he would be most remembered for, in Cold Blood. We're discussing the real case, the Clutter murders. Lizzie is walking me through that. We're also Talking about the 1967 film and of course, Truman Capote's groundbreaking true crime novel, nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood.

[A]

Yeah. So come on Friday for the. It's not essential that you listen to that prior to the Breakfast at Tiffany's episode. They're gonna be very different. But I do think it's a good companion piece to understand more about Truman Capote, especially because the movie adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany's is so drastically different from the novella, which we will discuss in the episode. So I'm very excited for that. It's maybe one of the. It's one of the weirdest adaptations in terms of what they did from book to screen that I think we have. So come back on Friday for In Cold Blood, which I actually think is a wonderful film adaptation of that book, and then come back on Monday for a full episode on Breakfast at Tiffany's.

[B]

Until then, thanks for listening, guys.

[A]

Bye.

[B]

To support what Went Wrong and gain

[A]

access to bonus episodes, subscribe on Patreon, Apple, or Spotify for $5 a month.

[B]

Patreon subscriptions also come with an ad free RSS fee. You can also visit our website, whatwentwrongpod.com for more info. What Went Wrong is a sad boom podcast presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer.

[A]

Post production and music by David Bowman. This episode was researched by Laura woods

[B]

and edited by Karen Krups. Sa.