Temple of Doom 30th Anniversary

Stoo

Well-known member
"Temple of Doom" 30th Anniversary Memories

♬ ♪ ♫
It was 30 years ago today
Indiana 2 started to play..

On that Wednesday, 3 friends & I skipped school to go see "Temple of Doom"! We didn't normally skip but this was a big deal for us at the time so we forged notes for early dismissal. (It had worked before for "Return of the Jedi". That was the only other time that I had skipped classes.)

We could have waited for the evening at a local cinema in the suburbs but wanted to see it as early as possible downtown at the big, old, classical Imperial Theatre in Montreal. So we took the 2 hr. trip via public transport and waited in line for the 2nd screening at 3:00pm. One of the guys was halfway through reading the book and we kept telling him to shut up when he'd talk about it while we were waiting.

The Dolby Surround sound was excellent. When Indy was leaving the altar and heard the screams of the children, the screams were coming from the back of the theatre, switching from side to side. Since the audience was really quiet at this point, it actually sounded like there were kids crying in the back rows!

Apart from Short Round, I LO-O-O-O-OVED THE MOVIE!(y)

My 2nd viewing was about a week later with a bunch of other friends the day after our graduation party. Our hotel was downtown so we went for brunch and groggily headed over to the Imperial to watch the flick with a hangover. One of the girls hated it (but she didn't like "Raiders" either so that was no surprise!)

The 3rd time was with my family in August. They really liked "Raiders" but not this one. My mom's boyfriend had brought his mother & niece, who were visiting from out of town. His mother (who was about 75) was absolutely HORRIFIED by the heart-ripping scene and was extremely mad afterwards because he had promised that she was going to enjoy the movie. He thought it was going to be like the 1st one!

The 4th time was alone during the winter in one of these new (at the time) multiplex cinemas with the really, tiny screens. There was only 1 other person in the theatre.

I still have 3 of the 4 tickets.

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Anyone else have 30th Anniversary memories to share?:whip:
 

Plaristes

New member
Wow, cool memories, Stoo! I was too young to see it in theaters (I was born in 1981). I think I was probably around 9 or 10 the first time I saw ToD, but I don't have any specific memories of that. It wasn't until I was about 12 or so that I recorded the film from a tv broadcast and watched it numerous times in the following years. :)
 

S. Dakota Jones

New member
Not quite a 30th anniversary but I will always remember the first time I saw ToD.

It was '87 or '88 and I was sleeping over at a friend's house. We had been playing his Nintendo and decided to watch tv. It was an old small(maybe 12" screen), and we heard the sound before the picture came on. The first thing I heard was a loud crushing sound. The first sight I saw was our three heroes walking in a cavern dimly backlit by red lava and then turning to view a loud procession going on beneath them...the Thuggee Ceremony! I was hooked from there til the end and to this day it's my favorite IJ movie.
 

Stoo

Well-known member
Just checked the dates and my 2nd viewing wasn't a week later. My graduation was March 25th, only 2 days after "Doom" premiered so I saw it again pretty quickly.

We had partied until early morning and did not sleep a wink. By afternoon, we should have been starting to crash but the movie's eye-popping action kept us awake!

Another anecdote is that, months earlier, my buddies & I had chosen to wear white tuxedos (rather than black or blue) so it was funny to be wearing one the night before. My good friend & date, Tania, even gave me a red carnation, just like Indy wears in the movie!:) It would have been really funny if Tania had a tight, red dress.

Left to right: Steve, Stoo & Tania
25 May, 1984

84_0525_StooTania.jpg


Cool memories, guys. Keep 'em comin'!:D
 

Henry W Jones

New member
In honor of Temple of Doom turning 30, I am sharing my most prized possession. I saw TOD about a week after the film came out. If it had been any longer my parents probably would have gone insane from me bugging them to see it. (Both are fans btw) My aunt and my former uncle saw it opening day and the following weekend came to visit us from across state. It was a 4 hour drive and my uncle decided to draw one of the photos from the program they got opening day and were giving to me knowing my love for Raiders. Both are artist so part way through the trip they she took over. This was given to me 30 years ago this Sunday. I loved TOD when I saw it but was really confused at 8 years old about the Anything Goes part being in a Indiana Jones film. Happy Anniversary!!!!!
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Mickiana

Well-known member
I didn't see it on opening night, but I saw it soon after that. I remember thinking "What the...?!" with the opening number, Anything Goes, by Willie Scott as it seemed so 'un-Indiana Jones' to me at the time, but then getting blown away by the roller coaster of a movie after that.
 

micsteam

New member
I saw it opening week, it was Friday or Saturday night following the Wednesday 23rd opening. Me, my Mother, and step Father went to see it in a local theater and luckily we had no one behind us as there was a wall directly behind, I had to sit on the seat closed up so I could get enough clearance over " fat heads " to see the screen ( we didn't have stadium seating back then !!) I was 11 going on 12 then. I saw it again the following weekend with my Father and sister, good memories !! To tell you the truth it was one of if not " THE " best year for movies that summer was LOADED .... Ghostbusters, Gremlins, Star Trek 3 (yes I am a big Star Trek fan !!), etc. I could go on !!! I saw all three Indy movies within a week of opening (that's 1981,1984,& 1989). TOD was exhilarating... non stop and the heart ripping gig just blew everyone away... I LOVED THE MOVIE !!! I also remember we had to wait over two years for it to be released on VHS, I think Spielberg made us wait until I think October 1986 for us to watch it on video !!! Happy Anniversary Temple of Doom !!! :hat:
 

Tank Driver

Member
I remember seeing Temple of Doom opening weekend (Saturday).

I'll never forget the circumstances... My brother's friend was having a b-day party. I caught wind that all of them were going to see it at the theater that day - I was sooooo jealous!

Pretty sure my dad had seen my tantrums; we booked to see it the following showing later that evening. It was funny since my dad had intentions to see it anyway being a fan of Raiders of the Lost Ark (which I also had seen w/ him).

When the credits finally rolled.... My dad and I loved it - LOVED it! I, subsequently, seen it at least a half a dozen times that year.

This might sound funny to some, but I recall Temple of Doom looking absolutely phenomenal on the big screen. Especially that big altar set and the rope bridge coda....
 

Stoo

Well-known member
Loving the stories, dudes, especially about who you went with and why!:) Agreed that "Anything Goes" was confusing but what puzzled me even more was the tradeoff scene at the table. I had never been to an "Oriental" restaurant before and had no clue why Indy & Lao Che were spinning the items around on a turntable. I didn't know why it was there and it confused me for years.

"Temple of Doom" was also the 1st movie that I can remember to have a midnight preview. Here are some local, newspaper clippings from that week:

18 May 1984 - The Gazette, Montreal:
The original is much LARGER - 14.5 inches x 8.5 inches (37cm by 22cm).

84_Doom_01_small.jpg


19 May 1984 - The Gazette, Montreal:
The original is much LARGER.
84_Doom_02_small.jpg
 

micsteam

New member
Cool stuff Stoo !!! I don't have any clippings from TOD but I have my ticket stub and newspaper clippings from Last Crusade, I'll post those on another thread. :hat:
 

Mickiana

Well-known member
Stoo said:
Loving the stories, dudes, especially about who you went with and why!:) Agreed that "Anything Goes" was confusing but what puzzled me even more was the tradeoff scene at the table. I had never been to an "Oriental" restaurant before and had no clue why Indy & Lao Che were spinning the items around on a turntable. I didn't know why it was there and it confused me for years.

I had used a 'lazy Susan' before at a restaurant so I knew what was going on. I can't remember if it was an Asian restaurant though. But using one was a great novelty, especially when two people wanted to spin it at the same time to get at some tasty morsel!
 

TennesseBuck

New member
My father was mad at the movie

I saw Temple of Doom on opening day in 1984...I was 12 then. It was more intense than I had anticipated. I saw it alone, and then I saw it with my mother and father on the weekend. They took my 3 and 1/2 year old brother which might have been a mistake. My father loved Raiders but was pissed at the horrific details of Temple of Doom. I loved the film - but it was more horror than straight up adventure with a wink like Raiders. (y)
 

Phlip

New member
Loving these stories of the unexpected shock value that Temple of Doom has in store. Whenever I try and get different people to watch it, they probably assume it's going to be some kiddy adventure film, and so they're of course taken by surprise.
 

AndyLGR

Active member
I was 10 at the time of its release, and I never saw it on its original run at the cinema. I can't remember why though because at that time I was going to the cinema fairly regularly so I don't recall how I missed it :(

In fact I'm fairly sure that 83/84 was when we first had a video recorder in the house, so I didn't see Raiders til then either so it must of been close to the release of TOD that I watched that.

However my dad got a copy of TOD on pirate video when it came out at the cinema. It seemed like everyone in my high school class wanted to borrow it. It was a good copy too from what I remember.

My initial thoughts were that it wasn't as good as Raiders. It seemed a much simpler film in its story and scope. I didn't think the stones were an exciting thing to be after. I thought (and still so) that theres a lull from when they land in India to when they discover the Temple. The opening of a song was so strange, I expected more temples and chases, but I guess that was point - to be different. Harrison is at his peak here I think, he nails Indy. Although this may go against popular opinion I didn't find Willie or Short Round that annoying at the time.

As a ten year I expected the groundings established in the first film to appear in this one (his job at the college, Marcus, Sallah and Marion) and again I thought it odd that they weren't in there. I guess ultimately I had no idea what to expect from it. Yet now I think the difference in tone and the surprise factor of it is good. I just didn't appreciate that at the time.

Overall the passage of time has been kind on the film. I really enjoy watching it now and I'm not watching or judging it in the shadow of Raiders anymore like I did when I first saw it. Even though I still think it isn't as good as Raiders, its still one of the best action/adventure movies ever made. Happy memories from a time when I really enjoyed a lot of the films that were coming out around that time, this along with films like Jedi, Ghostbusters, Gremlins, Goonies, Back to the Future really take me back to a great time in life.
 
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Goodeknight

New member
Yep, I was in a panic the first time thru Anything Goes. "Is this the right screen? I must have walked into a musical. What the HECK?!?!"

I was 12 at the time. It wasn't Raiders but Temple of Doom that inspired my first "close enough" Indiana Jones costume. Close enough was pretty far off, but I didn't care, or have any reference photos or the World Wide Web...

My costume consisted of a OD Army jacket, and a light gray cowboy hat. I buried it in our coal pile for a few days to dirty it up, then reshaped it as best as I could into a fedora.

On weekends, I'd get my parents to draw me treasure maps around the house and yard. Looking back, they were really great to indulge me so extensively. They drew maps, laid traps, hid clues, etc. They definitely went above and beyond. (I was an only child....)

The treasure was usually the same thing. I'd taken some scraps of wood and fashioned a small "idol" out of them, then painted it gold with my mom's ceramic paint. It was basically a stick with a 1/4 circle gold face and a hole for the eye. Wish I still had it.

While I was always interested in Egyptology, TOD probably solidified that. I guess it was the timing when it came out, being 12 years old. I never realized it was TOD until Stoo's post about the 30th anniversary. I'd always just thought "Indiana Jones movies" inspired a lot of my interests. But it was specifically TOD.

That's a great personal revelation! (Thanks, Stoo!)
 

Grizzlor

Well-known member
ToD launched my fandom. My friend rented it on VHS back in '87, and we watched it three times over the course of a weekend before returning it! We kept repeating the Hindi dialect, and nobody knew what we were talking about.
 

Forbidden Eye

Well-known member
Happy 30th to the first Indiana Jone movie I ever saw. I saw it at my cousin's house, I was pretty terrified of the temple scenes, lol, but I loved it after I saw it all the same. It actually made me excited to check out Raiders when it played on tv not too long after along with Doom. Tod, along with Temple of the Forbidden Eye, were my first exposure to Indiana Jones and made me an Indy fan(pretty much everyone my age was more interested in Bond though because those Pierce Brosnan films were being released, which kind of made me alone in my interests at the time).
 

Lance Quazar

Well-known member
Even if you don't like "Temple of Doom" (and I personally think you're WRONG if that's your opinion), you have to at least respect it.

It is one of the few sequels of its day or any other that truly dared to be different, to expand the universe and its character and go in an entirely new and unusual direction.

Most sequels are content to just try to ape the success of the original. Just giving us more of the same. (In fact, one of the more popular arguments against Last Crusade is that it does precisely that - it simply rehashes most of the plot/structure/premise of "Raiders.")

But "Temple of Doom" truly is special and unique. Though Spielberg and Lucas have (wrongheadedly) distanced themselves from the film in the intervening years, at the time they made it, it was clear they were really trying to stretch the franchise and character and not just rest on their laurels.

(p.s. - saw the movie on the big screen over the week-end and I still love it to pieces. In terms of raw, visceral thrills, it still sets a highwater mark.)
 

Phlip

New member
Forbidden Eye said:
It actually made me excited to check out Raiders when it played on tv not too long after along with Doom.
Out of curiosity, what was your opinion of Raiders when you watched it that time?
 

AndyLGR

Active member
Lance Quazar said:
Even if you don't like "Temple of Doom" (and I personally think you're WRONG if that's your opinion), you have to at least respect it.

It is one of the few sequels of its day or any other that truly dared to be different, to expand the universe and its character and go in an entirely new and unusual direction.

Most sequels are content to just try to ape the success of the original. Just giving us more of the same. (In fact, one of the more popular arguments against Last Crusade is that it does precisely that - it simply rehashes most of the plot/structure/premise of "Raiders.")

But "Temple of Doom" truly is special and unique. Though Spielberg and Lucas have (wrongheadedly) distanced themselves from the film in the intervening years, at the time they made it, it was clear they were really trying to stretch the franchise and character and not just rest on their laurels.
In that respect it always reminded me of The Empire Strikes Back.
 
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