Mickiana said:James Kahn's novelisation clearly has Mola Ram being woken from the black sleep by holding one of the stones which burns him, yet a moment later when Indy grabs it it doesn't burn him, in fact it was cool to touch. The burning that Mola Ram felt was the magic of the rock affecting him. Indy's incantations which made the rocks glow must have powered them up and maybe this is what was needed for someone as evil as Mola Ram to wake up from the Black Sleep. Perhaps he was deepest in it of all and normal fire couldn't affect him, only the stones which he sought so much could restore him and thus were actually imparting a type of salvation as fleeting as it was?
Mickiana said:I know what you mean, Montana. Where does the conspiracy begin? It might be that Chattar Lal had a senior position in the ol' Kali Corporation. The young Prince Maharaja is obviously the token figurehead for the above ground management while Mola Ram oversees the subterranean operations. Yes, Chattar does now look more and more like the conniving politician in the organisation, hovering over all.
But as for who drank the Blood first? Mola might have annointed himself or maybe not. He might have started out a bit bad and with a bit of coercion from Chattar Bug (he had the gift of the gab) they drank together, their arms interlocked in a bonding brotherhood supping simultaneously and heartily on their bloody steins!
IndianaJones said:In the novel it is described just as it was in the movie "Mola Ram held the heart high: still beating, dripping blood, it began to smoke. Then it, too, burst into flame. And then it disappeared." I just read the book to my daughter as her bed-time story. She loved it.
HA! Good one, Udvarnoky!Udvarnoky said:Your relation gives "heart-warming" a whole new meaning!
Thanks for pointing that out, Udvarnoky. (I just checked and the same thing is also in an earlier draft.) So Huyck & Katz suggest in the screenplays that Mola was under the Black Sleep even though it's not evident in the film. Very interesting...Udvarnoky said:The kicker here is that it's not an invention of the adaptations, but something Huyck and Katz inserted into the actual screenplay!
The idea isn't really underlined on the screen, leaving it up for the viewer to decide. Making Mola Ram and/or Chatter Lal the inherently evil machinator gives you a clear villain to root against that the alternative robs you of, but, that alternative also deepens the subject matter a bit.
Stoo said:HA! Good one, Udvarnoky!
Thanks for quoting the description in the novel, IndianaJones. (By the way, are you really Indiana Jones, himself?) So, according to the novel, the flaming heart doesn't wake up Mola Ram but the burning stone does.
Stoo said:3) Perhaps drinkers of the blood built up a tolerance to the drug? This would explain why Indy was in a zombie-like state and Mola Ram & others weren't. First-time users would be affected much more severely than those who had been consuming it for long periods of time (as drug use does in the 'real world').
Taking everything into account, the Black Sleep aspect is quite inconsistent.
Lao_Che said:If he's the real Indy, I wanna know what his daughter's name is.
Nice try Lao Che!
IndyJoey said:My opinion on why the kids weren't given the BoK are mainly that they didn't have enough of it. I think they would be trying to conserve it, and they gave it to the older people either because they were bigger and stronger and could force the children to work more, or they had some sort of political power, like the Maharajah... Just imagine a little miner boy trying to strap someone into that big cage, hahaha....
Montana Smith said:Burning all those kids to bring them back to reality wouldn't have sat well with a family audience either.
But, human sacrifice and child enslavement will work great!Montana Smith said:Burning all those kids to bring them back to reality wouldn't have sat well with a family audience either.
HenryJunior said:But, human sacrifice and child enslavement will work great!
Now let's go make a Disney Ride!
foreverwingnut said:There is another thread that poses this same question, so I'll try to present a new take this time. I have felt all along that Mola Ram was a willing participant of Kali-ma, but I have to admit there are some great spins in these threads. I was especially enthralled by HenryJones' supposition that Mola Ram might have been groomed for the cult and forced to drink the Blood of Kali at an early age. Here's my own supposition: What if we look at the ending as a kind of exorcising of evil rather than an awakening from a drug-induced nightmare? In this way, Mola Ram would have been a willing particpant as the physical vessel for Kali-ma, which- in my opinion- makes him all the more sinister without any room for remorse. Mola Ram really is the ultimate Indy villain and the embodiment of all evil, so his death is more fitting if he were a willing and knowing subject. And, if he were the vessel for the physical Kali-ma, this would explain his power. Indy's incantation might have been like a purification rather than an awakening.
foreverwingnut said:This is one of those rare subjects in the Indy films that every one could have their own take on it and wouldn't necessarily be wrong. It kind of makes each of us the background storyteller. Pretty cool, huh?