Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (w/ Elijah Davidson)

Eli Price (00:04.378)
Hello and welcome to the Establishing Shot, a podcast where we do deep dives into directors and their filmographies. I am your host Eli Price and we are here on episode 48 of the podcast, getting deeper and deeper into Steven Spielberg's early career of the seventies and eighties and kind of deeper in just as Indiana Jones goes deeper into the Pancot Palace.

until he finds the Kali worshippers, the thuggy doing their thing in the Temple of Doom, which is what we're covering today. And I have a returning guest. This is second time on the podcast, Elijah Davidson, who is the co -director of Brehm Film at Fuller Seminary joining us today. Elijah, how are you doing today?

Elijah (01:00.974)
Oh, I'm doing great. I'm so happy to be here.

Eli Price (01:03.514)
Yes, it was a, we had a fun discussion of Inception last time Elijah was on. So, um, go check that out from our Nolan series. Super fun discussion. I'm trying to remember the draft we did with that. Um,

Elijah (01:22.638)
Oh, I think we did non -fiction book adaptations. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. That's right.

Eli Price (01:27.61)
That is what we did because it was around the time killers of the flower moon was coming out, which yeah. Yeah. That was. That movie was great. I loved that movie from last year, but anyways, totally off topic, but, but, uh, Elijah, why don't you, um, for those that may have not have listened to that episode, um, why don't you tell a little bit about who you are and what you do with a Brehm film and maybe some of your kind of independent stuff too.

Elijah (01:39.406)
Oh yeah.

Elijah (01:57.262)
Sure, yeah. Yeah, like you said, Eli, I co -direct Brehm film at Fuller Theological Seminary. Brehm film is the theology and film focused initiative at Fuller. So we do a variety of things. I tell people we do kind of work in two directions. One, we advocate for the importance of cinema in theological studies and in the church. We want Christians basically to take movies seriously.

take filmmakers seriously and be nice to filmmakers and all that kind of stuff. There's a long history of Christians not being very nice to filmmakers. So we advocate for something different than that. And then the other direction, Fuller is here in Los Angeles and we have a lot of friends and students and alumni and whatnot who all work in the film industry. And so we advocate.

for Christians and the church in the film industry as well. And kind of let filmmakers know that all Christians don't want them to only make Christian movies. And there are Christians who think what they do is awesome. And we try to create spaces for those two groups to come together and talk to one another as well. So we have a film screening series that we do and my dog wants to come in the house right now. So I may have to go let her in.

Eli Price (03:15.322)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (03:23.482)
Yeah, go let them in.

Elijah (03:24.846)
I'll be right back.

Elijah (03:40.878)
she would have just kept barking. So yeah, we have, so we create space for those two groups to come together as well in a lot of ways. So we have an ongoing film screening series that we run where we show films on campus, bring in independent filmmakers, and film, any movies that we find that we really like and take a worth, a nice theological, robust theological discussion we'll bring in and show. We do some preview screenings of movies that are coming out.

bring the filmmakers into those. Pretty much always in conversation with filmmakers all the time. We also, we do other things too. We go to film festivals like Sundance, take students and friends to Sundance. We have a website where we review films. We have a book series that we edit. We're working with other film scholars, Christian film scholars out there that looking for a good book series to write for and try to expand the literature.

Eli Price (04:36.058)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (04:37.998)
theology in the film. It's not a lot of it. We want them to do more of it. So what else do we do? We have a movie club that I run here in Pasadena that we watch great movies and talk about them. We have filmmakers there. We just kind of work out of a list of great films that I wrote about before. And then we just do whatever else we need to do.

Eli Price (04:42.394)
Yeah.

Elijah (05:05.198)
to support our students who are filmmakers in particular. So if they need somewhere to film, we help them find it. Or if they need people to hold a boom mic, we'll do that for them too. So just whatever they need, we're happy to help them. So it's a little bit odd to have any kind of cinema studies thing at a seminary. And so we're always doing what we can to support those students who care about that and kind of make ways for them to bring the movies into their studies more.

Eli Price (05:11.802)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (05:30.714)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (05:35.118)
So yeah, I personally, my role, I help plan all that stuff that we do. I'm also our chief critic and probably head writer, I suppose, for things that we do. I write about movies, I write books about movies, and really enjoy doing that, write reviews, all that, so yeah.

Eli Price (05:35.386)
Yep.

Eli Price (05:59.866)
Yeah, yeah, I actually got, um, I, so last time you were on, I mentioned that I had signed up for the, the email version of come and see, but I got the physical version. So if you're watching on YouTube, this, this nice little hardback back, come and see by Elijah Davidson. Yeah, that way, um, that way I can, um, flip through and see if you covered one of the movies that I'm covering on the podcast instead of there are, I think I counted.

Elijah (06:09.582)
Yeah. Oh, the actual book.

Elijah (06:16.814)
Yeah, I got the hardback too. Yeah, look at that.

Elijah (06:26.478)
There's a few Spielberg movies in there. Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (06:29.722)
I was going through the table of contents before I came on and I was, I think I counted three. Um, I think Jaws, Raiders and Jurassic Parker in there. Yeah. So, um, so his three big blockbusters, I think. Um,

Elijah (06:36.782)
Yeah, that's Jurassic Park. Yeah, there's three in there. Yeah.

Elijah (06:44.91)
Yeah, each one of those is in there for a different reason. But they all seemed important to how cinema developed in different ways. And maybe not his best movies, I don't know. But maybe they are. We could argue about that. Yeah.

Eli Price (06:47.706)
Right.

Eli Price (06:51.578)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, Jaws is my favorite of what I've seen so far. 

Elijah (00:02.382)
Yeah, there's three Spielberg movies in that incumbency. All for different reasons, but three of them made it in there. I will say that one of the last movies I cut when I was trying to get down to 250 in that book, because there's 250 films in that book, covered in that book, the last ones I cut out was ET. It was real hard to cut ET. And I kind of warped with myself over that a lot. And...

Eli Price (00:10.341)
Yeah.

Eli Price (00:27.685)
Mm, yeah.

Elijah (00:31.918)
kind of ended up including Raiders over ET for kind of personal reasons, I think, more than anything else. But it could have gone either way. Both great movies. Yeah.

Eli Price (00:36.677)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it, you know, probably objectively Raiders is the one that should be in there probably. Um, I mean, like the collaboration with Lucas and, um, you know, all that, like it, and, and then just like it's staying power. Um,

Elijah (00:52.046)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Elijah (00:58.254)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, and it gets at the It gets at that thing that that Lucas especially does Spielberg does it too, but Lucas really does it which is that French New Wave all like that all French New Wave thing where like you take an old genre and you update it and kind of make your homage to that genre that you loved and you know the the French French New Wave filmmakers would do that and then they'd kind of like

Eli Price (01:16.933)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (01:25.934)
There'll be a subtle critique in there of that genre, kind of, you know? And Lucas doesn't do any kind of critique. Like he just like fully embraces the genre that he loves. And Raiders does that. And I thought it was important because I'm part of that book. In addition to being 250 devotions on 250 films that are kind of all their own separate thing, it's also tracing like the development of the art form over time. And so I thought it was important to show how...

Eli Price (01:28.453)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:32.645)
No.

Eli Price (01:49.573)
Right.

Elijah (01:54.574)
how American filmmakers, blockbuster filmmakers, the biggest filmmakers in the world, I mean, you know, get much bigger than Spielberg and Lucas, you know, took that thing that the French New Wave filmmakers did and then translated it to the American context. So, Surveyor's in there for that reason and for personal reasons, which we might get into as we talk. But yeah.

Eli Price (02:00.165)
Right.

Eli Price (02:13.701)
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. ET would be like my choice of the two. Um, I actually watched it for the first time, um, for this series since I was a kid. Um, so it had been a long time, but, um, but yeah, I loved it. And then it is, yeah. And talking, talking about it, like having this like long discussion about it.

Elijah (02:28.75)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Elijah (02:34.638)
It's just a sublime piece of filmmaking, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:42.309)
Like after that was done, I was like, oh man, I like this even more now, which happens with happens with a lot of the films I discuss on the podcast. I'm like, I like this even more after like discussing it. Um.

Elijah (02:43.726)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Elijah (02:50.99)
Yeah. Yeah, it's also, you know, it's, it's like all of Spielberg's best instincts, you know, in one movie. And we might, I think we're going to talk about one that maybe it's a lot of his worst instincts in one movie, but, but ET is one where it's all his best instincts, I think in one film and yeah, yeah, delightful.

Eli Price (03:00.229)
Mm -hmm. Oh, yeah.

Eli Price (03:09.893)
Yes, it really is. Yeah. Well, what was, what was your personal introduction to Spielberg? Do you, do you have any memories of that?

Elijah (03:18.592)
Oh, for sure. It's Raiders. And it's actually my earliest movie memory of any at all. It's one of my very earliest memories, period. I think I only have like two memories that are older than a memory of Raiders. And I didn't know it was Raiders, The Lost Ark at the time. My mom, see, I think they showed the clip on TV, but my mom swears that wouldn't have been true.

Eli Price (03:25.509)
Oh, that's great.

Eli Price (03:29.989)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (03:46.062)
And that they probably were watching it on a VHS copy that they had rented. But I have a very strong memory of the end of Raiders where they open the arc and people's face melt and the ghost come out and all that kind of stuff. And it scared me to no end. Like I was so little. I was like four years old. And like, I remember being just overcome with fear. I remember like...

Eli Price (04:00.549)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (04:07.685)
Yeah.

Elijah (04:13.838)
cramming my face in between the scratchy pillows on our couch. I can remember the feeling of those pillows, you know, as I crammed my face in there to hide from what I was seeing. My mom remembers like watching just the fear wash over me as I was sitting there watching that scene. And yeah, that's my earliest movie memory. And like I said, one of my very earliest memories ever. And it's fun now. I look at it now and I love that movie and have...

Eli Price (04:21.317)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (04:29.861)
Yeah.

Eli Price (04:41.413)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (04:44.302)
investigated that memory a lot and that film a lot, written a lot about it. And I have another little book called How to Talk to a Movie. And it's a really basic introduction to watching movies with kind of your spiritual eyes wide open, like a theology in the film, kind of a for beginners kind of thing. And the film that I use to talk about how movies work and guide people through, I use Raiders for that. Because it's a, in addition to being...

Eli Price (04:47.557)
Yeah.

Eli Price (05:03.557)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (05:14.702)
great. It's a great movie, just a great movie, like really well put together. You can use it really easy to like understand how movies work too. So I went deep into that film, like study it whenever I wrote that book. And I realized something about that moment. I was like, that's a moment of divine revelation in a film when the arc is open, like literally God, you know, like the God of the Bible revelation. And that's one, that's like my earliest memories is like an encounter with God at the movies.

Eli Price (05:18.309)
Yeah.

Eli Price (05:32.869)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Elijah (05:44.334)
I was like four years old scared the crap out of me. Yeah, but I absolutely like scared me but you know fear of God's but that's a good it's a beginning of wisdom, right? So not a bad way to start

Eli Price (05:44.517)
Yeah, it was in total fear.

Eli Price (05:52.709)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. One of my favorite things that happens in that scene is like it also destroys the cameras, which is like, which is like, you know, kind of fairly profound for a movie like that. But, um, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Elijah (06:01.038)
It does, yeah.

Elijah (06:08.334)
Mm -hmm. Oh, yeah, for sure. Almost a meta textual element. Almost. Yeah, almost. I mean, it's probably just a narrative thing so that there's no video of what happened, you know? But it's almost meta, you know, that you can't really film God, you know? And Andy shuts his eyes. It tells Mary to shut her eyes, too. So not even supposed to look. You know, God is not something we can even look at. So yeah, love all that. That's good stuff.

Eli Price (06:18.405)
Sure, yeah.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. They can't look.

Eli Price (06:31.493)
Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure we'll, we'll so little, little small tease next week. The episode I'll be kind of interview discussion style talk with Elijah on writing about film. So if, if this little discussion we've had is, was interesting to you.

Then, uh, yeah, look forward to next week's episode too, uh, cause we'll be kind of diving more into how to, how, at least how Elijah approaches writing about film. So, um, yeah. Uh, but yeah, let's, let's jump into a temple of doom. Um, and, uh, this, this, this will be a fun discussion because temple of doom is, is kind of one of those, um, I don't know if you would say it's like a love it or hate it.

Elijah (07:07.918)
Yeah.

Eli Price (07:27.365)
movie, but it's definitely like more controversial. It seems like it's, it might be, it might just kind of fall into that love it or hate it. Even though I'm, I find myself in between a little bit, but yeah.

Elijah (07:39.214)
Yeah, it's a movie you have to defend, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like one of those films that if you do like it, you have to defend it. You can't just like it, right? Yeah. And kind of the Pat response is that it's not good and maybe one of the worst Indiana Jones movies. Maybe into a crystal skull, if people don't really don't like it, maybe even more. Yeah, I do too.

Eli Price (07:49.637)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so.

Eli Price (07:57.317)
Yeah.

Yeah, people don't like that. I do. I like it fine. Um, this is, this is my least favorite of the five so far, but that doesn't mean I don't like it. I still kind of like it. So, but, uh, but yeah, we'll, we can get into that after we talk through the whole film. Um, but yeah, let's start out starting at the beginning. Um, Lucas, uh, so when Spielberg signed on to do Raiders, Lucas had told him from the beginning, Hey, if you do this, you know, I've got.

I've got more in the tank, you know, we're going to, you're going to have to commit to directing at least three of these. And Spielberg was like, you know, all right, you know, they're friends. What are you going to say? You know, um, I get to work with my friend, I guess. Yeah, sure. Um, and, uh, Spielberg in one of the making of docs that I watched, um, was recalling that, that case. And then, so when they started making temple of doom, he realized, wait, Lucas doesn't actually have other stories already.

Elijah (08:35.502)
You

Elijah (08:57.934)
You

Eli Price (08:59.365)
like made, he, he, he was, you know, pulling my chain a little bit, you know, not in the fact that he was going to have to make more, but that the fact that he had more stories. So, um, yeah, they, they actually kind of were kind of spit balled some ideas for the movie. Like they didn't actually have, Lucas didn't already have like a story kind of like story idea kind of like planned out yet. Um, which. Yeah.

Elijah (09:09.806)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (09:23.022)
Yeah.

Yeah, I've read, I've read before that they kind of, they thought of Indiana Jones as a James Bond like character. Someone that they could put in lots of movies and just like have a new scenario all the time. Cause you know, James Bond has like no arc, like, you know, historically he has like no arc. He's just the same character again and again and again. And he has big adventures and they thought they could do it with Indiana Jones. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (09:34.245)
Mm.

Yeah.

Eli Price (09:42.085)
Mm -hmm, right.

Eli Price (09:49.317)
Right. Yeah. Yeah, probably until the Daniel Craig series. He kind of has an arc through that. But yeah, other than that, yeah.

Elijah (09:56.302)
Mm -hmm. He does. Yeah. And there's that one, uh, on a majesty secret service that now is like very in vogue to say it's your favorite James Bond movie. Um, even though no one would have ever said that until, cause when no one started saying it, um, when he was promoting inception to go back to our other podcast. Um, but it's a fine movie, but it's not really a James Bond movie in the traditional sense. Um, because it's, it has a, some character development and James Bond shouldn't have any character development, you know?

Eli Price (10:05.477)
Yeah.

Eli Price (10:12.165)
Yeah.

Eli Price (10:19.301)
Yeah.

Eli Price (10:24.453)
Yeah, right. Yeah. Well, yeah. And with this one, they actually, something that they started with was, um, kind of just bringing over some leftover ideas from Raiders to this movie. So they had the kind of idea for a river raft sequence. And I think it even started with like the raft falling out of a plane. Um, and so they had wanted to do that for Raiders. Uh, they had wanted to do like a mine car chase.

Elijah (10:26.382)
Yeah.

Eli Price (10:54.373)
um, and Raiders, uh, and so they, they just were like, well, we already have these so we can bring these over. And they kind of like fit this, fit some of the story around to make those work. Um, which, you know, you wouldn't, you know, they fit it in well enough where you wouldn't think like, oh, these are just thrown in. It doesn't feel like that, but that is kind of what they did. They just kind of built what, which reminds me a little bit of, um, you know, what,

Elijah (11:03.566)
them together.

Elijah (11:14.222)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (11:18.734)
Yeah.

Eli Price (11:22.853)
When you hear, um, as the guy's name, director's name is escaping me, uh, the new mission and possibles, uh, McCrory. Yeah. Um, when you hear like him and Cruz talk about those movies, that's kind of what they do. They're, they're kind of like, we want to do this stunt or this like set piece. Like how can we fit the story around it? So it's always fun. And you know, that probably goes all the way back to like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. Like, um, Oh yeah.

Elijah (11:29.87)
Chris McQuarrie, yeah, Chris McQuarrie, yeah.

Elijah (11:35.054)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Yep.

Uh -huh. Yeah.

Elijah (11:49.006)
For sure, yeah. Buster Keaton for sure, yeah. Or Harold Lloyd, he would do that a lot. He's kind of built his whole thing around one big action sequence and then stitch on a story or tape on a story around it. Yeah, spectacle, yeah.

Eli Price (11:53.349)
Yeah.

Eli Price (11:58.277)
Oh yeah.

Mm -hmm. Yeah. So it's, yeah, it's kind of a little less than that. But it is like stitching these set pieces they wanted to do into the story that they had. But yeah.

Elijah (12:15.662)
And it really fits with that basic guy, that James Bond -like idea, right? Like, we're going to have a few action set pieces. We're going to get from one to the other as fast as we can. And that's your movie. That's right. Yeah.

Eli Price (12:19.077)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (12:23.927)
We're gonna have a cool day doing it. Yeah, well so an early idea for the movie was for it to be set in China based on the legend of the Monkey King, which I'm not that familiar with honestly. Okay, yeah.

Elijah (12:40.942)
Oh, Into the West. Yeah. I mean, that's like, that's like the oldest, most retold story ever. Yeah, that would have been a, that'd have been fun. Yeah.

Eli Price (12:46.981)
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I didn't realize that. Yeah. Um, yeah. So this one apparently has Indiana Jones riding a motorcycle on the Great Wall of China and, uh, stumbling upon a lost Valley with dinosaurs. It's what I read. So, which like, yeah. So it's, it's funny. Cause like my, my gut reaction was like, that doesn't make any sense for Indiana Jones, like an Indiana Jones movie. And then like,

Elijah (13:02.766)
Oh wow, yeah. A little bit of lost world in there, yeah.

Eli Price (13:15.525)
Immediately after that thought, I was like, wait, it makes just as much sense as any, anything else that Indiana Jones encounters. So, um.

Elijah (13:19.406)
as anything else, right? Yeah. Yep. And totally fitting in with that old, like the original DNA of Indiana Jones, which is that like Alan Quartermaine kind of serial thing, which that was totally the kind of thing that happened to those old adventurers in those 40s and 30s serials that they'd watch. Yeah, totally fits.

Eli Price (13:28.293)
Yeah.

Eli Price (13:32.773)
Mm -hmm. Yep.

Oh yeah.

Eli Price (13:41.029)
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, honestly, I'm kind of sad that we didn't get a Indiana Jones movie with dinosaurs. Um, so, but, but yeah. Yes.

Elijah (13:48.654)
Yep. Well, there's always time for a crossover. They keep making Jurassic World movies. They keep making, keep making Indiana Jones movies. Why not? Disney owns them all.

Eli Price (13:56.677)
Yeah, sure. Hey, they might, it might probably just won't have Harrison Ford. So, um, yeah, but yeah, they didn't get clearance from Chinese authorities, um, for, for that idea. They had a second idea that I didn't, from my research, I couldn't figure out exactly what it was other than that. It was like dropped because it was too close to stuff that happened in poltergeist.

Elijah (14:02.734)
No.

Elijah (14:24.046)
Hmm.

Eli Price (14:24.389)
Um, so I'm not sure what that would have been. Um, I, yeah, I guess, um, ghosts and TVs, I guess, I don't know. Um, but yeah, so they, yeah, I can't either. Uh, yeah, maybe out of the radio, maybe the ghost coming out of the radio that would fit more with Indiana Jones. Uh, but yeah, they, they quickly pivoted to returning to, well, for at least for, um, Spielberg returning to India.

Elijah (14:27.31)
Something with ghosts or something like that, I guess probably. Yeah.

Hard to imagine Indiana Jones with TVs, but yeah. But ghosts, you can see ghosts, haunted house kind of thing. That'd be fun. Yeah.

Eli Price (14:54.341)
He had done a short sequence in Close Encounters in India and kind of had wanted to return there for a story. So they did some digging, brought on the writer pair that had written American Graffiti for Lucas, which I'm scrolling down to get their names. Willard, I don't know how to say his last name, honestly. Hayek? Hoyek? Hoyk? Hayk?

Elijah (14:57.326)
Yeah.

Eli Price (15:23.173)
Something, one of those H U Y K I'm going to go with hike cause that's easiest to say. It's probably wrong, but that's okay. Willard hike and Gloria cats. Uh, so Mary couple, um, that had interest in India and had, uh, went around collecting art and, um, they actually had, uh, a apparently had a picture of a, uh, thuggy, um, demonstrating the strangling technique. I'm not sure.

Elijah (15:23.534)
Sounds good to me.

Elijah (15:28.206)
Hike sounds good, yeah.

Eli Price (15:53.925)
exactly how they got this picture or what exactly it was from. But they had this picture and that is kind of what they anchored the story around was this kind of ancient cult. I guess you would call it. There's a little bit of like controversy over like whether or not like the thuggy were an actual thing or if they were kind of one of those things that like

maybe like colonialist Britain kind of made up to like, you know, it's, it's one of those things that's like, Oh, maybe there's some merit to this, but maybe it's also like, they lump in everything together into one thing to as a scare tactic kind of thing. So it's, it's kind of unclear, but the idea is that it was this kind of ancient cult of kind of bandits in a way that.

Elijah (16:26.382)
made up. Yeah.

Elijah (16:38.446)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Eli Price (16:53.509)
kind of looted and would make their way into your home, pretend to be, you know, you know, whatever you were Muslim or Hindu and befriend you and then strangle you and steal all your stuff. It's kind of, and then, but there's also, there's that idea. And I think the word thug actually comes from, stems from the thuggy. But there's also the, the kind of,

Elijah (17:18.19)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (17:22.885)
ancient cult worshipping Kali kind of thing going on too. And I think that's more the direction that Spielberg and Lucas were going for with this idea. Yeah, it was originally titled Indiana Jones and the Temple of Death, which I guess Doom is more PG than Death. I don't know.

Elijah (17:49.23)
And death. More fun to say, that's for sure. Temple of death. Temple of doom. Anytime you can say doom, it's always fun.

Eli Price (17:53.541)
Doom is better. Yeah. Yeah So yeah, they they they move forward with this idea Robert Walt Watts was a producer and he had went all around India found great locations and Really really liked Some of the palace he found I think he called it that Amber Palace. I had seen another name for it somewhere else

Elijah (17:59.374)
You

Eli Price (18:22.309)
But it was in Jaipur, Jaipur, I think is how you say it, Jaipur of India. Several places he really, really liked. But alas, India did not like the script so much. They asked for numerous changes, one of which was taking out the word Maharaja altogether. They did not want them using that word.

Elijah (18:39.246)
I wonder why.

Eli Price (18:52.293)
Probably because it's a kind of ancient respected cultural thing. And, and Roshan Seth, who plays kind of the prime minister guy in the movie, he had said, he was quoted in the making of, he said, Indians are very sensitive about foreigners criticizing anything in their country, which is, I feel like that's true of any culture, but yeah.

Elijah (19:15.886)
I wonder why.

Everywhere, yeah, and maybe especially India, you know, where they're, yeah, colonialism, kind of, yeah, big deal there.

Eli Price (19:22.469)
Maybe especially India, but I feel like, I mean, I feel like America. Yeah. Anyways. Um, yeah. So they asked for changes. They didn't want to make the changes. Um, and, um, Robert Watts had contacted Spielberg and he was like, Hey, um, I found all the locations we want other than like the palaces in Sri Lanka. Um, and we're going to do interiors.

in studio anyway, why don't we just like do some map paintings, build some extra like studio light sets and that way we can just shoot everything in Sri Lanka and not have to worry about India. So that's what they did. And yeah, so, you know, the only other thing that kind of went into the beginnings of them.

putting the script together was Spielberg and Lucas both wanting it to be a bit of a darker movie, which is what we get. And we're going to save talk on that for later. Cause I think that that kind of plays into some interesting talk about why the movie is the way it is, some of the themes you get. So we'll save talking about why they wanted the film to be a bit darker. But yeah.

Elijah (20:23.118)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (20:33.87)
Yeah.

Elijah (20:41.006)
Yeah. So here's a quite a thought I was having, uh, watch this again for this. Um, so the Raiders and the Last Crusade, um, both have a lot of desert locations. You know, you have Indy, Indian in the desert a lot. Um, and people love those movies. They're everyone's favorite Indiana Jones movies, right? And then Temple of Doom, um, and Crystal Skull have a lot of jungle locations and people don't like those movies.

Eli Price (20:46.437)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (20:53.925)
Mm -hmm.

Yes.

Eli Price (21:03.621)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (21:09.157)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (21:11.086)
Those are the two people point out as not being as good. I just think that's interesting that people don't, that people enjoy the desert ones more than the jungle ones. And I love just looking at Temple of Doom. I like all that Sri Lankan stuff. I like the map paintings. I like all that. I think it's a beautiful, beautiful film to look at. Scenic, very scenic film, you know? And sometimes, you know, you watch movies that are set.

Eli Price (21:16.389)
That is interesting, yeah.

Eli Price (21:31.077)
Mm -hmm.

It really is. Yeah.

Elijah (21:40.398)
in India or in the jungle, in the Indian jungle, the Southeastern jungle. They can be very claustrophobic kind of sets and claustrophobic films, because Jungle's pretty claustrophobic, you know? But this is not a claustrophobic film at all. So many good vistas, so many... It feels open, it moves a lot, you know? There's a lot of... I like the descent from...

Eli Price (21:47.173)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (22:01.893)
Yeah.

Elijah (22:08.59)
being up in an airplane in the mountains all the way down into hell, basically. You go down, down, down, down, down, and then you work your way out with the mine carts back to being back out in the open again. And I enjoy that, just that visual narrative that you get through the film. I think it's fun, yeah.

Eli Price (22:10.853)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, basically, yeah.

Eli Price (22:23.397)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Down, down and back up again for sure. Um, yeah. And, and it's, I feel like it's not as claustrophobic probably because with a place like, even with a place like as contained as Sri Lanka, you end up with like several kind of like landscapes, um, between like jungle and there's some like great insert shots of like

Elijah (22:28.942)
Yeah.

Elijah (22:44.526)
Yeah.

Eli Price (22:51.109)
the elephants kind of walking across a little like plane or valley or something, you know, just that are just beautiful. Um, and even like the, there's a wide shot of like the suspension bridge at the end that I love that is very open. It's, you know, across a two cliff faces, big Valley. And it's just like a beautiful shot. Um, that, that kind of opened. I think that's something that Spielberg does well is.

Elijah (22:53.998)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Mm -hmm.

Elijah (23:02.67)
Mm -hmm. Oh, yeah.

Elijah (23:09.07)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (23:19.013)
giving you these like wide shots kind of to show you where you it's interesting because you don't think of Spielberg as like, um, you think of him more of like, as an adventure storyteller or like, especially in these, these first two decades of his, his films, he's ventures, fun, you know, he's action set pieces, but he, he always in all of these films has moments that are like more steel and.

Elijah (23:21.39)
Yeah.

Elijah (23:36.75)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (23:47.278)
Yeah.

Eli Price (23:47.973)
and kind of just taking in something in nature or some sort of wide shot of the setting you're in.

Elijah (23:50.03)
Yeah.

Elijah (23:56.11)
Yeah, he's got he's got so much John Ford in him and what he does and you know, John Ford always did that. You think coincidence of John Ford shot is like a monument Valley, right? It's kind of big open space with a person in it and spill break does that thing really well. That has a good amount of David Lean in him too. Especially when you get serious and yeah, there's like hardly anybody better at that than David Lean.

Eli Price (23:58.949)
Yeah, yes.

Eli Price (24:04.645)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (24:10.981)
Yes. Yes. That's what I was going to say too. Yeah. Which this, yeah, this was actually shot in near and around a city called candy in Sri Lanka, which is, um, where David Lean was based out of for bridge on the river. Um, so that's, that was, um, which I'm sure Spielberg was like geeking out over as, cause he's, he's like a David Lean, like,

Elijah (24:30.382)
Yeah.

Elijah (24:36.494)
I was sure.

Eli Price (24:39.621)
Um, fan boy. Uh, so yeah, he was, he was probably geeking out like, um, where David Lean shot bridge on the river. Um, but yeah, it, it's, it is very, uh, a very beautiful movie, I think. Um, and we can talk more about that as, as we go along. Um, let's talk a little bit about the cast. Um, Harrison Ford, of course, coming back on as, as Indy.

Elijah (24:40.974)
Yeah.

Elijah (24:46.542)
Yeah.

Elijah (25:07.63)
sexier than ever, you know? Yeah. Uh -huh.

Eli Price (25:09.029)
Yes, did some weight training, some intense weight training to because he'd be shirtless a lot. So.

Elijah (25:16.334)
My wife, whenever we watch this movie, my wife confirms that Harrison Ford in Temple of Dreams is about as sexy as it gets. So that weight training paid off. Here in 2024, it still paid off.

Eli Price (25:21.669)
Yes.

Hey, the weight training. It's, it's interesting because he, he's like, he's kind of like the classic, um, every man body type, you know, he, he's not like super like ripped or anything. He's just, he, he, you can tell like he's a strong dude, but it's not like, it's not like in your face. And I think that's, uh, I think that's what people like, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

Elijah (25:37.774)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (25:42.606)
Yeah.

Elijah (25:49.678)
Yeah, he's real, right? He's real, he's manly, he's sultry, you know? He doesn't have time for you because he's too busy. Yeah.

Eli Price (25:55.365)
Oh yeah. Exactly. Oh man. Yeah, it's what's interesting. Everybody's sweaty in this movie, which I'd be sweaty too if I was getting sacrificed. So, yeah, he it's what's interesting with with Ford here is he's coming off of like two.

Elijah (26:02.35)
He's sweaty. He's so sweaty. It's one of the sweatiest movies. Oh, it's such a sweaty movie. Yeah.

Elijah (26:12.11)
Oh, for sure, yeah.

Eli Price (26:24.613)
really huge movies. Like, so in 82, he does Blade Runner, um, which is probably like more acclaimed as time goes on than it was at the time, but, um, but still a really important movie. And then return of the Jedi, obviously wrapping up that trilogy in 83. Um, and then coming back on to do temple of doom. I mean, really like Ford in this stretch, basically from like,

Elijah (26:45.038)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (26:54.821)
American graffiti through what would it be like maybe the mid nineties with maybe like the fugitive or something like that. Um, yeah. So just like, I mean, he was just like, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I was trying to like pull something from the nineties that might've like ended that stretch, but, um,

Elijah (27:00.622)
Yeah. Mm -hmm. Oh, yeah. Mm -hmm. 92, I think. Yeah.

Air Force One was like 94, I think, something like that. Yeah. Good movies.

Eli Price (27:20.485)
Yeah, I'm not sure what it would be, but it's definitely like somewhere in the nineties from, so from basically late seventies to early to mid nineties, he's just like, he is the like star. Um, just incredible run. So really this is like right in the middle of that, um, that stardom, which is, I guess like he's at the peak, which is why he had to be in, in peak, uh, peak fitness and peak, uh,

Elijah (27:24.622)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (27:31.694)
Mm -hmm. Oh, yeah.

Elijah (27:45.678)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (27:49.093)
Peek shirtless scenes, I guess. Maybe he wrote that into his contract. Like I'll be in the movie if I can be ripped and shirtless a lot. I don't think so, but he is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's, he's, um, it in the interview, he's very like nonchalant when you, when you see him in like the making of docs and stuff, he's just like, Oh yeah, we, you know, we did this, you know,

Elijah (27:50.574)
Hehehehe.

Elijah (27:56.878)
Probably not, no. He seems a little chillier than that about things.

Elijah (28:09.102)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (28:13.038)
Yeah.

Eli Price (28:16.549)
It was, it was fun. I was happy with it. He's like so nonchalant. Um, but yeah, so, you know, in it's not a lot to say about Harrison Ford. He's, he's Harrison Ford. He's, he's great. Um, I do think it's interesting in this movie. He's more, I feel like he's more Han Solo in this movie than he was in Raiders. Um, very, very much more like.

Elijah (28:18.894)
Yeah. Yeah.

Elijah (28:30.126)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (28:38.766)
Mm -hmm. Yep. For sure. He's much more of a rogue.

Eli Price (28:44.165)
Yeah, a rogue kind of a cat a bit like my con is and yeah, so.

Elijah (28:46.35)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of gets it. Kind of gets what I think is like the. The one major flaw of this film, which is that it's a prequel to Raiders and I it's not like super upfront about that. You know, like if you pay attention to understand it's a prequel to Raiders.

Eli Price (28:59.461)
Mm.

Yeah.

Eli Price (29:09.189)
Right.

Mm -hmm.

Elijah (29:13.742)
And you don't get Indy in his classroom. You don't get down to earth Indy in this. All you get is adventurer, grave robber, tomb raider Indy is all you get. And his fortune and glory line. So it's a more immature Indiana Jones. But people loved Raiders. So you don't want to go back and watch a more.

Eli Price (29:17.381)
Mm -hmm.

Right.

Eli Price (29:26.245)
Yeah.

Eli Price (29:29.893)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Elijah (29:39.342)
immature version of that thing you love and Lucas didn't learn that he did it again later. When he went back and made a prequel to a movie people already loved but but he but it's I understand why they did it you know like the the desire to like not have to deal with the fact all the stuff that happened in Raiders in the plot but it makes for a more a more yeah catish, roguish, selfish, kind of meaner.

Eli Price (29:41.573)
Right.

Yeah.

Eli Price (29:56.997)
Right.

Eli Price (30:07.301)
Yeah. And it's, yeah, it's not in, it's weird because it's, I think I want to say the setting is just like one year before in the, in the movie. Um, like, cause I think this takes place in 35 and Raiders is in 36. Um, so it's, it's just, it doesn't, I don't know. It feels out of character for at least.

Elijah (30:07.79)
Indiana Jones and it's not as much fun to watch.

Elijah (30:18.094)
Yes, right before. Yeah.

Elijah (30:24.238)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (30:33.509)
I don't know about Lucas, but at least for Spielberg to not like have thought through that detail of like, how do we go from this Indie to that Indie in just one, or less than a year probably between the two.

Elijah (30:42.99)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (30:47.31)
Yeah. Yeah. It also undercuts. I don't know if we want to talk about this now or not, but it kind of undercuts the one of the major arcs in Raiders, which is that Indiana Jones says like, it's just like superstition and whatever. Like he doesn't believe in the idea of like God, the supernatural, all this kind of stuff when he really should, because he's seen some stuff, you know, based on this movie, he's really seen some stuff. Yeah.

Eli Price (31:01.669)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (31:06.277)
Yeah. Yes. I think that's a recurring thing though with Indy. He constantly goes back to like, well, I've seen a lot of, yeah, I guess in last crusade he, yeah, that's true.

Elijah (31:17.102)
No, he doesn't, though. No, he doesn't. He doesn't. Because Les Chrisay is like, there's a, what's that thing? Les T. R. C. of the Covenant. How you know? Well, I know. I'm sure it is, you know? Like, he definitely, like, after he goes through Raiders, he actually believes that there's something out there. And that's like explicit in this most, the latest one. You know, he says, like, I've, I've seen, I've seen this, I've seen that. And I've learned that there's more out there than I can explain. And that's a huge part of who Indiana Jones is.

Eli Price (31:25.893)
That's true, yeah.

Eli Price (31:30.373)
Yeah.

Eli Price (31:34.277)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (31:38.789)
Yep.

Elijah (31:43.598)
And so by having him experience all that he experiences, reeking the blood of Kali and everything, you know, it like undercuts what he learns in Raiders. Anyway, that's my only main critique of this film really. My criticism of this film is that making it a prequel undercuts Raiders in a way.

Eli Price (31:43.653)
Right.

Eli Price (31:50.885)
Yeah

Eli Price (31:55.365)
Yeah.

Yeah.

I was even thinking too, like, the character arc he... Cause I think he does have a character arc in this movie. Like, he has... Yeah, in Doom, he has a growth. Like, he starts with, like, fortune and glory. Like, he doesn't really grow out of his, like, immature as far as, like, how he treats Willy. Yeah. But he grows... Yeah, he...

Elijah (32:10.606)
In doom. Yeah.

Elijah (32:15.566)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (32:22.67)
He doesn't care about Willie. He doesn't really care about the short round that much. All he cares about is fortune and glory. Yeah, at the beginning. Yeah.

Eli Price (32:29.189)
At the beginning, but I think he grows more affectionate of short round. I don't know. I don't, I don't think maybe about Willie, but, um, but I mean, as a bond type character that, that kind of plays, um, right.

Elijah (32:33.902)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (32:37.518)
Yeah, never really buy that, do you? Yeah. Yeah, he's very Bond -like. That's what he is. Like, because Bond's pretty callous. You know, he's only in it for the mission. He uses women and other people left and right. I don't know.

Eli Price (32:48.901)
Yeah, but he does at the. Yeah, but at the end he's, you know, he's taken the Suncar stone back to the village. You know, Willie's like, what about your fortune and glory? And he's like, uh, you know, they would just, it would just collect dust in a museum anyway. And you know, this is more important. And then in Raiders, he's like, all the, all the talk that's like giving context is like, Oh, you've done so much for giving us stuff for this museum. And that's like all he cares about. And it's like, wait, this is just.

Elijah (32:55.438)
Yeah, he has growth. Yeah.

Elijah (33:02.958)
That's right. Some things are more important. Yeah.

Elijah (33:15.822)
I know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when the movie, when Raiders opens, yeah, he's robbing another tomb, taking an idol again, you know, like he learned nothing. See, that doesn't really work. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (33:18.437)
A year later, like he, did he forget the lessons he was supposed to have learned? And yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't work as a prequel. Um, it, uh, yeah, maybe they should have set it way earlier than just a year before.

Elijah (33:35.502)
But you know, for way earlier, yeah, it might have made a little more sense or something. I don't know. But I'll give Harrison Ford credit, though. He plays kind of the cat -ish rogue quite well. He is mostly kind of unlikable. As unlikable as mid-'80s Harrison Ford can be, he is. Not very, yeah.

Eli Price (33:47.397)
He does? Yeah.

Eli Price (33:55.781)
Yeah. Which is not very, but yeah. Uh, but yeah. Um, other cast Kate Capshaw plays Willie Scott, um, Spielberg had wanted to bring Maryam back, which would again, wouldn't have made sense. I don't know why he, cause when, right. Right. Um, yeah. But Lucas was like, didn't want to at all, which yeah. And so they had.

Elijah (34:12.014)
Mm -hmm. Because they hadn't seen each other in years, so they couldn't. Yeah, it had been a long time since Indiana Jones walked back into her life. Yeah.

Eli Price (34:24.677)
120 actresses apparently come through casting, which is a ton. Um, and, uh, Kate Capshaw comes along, which I think is her actress name. I can't remember. I think her name was like Kate Nail or something like that. Um, but she's this 30 year old originally from Texas had trained in, uh, New York as an actor, um, had been in some TV films and was kind of on track to do kind of the more serious indie film route.

Um, it's kind of, and that's, that's what she says. She says, that's what I was interested in, in doing. Um, but, um, she gets connected here with, I guess, maybe through an agent and was like, this is, you know, an opportunity. It could create opportunities for me, even if this isn't. Right. Right. Um, so she, she auditions and Spielberg just thought like she was, she knocked it out of the park. She had like all the energy. She was beautiful. Um, you know, so he.

Elijah (35:05.934)
Yeah. Who wouldn't want to be in the sequel to Indiana Jones, you know? Yeah.

Eli Price (35:22.501)
takes the tape to four and he's like, I'm just going to show you this one tape. And four was like, yep, she's, she's the one. So, um, so, and then for her, it was kind of, um, when you hear her talk about Spielberg at that time, she kind of had like this love at first sight kind of a thing with Spielberg that, that was, it seems like it was a little bit reciprocated on set, but couldn't be followed through with because he was.

Elijah (35:27.758)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (35:51.941)
He was kind of coming out of one relationship and then reconnecting with Amy Irving, who he had previously been engaged to and they got married during the filming of this and had their first son like a year later. So, um, kind of put a, put a pause on that connection. Uh, they ended up getting married and I think 91. Um, yeah, still married seven kids. Um, some adopted, I think, uh, kids. Um,

Elijah (35:54.51)
Yeah.

Elijah (36:00.11)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (36:10.35)
Yeah.

91, yeah, and still married. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (36:21.381)
And we talked about in an ET episode how that was the first time he was like, I want to be a father, because he loved working with the kids, which was really cool. And yeah, the character of Willie was named after Spielberg's Cocker Spaniel. So there you go. Indiana Jones named after Lucas's dog, Willie.

Elijah (36:29.486)
Yeah.

Elijah (36:43.726)
after a dog.

Eli Price (36:46.405)
named after Spielberg's dog and short round named after Bill and Gloria's dog, apparently the writers of the film. So, uh, yeah, cute. Yes. Which I think traces back to a movie called still helmet. Um, apparently there was, um, this, it was like a Korea, it was set in the Korean war, I think. And one of the soldiers calls, um, a Korean kid short round and he's like, what's short round? He's like, it's.

Elijah (36:51.502)
We named the dog Short Round.

Eli Price (37:15.781)
It's a round. He was basically calling him short round because he was letting him travel with them, but he wasn't going to let him go all the way to where he was going. And a short round is a round that doesn't hit the target. It doesn't make it there. Um, so I was like, Oh, that's, that's interesting. I would never would have guessed. Um, um, so yeah, and it's interesting that it's, you know, um, uh, kid of Asian descent that's called short round by, you know, uh,

Elijah (37:25.102)
Oh, I sort around. Yeah.

Elijah (37:32.782)
Yeah.

Elijah (37:43.31)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (37:46.117)
white dude that's in his country. So yeah, but Kiwi Kwan plays short round. Our beloved Kiwi Kwan, now that he's won his Oscar for everything everywhere all at once, which that was my favorite part of that whole award season was watching all of his speeches and man, I just smiled.

Elijah (38:01.806)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (38:06.67)
Really fun, wasn't it? Yeah. Uh huh.

Eli Price (38:14.629)
I just smiled every time I saw him talking about making that movie and taking pictures with Harrison Ford. So good.

Elijah (38:20.32)
So much fun.

Uh huh. And how fun is it that like, he has that in that very long fight sequence. He has a moment where he does some like kind of karate moves or whatever, where he like jumps around and kicks and stuff, which is kind of unbelievable, but everything's unbelievable in this movie and in Indiana Jones movies. But he does that. And then I just was thinking about like, when he first starts using the fanny pack and stuff to fight and...

Eli Price (38:36.837)
Yeah. Uh huh.

Eli Price (38:42.661)
Yes. Yeah.

Eli Price (38:51.397)
Mm -hmm. Yes.

Elijah (38:52.495)
all the stuff that it does and everything everywhere. It's like, yeah, it just comes full circle. Super fun.

Eli Price (38:55.685)
Yeah, it does. Yeah. Yeah. They, so they went through like 6 ,000 is what I read. 6 ,000 child actors and amateurs, which seems like a lot. It seems kind of unbelievable. Um, but I guess if you, yeah. Um, but yeah, so Mike Fenton, the, the casting, um, guy play some ads for in LA schools for some kids and, um, Quan actually showed up.

Elijah (39:06.478)
That's a lot of kids. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure there's 6 ,000 kids in the world, you know?

Eli Price (39:25.765)
uh, with his older brother, his older brother was auditioning, but, um, he w and he was given his older brother some like notes and, and they were like, Oh, we like this kid. We like, we like you. Uh, and so he was 12 years old at the time. Um, I think he's of Chinese Vietnamese descent. Um, and, uh, they, so, you know, we, they liked him. They were like, okay, let's get you to do some, some auditioning. And so Spielberg liked him so much that he calls in.

Elijah (39:32.782)
Yeah.

Elijah (39:37.006)
Hahaha.

Eli Price (39:55.429)
Ford and they do kind of like a little improv audition together, which is them playing like a card game together. And that ends up making it into the movie, which I thought was really cool. So, you know, and Ford, at the time, well, in the making of documentary that you can watch and then even like during this past award season when, you know,

Elijah (40:04.59)
Hmm. In the movie, yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (40:25.477)
He was getting all that attention for like, just as like, Oh yeah, he is great. He was, he was fun to work with. He was emotionally invested as much as anybody else, you know, on the set. So, um, just really cool. And, and going back to your comment about his karate moves, he was a huge fan of Jackie Chan movies. Um, and so he, and in the making of, he was like, yeah, I was just like doing stuff. I saw Jackie Chan do, um,

Elijah (40:30.19)
Yeah.

Elijah (40:45.742)
Oh yeah.

Elijah (40:54.094)
That's amazing. Yeah.

Eli Price (40:54.917)
And so like, what a dream to be a 12 year old kid and be getting to like imitate your idol.

Elijah (41:02.606)
Yeah. And this was right. I'm trying to think back. You'll know better right now. But this was really the first movie where Spielberg really worked with kids, right? I mean, there's there's a kid that's kind of the main one of the main characters in Close Encounters, but he's not really in a lot of the movie. Like one one big scene. There's some kids in Jaws, but they're really not in it very much. So this is really the first one where kids like the main.

Eli Price (41:18.565)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (41:22.661)
Mm -hmm. Yes, just very little, yeah.

Eli Price (41:30.629)
Yeah, a main character, like, yeah.

Elijah (41:32.398)
Yeah, and now Spielberg is like renowned for working with children, you know. Yeah, this, because this was, this is

Eli Price (41:35.973)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah, well, this was like a good like lead -up to ET.

Elijah (41:43.118)
Yeah, yeah, to E .T. and Empire of the Sun. Yeah, so it's I think that's really interesting, though, like you can see, because he's I think Keanu Coyne is so much fun in this movie. And I mean, people have complained about him in the past. Prior to his everything, ever all once the Renaissance, you know, people would complain about short round being annoying or whatever. And I think it's tons of fun and kind of brings.

Eli Price (41:45.861)
Yeah.

Eli Price (41:54.469)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (42:04.613)
Yeah.

I don't think he's annoying. Yeah. Yeah.

Elijah (42:12.878)
Um, like good, different energy to an Indiana Jones movie. It kind of, uh, it cuts, cuts a little bit of that, um, kind of mean guy behavior, like kind of self -centered behavior that Indies has going on. Um, and it also gives us maybe one of the darkest moments is Bill Burges, entire filmography, um, as well when Indiana Jones hits him, um, while he's under the, under the spell. Um, so, um, I love him there. I think he's so much fun. So good. Yeah.

Eli Price (42:16.165)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (42:22.917)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (42:34.533)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Eli Price (42:41.189)
Yeah, I agree. So much fun. And apparently he went on and had somewhat of a career doing some stunt work and martial arts choreography and whatnot. So which, which totally makes sense. Cause by the time you get to everything everywhere, he's, you know, he's doing great, great stunts. So, um, yeah, other cast, um, Amrish, uh, Puri plays Mola Ram. He was a Bollywood actor that Spielberg really liked and wanted. And, um,

Elijah (42:57.806)
Yeah. Oh yeah, for sure.

Eli Price (43:10.245)
super busy. Like he was just a, I guess he was just like very prolific in Bollywood. Um, cause they adjusted their shooting schedule, like to make sure he was, he, yeah, he, he fit. Um, I read that he did 25 films between 1983 and 84. So just constant. I think he was even like leaving on weekends. They do. Yeah.

Elijah (43:20.686)
Make it fit in there.

Elijah (43:28.846)
Wow. They make a lot of movies. They make a lot of movies in Bollywood. They make like three times the amount of movies that we make in the United States and always have. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Yeah.

Eli Price (43:38.789)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'd need to watch more Bollywood. I've seen a few here and there. One of my friends in college and then he was my roommate for a bit is Indian and I would watch one with him every once in a while. And so, yeah, definitely need to catch maybe some of the more like prolific ones. I think would be fun. But...

Elijah (44:05.998)
Yeah.

Eli Price (44:08.389)
But yeah, I want to, oh yeah, that might be fun. Uh, yeah, probably my favorite thing about, um, Amrish was that he apparently, uh, I think it was Roshan Seth said he continued to shave his head after this movie. So apparently he, he wasn't like a shave head guy until this movie and was just like, ah, I'm just going to roll with this now. Um, so that's fun. Um, speaking of Roshan Seth, he, he plays Chatar Lal, the prime minister.

Elijah (44:08.718)
Do a Bollywood series one of these times. Yeah.

Elijah (44:27.854)
Ha. Ha.

Eli Price (44:38.341)
kind of character. I think he calls himself the prime minister. But, and he said he had like largely quit acting until he came back on to do Gandhi. And then kind of made a few more after Gandhi, including this one. And so, yeah, it, you know, he, so he makes Gandhi makes another,

Elijah (44:41.198)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Elijah (44:49.454)
Hmph. Hmph.

Eli Price (45:05.861)
I can't remember the one in between. Makes this one and I'm not sure if he continued after that, but I thought he was fine. Raj Singh is the little kid that plays the Maharaja. I think he does a good little job. Does fine. This I thought was really fun. DR... DR Nanayakara is how I'm gonna say it. He plays the shaman that is in the village.

And he did not speak English. And so Spielberg was basically just feeding him the English lines. So he would, Spielberg would say the line and he would like repeat it. And so they would just go back and forth and get several takes. Even to the extent that at one point, you know, when he says darkness, Spielberg kind of did like.

his hand in front of his eyes, I guess, to kind of show the guy playing the shaman what he was meaning like darkness, like you can't see. And so when he does the line, he did his hand in front of his eyes too, and that's what is in the movie. And yeah, so, you know, Michael Kahn, the editor, had to kind of piece all of that together, kind of had some built -in pauses because he's...

Elijah (46:18.765)
Uh... How funny.

Elijah (46:29.07)
Uh huh.

Eli Price (46:31.493)
He's literally waiting for his line to be said. I think it really works. You wouldn't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Other, other interesting cast. You have Roy Chow who plays Lao She. Dan Aykroyd is actually in it for a second. Philip Tan. Yeah. Yeah. I even had to go back and be like, Oh yeah. Okay.

Elijah (46:34.222)
Yeah, it does. Makes you mystical, you know?

Elijah (46:53.902)
I've never noticed that before, actually.

Eli Price (47:01.349)
Um, cause even yeah, this watch through, I was like, oh, okay. I didn't, I forgot. I didn't realize he was in there until I was doing research after. Um, yeah. Philip Tan is the, the, the henchman at, at the beginning. He's, he's, he's one of those kind of that guys, you know, he's in a lot of stuff. Um, and you don't realize it until you're, you look at his filmography and you're like, oh, he's, oh yeah, he's that guy in all those movies. Um,

Elijah (47:01.742)
How funny.

Elijah (47:18.574)
Yeah, uh -huh. Yeah.

Elijah (47:26.606)
Uh huh.

Eli Price (47:28.453)
Uh, another fun one for the Indy series is Pat Roach, who kind of becomes this, he, he's an ex wrestler and kind of becomes this kind of running, um, not joke, but kind of like, kind of inside thing of like, he's going to play a big character that Indy fights, um, maybe multiple big characters that Indy fights in every Indy movie. Um, so he, he's like the chief guard that Indy does. I think he fights him.

Elijah (47:47.982)
Uh -huh.

Eli Price (47:59.013)
in the in the palace and then also in the mines too I think they yeah so he yeah he's twice twice here and then the only other one is a guy named Nizwar Karanj who plays the sacrifice victim he had kind of like a fun little story where you know Spielberg found him through I don't know if he was like in some sort of film school or

Elijah (48:00.942)
In the minds. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (48:27.269)
It was something like that. And, um, he brought him in and, uh, you know, he's obviously has his heart taken out and, um, you know, he didn't know, like he, he knew that was in the script, but obviously like they didn't actually rip his heart out. So, so he didn't actually see that until like the film, like he got to see like the premiere. Um, so that's, that's kind of fun to like for the first time with everyone else.

Elijah (48:36.334)
Yeah.

Elijah (48:49.326)
Yeah. Uh huh.

Eli Price (48:56.229)
watch your own heart being ripped out of your chest. And he actually too came up with the idea. When they were doing that, he kind of told Spielberg, he was like, well, if this was really happening, you know, this person would definitely be praying to Shiva. And Spielberg was like, okay, yeah, you know, roll with that, do that. And so he kind of came up with the little like muttering a prayer that he does.

Elijah (48:57.166)
Yeah, heart get ripped out. Yeah.

Eli Price (49:25.989)
Which is a, it's a, that's a recurring thing with Spielberg when, and cause I heard Kate Capshaw talk about this too, is that like, when you, if you come up with an idea as the actor, Spielberg will like nine times out of 10, let you do it. And he's going to be rolling cameras. And, um, and she was actually like, so I really had to like, be careful with the ideas that I shared because it might, yeah, it might end up in the film. Um, and you know, I better.

Elijah (49:48.942)
Mm -hmm. They're gonna end up on film. Yeah.

Eli Price (49:54.917)
better be, I better like it, you know? Um, yeah. Uh, as far as the crew goes, um, you've got producer Robert Watts that I've talked about a little bit already. Um, Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall do some, you know, executive and associate producing. Um, uh, you know, Lucas and Spielberg kind of come up with the story with William Willard, hike and Gloria Katz doing the screenplay.

Elijah (49:57.038)
Yeah.

Eli Price (50:24.933)
Um, Douglas Slocum comes back as the DP. He was the DP for Raiders too. Um, Michael Kahn, uh, Spielberg's tried and true editor, um, for basically 95 % of his films. Um, which, you know, I think I've, I can't remember if I've said it before, um, cause I kind of sometimes record these out of sequence, but, um, uh, you know, I think editing is.

Elijah (50:41.902)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (50:55.461)
one of the most overlooked like important things about filmmaking and having someone that you basically work with your whole career is like so important, I think, to the success of your how your films come together. And, you know, a similar thing with John Williams, who obviously does the music here. Yeah, so I think sound is a really fun part of this movie. Ben Bart.

Elijah (50:58.958)
Oh yeah.

Elijah (51:03.438)
Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Elijah (51:10.51)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (51:24.901)
does the sound effects who he's like the Star Wars guy. And so that it's fun to hear him. There's like a little this I have like the Blu -ray with like the four, the first four, all in one. And there's like one disc that's just all special features. And there's one that's like, yep. Yeah. I think mine's right here behind me. But yeah, so it has like the

Elijah (51:28.846)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (51:40.206)
Yeah.

Yeah. This Blu -ray. Yeah. Right there? Yeah. It's a good set.

Eli Price (51:54.565)
the effects of Indiana Jones, the music of Indiana Jones. And there's a sound one where it's just like, like 10 to 15 minutes of Ben Bart like going through all the sounds that he made and how he made them, which is really fun to watch. Um,

Elijah (52:07.534)
There's a, if you ever have a chance, or listeners, if they ever have a chance, at the Academy Museum here in LA, there's a one room that is devoted to sound design. And they use the opening sequence of Raiders as their scene. And they show you like every...

Eli Price (52:14.341)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (52:18.245)
Yeah.

Eli Price (52:25.285)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (52:30.149)
Yeah.

Elijah (52:35.15)
like how they make all the little sounds, like layer them on, and then they layer them on, let you see it with the sound, without the sound, with the studio sound, all that kind of stuff. It's so much fun because you get to see like, oh, like that crunch is actually somebody eating an apple. It's not the crunch of a thing going down, or that's a garage door opening for that thing. And once you see them do it, and then you hear it, you can't help but see the thing you saw when you hear it, and it's really fun. So.

Eli Price (52:37.925)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (52:43.557)
Yeah.

Eli Price (52:50.181)
Yeah.

Eli Price (52:54.789)
Yeah.

Eli Price (53:02.021)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Elijah (53:04.334)
If anyone has a chance to see it, it's a really cool part of the exhibit there.

Eli Price (53:08.133)
Yeah. My favorite two sounds from Raiders is the, the, the big boulder is just, he re he like hung out of the back of their, um, their suburban or whatever they were in going down like a gravel hill and like recorded it. And, uh, and then I think in, um, the arc when, so when they're lifting the lid off the arc, it's, it's a toilet cover, which is like, I guess a little bit blasphemous, I guess.

Elijah (53:14.094)
Uh huh.

Elijah (53:20.174)
Mm -hmm. Yep. Yep.

Elijah (53:31.758)
That's awesome. That's so funny. Nah, it's magic. Yeah, it's magic.

Eli Price (53:37.477)
Not really funny. Yeah, movie magic. Yeah. Elliot Scott was the set decorator is what he's credited as, which I think probably would today just be called the production designer. And he does a lot of the sets like are like very much due to his like expertise and work.

Elijah (54:05.07)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (54:08.133)
The special effects is Dennis Marin with George Gibbs doing like the mechanical special effects. And we'll get into some of that. Stunt people, Vic Armstrong is the main one. Glenn Randall is another big one, but Vic Armstrong is awesome. And we'll talk about that later. And then yeah, for the opening number, you have Danny Daniels doing the choreography, who I think had done...

these from heaven maybe a few years before, which is a pretty well known one. Um, and so, um, yeah, the, yeah, opening, speaking of the opening, let's, we can talk about that. It's, it's, um, this Chinese version of George Gershwin and Cole Porter's Anything Goes. So, um, kind of a, probably more familiar at the time than it is now, um, song, um, but in Mandarin. So.

Elijah (54:51.438)
Yeah.

Elijah (54:57.518)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (55:07.653)
Um, yeah, it's, it's kind of, it was, I think it was Lucas's idea to open with a musical number. Um, and it's kind of like a tribute to the Busby Berkeley ballets. So, um, Kate, so Kate Capshaw actually could sing and dance. Uh, they didn't know that when they cast her, but it just kind of worked out. Um, so she learned, uh, to sing the song in Mandarin and, um, she actually also learned.

Elijah (55:19.694)
Yeah.

Elijah (55:27.438)
Mm -hmm.

Huh. Yeah.

Eli Price (55:37.349)
to tap dance. She learned a whole tap dance routine and then she didn't get to do it because the cost, the dress that the costume designer Anthony Powell had made was very tight and very delicate. It was made of all these like 1920s beads and sequins and like really elaborate and they actually shot this.

Elijah (55:53.71)
Mmm.

Elijah (56:00.526)
Yeah.

Eli Price (56:04.965)
funny story about the dress they shot this when they got back from she Sri Lanka and so they had the dresses kind of in some of the Sri Lankan scenes including the campsite scene and apparently it was draped over a branch and in the background the elephant started like chewing on the dress and so they got back and the the dress was like all messed up and one of my this is

Elijah (56:16.142)
Yeah.

Elijah (56:25.582)
Oh my gosh.

Eli Price (56:33.925)
Maybe my favorite, if not just one of my favorite things that I found in the research. So Powell had to repair it obviously. And then when he filed the insurance claim, he had to write Dress Eat By Elephant on the insurance claim. Which only making a movie do you get to write that on an insurance claim.

Elijah (56:55.598)
Yeah, the dress thing touches on something that I was thinking about watching it. Again, it's a trope. This is a trope, right? That your female lead starts out more clothed and then as the action movie goes along, gets less and less clothed toward the end. That's a total trope in movies. I just think that's an interesting trope to notice.

Eli Price (57:13.317)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (57:24.357)
Yeah.

Elijah (57:24.398)
And sometimes people will do it for laughs. I think about like Speaking of Lucas like an attack of the clones like you have a moment where like Amidala like Her like her midriff gets ripped off, you know Like because the animal attacks her and I always thought that was a bit of a joke like on that trope To like say well we have to do this because you have to do this in movies kind of thing and it really happens a lot throughout throughout this movie is like a big part of

Eli Price (57:39.749)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (57:45.029)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (57:53.966)
what's going on there. But anyway, I think it's funny.

Eli Price (57:54.853)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it probably I would say it it's probably there and Raiders to a bit with With Marion. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. I didn't think about that, but I think that is true well, and it it it probably aligns with like the the entire character is sort of a trope like a stereotype like For Kim I think in their mind for comedic effect and we can talk about it later how how that works?

Elijah (58:02.542)
Marion.

Elijah (58:17.038)
Yeah, totally.

Elijah (58:21.902)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, this. I mean, it's not a bad time to start talking about, though, like with the this opening sequence, you know, with the with the gong hit and with the dance number and it's still in like he, you know, in Indiana Jones, like first appears here walks out. He's like he's like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, you know, like the whole thing is like it's this Lucas thing where like we're going to we're going to take this genre of movie.

Eli Price (58:24.293)
and what the reaction was, but yeah.

Eli Price (58:30.789)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, because it is the setup.

Eli Price (58:41.893)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (58:49.678)
or multiple genres of movies that I liked from the past kind of jamming together and update them, like with new special effects and new filmmaking techniques. And so like, I, I love the way this movie starts. I mean, there, you know, is the Indiana Jones trope is to take the, the paramount mountain and then turn it into something, you know? And yeah, the Gone Crossroad is great. And it like puts you like, right. Okay. It's like, okay, now we're in, we're in Palin Presburger. We're in archers mode, you know?

Eli Price (58:51.397)
Mm -hmm.

Yep.

Eli Price (59:06.053)
Yeah. Yeah. The Gong crossfade is great. Yeah.

Eli Price (59:18.213)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (59:18.638)
We're in Stanley Donnan musical world. We're in John Huston adventure movie world. We're in Humphrey Bogart John Huston adventure movie world. We're in an old James Bond movie. We're in a 1960 James Bond movie too. And they give you all those things right at the beginning of the movie to kind of set your expectations for what you're gonna see. Right down to here's your heroine.

Eli Price (59:26.437)
Yeah.

Eli Price (59:33.477)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (59:46.926)
Here's your here's your female lead in this movie and she's gonna be a shrieking scared damsel in distress because that's the kind of woman that is in these older movies, you know these kind of adventure movies and We can talk about her more than her performance and everything that character more later if you want to but I just want to right now I just want to say like from the get -go you should know what kind of woman this is gonna be, you know, it's not gonna be Marion Yeah, it is. Yeah

Eli Price (59:56.581)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:00:04.229)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:00:10.181)
Right, yeah. It's like the opposite of the intro to Marian.

Elijah (01:00:16.206)
Marion shows up and she drinks everybody at the table as the toughest person in the room. Willie is a showgirl, you know?

Eli Price (01:00:20.261)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, yeah, I think Spielberg described her as, you know, a rich girl that's always had her way and is, you know, just like doing this all because she gets to do it and get applause and adoration from everyone in the room. Like, you know, which is like just totally the opposite of the introduction to Marian, which is, you know, I think, you know, I think that's conscious. Like I think that's a conscious choice for sure on his and Lucas's part.

Elijah (01:00:31.47)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (01:00:38.926)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:00:43.47)
Yeah. Yeah.

Elijah (01:00:48.174)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (01:00:52.046)
Yeah, it's a different tone for the film. Yeah. And I think it works, but yeah.

Eli Price (01:00:53.989)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah, because Yeah, oh, yeah, and I think part of what they're what they Are doing with the Indiana Jones movies is like you've been talking about they're just like hey What is something that we have always loved that like what can we like? What can we puzzle piece together like of all the things that we've loved and that's just like one aspect is that type of character?

Elijah (01:01:11.694)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (01:01:18.958)
Yeah. Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:01:23.557)
like, hey, there was all these movies that had this type of character growing up. Let's do that.

Elijah (01:01:29.87)
Yeah, like you can imagine, you don't have to squint very hard to imagine like this kind of movie, but with like someone like Marilyn Monroe in it, in that role, you know, kind of a bombshell blind who's not the smartest person in the room, you know, can be a little bit streaky, a little bit grossed out by everything that's going on, you know, but still has a little bit of enough to stick up for herself with Indy, you know, but mainly it's just there to...

Eli Price (01:01:38.757)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:01:46.277)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:01:52.453)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:01:59.086)
kind of be that ultra feminine kind of character in these weird scenarios, you know? Yeah.

Eli Price (01:02:04.709)
Yep. Yep. Yeah, for sure. And you know, they, it's, I think it's a really good opening. You know, you mentioned, um, like the musical like influence too is like really interesting. One of the things that I was kind of like taking a back by for half a second, uh, watching it this time was you really go into this like, yeah, fantasy dream sequence world. Cause like,

Elijah (01:02:30.35)
fantasy world thing. Yeah, I know.

Eli Price (01:02:33.957)
It's a tiny stage in this little club. Like there's not room for what you see on the screen. Um, so it's, it's, it's almost like, um, you know, those, all those old musicals, you know, basically played on the fact that you, you and they both know that this is being filmed on us on a studio set. Um, and kind of play into that meta almost like a metatextual like fantasy mashup kind of thing.

Elijah (01:02:39.726)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:02:54.126)
That's right. Yeah.

Elijah (01:03:01.262)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, it's movie movie. Like it's very movie. It can only happen in a movie. You couldn't even see that on a stage if you're in person, you know, like even the largest stage you can imagine you couldn't do that. It's movie movie. So like you're not supposed to take anything. Not that it's not that it's not serious what you're watching, but you're supposed to take it in in that kind of fantasy. It wants you know, you're watching a fantasy. Yeah, you're not supposed to judge it by the physics of the real world, you know? Yeah.

Eli Price (01:03:03.429)
Um, yeah. Mm hmm. Yes. Right.

Mm -hmm. Right.

Eli Price (01:03:23.557)
It's not real, right?

Eli Price (01:03:29.605)
Mm -hmm or even the You know and we keep jumping on to this like, you know, this is a stereotype like but you're not supposed to judge it by like What's wrong or right about stereotypes in real life? Like it's supposed to just be fun. It's not supposed to be It's not making any it's not supposed to be making any comment on what a woman should or should not be like

Elijah (01:03:53.902)
Right. That's right. Yeah. Now I will say, I do feel like Lucas in particular kind of maybe goes a bit too far with that idea sometime. And you look at the Star Wars prequels and how the Trade Federation or how the Gungans are characterized and things like that, where he does it here too. Like this is, look at the way that on the thuggies and -

Eli Price (01:04:04.869)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:04:16.037)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:04:23.758)
and you know, Willie and everybody, like how these people are characterized. And I think he maybe has a tendency to push it a little bit too far. And he can, that is the defense he gives that, you know, these aren't racist stereotype portrayals because I'm not showing real people. You know, I'm just using bits of cultural ephemera to create kinds of characters in a fantasy movie world or whatever.

Eli Price (01:04:45.541)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:04:52.741)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah. But also you have to question that a bit when, you know, the feminist backlash when the movie releases and also when the Indian authorities won't let you film in their country. So, you know.

Elijah (01:04:53.614)
Yeah, I'm not sure that that argument holds all the water in the world, you know?

Elijah (01:05:05.486)
I know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. At some point you have to have a little bit of humility and I really don't think that, especially in the mid -80s, Lucas and Spielberg had that much humility at the time, you know? Actually, I think the reaction to this film helped Spielberg considerably learn a bit more humility. I think you can see that in the kind of moves he makes after this. I'm not sure about Lucas, you know?

Eli Price (01:05:22.085)
Yeah. Oh no.

Eli Price (01:05:30.725)
Mm -hmm. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And back on our 1941 episode, we kind of touched a little bit on, you know, how things can get a little bit out of hand when directors have maybe a little bit too much power. We actually will talk about that. I'm doing kind of a little bit out of sequence, the Twilight Zone episode, we really get into that, which that movie came out before this.

Elijah (01:05:50.862)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Elijah (01:05:59.95)
Mmm, yeah.

Eli Price (01:06:05.189)
but the episode will be after, because I'm lumping it in with amazing stories. But yeah, so we'll talk a little bit more about, but that is definitely a factor. It's a time where the title director carries with it a lot of power, and sometimes that power goes a little bit too unchecked. But yeah, so this, and.

Well, I am realizing too, um, cause I'm looking at my notes, the, so they started shooting in candy, um, in Sri Lanka, uh, one week after ET lost the best picture to Gandhi. So ET did, did come out before this. We were, we were off a little bit on our, um, timeline there. Yeah, he had, so he, he was coming into, uh, with short round with some experience working with kids. Um, but yeah, so.

Elijah (01:06:46.286)
Ah, did come before this. Yeah. We were, yeah. So he had done his kid acting before this movie. Yeah.

Elijah (01:06:58.99)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:07:02.469)
You know, he gets disappointed losing to Gandhi for ET and then jumps right into the next thing. So.

Elijah (01:07:11.182)
I don't know why I always, I always think that ET came out in like 86, but it came out in 83. Yeah, I don't know why that is. It came out in 83. And I always, I always forget that. And something about these Spielberg movies right here in the middle of the 80s that I feel like all came out in 86. I don't know why. But yeah, 83 for that one.

Eli Price (01:07:16.901)
It feels like it did, but yeah.

Eli Price (01:07:28.645)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's interesting too, cause I'm so I'm like, I was born in the early nineties and ET typically, like usually you're the movies that you're watching as a kid or like in the past, you know, five, six years, like they kind of have some staying power, but ET had a lot of staying power too. Cause it was still really a big deal when I was a kid, when I was a young kid, I watched it as a kid, you know, as kind of like a.

Elijah (01:07:56.014)
Mm -hmm. Oh, yeah.

Eli Price (01:08:01.637)
It's one of those like rite of passage. You watch this when you're a kid sort of movies, you know? But yeah, so they had a $28 million budget, which I think they put to pretty good use.

Elijah (01:08:05.262)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (01:08:13.998)
Yeah. Well, that was the whole Indiana Jones thing initially. You know, like that was why Lucas convinced Spielberg to do it. It was like, you need to learn how to make a movie fast and cheap. And this movie you can make fast and cheap. And so that's always what Raiders in India has been. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:08:17.893)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:08:24.293)
Yeah, after 1941, yep.

Eli Price (01:08:34.117)
Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As far as locations goes, we talked about candy. They, they did a good bit of the exteriors in candy or the, the, in the area surrounding to, um, the one big exterior that wasn't there was the Shanghai car chase, which they shot in Macau, um, which is currently, I think an autonomous state in China. Um, near it's near Hong Kong.

Elijah (01:08:54.414)
Hmm. Hmm.

Eli Price (01:09:03.557)
Um, but at the time was actually, uh, Portuguese territory. Um, I guess, which is why they could shoot there. Um, even though they couldn't shoot the Chinese, um, movie in China. Um, I guess Macau was kind of, I think at the time Portuguese territory. So they, they were able to shoot that scene there at least, um, which is a great little car chase scene. Um, yeah, so they,

Elijah (01:09:15.95)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:09:31.813)
They did, you know, elephant orphanage for the elephants. They've got fruit bats actually like flying around. So they captured the actual foot, which those are fruit bats. Indiana Jones calls them vampire bats, but I think vampire bats are actually like very tiny. Yeah. So the fruit bats are the big ones flying around. So, which they actually, I think those are, and I think those are like,

Elijah (01:09:39.822)
Hehehe.

Elijah (01:09:44.462)
with vampire bats, yeah. But it is scarier. Lilly thinks, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:09:59.365)
the real sounds that they captured on location because they captured a lot of like animal sounds, like local animal sounds when they were in Sri Lanka. Bart kind of talks about that in the sound making of, but yeah, which is fun. And then the, so one of my, one of the other cool, really cool things that was kind of like happenstance and save them a lot of money was.

that there happened to be some British engineers working on a dam in the area and they commissioned them to build the suspension bridge. So they like saved a ton of money not having to bring someone in to do that. They just like, these guys are here. Why don't we just hire their engineers? Why don't we just hire them? And yeah.

Elijah (01:10:43.214)
That's kind of ironic, right? I mean, filming in the place where they film Bridge on the River Quine, you get some British engineers to come in and build your suspension bridge. That works. No one will do it better.

Eli Price (01:10:52.837)
That is true. I didn't even make that connection, but yeah, that's great.

Uhhh...

Elijah (01:11:01.038)
I'm sure they hated watching it be torn down.

Eli Price (01:11:03.941)
Yes. Yeah. Or loved it. Cause I mean, I, to be honest, if I built it and then was able to like, if they let them come and like watch them explode it, that kind of probably be pretty fun to watch. It's always fun to watch something explode. Um, um, but yeah, so they, you know, they didn't have exteriors of the palace. So the, the rare shots you'd get of like the palace exteriors, like, especially like the wide shots are.

Elijah (01:11:07.022)
You

Elijah (01:11:14.606)
Yeah. Yeah. True.

Eli Price (01:11:33.925)
are some of those matte paintings on canvases. And one thing that I came across that's kind of like a fun fact was that David Fincher worked on some of the matte paintings that were used in the movie. Which I was like, oh, David Fincher popping up.

Elijah (01:11:36.27)
Hmm. Hmm.

Elijah (01:11:45.646)
Huh. Huh.

Yeah, I didn't know that. I know he did matte painting work, kind of like James Cameron did early in his career, but...

Eli Price (01:11:52.741)
Yep. I don't know to what extent, but you know, he probably wasn't like the main guy, but he did some work on it apparently. So that's really fun. And you do get a good bit of matte painting for a lot of like the location stuff, kind of adding some depth here and there. Yeah.

Elijah (01:12:02.862)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:12:11.022)
Oh, isn't it great? Yeah. Yeah. I love it so much. I mean, they don't do it now. It's all digital now. But they've had a time machine, right? Go back in time, get a job on a movie like this, and then just take the matte paintings home with you, put them on your wall, right? Because they're just incredible stuff. Yeah. Most of the time they weren't saved. Oh, yeah. Incredible.

Eli Price (01:12:20.805)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:12:28.933)
Yes, yes, they are. Yeah, man, those palace ones are so good. Yeah, so that was for like the location stuff. About three quarters of the film was shot at Elstree Studios in London, which is like Lucas's place for Star Wars and for Raiders. So kind of going.

Elijah (01:12:53.454)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:12:56.293)
I guess kind of like home for Lucas at this point. And yeah, so they do, you know, obviously the interiors and the mines, just all of that. And then also like in the, in the lot, they do some of the outdoor stuff where they're like building little small things like the, the cliff side where the bridge is hanging down is kind of out in the studio lot that they built. All that kind of stuff is.

Elijah (01:12:59.342)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:13:18.606)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Eli Price (01:13:25.125)
all at Elstree. The only other location was there's a team that went to Florida to get footage of the alligators, which is funny because I'm pretty sure alligators are more like in the Americas and over there it would be crocodiles. So if you're an expert on that you would probably notice, but I couldn't tell you the difference, the strong difference between the two. So it works for me.

Elijah (01:13:32.622)
Oh yeah.

Elijah (01:13:40.782)
Right. Crocodiles, yeah.

Elijah (01:13:51.406)
You

Eli Price (01:13:54.693)
Um, one thing that happened during the production of this movie was, um, that played probably a big part in how the movie ends up is, um, Harrison Ford got some herniated discs in his back. Um, during the making of this, he, he traces it back to writing on the elephants. Um, he was like those writing on those things really like jacked my back up. Um, and then by the time he's.

Elijah (01:14:08.27)
Mm.

Eli Price (01:14:22.565)
fighting a guard and getting tossed over his back. Um, he like, it was like unbearable. He, I think, um, Spielberg or somebody said, like, he like screamed, like when the guard like threw him over his back. And, um, so they ended up sending him back home to LA. Um, they kind of halted production for a minute, sent him home. He was actually there for six weeks. Um, he had some sort of like,

um, new surgery done and, um, that was successful and, um, uh, rehabilitated and it, it took them six weeks before he could come back. Um, and so they, Spielberg being Spielberg and having learned how to be efficient, um, did not stop. He, uh, he used about a week to kind of rework some of the dialogue with, um, John Milius apparently. Um, yeah.

Elijah (01:15:19.47)
Hmm. Well, that's funny. That's really funny. I when I was watching the film again, I I did. I thought at one point when it was I think it was during the one of the fights in the mines or something. I thought. I thought, man, they really spent too much time hanging out with John Milius. I don't know. I don't know how much I don't know how familiar you are with John Milius. Are you familiar with him and his films and his work?

Eli Price (01:15:32.645)
Uh huh.

Eli Price (01:15:40.485)
Spielberg definitely did.

Eli Price (01:15:47.941)
Yeah, yeah, somewhat. Yeah, talked a lot about him on 1941 episode. Yeah.

Elijah (01:15:49.038)
Yeah, yeah, because like, yeah, that for sure. But like, he's such a he's really interesting guy. And like very important for like that whole era of filmmaking. But he's such a like a macho dude, but like a fake macho dude, like a like a like a guy who's not macho, but.

Eli Price (01:15:59.941)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:16:08.741)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:16:15.182)
wishes he was kind of and like is really into like he would have a YouTube channel now like if he was he was around now he would have a YouTube channel and he would be hawking supplements you know um that's who he would be and there's times where like it really helps to have John Milius on your project and there's other times like well that's just a little bit too much because it always kind of like drifts into like

Eli Price (01:16:25.367)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:16:32.965)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Elijah (01:16:40.27)
chauvinism and misogyny and stuff like that eventually. This movie just does that a little too much. That's funny that he actually worked on it a little bit. It makes sense.

Eli Price (01:16:41.861)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:16:49.829)
Yeah, it does. He doesn't have any credits, but definitely had some a little bit of influence there. But with the remaining five weeks, Spielberg was just like, well, we're just going to keep shooting. So they shoot a lot of stuff without for there. They did the like the meal scene is done without for there. Yeah.

Elijah (01:16:57.326)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:17:13.806)
You could feel that. He's kind of having his own little story going on while everybody else is getting grossed out.

Eli Price (01:17:17.541)
Yep. Yep. They did that. They did the whole like conveyor belt sequence and a lot of like the mine car sequence without Ford. And that's where Vic Armstrong comes in, who he has basically like the same body type as Ford looks a lot like him. Maybe not in the face, but like his body type. And Vic Armstrong was basically Indy.

Elijah (01:17:24.014)
Oh, yeah.

Hmm.

Elijah (01:17:32.27)
Hmm.

Elijah (01:17:36.302)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:17:42.318)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:17:45.893)
for a large portion of the film, he's the main stunt guy. He's actually like not just a stunt man. He's like the stunt coordinator for the movie. And so yeah, he does him and Spielberg kind of like almost improv, like the whole conveyor belt sequence. They kind of come up with it as they're making it. And it's like one of the like best little sequences in the whole film. So it's like classic like,

Elijah (01:17:48.046)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:17:52.878)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Elijah (01:18:07.47)
As you're doing it, yeah.

Elijah (01:18:11.886)
Uh huh. Oh for sure. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:18:16.293)
villain runs off and leaves you to fight his minions and slowly moving towards something that's going to kill you kind of thing. It plays really well. So basically he just shoots for five weeks without Harrison Ford, which is really cool that they were able to do that. They basically just got

Elijah (01:18:23.246)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Elijah (01:18:38.51)
Hmm. Yeah, for sure.

Eli Price (01:18:45.701)
some insert shots when Ford returned and edited in so that you can, he made sure like you could see Indy's face here and there with those insert shots so that there was continuity. But yeah, yeah, very smart. Very, very smart. And I think that too plays into maybe the way the film is edited at some point, like especially in those action sequences, there's very like frenetic editing.

Elijah (01:18:48.59)
Uh -huh.

Elijah (01:18:54.222)
Mm -hmm.

Smart

Elijah (01:19:02.894)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:19:11.278)
Yeah, yeah for sure.

Eli Price (01:19:13.477)
And I think it's probably because like, oh, we had to cut here because then you can see Vic Armstrong's face or, you know, I think there's a lot of that going on.

Elijah (01:19:19.886)
Uh huh.

Yeah, yeah, that's true. It does. It contributes to the overall like heavier, like some more somber is wrong, but like heavier. People say darker like kind of tone. There's less humor. There's less like quintessential Spielberg visual editing humor in this film than in other movies. Even as other action oriented movies, you know, you get fewer shots like.

Eli Price (01:19:36.389)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:19:43.781)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, sure. Yeah, no, yeah.

Elijah (01:19:51.374)
Like in Jurassic Park when the T -Rex is chasing him and he catches that like object from the mirror closer than they appear, you know, kind of thing. Like little visual gags like that are like all throughout Spielberg's career and there's less of them, fewer of them in this movie. Maybe because of this, because I had to cut around more. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:19:56.741)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:20:03.685)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, yeah, it could be because, you know, it's when you, when something like this happens, like in post -production, I mean, they're, they're editing on film, um, at this point and you know, you've got to go through all that and kind of work with what you've got. And yeah, I think that did play a lot into what they ended up with for sure. Um, uh, we, we can talk to a little bit about Kate Capshaw. She, um,

One of the things I thought was funny was in the making of she said, I didn't read this script too well because there were several reasons. She didn't know how to scream and there's a lot of screaming. And she even like reiterates in several spots, like I told them there was too much screaming. Like when the reception comes out and they're like, you know, everyone hates the character. She's like, I tried to tell them there was too much screaming.

Elijah (01:20:42.254)
Hahaha.

Elijah (01:20:48.59)
Indeed.

Elijah (01:20:56.686)
Hahaha.

Eli Price (01:21:05.221)
Uh, but like Spielberg, there's a funny little thing in the making of where she's like, yeah, Spielberg taught me how to scream and it cuts to like on, on set and Spielberg's like, here's how you do it. And he goes, like, which if you're listening, I, you know, you didn't miss anything. I actually just opened my mouth and didn't make any noise. And, uh, then Spielberg goes, and then they'll add it in in post, like, well, the item, the scream of this. Um, so, uh, yeah, I thought that was funny.

Elijah (01:21:33.006)
How funny.

Eli Price (01:21:35.077)
So I don't know how much of the screaming is actually Kate Capshaw or just like someone else screaming, but I think it was probably her, but yeah, I think it's her, but they might have done some like ADR for her screams. Yeah. She does. And yes. That's basically her character.

Elijah (01:21:43.086)
It sounds like her. Yeah. ADR stuff. Yeah. She does scream a lot. That's true. She screams a lot. She whines a lot. She complains a lot. Yeah. That's kind of the whole character. Yeah. Yeah, it really is. I mean, she, she punched a few people here and there and she, um, she, but, but even when she's punching.

Eli Price (01:22:03.269)
Mm -hmm. She had she she's had enough at some points

Elijah (01:22:08.334)
She does, yeah. Even when she's punching somebody though, or hanging from a bridge, she's complaining about it the entire time. Yeah. Yeah. Which, you know, it's, again, it fits the type of character that she is, like in what she's, who she's supposed to be, this kind of person, but there is definitely a lot of it.

Eli Price (01:22:12.677)
Right. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:22:22.181)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:22:28.133)
And I think that's another thing though. So like when you're making a movie, you're like doing these, like shooting these scenes and you know, you're only focusing on what you're shooting in the moment. So like in the moment, like a lot of these probably like were really fun and funny to shoot. Like, and you're like, Oh, this is great. This is really funny. But then like when you edit the movie together and it's just like back to back to back to back, it's just like, Oh, wait a second. That was maybe too much. And I, now that I'm watching it.

Elijah (01:22:45.838)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:22:55.886)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:22:57.573)
I'm just now realizing like oh, yeah, there is too much screaming. Oh, yeah, there is too much whining But when you like when you're making it it may not feel that way so

Elijah (01:22:59.726)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:23:03.278)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (01:23:07.982)
Yeah, yeah, maybe not. It's also, you know, people have long criticized Raiders, Raiders 2, as being a theme park ride. And like one of the one of the like perpetual criticisms is that these movies gave birth to the theme park ride blockbuster. And, you know, I mean, that's not a completely unfounded criticism of these films. It's really not a unfounded criticism of Temple of Doom.

Eli Price (01:23:18.437)
Mm -hmm. Yep.

Eli Price (01:23:32.837)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:23:36.933)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (01:23:37.038)
which has like theme park ride sequences where they're like riding the minecarts, stuff like that. It's like, it's literally what you would say.

Eli Price (01:23:40.133)
Yes. Yes. Which they literally recorded riding roller coasters in Disneyland after hours to get the sounds for that.

Elijah (01:23:47.278)
Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. It's awesome. But it's like, what do you do in a Roman cluster? You scream. I mean, that's all you do. But I think the difference would be you want the audience to be screaming, not the characters. That's kind of your goal with these kind of things. But it is a theme park ride. I mean, that's how it's put together. One excited sequence after another. Carry it through. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:23:55.237)
Right? Yeah.

Eli Price (01:24:01.925)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:24:14.789)
Yes, yeah and yeah the the one of the things that she does appreciate was that she was definitely afraid of snakes and there was supposed to be an entire sequence of her with with some snakes of some sort. Yes and and Kate Capshaw apparently was deathly afraid they they tried to like friendly introduce her to the snakes and she like she had like a little like anxious breakdown and so Spielberg

Elijah (01:24:28.27)
Indiana Jones does hate snakes, so that would make sense.

Elijah (01:24:34.286)
Ha ha ha.

Elijah (01:24:38.638)
No way.

Elijah (01:24:43.534)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:24:44.645)
had some empathy and he like cut that entire sequence out of the movie, which was very nice. In fact, in the making of he said, she probably married me for that, which I thought was funny. But when he took the sequence out, he's like, I'm taking the sequence out. You don't have to do it. He said, but you do have to do the bugs. And she said, and I didn't know there were going to be bugs either.

Elijah (01:24:48.43)
Oh, nice.

Elijah (01:24:57.486)
Hahaha!

Eli Price (01:25:13.893)
So she did do the bugs. But there is the scene. Yeah, they got some really cool bugs. Yeah, I think the.

Elijah (01:25:18.126)
Those are some pretty awesome bugs. Those are awesome bugs, by the way. Those are some good bugs. Yeah, the living ones, not the dead ones, the living ones are so cool.

Eli Price (01:25:26.885)
Yeah, I think the big one, like the big one that's like on his hand or shoulder at some point is like a, I think it's called a Malaysian leaf bug or something like that. It's like totally harmless, but like looks so freaky.

Elijah (01:25:30.19)
Uh huh. Yeah.

Elijah (01:25:36.334)
That's awesome. Yeah, so awesome. Yeah. Yeah. And there's that one like millipede, centipede thing that like crawls up into her hair when she's reaching in.

Eli Price (01:25:45.509)
Yes, those are dangerous. So that must've been like a mannequin or something. Cause I don't think they would have.

Elijah (01:25:51.63)
I don't know it moves it crawls right into her hair. How they fake that it freaks me out every time. I love it. Yeah

Eli Price (01:25:54.565)
Yeah, maybe they did actually do it, but yeah, but I think those millipedes actually are like they they do pack a punch with a bite or something. Yeah, maybe.

Elijah (01:26:04.078)
Oh yeah. Oh, it was a defamed one or something. But I love that. I love that sequence. That's, that's maybe my favorite sequence in the movie is the, the chamber with the spikes, chamber with the spikes and, um, all the kind of what, what leads up to that, like they're kind of a, like screwball comedy, like dialogue thing going on. Then when they get into, I know, I know. Oh, that's so fun. And, um, and then the, the, maybe the best moment in the whole movie.

Eli Price (01:26:12.421)
Hmm. That whole yes.

Eli Price (01:26:24.709)
Mm -hmm. I'm stepping on fortune cookies. I love that line

Elijah (01:26:33.326)
for me is when Harrison Ford or Indy like looks through the hole and he says, we are going to die. He like makes this sad face. The little sad face he makes is the best. Yeah, the little hole is the best. We are going to die. He makes this sad face. This little sad face he does is the absolute best. I love that whole thing. And that's like so like, if you're a kid, like,

Eli Price (01:26:45.285)
Yeah, through the little hole.

Yeah.

Eli Price (01:26:54.405)
Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Elijah (01:27:01.326)
making up an Indiana Jones story, like the chamber with the spikes that's going to crush you, like that's just a thing you would naturally do, you know?

Eli Price (01:27:03.781)
Mm -hmm.

Yes. Oh yeah. And that was actually Spielberg's favorite thing in the whole movie too. Yeah, so your kindred spirits with Spielberg there. So yeah, he said it was his favorite to shoot, but it was also his favorite to edit together. Because you've got kind of like the, it's all solved and then she hits the button again and then you start everything back over.

Elijah (01:27:11.822)
Oh good, so he has good taste.

Elijah (01:27:16.43)
Oh, it's the best. So much fun.

Elijah (01:27:24.878)
Oh yeah.

Elijah (01:27:33.39)
I know.

Eli Price (01:27:36.325)
So, and that's like, that's even probably like one of the biggest like homages in the whole thing to the kind of Republic serials that they're basing these off of is that sort of sequence. Um, yeah. Um, and Gibbs, the mechanical special effects designer, um, he, he had to like, he was talking about how hard it was to get those spikes to sync up. Right. Um, but yeah, yeah. And I also love like a good example of like,

Elijah (01:27:43.534)
Yeah. Mm -hmm. Yeah, totally. Yep.

Elijah (01:28:00.718)
Oh yeah, I bet. Yeah. Yeah, it also, it.

Eli Price (01:28:06.213)
a Spielberg insert shot where like the spike comes up and like lifts the skull up. It's like, ah, such a good little like insert. Yeah.

Elijah (01:28:11.022)
Uh -huh. Oh, yeah. Uh -huh. It also always reminds me of the trash compactor scene in Star Wars. But instead of, you have C -3PO instead of Willie, and people like Beggin. It's like a, I just love that. I love that kind of mirror thing going on too with Lucas's Bilburg. Have very similar scenes there. Just super fun, super fun.

Eli Price (01:28:18.245)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:28:23.461)
Mm.

Eli Price (01:28:30.981)
Yeah. Yeah. My favorite thing about that whole thing is like the very last thing you see is him like reaching back through under the door as it's closing to grab his hat. It's like, oh yeah, love it. When he, when, when you, when I saw him do it, I was like, yes, like get the hat. You get the hat. Yeah. Yeah. Some of the other production stuff. Obviously Elliot Scott, as I said, is, is.

Elijah (01:28:41.966)
Always gotta grab that hat. Yep. Yep.

Elijah (01:28:48.43)
Yep. Yep. That's Indy Trope right there. Always grab that hat.

Eli Price (01:29:00.965)
You know the the hero of the the set design here Building all these interiors the temple the palace the mines like just incredible stuff and

Elijah (01:29:13.55)
Sorry, I'm just still thinking about Harris Report's face when he gets sad in the hole. I'm sorry, it's just one of the best things. Sorry, continue, sorry.

Eli Price (01:29:20.069)
Yeah, that's great If I if I remember what I'm mixing this together, I'll have to pull that image and and edit it into the YouTube clip Yeah, that's great Yeah him and yeah Scott and Doug's locum who was the DP Actually worked like a ton together because the lighting and some of these

Elijah (01:29:26.99)
Yeah. So good.

Eli Price (01:29:47.973)
When you're doing these big, huge, gigantic sets, sometimes it's like hard to like get the lighting right. And so they worked kind of in tandem where like, for instance, like in the, um, the like Kali temple that's down underground, um, he, Scott built like holes in the sets that were for the lighting. So, um, I guess him and Sulkum kind of figured out, okay, here's where we need lights. So when they were building the set,

They kind of built the space in for the lighting into it. So, you know, when I heard, when I was here in Slocum talk about that, I was like, okay, that explains why the lighting in this movie is just like phenomenal. All the reds and all the like, yeah, it's great.

Elijah (01:30:29.998)
Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. Oh, it's gorgeous. Yeah. I mean, it's gorgeous and scary, you know, but it's like so, it's so like a comic book come to life, you know? Yeah.

Eli Price (01:30:37.861)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:30:42.213)
Oh yeah. Yeah. And the Mola Ram character with the like little helmet hat thing he has is just like, Oh yeah. Like super villain almost like kind of feel to him. Yeah. Um, they also act, they, and you know, another random production design thing, they built that village in Sri Lanka. So the little village where all the people are, they like built all of that, you know, it's.

Elijah (01:30:48.718)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Mm -hmm. Yeah, Darth Maul, you know? Yeah.

Eli Price (01:31:11.973)
It's made to look bigger than it is obviously, but still really, really good production design there. Yeah.

Elijah (01:31:14.19)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:31:17.582)
Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, I guess they would have to build the stuff when they're like inside the village and it's like kind of close up shots. There's one shot toward the end when they first come over the hill to come back into the village that looks very matted in. Yeah, yeah, it looks matted in. That one does. But loving that painting. It looks good. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:31:22.821)
Mm -hmm. Yep.

Mm -hmm.

It is. It's a matte painting. Yep. Yep. Still looks good though. Yep. The, um, you know, more productive. We already talked, we did already talk about the bugs. There was apparently like 20 ,000 bugs or something. Um, Frank Marshall called, um, the little boxes like a bug hotel, which is really funny. Um, uh, kind of spitballing random things about the bugs. Kate Capshaw.

Elijah (01:31:47.855)
That's awesome.

Elijah (01:31:52.878)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:32:00.133)
um, took a relaxant on the day of the shooting of the bugs. And she like, she says she came in, she was like, yeah, she was like very like relaxed about the whole thing. Um, which is great. Uh, as they're just like dumping boxes of bugs on her head. Um, um, and the, the other fun, funny thing about the bugs, um, which obviously are like very hard to work with because they're bugs. Um, you can't, you can't train them.

Elijah (01:32:08.718)
You

That's fun.

Elijah (01:32:16.686)
Uh huh.

Elijah (01:32:25.806)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, they don't really take direction very easy, you know? Yeah. Philbrick's great with kids, not so great with bugs, you know?

Eli Price (01:32:30.341)
Um, but Spill... Yeah. Spillberg said by the last day they were shooting, they only had like 25 % of their bugs left. Cause I guess the bugs were all in the ecosystem around, uh, L Street studios now. Um, so that's great. Um, the, the other like kind of gross out thing is the meal that they do. Um,

Elijah (01:32:42.51)
He escaped.

Elijah (01:32:51.086)
funny.

Elijah (01:32:58.702)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (01:33:00.069)
which they, they were just kind of having fun with. Um, when you hear like Lucas and Spielberg and, um, even like the, the writers, um, uh, Willard and Gloria talk about it, they were just kind of like having fun. They had like, you know, I don't get the, I really like believe them. Like I don't get the feel that they were like doing anything like insidious or like trying to make fun of Indian culture at all.

Elijah (01:33:22.542)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (01:33:29.646)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:33:29.861)
Um, they were just making, they were kind of like tongue in cheek playing on the idea of like, when you go somewhere and like, there's food that you don't recognize and really like even really even further than that, like Lucas was even trying to do like a thirties goofy comedy humor thing, like Abbott Costello, like, um, like gross out comedy. Um, yeah. Yeah. And. Yeah.

Elijah (01:33:40.302)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:33:47.822)
Yeah. Mm -hmm. Yeah. I can kind of see the bones of that in there. Yeah. The exoskeleton of that in there somewhere. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:33:58.629)
the very bare bones. But yeah, so, you know, it's... Yeah, they're, I mean, they're just kind of... I don't know, like, it's one of those things where it's like, yeah, maybe your intentions were fine, but they're still like... Yeah, the effect is what it is, right?

Elijah (01:34:14.542)
Yeah.

the effect is what it is. Yeah. Well, it kind of gets into a little bit of the that scene is the I should probably I should probably be thinking it before then. But I always think in that scene, I'm like, this movie is kind of mean, you know, like, it's kind of it's kind of sadistic and kind of mean, like, like, I think part of it is because, like, Indiana Jones is so oblivious to what's going on, because he's like engaged in the conversation with the prime minister, you know.

Eli Price (01:34:32.325)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:34:42.213)
Yeah. Yes.

Elijah (01:34:46.222)
Um, meanwhile, um, Willie and a short round are being basically tortured by, by the food, you know, and it's just like, it's just, it's a little bit sadistic. Um, it ended up feeling a little bit sadistic and like, I get, I get the humor of it. It is funny. And it is like, it's like when I used to chase around my sisters with grasshoppers, you know, like it's a very juvenile thing to do.

Eli Price (01:34:51.749)
With food. Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:35:03.749)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:35:09.253)
Right. And this is Spielberg like terrorizing his little sisters when he was growing up. It's basically what this is, you know.

Elijah (01:35:14.734)
That's right. Yeah, yeah, it's very juvenile. I get that or whatever. And so I always puzzle, I'm like, why does this feel so mean? I mean, I guess it was being when I terrorized my sisters, but it's also like, I think it's because Indiana Jones is not part of it. And that's right, herniated disc, right? And had to cut it out a little bit. So it wasn't like, it wasn't mean intent, but it was mean in practice.

Eli Price (01:35:25.413)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:35:31.205)
Maybe, yeah. And that goes back to him not being there when they were filming it. Yeah. Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:35:41.253)
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The final product. Yeah. And it's another example too of like, like I was saying earlier, like when you're making it, it's just kind of fun. Like, I mean, you're, you're playing with rubber bugs with custard in them and like the monkey brains were just like custard and raspberry. Um, and you know, I think even like they had to like do a bunch of takes of her stirring the soup because she had to get it just right so that both of them would pop up.

Elijah (01:35:43.534)
Or something. Yeah.

Elijah (01:35:53.294)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Elijah (01:36:00.526)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:36:08.654)
Just write. Yeah. Uh -huh. Uh -huh.

Eli Price (01:36:10.885)
They were like glued to the bottom. And so like when you're making it, it's just fun. Like, but yeah, the how it comes out, like in the edit is might be totally different, play totally different than like just the kind of fun you're having with rubber bugs and stuff while you're making it, you know.

Elijah (01:36:17.198)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:36:23.662)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:36:28.526)
Yeah. It's also, I think because there's so much of it and because it's not the, if it was the only scene in the movie like that, it probably wouldn't stand out as much, you know, but the fact that they're, that the movie gets so dark and so like, like seriously mean, you know, like, like Indiana Jones hitting a kid and stuff like that, like that. It gets like kids being whipped. Yeah. Like short round being whipped. You know, your, your, your kid hero is being whipped at one point.

Eli Price (01:36:37.349)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:36:41.285)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:36:44.965)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah. And kids being whipped in the mines.

Elijah (01:36:57.422)
Um, and, and being whipped, which the other whip is like an important part of who Indiana Jones is. So it's like, you're using an icon, um, that's part of your heroes, um, part of who your hero is and turning it into a device that's hurting your hero and hurting your, uh, the kid. And so like the movie gets so mean, um, I think if this, if the only mean scene was the bugs, you would just think, Oh, that was goofy, you know? Um, but it's like that on top of everything else kind of becomes a lot of.

Eli Price (01:37:02.373)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:37:07.813)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:37:14.405)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:37:21.989)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:37:26.99)
a lot of meanness. And to be clear, I don't hate to mean this. We'll talk about that. But it is, I think, mean. Mean and effect. Yeah, if not in intent. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:37:28.005)
Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

Eli Price (01:37:33.541)
Mm.

Yes, yeah definitely Yeah, yeah for sure Yeah jumping back to like more production stuff One thing I thought was really cool was they made like half -size models for the sacrifices for the pit sacrifices So that they could you know lower them down and stuff that was fun and obviously like you still have to get shots of them like actually like

Elijah (01:37:55.022)
Mm. Yeah.

Elijah (01:38:00.078)
Cool. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:38:04.197)
Reacting and sweating and stuff But um, yeah, the more wide shots are just like little half -size models, which is fun the my the mindchase is probably like the most like impressive Thing they did because it's it's like a combination of several different like production works So you have like the full size? Which is like not very long. It's like it's just like a short little like

Elijah (01:38:05.742)
and stuff, yeah.

Elijah (01:38:19.438)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (01:38:33.381)
set that they built and they just like would change the lighting and change some things here and there to make it look like you're seeing you know different different parts of the mine tunnel which that's impressive because it plays you never think like oh i'm going through the same tunnel over and over and then it's a combo of that and then also like some miniature work so there's both like um

Elijah (01:38:34.894)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (01:38:43.534)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:38:47.47)
Oh yeah.

Elijah (01:38:51.406)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:39:00.078)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:39:03.973)
So like they they figured out a way to like mount a camera the actual camera onto like a little cart that was going behind the other miniature cart. And so they got it basically by doing that, they got it small enough where they could save a lot of money and they used they just used tin foil to build the tunnels. So, you know, you can kind of crinkle up tin foil and color it and yeah, and light it. So it looks like you're in you're in a

Elijah (01:39:24.078)
Hmm.

Elijah (01:39:28.75)
Yeah, make it look like a rock wall.

Eli Price (01:39:33.285)
cave tunnel. And so, uh, yeah, the, uh, Scott was like, you know, yeah, we, you know, uh, we're able to make those tunnels for a dollar 98, you know? Um, so we, which, you know, once you do all the work and add paint and stuff, it's more than that, but you know, funny joke. Um, but yeah, so, and then the camera mounted, they were basically like, when you watch them actually like doing it, it's like moving at like a snail pace. Um,

Elijah (01:39:42.414)
That's cool.

Elijah (01:39:49.838)
Sure. Yeah.

Elijah (01:40:01.614)
Mmm, of course, yeah. Mmm.

Eli Price (01:40:02.213)
And it was shot at like one frame per second and then sped up obviously. Um, and so, and then like, there's a few times where you have to have character movement. And so they put little models in and did stop motion for those. Um, so there's a little bit of stop motion in temple of doom too. So it's just like a huge combination of so many different like production and, and effects works to make the mind sequence, um, happen.

Elijah (01:40:17.102)
Huh. How cool. Yeah.

Elijah (01:40:24.238)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:40:32.453)
Um, which yeah, I loved watching all that stuff.

Elijah (01:40:33.838)
That's really cool. I love that about, yeah, I love that about early 80s movies. That it's the best special effects work that's ever been done. The best practical special effects work that's ever been done. Because there's like a thing where like, with any kind of technology in filmmaking, like up to the point where the new technology thing comes in, like that moment before the new thing comes in, you have.

Eli Price (01:40:39.429)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:40:45.477)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:41:01.925)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (01:41:03.534)
the most experience and skill that you ever have in a technique. And then the new thing comes in and it kind of messes things around for a while. Yeah, yeah, you have to learn how to do the new stuff. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:41:06.629)
Yes. Yep.

Eli Price (01:41:11.653)
kind of set you back. I remember, yeah, I did like a small group with some people at my church kind of going through some films through history. And we started with Sunrise, Song of Two Humans. And one of the things that we talked about was like how at that point, I mean, it was like the peak of silent filmmaking.

Elijah (01:41:22.126)
Mm -hmm.

Mmm, yeah.

Elijah (01:41:37.262)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:41:38.437)
And like the amount of like incredible, like innovative camera work and stuff that you see in sunrise and the, and even like the editing and like, um, it's just like really incredible. Um, and then talkies, like the first talkie came out like a week after sunrise released. And so it, it ends up like kind of setting the whole industry back. Um, and you know, got to work back up to, to that level. Um,

Elijah (01:41:47.726)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:41:56.654)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:42:02.478)
Mm -hmm. Yep.

Yeah. Yeah. And you always have like a couple of artists who like stick to their thing, you know, and keep advancing and keep developing. So like you still have your Charlie Chaplin's who's making movies like City Lights in 1941, you know, like a full 14 years later. So he kept advancing his silent film thing and he was best there ever was. So, you know, you can't and we still have that with practical effects. You know, there's still practical effect filmmakers, people like

Eli Price (01:42:08.261)
And yeah.

Eli Price (01:42:13.797)
Mm -hmm. Yep.

Eli Price (01:42:20.645)
Right. Mm -hmm. Yeah. Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Eli Price (01:42:35.525)
Yeah, like, yeah, and Nolan.

Elijah (01:42:35.95)
Well, like James Cameron, you know, and Nolan, yeah, totally. Who like, you know, even though like they still embrace the digital and like know how to use it. Like you think of something like Avatar. I'm doing a whole thing on James Cameron right now. We talk about when we talk about writing and stuff later, but like you think about like, like James Cameron, like he was like super practical guy, but has always like tried to like embrace the digital and like move that into his filmmaking. But so much of what he does is still practical.

Eli Price (01:42:46.757)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:43:02.213)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Elijah (01:43:05.006)
You know, even, even avatar, um, which is like, like you can't imagine a more big wash of digital effects on top of something, but everything is also practical. Like they have to make all the clothing, all the jewelry. They have to shoot those actual people, riding things around, going underwater, all that kind of stuff. Like there's still a huge practical element to what's going on. And so even when the new thing comes in, there are still practitioners who keep pushing the old thing forward.

Eli Price (01:43:13.765)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:43:22.789)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:43:33.989)
Yeah. Right.

Elijah (01:43:34.03)
It's just not the dominant thing anymore. And so I thought what's fun about a movie like Temple of Doom, which is a $28 million sequel to a movie everybody loved that wasn't even the film itself, they were making it cheap and fast, still has incredible special effects because it was still like the thing the industry was doing.

Eli Price (01:43:51.717)
Yeah.

And really like you said, it's like at the peak of all those visual effects. And I even wrote in my notes that it's like a true model of the power of what you can do in a movie with practical effects. Kind of like on the cusp of computer generated effects starting to take over the industry. Yeah.

Elijah (01:43:59.118)
It's the peak. Yeah.

Elijah (01:44:09.07)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:44:19.278)
Yep, totally. Actually, you know, Indiana Jones, young Indiana Jones was one of the first fully CG characters. There's a fight he has with a stained glass knight in a young Indiana Jones episode. And that's one of the first fully CG characters that another character interacts with in anything. So indie is even part of it as it changes. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:44:28.837)
Mmm.

Yeah, yeah, I remember that.

Eli Price (01:44:40.421)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was, um, which I don't, I don't know. I think I mentioned it briefly. And, um, when we talk about amazing stories, but like the, you know, I watched like the Twilight Zone movie and you know, you've got the intro, the Twilight Zone intro, and it's like really fun and cool and like stuff floating around in space, like kind of like practical effects kind of looking thing. Um,

Elijah (01:44:49.646)
Cough

Elijah (01:45:05.614)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:45:11.429)
And then you go to amazing stories and it's like half of the intro sequence to amazing stories is like CGI stuff. And it just like looks really bad. It's like a similar thing, like stuff floating around and moving just like Twilight's own intro, but it looks like it, I mean, it looks terrible. And it's just.

Elijah (01:45:23.278)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:45:27.31)
Uh -huh.

Elijah (01:45:35.822)
I misspoke. I misspoke a moment ago. It's not Young Indiana Jones. It's Young Sherlock Holmes that fights this thing last night. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not Indy. I'm not.

Eli Price (01:45:39.909)
That's right. Yeah, I did read that.

Yes. Yeah, it's yeah. Yeah. Now that you say that, because I did read that in, in some, in something I was doing for research of this. So when you said the first thing, I made, made the connection to that, but didn't realize it was the wrong thing. But yeah, good catch. Yeah. So as far as like the effects goes, we've got to hit on, we've got to hit on some of these things. So you have.

Elijah (01:45:56.814)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Elijah (01:46:10.798)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:46:12.965)
Stuntman Vic Armstrong doing doing a lot of the work. He had actually invented something called the fan descender, which is still used some I think He had invented it for past movies I think And it's basically what it's what they use when they do the falling through the canopies out of the window at the beginning It's it's something that I guess like helps you to fall and you know not fall to your death, I guess

Elijah (01:46:33.422)
Uh huh. Yeah.

Elijah (01:46:41.39)
Huh. Handy.

Eli Price (01:46:42.597)
Um, and so, uh, yeah, I loved that. And his wife, Wendy actually does a lot of the stunt double work for, for Kate Capshaw. Um, so that's fun. Kind of got to like a stunt double married couple, um, which is really great. And that too, uh, another cool thing that, that, um, kind of descent through the canopies is, is like, we've kind of talked about.

Elijah (01:46:50.446)
Hmm.

Elijah (01:46:55.15)
Yeah. Uh huh.

Eli Price (01:47:09.189)
Chaplin and Keaton, but that's a callback to a stunt Keaton did in his first feature film, Three Ages. So that was all the way back in 1923, I think. And then also Jackie Chan did that stunt in Project A, which had come out, I think, the year before this released. So yeah, so I guess that stunt was coming back in style and they were hopping on that train.

Elijah (01:47:13.166)
Hmm. Huh. Huh.

Elijah (01:47:19.502)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:47:27.342)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (01:47:36.654)
Yeah. Well, I kept thinking about, you know, Aladdin does that animated film, but Aladdin does that. There's also I kept thinking I kept also in India. Well, huh. There's also a I kept I don't know why I kept thinking about the animated Disney film Aladdin as I was watching this movie, but I did because there's the thing with the sword and like he has a sword. He's like, I got a sword. And then they all have swords. And it just reminded me of a boo with the sword.

Eli Price (01:47:42.021)
Yeah, yeah, uh -huh. Yeah. Also in India, which that was actually in Shanghai, I think, but still.

Eli Price (01:48:03.813)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:48:06.286)
And you idiot, we've all got swords. They didn't say that in this movie, but I feel that in that moment kind of thing. I don't know. Minecart too, like feels like the magic carpet getting out of Cave of Wonders. I don't know. There was all these things. But that does, I think that does connect back though to the kind of movie it is though, because Aladdin, the animated film is also that kind of movie. It's a Palin Presburger like.

Eli Price (01:48:09.541)
Yeah. That's great.

Eli Price (01:48:18.149)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (01:48:23.717)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:48:29.381)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (01:48:34.35)
It's a 1940s serial like kind of adventure story in the same way that this is doing the same kind of thing. So you end up with the same kind of visual action gags, tropes, all that kind of stuff. It's that kind of movie.

Eli Price (01:48:40.165)
Yeah. Yeah, it's playing on that. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:48:48.421)
Yeah, playing, you know, I guess Aladdin's, you know, playing on those Arabian Nights stories. It's like a mishmash. It kind of makes like a full story out of a mishmash of all of those that used to be kind of just played separately stories. So, yeah. Yeah. The...

Elijah (01:48:54.862)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Elijah (01:49:00.174)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.

Elijah (01:49:09.582)
Well, you know, and you go back talking about great movies. If you go back in the the first the movie that first used was blue screen at the time is a Michael Powell film. And it's late at night and I'm forgetting the name of the movie right this minute, but it's a it's a you know, it's an Aladdin story and it is going to be called. I'm looking it up right now. Yeah, it is. Right here in the.

Eli Price (01:49:18.629)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:49:32.837)
I know what you're talking about. It's not coming to me either.

Elijah (01:49:39.47)
table of contents for the book.

Eli Price (01:49:47.142)
Yeah, because I'm picturing stuff. I've seen the Thief of Baghdad. Yep.

Elijah (01:49:48.654)
The Thief of Baghdad, The Thief of Baghdad. Yeah, which was directed by Michael Powell. So we have the archers gong thing happening at the beginning of this one. And then that kind of movie with those kind of and because the Aladdin Disney Aladdin movie rips off Thief of Baghdad left and right. It's the same story and the same kind of thing. So, see, we're just we're working in the same world. That's the kind of movie Temple of Doom is trying to be. And also.

Eli Price (01:49:56.165)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:50:06.757)
Oh, yeah. Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:50:13.477)
Yes.

Yeah.

Elijah (01:50:18.35)
Indiana Jones hits a kid and people's hearts are ripped out and they go to hell. So also that's going on. We'll get there.

Eli Price (01:50:22.181)
Mm -hmm Speaking of the heart ripping out another great visual effect David's Asala was a visual effects artist with ILM which was Lucas's kind of effects studio He so Spielberg brings on sisala

Elijah (01:50:29.102)
What a great effect. That's amazing. Yeah.

Elijah (01:50:40.334)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:50:46.853)
Um, tells them what he wants to do. And he spends three weeks making a latex foam torso. Um, which he didn't actually even see, um, uh, Karanj. He just, Steven just brought him some, um, like, I guess some film stocks, some edits that they had put together of, of the, of the guy. And he just kind of made this torso based off of what he saw on these edits that Spielberg brought them. Um, which is impressive. Um,

Elijah (01:50:53.486)
Amazing.

Hmm.

Elijah (01:51:12.334)
So cool. Yeah, so cool.

Eli Price (01:51:17.381)
But yeah, it makes this latex form torso matches the actor. Um, the makeup added the skin and the hair to it. Um, and then yeah, they, they build this, he builds this like mechanism in it, which, uh, has the skin like pulled back when the hand goes in and then like come back together looking like it's like healed. Um, when the hand comes out, uh, yeah. And then it's actually just another ILM effects artists that.

Elijah (01:51:38.478)
Yeah, it's amazing.

Eli Price (01:51:46.021)
It's that his, his hand that goes in and that's what you see in the movie. So it's not Mola Ram's hand. Actually, it's this, this random guy that works at ILM, uh, who ended up in the movie, the hand going into the chest. Um, yeah, movie magic for sure. Um, and, uh, yeah, no blood. Spielberg was like, no blood, please. Um, we, I know it's a heart coming out of a chest, but no, no excess. I, you know, I guess there's like,

Elijah (01:51:48.718)
Oh yeah.

Elijah (01:52:04.59)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:52:16.005)
maybe blood on the makeup of the heart. Um, but there's not like blood that spills out or anything like that. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I, I mean, that's a really impressed. That's like a prime example of like practical special effects, like at its height. Um, cause I mean, it looks, it looks like he's sticking his hand in this guy's chest. Yes. Which plays into the, that might.

Elijah (01:52:18.638)
Yeah.

out of the body yeah.

Elijah (01:52:32.302)
Oh yeah, absolutely incredible. Yeah.

Elijah (01:52:38.19)
very real. Looks very, very real. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:52:45.029)
play into the meanness a good bit too. Which we'll definitely talk about some imagery going on there. But the other big effects thing was the blowing the bridge up, which is just like a prime example of Spielberg's big action set piece, like magic. They put like 14 battery operated mannequins that would flail when they were falling on the bridge. There was like, there was like,

Elijah (01:52:47.246)
Very real.

Yeah.

Elijah (01:52:58.222)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (01:53:04.91)
Hmm.

Elijah (01:53:10.382)
Hmm. Huh.

Eli Price (01:53:14.853)
a line going through them so that when the bridge exploded, the line would obviously pull out and set the switch off so that they all started flailing. And then obviously it's a one -take thing. So they've got eight camera angles. I always like watching making of of that stuff because it's like a party. Everyone's so giddy and excited. And then when it goes off and like it...

Elijah (01:53:23.214)
Huh, like flowing around.

Elijah (01:53:29.934)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:53:37.358)
Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Eli Price (01:53:43.685)
It's like a one take, like this is your only chance. And they get it. Everyone's like so happy and cheering. And it's fun to watch stuff like that on movie sets behind the scenes. And the other funny thing about the bridge is Spielberg, both Spielberg and the Steadicam operator, Garrett Brown were scared of heights. And so they would only go like one third out onto the bridge.

Elijah (01:53:46.798)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Elijah (01:53:54.382)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:54:11.685)
And not any further. And so that's why, like in the movie, you never have like a shot from the middle of the bridge. It's all, it's always from like one side or the other kind of, um, which, uh, yeah. And reading that in hindsight, I was like, Oh, that makes sense. Um, you wouldn't think about it in the movie. It looks fine, but, um, but yeah. Uh, one thing, one thing about the camera movement that I noticed in this was there's, there's a ton of like,

Elijah (01:54:17.23)
Uh huh.

Ha ha ha.

Elijah (01:54:30.254)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:54:42.501)
just like constant camera movement. Like he doesn't leave the camera still a lot in this movie, which is something that I know that Scorsese does in his movies. Even like when you're on a character, like in dialogue, Scorsese a lot of times will be like doing the slow zoom or something like that. And I noticed Spielberg doing,

Elijah (01:54:56.75)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (01:55:06.862)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:55:10.917)
You know, I know they were friends, or at least acquaintances. And I don't know if there was, I kind of doubt there was any influence there. But it's just kind of a connection I made like, oh, this is a lot of, like, there's a lot of like, moving up onto the characters faces instead of just like doing a straight cut to their faces. And there's a lot of like crane movements of like,

Elijah (01:55:34.862)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:55:40.165)
moving in, moving up and in closer to people in a way. Um, a lot of the zooms are like more practical zooms, like where the camera is actually moving instead of just like zooming in using the lens. Um, just like, and I think that just plays into a lot of like how energetic this, like it, it feels nonstop. And I think that, I think one reason is because of that, all of that camera movement.

Elijah (01:55:42.51)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:55:52.846)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:56:03.982)
Yeah, it really does. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:56:09.413)
Um, there's hardly ever still moments. And I think that's why when there are those like still shots of the, like the matte paintings and stuff, that's why it's kind of like, ah, like you get to have like a sigh of relief for like half a second. Um, and watch some elephants walk across a field, you know, yeah.

Elijah (01:56:18.56)
Yeah.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's true. It really doesn't stop moving. Maybe to its detriment. I mean, it's, yeah, it can be kind of exhausting. Kind of exhausting film because of that concept, one thing to another. And the action scenes go on for a long time. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:56:33.605)
I think so. And yeah.

Yeah.

Eli Price (01:56:45.381)
They do. And that's one of my big quibbles with the movie. I think that's one of the, uh, I was very tired. Um, like not, obviously not physically, but like, I, I noted in my notes when I was watching the movie, I was like, at relentless action. Like I was, I was, I was kind of like, I needed a break. And I think that's one thing Raiders did really well was, um, you would have like a huge action sequence and then you would have a break.

Elijah (01:56:52.302)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:57:03.502)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:57:09.39)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (01:57:13.678)
A little break. Yep.

Eli Price (01:57:14.821)
You would have some dialogue, you would have some exposition, you would have some character building and then boom, jump right back into it. But then you, but you've had time to like take a breath and especially like the last 30 to 45 minutes of this movie, by the time like you get to the end, I was like, man, I was like, Oh, I was ready for a break 10 minutes ago.

Elijah (01:57:17.902)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (01:57:21.646)
Yep. Yeah.

Elijah (01:57:36.366)
Yeah, it's like from the moment like Indie gets captured to the end, it like pretty much never stops. Pretty much never stops. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:57:41.381)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. And I think that's a problem with the ending of this movie. And it's the reason I think I don't like it as much as I might have otherwise. It's because I can't enjoy the awesome action that's going on as much because it doesn't give me a chance to take something in.

Elijah (01:57:48.654)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:57:53.262)
Yeah.

Elijah (01:58:05.198)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's, um, there's, and, you know, and you, a lot of that can kind of stand in for what's essentially a very simple story, you know, a very simple story and very, almost, almost non -existent character arcs, you know, like, like we can, we can say there's a character arc there for Indy, but it's barely there, you know, uh, it's barely there. And there's really no arc for, for Willie.

Eli Price (01:58:17.829)
It is, yeah.

Eli Price (01:58:25.157)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (01:58:33.998)
or for short round. They don't have anything really going on. They're just kind of along for the ride, you know? And so all the action kind of, like a lot of butter on popcorn, like just kind of like cover over all the lack of anything else there. What it reminded me of, watching it again this time, is it reminded me of Return of the Jedi. Return of the Jedi is kind of like that too. Like it...

Eli Price (01:58:46.726)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (01:58:58.533)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (01:59:02.446)
I watch that movie now and I feel like, oh, this is the same structure of like every blockbuster Return of the Jedi is. It's a big opening sequence that has almost nothing to do with the rest of the movie. You know, the Jabba the Hutt stuff has almost nothing to do with the rest of the movie. You go straight from there to there's like one little clip of Luke and Dagobah, one little clip of them talking about we're going to blow up the Death Star again. And then we're going on to Endor and it...

Eli Price (01:59:27.781)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (01:59:31.758)
pretty much, it slows down a couple of moments. Like you have a little story with the Ewoks. You have Luke talking to, we're talking about Star Wars on this, but it's kind of the same thing. And then it's just like a big fight to the end for everything, you know? And it just goes, like this goes straight on through. This is worse than that. Like, you know, this is even less, there's like hardly any little dialogue scenes, or if there is a dialogue scene, you have people being grossed out by bugs.

Eli Price (01:59:45.669)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (01:59:55.333)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:00:00.933)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Elijah (02:00:01.102)
alongside it, you know? It's kind of relentless. Kind of impressively relentless, you know, but relentless. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:00:06.949)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I guess, uh, I guess there is some, some sort of like, you can find some silver lining of, um, something good to say is that like, well, they do know how to like keep the action going, you know? Um, yeah. Uh, another amazing thing about this movie, I think is the score. Um, which I think.

Elijah (02:00:24.462)
They do, yeah, keep it interesting, you know, for the most part, yeah.

Eli Price (02:00:36.229)
You know, Williams, Williams really like genuinely does love working with both Spielberg and Lucas. He always, when you watch interviews, he's like, oh yeah, they're especially Spielberg. He's like very musically minded. And so he loves working with them. And he, he talked about too, how like, he noticed jumping into this second movie. He was like a noticed.

Elijah (02:00:44.27)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:01:03.813)
much like with Star Wars, when I was doing the next ones, it was kind of like riding a bike. Like I was able to just like jump back in and like start moving on the music, which I thought was a cool little thing. But he really enjoyed making those darker themes for this movie. Like you get to use the deep male choruses and the like constant drum beat to play on like the anxiety of the audience and...

Elijah (02:01:09.422)
Hmm.

Elijah (02:01:23.374)
Hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Elijah (02:01:32.526)
Hmm.

Eli Price (02:01:32.965)
And I think it, I think it works really well. Um, you know, you, um, one thing I noted is like, so when they're going, they, they've gotten through the spikes and they're kind of about to discover the, um, you know, the ritual, the first sacrifice going on, you start to hear like the drum beat and the chorus before you ever see anything. And it's like, uh, it's like John Williams kind of queuing you in. It's like, get ready. Like,

Elijah (02:01:35.566)
Yeah, it's fun.

Elijah (02:01:51.15)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Elijah (02:01:56.974)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (02:02:01.742)
Yeah. Yeah, it's true.

Eli Price (02:02:02.213)
Well, get ready for what you're about to see. And it's just like, it's, it's just like really well timed and placed, um, music. Um, and so yeah, I love the score for this. Spielberg said his favorite parts of the score were like the trek music. So like when the elephants are like, when they're doing like any sort of traveling and trekking in the movie, those are his favorite parts of the score. Um, which I thought was interesting. Um, yeah. The.

Elijah (02:02:10.702)
Hmm, yeah.

Elijah (02:02:18.19)
Hmm.

Elijah (02:02:24.015)
Hmm.

Eli Price (02:02:31.333)
I did write down a fun reference. So the Paramount gong crossfade, not the Paramount logo itself, but the gong is like a nod to Gunga Din, which was somewhat of an influence on this from 1939. They kind of also played on the thuggy cult in that movie. And then I also, I already mentioned the Keaton stunt, but.

Elijah (02:02:52.462)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (02:02:58.501)
Also the Chinese cabaret is called Obi -Wan Club. So you've always got to get a Star Wars reference in. I guess Spielberg's working on three in a row, if you don't count Twilight Zone movie, three in a row Star Wars references. Because you got it in Raiders, you've got it in ET, and now again with Temple of Doom. So yeah, so you've got.

Elijah (02:03:01.774)
Yeah. Yeah, it's a fun one.

Elijah (02:03:20.078)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:03:26.661)
a lot of craziness with the production of this, especially with Ford being out for six weeks, and they still were only like one week delayed on finishing it. So I think, I bet the studio was pretty happy with that, with the context of Harrison Ford being out for six weeks. So yeah, so this was released May of 1984.

Elijah (02:03:35.502)
Yes.

Elijah (02:03:41.038)
Yeah.

Oh, sure.

Eli Price (02:03:53.061)
I had written down a worldwide box office that I had seen in a book, which I thought was 333 million. But when I looked on box office mojo, it was like a hundred million less than that. So I wasn't sure what's not was right somewhere between like 270 and 333 million is the worldwide box office, which is really good return on a $28 million budget. Um, yeah, the, so the reception of this, which we,

Elijah (02:04:17.038)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:04:22.917)
We've talked a little bit around that, but so some critics, you know, it had mixed ratings at the time. And I think it leans toward like mid to bad reviews critically. I think audiences still enjoyed it for the most part. But critically, this was like...

You know, 1941 got ripped, ripped apart critically. Um, and then, but then he, you know, he makes ET and he makes, um, well, Raiders and ET like everyone loves those movies. Like hardly anyone has anything bad to say about those. Um, Twilight Zone throws a wrench and everything. And then this one is kind of, kind of mixed. Um, but yeah, Richard Corliss and Time Magazine. I really thought this was a good quote. He said it's.

Elijah (02:04:54.478)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:05:20.165)
It is brilliance racing down narrow tracks. And then he went on to say, you can't blame a theme park for not being a cathedral, which goes back to what you were talking about earlier. Like some people critique it for being a theme park, but other people are like, well, if that's what it is, like that's what it is. And you, you can't expect it to be something else. Um, which I think is a really good point. Um, but some people did not go for this. The spectacle Vincent can be.

Elijah (02:05:28.27)
You

Elijah (02:05:37.966)
It's a theme park. Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:05:49.541)
Who I think at the time I've quoted some of his stuff before. I think he was with like the times or the New York times or something with time in it. Um, but, uh, he wrote that it was exuberantly tasteless and entertaining. Um, but yeah, there was, um, obviously people deploring the portrayal of the Indian stereotypes and, um, also like the kind of.

female stereotypes with Willie Scott, of which Kate was surprised by the reaction to Willie. For one, people started blaming her for the result. And she was like, she had said she didn't feel attacked, but she felt like people were calling her out. And she didn't like that because she was a well -educated woman.

single mother and like very much a feminist and she was like I Like I don't get why people are taking this character. So seriously, um, she talks about you know, having a good time Doing the character But yes, you know, she got she got a bit blasted for that character at the time But yeah it despite all of that it was still a pretty big success

You know, I would say making that much money is pretty great. But yeah, I didn't get around to looking up if it won any awards, but usually my resources will tell me if it did. Let's see. No, it did. It won, which I'm surprised it didn't say it in my Spielberg All the Films book that I have up here above my head.

Elijah (02:07:25.614)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:07:48.421)
Usually it tells me the awards that it won, but it didn't for this one. It won for visual effects and score. No, it was a nominee for score in 85, but it won visual effects, which I think is very deserving. I would think, I mean, I don't know what else was nominated for visual effects in 85. But I, you know, we've, we talked through how this was like a prime example of what you can do with.

with effects, so. But yeah, going to Dennis Murin and George Gibbs and all those guys, very deserving, I think. But yeah, so that's, yeah, that's the production and release of it. You know, it's.

Elijah (02:08:18.894)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:08:35.598)
Just noticing, when we're recording this, we are almost at the 40th anniversary of the release of Temple of Doom, because it was May 23rd. Yeah, almost exactly 40 years. Pretty cool.

Eli Price (02:08:44.901)
Yeah, May 23rd, it's coming up. Yeah, so you can actually this, let me see. So we, you know, behind the curtain, you know, we're not recording this right before it releases, obviously. But this will be coming out a little after the anniversary. It's gonna come out the beginning of June. So first Friday of June.

Elijah (02:09:08.014)
Oh, see right there. Well, by the time it rolled out across the country, this is probably when it premiered in your hometown. My hometown.

Eli Price (02:09:14.725)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Which maybe, I don't know, with Raiders they just like, it was like one of the first movies that they just like pumped out into like a thousand theaters right away. They were, you know, it was a new tactic they were going for with Raiders. So they might have done that with this too, who knows. Yeah, let's get a bit into...

Elijah (02:09:29.134)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:09:32.878)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. I might have. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:09:43.493)
the deeper recesses of this movie. Let's dig in a little bit deeper. Yes. Let's do our descent into hell, if you will, and talk about the darkness of this movie. I have a quote from Lucas that kind of touches on some of the things we've been talking about as far as like why this movie ended up

Elijah (02:09:46.83)
Go down the mineshaft if you will.

Elijah (02:09:57.294)
Hahaha.

Eli Price (02:10:13.061)
being the way it was. Lucas said, quote, I think we went darker than any of us really wanted to go, but you're in the middle of it and you're doing things and it's a matter of what you do every moment. And you don't realize what's happened until you put it all together and see it as one piece unquote. And that's like exactly like kind of what I've been talking about of like, they might not have necessarily known what they were going to end up with while they were making the movie.

And so I think a small part of why this movie ended up the way it did is just, just because of that. It's hard to predict. You know, they're shooting a funny scene here, a dark scene here, you know, when they're doing the production of the movie, but when it comes together in the edit, the, the darkness overwhelms all like the goofiness and the funniness really. Um, and I think that's, I think that's, I don't know what percentage you could put on.

Elijah (02:10:58.03)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:11:07.246)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:11:13.829)
on the reason behind why it's so dark, but I think it is part of it. And you know, he's kind of going for, you know, they had intentions of it being darker. It wasn't like it just kind of happened. They were going for like an Empire Strikes Back of the indie franchise sort of thing. But a lot of people kind of like in, you know, thinking about this movie and even like,

Elijah (02:11:19.438)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (02:11:30.478)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:11:44.677)
watching, you know, even Lucas himself kind of, I don't know if, I wouldn't say volunteer, I'm sure they were asking him questions for the making of Doc. But he said that, I have a quote where he says he was going through a divorce at the time and wasn't in a good mood. And part of that is why they wanted something edgier. And Spielberg himself had just gone through a breakup with his girlfriend.

Elijah (02:11:53.806)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:12:03.182)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:12:06.798)
Hmm.

Eli Price (02:12:13.509)
before this. So it's sort of a breakup movie. Like, you know, a lot of bands have a breakup album and this is sort of Lucas and Spielberg's breakup movie, which I think has a lot to do with the darkness of this movie.

Elijah (02:12:20.303)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Elijah (02:12:30.766)
Yeah, darkness, I just lost my light in here.

Eli Price (02:12:33.477)
Wow, that was a great coincidence.

Elijah (02:12:35.694)
That was a great coincidence. This light is on timer. So it just decided it was done. It's a real light on here. There we go.

Eli Price (02:12:41.285)
Ha ha.

There we go. Yeah, that's, that's, you know, we talked about movie, my cat movie magic. That was a bit of podcast magic with the lighting. But yeah, so I mean, with this, with that in mind, now, like with context of this being a bit of a breakup movie, a heart being ripped out of a chest. Quite the symbol.

Elijah (02:12:54.542)
It was, yeah.

Elijah (02:13:10.51)
I don't know, quite a symbol there, isn't it? On the nose, yeah. But only if you know. If you don't know that, it's not really on the nose. Yeah. Yeah, pretty great symbol. Even if you know, it's a pretty great little moment there.

Eli Price (02:13:13.637)
A little bit on the nose, but only if you know. Exactly. And even, yes. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of the stuff, so you had sent me an article too. A lot of that stuff came up in my research that was in that article. But the interviewer for that, which I'll try to remember to link it in the episode notes, because it was a good...

If people want to kind of just get a quick version of the deeper research that I did for this, it was a great, more condensed version of all the stuff I've read and listened to. But the interviewer asked Lucas, so is the heart being ripped out like your heart being ripped out? And Lucas was like, yeah. He admitted it. He was like, yeah, it was.

Elijah (02:13:43.598)
I love that article. Yeah.

Elijah (02:13:51.438)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:14:07.438)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:14:09.349)
But I think he also said, but the glee with which it was done was Spielberg.

Elijah (02:14:14.414)
That makes sense. That makes sense. Oh, that's funny. That's funny. And that actually gets it something that I think people don't think about with Spielberg quite enough, you know, is that Spielberg has a mean streak. He has a mean streak. And, you know, we think of Spielberg, the sentimental, the sentimentalist, you know, and, but he has a mean streak in it. It shows up, especially when he does sequels.

Eli Price (02:14:17.573)
Uh, yeah.

Eli Price (02:14:26.085)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Eli Price (02:14:35.077)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:14:42.277)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:14:43.342)
it shows up like, like the Lost World is a really mean movie. There's mean stuff in Jurassic Park too, but Lost World is a really mean movie. Or I always think about what Kubrick said, well, Spielberg said actually, he was dead, but what Spielberg said about AI, he said, everyone assumes that the dark stuff in AI is the Kubrick part. The dark stuff is all me.

Eli Price (02:14:46.885)
Mm.

Eli Price (02:15:10.821)
Yeah. Yeah.

Elijah (02:15:13.262)
And the cinema stuff is all Kubrick. And that's just there in Spielberg, you know? And it's a...

Eli Price (02:15:16.165)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:15:19.877)
Yeah. And I think he's, I think I've read a quote from Spielberg where he says, if there's like dark, if there's dark things in me, they, they will come out in my movie. Um, like he's, he's taught, he's talked about that, you know,

Elijah (02:15:30.126)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's I mean, it's kind of what I think what gives his movies that sense of danger. That's like an essential part of of his of his of his movies that make them, you know, he's always kind of dealing with fear in his movies. And if you don't have danger, like you don't have fear, if you don't if there's not something to be afraid of, you know, and that meanness is just it's just there. And.

Eli Price (02:15:40.005)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:15:47.237)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:15:57.381)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (02:15:59.438)
But you know, there's meanness in all of us to some extent. And I think it's a really, for anything Spielberg, really useful to know that that's there. I think it's really useful to see it in movies like Temple of Doom and The Lost World. I think it kind of like puts the sentiment and the grace and the wonder kind of in relief. And...

Eli Price (02:16:01.189)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:16:12.965)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (02:16:26.542)
make sure you appreciate those all the more. You kind of understand their importance, both like in the film, but also probably to Spielberg as well, you know? It's kind of like a little bit of like Malik, like nature and grace kind of thing going on, you know, like within Spielberg. So I don't mind the meanness.

Eli Price (02:16:28.901)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (02:16:33.317)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:16:39.301)
Yeah. Yes. Yeah, because, yeah, because well, I think too, like, I think that plays into a bit of like, why this is a harder movie for people to like than a lot of other Spielberg, because really, like a lot of his films have a little bit of meanness in it. And the meanness is usually like meant to invoke fear of some sort. But also like,

Elijah (02:16:54.158)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:17:07.333)
most of those movies also kind of instill moments of like all in wonder. And that's like less in this movie. Yeah. And so that balance is off. Right. Right. And yeah. And so I think that balance is maybe just like a bit off for a lot of people for this movie. Now, like for people that like can take the...

Elijah (02:17:16.814)
Not a lot of awe here. Yeah. Like terror. Terror and horror, but not awe. Yeah.

Elijah (02:17:30.958)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:17:34.949)
take the horror and the meanness and the fear and just like run with it and they don't need the balance, which that's, that's, that's like, that's a thing. People, people can like handle things in different ways and like take things in different ways. Like my, my wife will never, never be caught watching a horror movie, but I enjoy watching horror movies. I get a lot of like enjoyment out of them and take a lot away from them usually. And, um, it's just like different.

Elijah (02:17:45.518)
Oh yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Elijah (02:17:58.35)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:18:03.877)
you know, different personalities or different, just different people take movies different ways. So.

Elijah (02:18:07.598)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, I mean, and as I've gotten older, so this is a little personal history here with this movie. I told you, of course, Raiders was my first movie memory. And my parents obviously loved that much while they were watching it. They loved Raiders. My parents loved movies. They showed us movies all the time. They would sit us down to watch important movies. That's why I watch Duel, Loverick's Duel is because my mom and dad were like, you need to see this. This is so cool. You got to see this movie. So they were always in this town to watch movies. But we were not allowed to watch Temple of Doom.

Eli Price (02:18:20.421)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:18:32.453)
Mm.

Eli Price (02:18:39.685)
Mm.

Elijah (02:18:40.078)
Um, that was one that wasn't, that wasn't okay in our house. And, uh, it's because of the darkness of it, you know, like my mom, um, she didn't like, she didn't like things that were, that were super dark. Uh, and so I was like, kind of kept from a lot of stuff like that growing up. Um, and maybe that, maybe that's why I have a, um, curiosity for it as I'm older and you can do my own thing or whatever. But, um, like I, I do enjoy, I, I actually enjoy this like,

Eli Price (02:18:43.429)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Eli Price (02:18:55.941)
Mm.

Eli Price (02:19:01.829)
Yeah, yeah.

Elijah (02:19:10.798)
Temple of Doom, Kinds of Darkness. I like that kind of like, that like high contrast horror, supernatural horror kind of thing. I don't like slasher movies really or like jump scary movies, but I like kind of horror ambiance type stuff. So I've got like, I love, absolutely love Hellboy, pulling up all my Hellboy volumes right here. And I feel like,

Eli Price (02:19:12.741)
Mm.

Eli Price (02:19:21.143)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:19:33.957)
Yeah, very cool. Yeah.

Elijah (02:19:38.158)
I feel like Hellboy is much the same kind of horror as Temple of Doom, you know, like, kind of like Hellboy is a bit of a bit of a Tomb Raider. And he ends up in situations where there's, you know, the blood of Kali and stuff like that going on all the time. And it just it fits the same. It's just the same kind of. Same kind of story, you know, in a lot of ways, and I like it, I like the.

Eli Price (02:19:42.213)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:19:54.213)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Elijah (02:20:06.894)
There's like an awareness, like an honesty about evil that I really like. Cause I think there is evil, you know? Like I think there is demons and devil and all that kind of stuff. Like, you know, I think that's real. And I don't think it's something to be like terrified of, but you know, it's real, but a reality. Yeah. And I like to see it this way, present in this way, you know? And I like to see it overcome.

Eli Price (02:20:27.301)
Sure, but a reality, yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:20:34.149)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (02:20:35.982)
And that's part of it too, I like to see it overcome. And this does that.

Eli Price (02:20:38.565)
Yeah, and I think there's two something to like, I think there's this contrast that happens in the Indiana Jones Spielberg movies too, between like, you know, they're friends and they line up in a lot of ways, but I think they also like approach that particular subject from like different perspectives too. And so you kind of get this like interesting,

mix of those perspectives in these indie movies of like how do you approach the supernatural? And it's that conflict ends up like being held within the character of Indiana Jones. You know he has the the the conflict of like having seen these like supernatural things but still struggling with like what what to do with them and like you know he and he's like a man of science.

Elijah (02:21:11.342)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Elijah (02:21:20.462)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:21:31.79)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:21:36.901)
So, you know, he's a archeologist and, um, but also like his, yeah, it's just, it's, it's very interesting. Yeah.

Elijah (02:21:44.366)
Well, it's, I mean, it's Han Solo's line. I mean, here's where it's Han Solo's line. I've been a lot of places, seen a lot of things. And I'm nervous of anything that makes me think there's some kind of all powerful force holding us all together. You know, like he's a skeptic and Indiana Jones is a skeptic. Unless he is in Raiders. Now, this being a prequel, that's a problem because he shouldn't be that much of a skeptic, but he is. He's a skeptic in Raiders in the same way. And I think that's the Lucas coming through.

Eli Price (02:21:50.885)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:21:55.685)
Yeah. Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:22:07.237)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:22:14.126)
you know.

Eli Price (02:22:14.437)
Yeah, I think the Lucas is the skeptic and the Spielberg is the one that wants to like push into like the the unexplainable. Like he wants to... yeah.

Elijah (02:22:21.518)
Yeah. Well, is there something there? Yeah. What is, what, why, why is that? What is that thing that people are so obsessed with? And yeah.

Eli Price (02:22:27.813)
yeah right the luke yeah the lucas is like the part of indy that's like you know uh you know yeah this is the stories they tell about this thing and the spillberg is the one that's like you know you know i don't want to jump too too far ahead into like last crusade but the spillberg is the one that like makes him jump out onto like the invisible bridge yeah you know uh so

Elijah (02:22:38.414)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:22:49.422)
Leap of faith. Yeah. Yeah. It's also worth noting that, that, you know, of course, that Lucas did make the force though, you know, he did write the force and to exist it. So like it's, um, there is something in him that must say he believes in God, but there's a curiosity there. Yeah. Yeah. There's a, there's a, at least a desire, a wish for something bigger. Um, even if, if, if maybe he is more like Han Solo, um, but maybe he also wishes there was something bigger that he could tap into. I don't know.

Eli Price (02:22:57.221)
Yeah, you did.

Eli Price (02:23:02.949)
There's a curiosity maybe. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:23:09.637)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:23:17.413)
Yeah. Yeah, maybe so. Yeah. I didn't want to point out another like interesting kind of this is, this isn't something that like Spielberg has ever like talked about or probably ever would. These don't really talk about Twilight's own movie. Um, there's a reason for that. And you know, we haven't, that episode has not come out yet by the time this comes out. And so we'll get more in depth on all of that. Um, for that episode.

Elijah (02:23:19.246)
Yeah. Yeah.

Elijah (02:23:36.558)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:23:47.525)
Um, but the long story short, there was a incident in that movie during, um, uh, his, his, his co -producers segment, um, where, um, a helicopter crashes and kills, um, Vic Morrow, the lead actor for that segment and two kids. And, um, it was a big thing. It was a shadow over the whole project. Um, Spielberg, uh, just wanted to be done with it and move on.

He didn't even want to continue, but his lawyers in the studio, um, you know, kind of were like, no, we need to go ahead and finish it and release it. Um, despite this incident. And so a whole big thing. Well, you know, can't don't want to spend too much time on that, but, um, one kind of writing that I've or idea that I've heard, um, that might be kind of a subtext here is a bit of leftover guilt from that. Um,

Elijah (02:24:25.038)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:24:46.885)
were Spielberg working through. Because some of the things that happened around that were they were doing some illegal things with children. They had hired these children on illegally. They were working them at night near special effects, which was not allowed, even in the 80s, was not allowed. They were not supposed to be doing that. A lot of like deception going on with.

Elijah (02:24:57.646)
Right.

Elijah (02:25:08.142)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:25:14.341)
Um, his co -producer that was directing that, um, and, um, and not really any, any, no one was really like tried or like nothing really happened legally, um, as a result. Um, so just like a lot of kind of left, you know, I've heard some people speculate that it's, but we're just kind of working through a little bit of that leftover guilt and a little bit of that darkness in this, you know, Indy is.

Elijah (02:25:40.43)
Hmm.

Eli Price (02:25:43.685)
at one point possessed and torque about to torture Willie and slapping short round and there's child, you know, slavery and torture going on in the background. And, um, you know, with that context, you can't help, but think like, man, is he working through some of his guilt as being a producer for this movie that has the shadow of, you know, that has killed two children because they were doing.

Elijah (02:25:49.934)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:25:54.062)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (02:26:07.79)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:26:11.982)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:26:13.061)
you know, sketchy things, um, trying to get around some of the rules and guidelines in place. Um, and, um, yeah, you know, I just can't, when I, when I heard that idea, I was like, well, you know, there might be something to that. I don't think it's something Spielberg would ever say. Cause I don't, I don't think he really talks about that movie anymore. And understandably so, but, um, but also then you have, you know, indeed.

Elijah (02:26:15.534)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:26:29.518)
Could be.

Elijah (02:26:36.302)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Eli Price (02:26:41.797)
saving the kids in the end. And maybe it's Spielberg working through some trying to redeem his conscious a little bit. I'm saying conscious, I mean conscience a little bit. Having his hero save the kids in the end instead of them dying like they did in real life. Now that wasn't his segment, and he claims that he wasn't there.

on set when it happened, which isn't that unbelievable. But you just can't help but wonder, is there a little bit of that going on too? Maybe that plays into the darkness of this movie some.

Elijah (02:27:24.302)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:27:26.373)
But yeah, that's speculation. The heartbreak thing is like confirmed. Confirmed by Lucas and Spielberg themselves. Now Spielberg doesn't, he says this was his least favorite indie movie. He's a little bit more uncomfortable with the darkness than Lucas is. Lucas is kind of like, yeah, I understand it was probably too dark, but like...

Elijah (02:27:34.094)
Bermed, yeah.

Elijah (02:27:40.174)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:27:54.757)
I don't regret it. You know, I don't, and Spielberg is more like he, he seems like he wouldn't say he regrets, regrets it or, but he, he kind of says like he was just uncomfortable with some of.

Elijah (02:28:02.67)
Well, yeah.

Elijah (02:28:08.622)
Yeah, he did. He has said that he he made he wanted to make Last Crusade as an apology and to make up for Temple of Doom. So that's about I think as close as you get to him, like saying he regrets it, you know, but that's pretty strong statement, though. You know, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But I think I think I do think that Spielberg is a filmmaker who takes.

Eli Price (02:28:16.229)
Okay. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:28:23.876)
Yeah, yeah, there's some, you can read into that. What he's saying with that. Yeah. I did write down.

Elijah (02:28:37.23)
popular criticism seriously. And all filmmakers aren't like that, but he's like that. So.

Eli Price (02:28:38.597)
Yeah, he is.

Mm -hmm.

Yeah, and I've even in some of my research for some of the movies we've already covered, like Jaws for instance, he does some re -edits after a screening that some things didn't work, he changed it. He was like, well this didn't work, I'm gonna change it. And a lot of directors won't do that. They're like, well that's on them, they should have caught what I was doing. And Spielberg's not really like that, which is pretty respectable I think.

Elijah (02:28:55.694)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (02:29:00.238)
Yeah. Yep. Oh, yeah.

Mm -hmm. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think it is a respect for his audience, you know, for sure. And he's he's like the quintessential populist filmmaker. So that makes sense. I think a little bit of it. Oh, gosh, I mean, I know you're doing you're doing early Spielberg on this on this series. But after the Thabelmans, I just felt like it puts puts every Spielberg movie in a different light. And.

Eli Price (02:29:15.941)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's the other. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:29:35.301)
Yeah, yeah, I've talked a little bit about that.

Elijah (02:29:37.998)
Yeah, and like, I, if you're, if you're making movies, if you're making movies to, to impress your mom, you know, and if that's always what you're doing, and if any kind of criticism what you're doing, because it kind of feels like your mom getting down on you, like, you know, you're gonna be a little more apt to take a little more seriously than other people. So yeah.

Eli Price (02:29:57.989)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:30:01.893)
Sure, yeah. Yeah, and Spielberg too also is like, he's talked about how probably especially in his early career, his movies were kind of like his therapy. So like all of the things he's working through like, are come out in his movie, like he's working through them, like as he's making films because he was, you know, he was still sort of a workaholic at this time.

Elijah (02:30:17.134)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (02:30:21.038)
Yeah. Yeah.

Elijah (02:30:30.798)
Oh yeah, for sure.

Eli Price (02:30:32.133)
So yeah, I did write down this quote from Spielberg. He said, the greatest thing I got that I got out of that movie was I met Kate Capshaw. And then he in another quote, he said, even though Indiana Jones wound up getting the girl, I really did. And he has this like big cheesy grin when he says it. I think it's actually how the making of documentary ends is what that quote. Yeah.

Elijah (02:30:43.79)
You

Elijah (02:30:49.934)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

Elijah (02:30:55.662)
Oh, that's funny. That's really funny. That is the one that is the one moment in this movie that I can I never buy. I can buy them floating down to the ground in a life raft that they inflate as they jump. I can I can buy all of that now and scratch on them. But I cannot buy that kiss at the end at all. I buy every moment before that. I buy every bit of Willie saying no freaking way am I going with you? Like this has been horrible and as far away as possible. I buy all of that.

Eli Price (02:31:04.069)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (02:31:09.221)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:31:15.045)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (02:31:21.285)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Elijah (02:31:25.038)
I don't buy when he whips her and brings her back that she's happy about it.

Eli Price (02:31:27.269)
Yeah, but I think, you know, Short Round plays into that and throws some water on the situation with the elephant. Yeah, he says what we're all thinking too. He says, that's funny. And I'm like, you're right, Short Round, that is kind of funny.

Elijah (02:31:34.638)
Guess that yeah, no, cuz the elephant just spray water on him. Yeah Yep, yeah Right, that's the most silly as it comes right there I don't believe that Indiana Jones or Willie would one have anything to do if he those people each other. That's all that But Spielberg did though he wanted to have something to do with gatecaptcha

Eli Price (02:31:49.221)
Yes.

Eli Price (02:31:55.269)
Oh man.

Eli Price (02:32:02.405)
Oh yeah, yes. And she did it with him too, you know? Yeah, I guess we've kind of touched on a little bit, but we should probably explicitly ask the question, is this movie racist? And I think it's a nuanced, I think it's a little gray. I mean...

Elijah (02:32:05.422)
fun. Oh yeah, for sure.

Elijah (02:32:22.222)
I'm not sure.

Elijah (02:32:30.51)
Yeah, it's racist. I mean, I'll just say it is. I mean, the same way that Raiders is racist, you know? Raiders is racist too.

Eli Price (02:32:31.589)
Yeah, it is. It's that's fair. Yeah. I guess it's just it's one of those things where it's like. Yeah, I guess you it's one of those things where like you want to excuse it for what it's trying to do and it's time, but I guess like you shouldn't. Yeah.

Elijah (02:32:51.054)
Yeah, I mean, we'll just say it's not racist and intent, you know, but it is in effect.

Eli Price (02:32:55.301)
Yes. Yes. Yeah, I did write down a few things that I thought were, like, interesting, because I think it's racist in some of the stereotypes that it plays on, like the cultural stereotypes, but then there, I do want to point out there are some things that you see where you're like, okay, like,

Elijah (02:33:13.934)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:33:24.869)
It plays into like the, the strife for colonialism, like a bit, like you, you were like, totally get like the prime minister is like totally like owning this, uh, British guy without explicitly saying anything. Um, and it, it plays it like, uh, he's the smartest guy in, in this situation, the Indian guy, not the British guy. Um, and so like there's moments like that. And even like Mola Ram is like,

Elijah (02:33:29.678)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:33:41.806)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:33:47.15)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, the Indian guy. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:33:54.245)
not dumb, like he's like very, a very like smart, like he's playing things like he's kind of like masterminding, minding and like, yeah, he's evil, but like, he's not, he's not a dumb, evil Indian guy, like, right. And so like stuff like that. And even like the, the way Indy really kind of takes the,

Elijah (02:33:55.918)
Oh yeah.

Elijah (02:33:59.534)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:34:20.581)
the shaman seriously, like in the village, like he doesn't treat him like, like, oh, you don't know what you're talking about or, oh, like he, he, you know, he treats him with respect. He like, and he even like helps him out in the end. And so I think there are ways where like this movie, yeah, it, it, it plays on stereotypes and that's like, no doubt it's racist, but I think there are ways in which like, it kind of like turns on some of those.

Elijah (02:34:22.83)
Oh yeah.

Elijah (02:34:34.702)
Sure. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:34:50.277)
other ways that people have typically displayed other cultures, and it shows like, no, there is dignity, and these people are smart, and these people are...

Elijah (02:34:54.958)
Yeah, I mean...

I guess, yeah. I mean, I guess you could see a little bit of more, a little bit of progression there from like a little bit of 80s awareness and progression there from what came before. I guess, but my, the question I ask is like, if you're gonna make a movie like this, like James Bond meets,

Eli Price (02:35:07.333)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:35:12.197)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:35:22.213)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (02:35:27.534)
19 meets Ganga Den, you know, and if you're going to do that thing.

Eli Price (02:35:29.349)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (02:35:36.686)
and you're going to use the things that are in those stories, you know, the kinds of stories those are, maybe you're just inherently misogynistic and racist, like, because those kinds of stories are, you know, and maybe you can't escape that. Like, maybe if you, if you do the things you would have to do to make the story not misogynistic and racist, like, then you're not telling that same story anymore, you know? Yeah.

Eli Price (02:35:47.717)
Yep.

Eli Price (02:35:51.333)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:36:00.677)
Yeah, yeah, it would be totally different for sure.

Elijah (02:36:04.462)
totally different. So maybe the best you can do is, is what they tried to do. Like some of the stuff you mentioned there, like maybe the best you can do is update some of it as much as possible. You know, I don't know. I don't know that, I don't know that that's true, but that's kind of the thing I think about. Like, I wonder if a question I do ask often about stories is like, is this stuff just baked in? You know, like are these,

Eli Price (02:36:11.813)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:36:15.653)
Yeah. And I mean, yeah.

Elijah (02:36:32.782)
themes, not even like racism, misogyny, just themes in general. Like I've been reading a lot of really old stories like Ovid, you know, and stuff like that, like ancient Greek and Roman myths and all this stuff. And like, or into the West, like I read into the West a couple of years ago. And some of the oldest stories that we have, I read the Anuma Elish and stuff and like,

Eli Price (02:36:45.157)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (02:36:59.109)
Mm, yeah.

Elijah (02:37:02.862)
read the Bible, you know, like, there's, there's stuff in there that you're like, well, these themes are like the same, like these story forms are the same, like, same stories we were telling them we're telling now, and a lot of the same kind of thematic and character material is there, like, is that just what they are? Like, does it have to be there to be that story? And what does that mean about how we should respond to those stories? Like, is it possible to tell new stories? Or, I don't know.

Like these are questions I ask. And I think you can feel it in Indiana Jones, like in Temple of Doom. Like it's racist stereotypes, it's misogynistic, it is. Maybe it has to be, I don't know. I don't know.

Eli Price (02:37:45.893)
Yeah. Yeah. And there, I think there's a bit like, there's a bit of like, okay, when you have, when your crew is just a bunch of white dudes, like, yeah, like you have the married couple that's the, you know, the writers. So you have a woman, but, and you know, Kate, Kate Capshaw has her.

Elijah (02:37:58.638)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:38:05.326)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:38:10.149)
You know, she has her small bit of influence, but like really at the end of the day, it's a bunch of white dudes making a movie with a, with a female character that you can't take seriously. And with like, you know, there, you know, what, what credentials do they really have to like speak into Indian culture? Like not really any, you know, I mean, they can do research, but they don't have like, you know,

Elijah (02:38:16.238)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:38:34.254)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:38:40.709)
Definitely not like the moral authority to speak into it. But you know, it's just one of those things like in, and I haven't seen the color purple, but I am interested in when I do, when I watch that and do the research of like how that plays in with the color purple and bringing, you know, Oprah in to consult. I do know.

Elijah (02:39:03.758)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:39:07.685)
That was done. So I'm interested to see what that looks like for that compared to to this where there's not really any There's not anything like that. They're not bringing in it. I mean they have a couple of Indian actors, but One of them is like coming in and leaving every you know every few days because he's shooting Bollywood movies and You know, I don't know that they're getting a whole lot of consulting work from from them. So yeah

Elijah (02:39:16.91)
Yeah. Yeah.

Elijah (02:39:29.166)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:39:36.686)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:39:38.437)
Yeah, um, but yeah, I don't know that there's really like a lot of like praise to be given for maybe those small progressive things that they added in. Um, but, uh, but yeah, it is something that I noticed. It's, it's, it's at least something to see, even if like, you can't like pat them on the back for it, you know.

Elijah (02:39:50.894)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:39:54.926)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (02:39:58.83)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:40:02.99)
Mm -hmm. It does feel like after this one though, Spielberg was like, well, you can always kill Nazis, you know? So you can always kill Nazis, so let's just kill more Nazis in the next one. And then later on it's like, I guess you can kill Russian communists too, right? Let's just do that some. That'll probably be okay.

Eli Price (02:40:11.845)
Yes, you can.

Eli Price (02:40:17.381)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:40:22.821)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:40:28.805)
Great. Yeah. And then, you know, everything we've said plays into the Willie Scott character too, you know. Yeah, they were doing a ditzy character to play for laughs, but you know, it's a bunch of white dudes like making a, you know.

Elijah (02:40:43.598)
Yeah, yeah. And when they made Marilyn Monroe play dissy characters, that was misogynistic, you know? Like, so if you're gonna... Yeah, but she wasn't. You know? But, and already those actresses, when they had to do that kind of thing, I mean, they're like getting paid, but you know, they weren't necessarily happy to play stupid women.

Eli Price (02:40:49.637)
Yeah, even if she was happy to do it Yeah, right

Eli Price (02:41:00.997)
Right. And, and Capshaw is, I watched like a, um, there's like a little thing with all of the, the main women from the first three, um, little interview and Kate Capshaw does talk about how like it, she's, she kind of feels like she's mixed on it. She's like, yeah, I had fun when I was doing it. And you know, it wasn't meant to be taken seriously. Um, even though everyone did, you know, did when it came out.

Elijah (02:41:11.438)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (02:41:25.454)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:41:28.933)
Uh, but then she's like, she's kind of like mixed, but she's also like, but I did tell them like, it's too much screaming and you know, yeah, you know, it doesn't come across, you know, great. Like she, she's, I think when it was closer to the movie, she was more like, what's everyone so mad about, you know, but then like, as time has gone on, she's like, yeah.

Elijah (02:41:29.294)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:41:35.47)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:41:41.262)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:41:48.59)
I could say, yeah. I mean, it'd be really, it's really hard. It'd be really hard. I don't think she's bad in the movie. I think she's pretty really good in doing for what she's given to do. I think she's pretty great. It would be, it's really hard to follow Karen Allen though. It's really hard to follow Marion. She's, and she's so good, you know, like, yeah, yeah. It's so hard to follow that. I mean, it almost anything they did.

Eli Price (02:41:58.085)
Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:42:06.501)
Yeah, and that character was so different and much stronger of a character and yeah.

Elijah (02:42:18.478)
you know, was going to be lesser, you know. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:42:21.157)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, any other like themes? You know, we talked a bit about like descending into hell and coming back out. Like you've got a little bit of like, maybe that's what Spielberg and Lucas are trying to do themselves. They're trying to like come out of the other side of hell, better men than they were when they went in.

Elijah (02:42:44.59)
Yeah. Yeah. I think the interesting, how it deals with, like religion is a big part of Indiana Jones movies, or at least his first three, you know, religiosity is a big part of it. And I think it's, maybe this is another little bit of racism here, you know, but I think it's interesting that in Raiders and in Last Crusade,

Eli Price (02:42:53.349)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Elijah (02:43:12.206)
we're dealing with Christianity, our Judaism and then Christianity really is what we're dealing with, like the Ark and then the Cup. In those movies, the religion, religious stuff is presented as powerful, as ultimately good, and as worthy of respect and awe, you know? And in this one, we're dealing with a Hindu cult, and it's presented as horrific, scary.

Eli Price (02:43:13.445)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:43:29.317)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (02:43:40.805)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:43:42.062)
murderous and evil. You know, I think that's, I think that's, again, maybe a little bit of racism, again, but are a little bit of white, white blinders or blindness or whatever. But I think it's interesting and worth thinking about, you know, and then you think about Indiana Jones movies going on from there, you think about Crystal Skull, which is that being, you know, aliens, space aliens, it's a whole different kind of thing. But,

Eli Price (02:43:45.317)
That's true, yeah.

Eli Price (02:43:51.973)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Eli Price (02:44:06.501)
Mm -hmm.

Yes.

Elijah (02:44:12.206)
I don't know, I think it's interesting. Like the, what's the right word? Like, of course, Judaism and Christianity are things that Spielberg would be much more comfortable with, have much more knowledge of. And this kind of Kali cult thing would be much more foreign and other, and it is othered.

Eli Price (02:44:35.141)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:44:40.101)
Yeah, it is.

Elijah (02:44:41.262)
goes to. And it didn't necessarily have to be. Like we could have, I don't know why we couldn't have worked out the story somehow where it was treated with more kind of awe and respect, but it's not. So yeah.

Eli Price (02:44:53.637)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, yeah, it's just like, it's probably definitely amplified by the fact that they just weren't very happy with their lives at the time, you know.

Elijah (02:45:08.27)
Yeah, yeah. There's even the line though, like that he says like, we're going to resurrect Kali and then we're going to Kali will take over all the gods and all the world, you know, like there's a it's almost like a flipped colonialism kind of thing going on, which in that case, like you think of it that way. I'm like, yeah, hope you win. Like, you know, get those get those colonials back, like kick out their foreign god, your foreign gods.

Eli Price (02:45:19.077)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:45:24.293)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:45:30.277)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's almost like, that made me think of, it's almost like a Killmonger style villain in that way. Like, this is what the world has done to us, so I'm gonna fight back and become what the world has made me sort of thing. It's not in the movie. It could have been that, yeah. Because Killmonger is a great villain, but...

Elijah (02:45:40.365)
Yeah. Uh huh.

Yeah.

Uh huh.

Yeah, to be clear, that is not in Temple of Doom. But there is a version of this movie that could have had that in there, you know? Yeah. I mean, it probably wouldn't have had... He's a great villain. Yeah. I mean, it probably wouldn't have had child slaves, you know, and probably wouldn't have been killing people in the same way. Maybe. He's a bad guy. But they could have done something like that, you know, made it a little more interesting. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:46:02.693)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:46:14.949)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Elijah (02:46:18.446)
And we do have that village of people though, and their religiosity is not presented necessarily as a scary thing. So that's there.

Eli Price (02:46:21.541)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:46:28.869)
Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, the, the only, I do have one more quote that I thought was interesting. This is from Molly Haskell in her book, Steven Spielberg, A Life in Films. She said, quote, in Temple of Doom, an irresponsible man has to redeem himself by rescuing the children, but Indy's redemption comes a little too late.

Elijah (02:46:45.422)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:46:56.133)
for conviction in a movie 99 % of whose energy comes from the allure of irresponsibility. Maybe Indiana Jones was Spielberg's last blowout of hyper juvenilia. Um, and I thought that was, I thought that was really like pretty insightful. Um, uh, as you know, just like looking at his career and where it went from here. Um, cause I mean, after this, you have the color purple, um,

Elijah (02:47:07.598)
Hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:47:24.933)
And then, you know, he starts, you know, he, he, he has his moments of, you know, fun movies. I mean, you have, you still have hook and Jurassic park coming up. Um, but his movies in general get more serious and mature in nature. Um, sort of, sort of starting after this. So.

Elijah (02:47:41.262)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:47:44.654)
I mean, there's like the tiny little arc that Indy has in this movie. It's the same arc that Peter Panning has in Hook. It's the same mark that Alan Grant has in Riders of the Lost Ark. It's like a man who is obsessed with his career and has to learn to be a family. That family's good to be a father, to be a father figure and to have family be family's good thing.

Eli Price (02:47:48.357)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:47:53.157)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:47:57.541)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:48:02.757)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:48:08.773)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:48:13.189)
Yep.

Elijah (02:48:13.518)
So that's a constant theme in Ark and Spielberg's career. So yeah, it's barely here. Barely here, but it's there.

Eli Price (02:48:17.189)
Oh yeah. Yeah. And I wrote down two barely. Yeah. I wrote down two, it's more amplified and two movies that followed this that he produced in the Goonies and Back to the Future where like sort of like short round amplified where, you know, it's the kids that are, it, um, it's basically like kind of nerdy loser dads that their kids have to like rescue them. Um, and that's

Elijah (02:48:29.582)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:48:33.87)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (02:48:44.302)
Mm -hmm. Which, hey, speaking of the fablements, you know, like in Spielberg's own admission that he blamed his dad for his parents' divorce for so long without understanding it. Yeah. Yep. Help his nerdy dad grow up.

Eli Price (02:48:48.101)
Yeah, yes.

Eli Price (02:48:53.861)
Yeah. And cause yeah, he just didn't know. Yeah. Um,

Yeah, but yeah, and then, you know, of course, Kiwi Kwan and the Goonies also, which I did rewatch this past week just because I was like, well, you know, this is kind of like a related movie with Kiwi Kwan and Steven Spielberg producing it. I mean, he's not a writer for the movie, but he is credited with the story, the story idea. So yeah, rewatch that. That's kind of, I do. It's...

Elijah (02:49:11.278)
Oh yeah?

Elijah (02:49:23.15)
Right. Yeah.

Elijah (02:49:28.654)
You like the goodies? Yeah.

Eli Price (02:49:30.565)
It's like one of those nostalgia movies for me. That's like, when I watch it now, I'm like, Oh yeah, this is the writing on this is not very good. Like, especially like dialogue wise, but I can't help, but love it just because it, you know, it's, I grew up with it and like, um, there's not really anything that anyone could say about it. That would make me like not love it. So, um, but yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's just interesting that he.

Elijah (02:49:34.03)
Mm.

Elijah (02:49:39.118)
Yeah. Grew up with it. Yeah.

Elijah (02:49:53.326)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:50:00.389)
goes on to like kind of have a last blast of that sort of movie with with some producing work. Yeah. The other thing we should hit on before we wrap up is just the fact that this brought on the dawn of the PG -13 movie. Yeah, so Spielberg calls up the head of the MPAA, Jack Valenti, of the time.

Elijah (02:50:05.358)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Elijah (02:50:19.566)
Yeah, that's pretty cool.

Eli Price (02:50:28.133)
Um, after I think it's, I think he, it was brought on by both this and gremlins really, which, um, which I come out. Um, and he was like, Hey, I really think there needs to be something in between PG and R. And so they, they took that and ran with it and came up with, um, PG 13. And, um, yeah, that's so really the temple of doom is the reason we have PG 13 movies now. And, um,

Elijah (02:50:33.87)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:50:57.957)
you know, Spielberg and Lucas kind of like were the filmmakers for 13 year olds really, for a while. And so, and yeah, it's just, to me, it's just another way that like Spielberg had such a huge influence on just the movie industry in general, because if you think about it, what are like the highest grossing films of all time? They're all PG -13 movies. Yeah. And so,

Elijah (02:51:04.878)
Oh yeah. Mm -hmm.

Elijah (02:51:24.398)
Oh yeah, always.

Eli Price (02:51:26.789)
It's never PG movies, it's never horror movies, it's always PG -13 movies. So yeah, it's just another way that Spielberg was such a huge influence on the industry. And yeah, really interesting. Yeah.

Elijah (02:51:32.654)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (02:51:38.446)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:51:47.182)
So do you think it was that he...

Elijah (02:51:53.87)
Well, you might know this. So was it that he didn't want it to be rated R, and so he needed something else in there? Or was it?

Eli Price (02:52:03.621)
I think there's probably a bit of that. I didn't read anything explicitly saying that. But I think it's just the fact that, I think it goes a little bit back to him taking his audience's criticism seriously. They got a lot of, you know, most people like really enjoyed this movie still. It was still a huge success, but they did get a lot of like mad parents, you know, because it was so dark and they took their kids to it. And I think it's just a,

Elijah (02:52:08.206)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:52:17.71)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (02:52:24.622)
Yeah. Don't take your kids. Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:52:32.549)
another instance of Spielberg like hearing that feedback from his audience and taking it seriously and saying, okay, well, let's maybe do something about that. Um, and, uh, I think it's probably mostly that because it wasn't until after the, like this still had a PG rating. Um, it, you know, it came out as PG. Um, and I think it's maybe since, since it is like after this and after gremlins that.

Elijah (02:52:37.518)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (02:52:43.63)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:52:52.782)
Right.

Yeah.

Eli Price (02:53:01.765)
the PG -13 came around, I would imagine it's mostly him just taking that criticism from his audiences seriously and using his power to do something about it.

Elijah (02:53:04.142)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:53:12.302)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I, I've definitely seen some PG rated movies from the 70s and 80s that I'm like, well, that should have been rated R, you know, like that was way too adult. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:53:20.933)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Well, Jaws, Jaws, Jaws was almost rated R and they took out like just a short little moment of there's like the leg that bounces on the bottom and they shortened that. That was the only thing that MPAA said they had to do to get it to PG. And so they, it bounced around a little bit more originally apparently and that was too much.

Elijah (02:53:37.038)
Uh huh. Yeah.

Elijah (02:53:49.23)
Huh? Too much. Huh? How funny. I've always thought I've always thought about how movies like like the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars and stuff get around being rated R by either having R or even the Marvel stuff. Like trick is just don't show blood, you know, like you can cut somebody in half, but cauterize those wounds. Yeah. Mm hmm. Don't show blood. Yeah. Rip a guy's heart out. Hold it up.

Eli Price (02:54:01.445)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:54:04.965)
Yeah. Yeah. The same thing in here in temple of doom, you know, spillbar was like, Hey, don't do don't do blood. Um, yeah. Yeah. And even, even like, even maybe even just as violent as that is at the very beginning, you got, um, Indy, like throwing that, that, you know, kebab into that guy. Yeah. Yeah.

Elijah (02:54:18.03)
Let it beat for everyone to see, even though it's not a drip.

Elijah (02:54:30.062)
The kabob to the guy, he like sticks and burns and dies. I know, it's rough. No rough. Oh, that does remind me of one of my favorite little, it's not like a big special effect, but it's like just a little movie thing. When the champagne pop, pop, pops, and then the guy gets shot and you know, and then like it slowly, the blood slowly comes out.

Eli Price (02:54:34.661)
Yeah, it's interesting. I think...

Eli Price (02:54:46.085)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Yes, it, yeah.

Eli Price (02:54:55.717)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (02:54:55.982)
I just love that little squib. Like, however they did that to make the squib just like slowly to have the blood come out. That's just, that's perfect filmmaking is what that is, you know? So good. Yeah. It's a blind little bit of filmmaking there. There's some blood. See, he let that blood stay in the movie.

Eli Price (02:55:01.541)
Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah. Little details. Spielberg's good at little details.

Yeah.

Oh man. Yeah. Yep. So I think the prime example of a movie that probably should be R but just gets around skirts around the rules is The Dark Knight because it's such a dark movie like It's it's on the cusp for sure. It's yeah.

Elijah (02:55:30.51)
Oh yeah. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah. Something I've always admired about James Cameron is he was just like, nah, give me an R. Just go all the way in, give me an R, you know, until you get to Titanic where you get a PG -13. But maybe should be rated R, you know. Definitely shows a lot in that movie of death and sex and nudity and everything else, but still got the PG -13. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:55:46.469)
Yeah.

Yeah. Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:55:59.909)
Yeah, yeah, it did. Yeah, actually, I told my wife, you know, I was talking about the PG -13 thing and I was like, you know, highest grossing like Titanic. She's just like, no Titanic is R. And I was like, I promise it's not. She looked it up and she was like, oh, I'm so surprised. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just wrapping up our Temple of Doom talk. I had a final thought.

Elijah (02:56:16.718)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:56:28.901)
I wanted to share. And it's just, you know, it's just kind of like maybe a little, I like to do a little snippets to maybe take away. And my takeaway here is just that oftentimes your life seeps into what you do. It's just part of being human. In this case, it's life seeping into the art of Spielberg and Lucas, you know,

We've talked about their, their heartbreak influencing the darkness of this movie. Um, and I just wanted to like. Reiterate. We kind of talked about you, especially you talking about like the meanness, embracing the meanness. Um, it's not necessarily a bad thing when your life seeps into what you do. It can be depending on your self awareness and your ability to check yourself. But, um, you know, I think.

Elijah (02:57:14.446)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:57:27.173)
this movie could have been so much darker if it wasn't this communal effort, you know, that movies are, movies are communal efforts, artistic efforts, obviously. And, you know, this could have been, if this was just like one man brooding on, you know, his divorce, it could have been a lot darker, um, of a movie. And it, you know, it wasn't, it's, it's still very dark, but, um, it could have been a lot darker. And, um,

Elijah (02:57:48.174)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (02:57:55.502)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:57:57.061)
I just, you know, I just think it's an interesting kind of thing to maybe, maybe just like, uh, something to chew on is how does, how does your life seep into what you do, whether it's like creating art or, um, your work, um, and your, your relationships, uh, in your life and, you know, what are ways that you can check that through community, through self -awareness, through just kind of like,

taking moments to step back and kind of meditate on what you're going through and how it's affecting like who you are and what you're doing in life. And so we can all benefit from that. It's hard for filmmakers like Spielberg and Lucas who were at the time workaholics and not taking time to stop and think about how their life was seeping into the art. And that might be why some people think it's too mean and can't handle it.

Elijah (02:58:45.742)
Yeah.

Elijah (02:58:55.182)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:58:55.909)
But yeah, I think that's probably like a good little like food for thought to take away from this is just thinking about that, like taking time and thinking about how your, you know, just your emotions are seeping into what you do and your relationships. So yeah.

Elijah (02:59:13.326)
Yeah, yeah, that's good.

Eli Price (02:59:17.957)
Yeah, we kind of hinted at our ratings for this movie, but and where we would put it in in Stephen's filmography but um, you know, I actually I'll go ahead and share I this moved up a little bit in my estimation with this watch I think I had it at like a two and a half star on letterbox and I moved it up to a three and three

Elijah (02:59:36.334)
Nice. Oh good.

Elijah (02:59:43.918)
Okay.

Eli Price (02:59:46.213)
You know, my personal like little letterbox thing is like usually like a three and a half star and up usually gets the heart. And then like three stars is like, is like mostly like not a heart, but, um, but sometimes I'll give a heart. So I gave a little heart to the temple. I just enjoyed, and I think it's due to just like watching it in the middle of this series and like having an eye for all the just amazing.

Elijah (03:00:03.63)
Okay, nice.

Elijah (03:00:11.15)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Eli Price (03:00:14.181)
work that Spielberg's doing in the filmmaking. I think it plays a little bit into that. But yeah, I liked it. It moved up in my estimation. It's still my least favorite indie movie, I think, which might change as I go into this series. I might rethink Crystal Skull or I don't know. I liked Crystal Skull or the quirkiness of it. But yeah, it's...

Elijah (03:00:17.582)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (03:00:25.934)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (03:00:38.414)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:00:41.989)
I don't know as far as like where it falls in his filmography. It's I mean, it's not necessarily my favorite. I have a lot of Spielberg movies. I like more than this, but um, yeah. Yeah, so it's hard to it's hard to count it out too much for that. So what about you? Is this where does this fall in the indie scale or the Spielberg scale for you?

Elijah (03:00:52.846)
There are a lot of Spielberg movies, so yeah.

Elijah (03:00:59.15)
Yeah.

Elijah (03:01:07.278)
Hmm, um, well he has a lot of movies. He, um, he has a lot of movies. He made a lot of different kinds of movies too. Um, so, I don't know, it's hard to think like where it ranks. I will say that it is, so I really, I really like it when filmmakers, um, miss a little bit. Um,

Eli Price (03:01:10.597)
He does.

Eli Price (03:01:18.021)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (03:01:35.214)
I think it's really interesting when they miss a little bit, especially the ones that are really, really good filmmakers. So, I mean, you know, get much better than Spielberg. And so I think it's fun when he misses a little bit because I think it reveals things about, about that artist that you that you often don't see because it gets like when they're when they're good, you don't notice stuff because they're just good.

Eli Price (03:01:37.413)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (03:02:04.174)
you know, like everything's just working. But when something's not quite working right, you hear things, see things a little differently. And Temple of Doom is one of those movies for me. Like one of the ones that he kind of misses on a little bit. But because of that, I watch it more and I think about it more than some of the ones where he doesn't miss. And so. Yeah, so there's a few other ones like that for him that like like Hook is one of those like, you know, Hook is.

Eli Price (03:02:31.909)
Yeah.

Elijah (03:02:34.446)
I have nostalgic reasons for loving hook is one that lived in my childhood, but it's also one that just all the themes are just right there on the surface in a way. And I like that about it. Or 1941 as well, like is one that most people point to as like his worst film. And maybe it is, I don't know.

Eli Price (03:02:36.933)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (03:02:57.029)
Right.

Elijah (03:03:02.574)
The Worst Filmin by Steven Spielberg. That's still a pretty good movie. I think for a better -than -even movie I would ever make. And I think it's fun to watch that one and think about like, oh, this is how he's trying to do comedy. Like this is the kind of comedy, when he thinks about doing comedy, this is the kind of thing he thinks about doing. And that helps me understand his idea of what's funny a little bit better and see it better in his other movies. So.

Eli Price (03:03:06.181)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (03:03:09.925)
Right, yeah.

Eli Price (03:03:16.613)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (03:03:29.125)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (03:03:32.014)
Um, typical of doom is kind of like that, like, and it's kind of like pure horror, mean street thing going on. I'm like, oh, okay. Well, that's why, that's why Lost World feels this way. Or that's why some of the stuff in Jurassic Park, like works the way it does, where you're just kind of like shocked by what you're seeing, you know, or, oh, that's what he means when he says that the, that the hard stuff in AI is him.

Eli Price (03:03:40.773)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:03:53.605)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (03:04:00.325)
Yeah. Yeah.

Elijah (03:04:00.526)
You know, and the sentimental stuff is Kubrick. Like I like that. That's why Catch Me If You Can is so melancholy. You know, like why he puts his characters through some things here and there. So I like that about it. So this is, I'm not sure where it ranks, but I will say it's one that I think about more than others. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (03:04:14.501)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:04:24.293)
Yeah, it kind of acts like as a lens to almost to see other, which is, which is a perfect perspective to have for a series like this, because that's what we're doing. We're trying to like take each film, not just on its own, but like where it lies in his filmography and what it shows him about his filmography. And so like, you know,

Elijah (03:04:41.198)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm. Yeah. I think it's also, like we talked about, like a turning point for him too. And I mean, he's, you look at that constant theme he has of workaholics who, workaholic men who have to learn the value of family. You know, that's, that's always, almost always there. And this is, I think, a moment when you can see like, maybe he was working too hard and one of the paintings knew what he was doing.

Eli Price (03:04:50.341)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (03:05:02.949)
Yeah.

Elijah (03:05:14.286)
And then he realized it. And he changed the kind of movie he wanted to make after this. And I think that's that's really good too for his career. I also also the other thing it kind of shows me about Spielberg is that, you know, he and Lucas set out to make a James Bond like character. And but they instantly failed. Like Raiders like Indy is not like James Bond, even in Raiders. Like he has.

Eli Price (03:05:20.197)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (03:05:42.917)
Yeah. He has nothing together too. Bond is very put together and he's like very fly by the seat of your pants. Like, yeah.

Elijah (03:05:44.046)
He has two arcs going on and James Bond has no arc. Yeah.

Elijah (03:05:51.438)
That's right. He messes up constantly. But mostly he learns two things in Raiders. You know, like he has the one arc where he learns that God exists and he should respect that. And another is that he should stop working so hard and care about Marion more than himself. And so he has two arcs and James Bond doesn't have an arc ever. And then in this movie, like even when they go as hard, try as hard as they can to make more James Bond like no arc thing, you still get a little arc in there.

Eli Price (03:06:06.309)
Mm -hmm, sure.

Eli Price (03:06:11.109)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:06:20.485)
Mm -hmm. Right.

Elijah (03:06:20.878)
I don't think Spielberg can help it. Like, I think Spielberg like believes, ultimately believes that people can change and get better. And that's in, that just ends up being in his movies even when he doesn't want it to be. And like that, that even in Temple of Doom, that's right. It's still there. Yeah. Even if it comes too late, as Molly Haskell said, it's still there and he can't get away from it. And I think that's.

Eli Price (03:06:33.669)
Yeah, the sense of mentality finds its way and even in Temple of Doom, even if you have the squint to see it, like it's there. Yeah.

Eli Price (03:06:45.221)
Right.

Elijah (03:06:49.614)
a big reason why his films are as popular as they are and a big reason why he makes the kind of movies he makes. So for all those reasons, I love Temple of Doom. I really love the movie and the way I do Letterbox, I don't do Star Ratings on Letterbox. Yeah, but if a movie, but there are movies that I will heart. I heart them if there are movies that I continue to speak to me and that I continue to return to and that...

Eli Price (03:06:52.357)
Yeah. Mm -hmm. Yep.

Eli Price (03:07:03.461)
Yeah, I noticed that, yeah.

Eli Price (03:07:15.877)
Mm -hmm.

Elijah (03:07:19.662)
kind of become essential for me understanding what movies are, what certain filmmakers are, all that kind of stuff. So it's one of those. It's a long answer to your question about.

Eli Price (03:07:26.245)
Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. No, no, it was, it was very insightful and very like, you know, relevant for the endeavor of the, the, the whole concept of my podcast. So yeah, for sure. Yeah. And, and I'm also like completely aware of that, like my own personal, like rating and ranking system is totally arbitrary and

Elijah (03:07:42.222)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (03:07:54.117)
you know, subjective and pointless, but I love it anyway. So, and I like hearing, yeah, I like hearing what other people do too. It's fun to hear like how, you know, everyone uses different people, you use letterbox differently and for their own personal, like cataloging is, it's always fun. But yeah, yeah, that's all we have on Temple of Doom. Next week, we are going to be...

Elijah (03:07:54.542)
Well, everybody says. Yeah, yeah, everybody says that's the whole fun of it.

Elijah (03:08:09.774)
Yeah.

Yep. Yep.

Eli Price (03:08:22.597)
talking, uh, me and Elijah again, uh, about writing about film. So be looking forward to that. And, um, the week after that, typically we'd be going back to Spielberg, but that will be my 50th episode. So, um, uh, yeah, I'm excited to put that out. And so, uh, we'll be doing, um, a little, we'll take, taking a longer break from Spielberg and maybe looking at some 2024 films, maybe.

Elijah (03:08:36.398)
Hey, congratulations. Yeah.

Eli Price (03:08:51.077)
I might share some insights about what I've learned from the podcast so far, some stuff like that. So that's what we have coming up the next couple of weeks. So yeah, be looking forward to those. But that is all we have for this week. I've been Eli Price for Elijah Davidson. You've been listening to The Establishing Shot. We will see you next time.