Watched all three Indy Jones movies yesterday ...

... And couldn't believe some of the observations I picked up that I never noticed in the 25 years the films have been out.

1. Temple of Doom IS A PREQUEL! I had no idea. Never even noticed that they showed the year at the start of each movie. Raiders takes place in 1936 and Temple takes place in 1935.

2. Noticing that, in turn, helped explain one thing that always bugged me about Temple. The opening scene of Temple has Indy, who we know always wants the artifacts he finds to go to a museum, selling off a rare artifact to Lao Che for a diamond. This goes against what we know of him from the other two films. That always bugged me. But now, knowing that it takes place before the other two, and seeing him at the end tell the village elders that he now knows what the Shankara Stone means to the villagers (and, by extension, all other ancient artifacts), it makes perfect sense why he's so bent on sending the Ark and the Cross of Coronado to museums.

3. Dan Akroyd is in Temple of Doom. Never noticed it before until seeing him usher Indy onto Lao Che's plane. An odd cameo for Akroyd, considering he was still a star back then.

4. At the end of Raiders, Indy and Marion stand apart and hold hands, mimicking the touching eagle's wings atop the Ark.

5. Indy's love interests get progressively hotter and he goes progressively further with them. He gets a kiss from Marion. He almost beds Willie. He gets it on with Elsa. I shiver about what might happen with a now 57-year-old Karen Allen in the new one.

6. The club where Indy sits down with Lao Che in Temple is named "Club Obi Wan."

7. Spielberg makes great used of silhouettes throughout the series.

8. All three opened with a shot of the Paramount Logo fading into another mountain (two real, one a relief on a gong).

9. Michael Moore (not THAT Michael Moore) was the second-unit director on all three films and directed the classic truck chase in Raiders (when Indy falls off the front, slides under and gets dragged behind the truck). I now officially have a favorite second-unit director.

10. I need a life.

 

I think it was implied that he and Marion had a serious relationship in the years before Raiders. I also think they got their freak on while on the ship headed for England.

 

Oh, they definitely had a relationship before the film (in fact, it sounds like it might have been an inappropriate Prof/Student type relationship), but I was specifically talking about what happens in the films.

I don't think they got it on in Raiders. She asks him where it doesn't hurt and he points to his elbow (which she kisses), his head, his cheek and lips. After the kiss on the lips, he leans back and puts his hat down, presumably going to sleep.

 

or maybe he was getting a hummer. who knows.

 

Last year, for my birthday (or maybe Christmas), I got the complete Indy box set.

Still haven't watched any of them start to finish.

Not that I dislike them or anything, just never got around to it. I suppose with the new episdode coming out, I will, just to bring myself up to date.

 

Good observation on No. 2.

And No. 7, I absolutely agree, especially in the first film, in Marion's bar, when Indy and the Nepalese grunt are struggling for the gun and the weirdo Nazi tells the guard to shot both of them.

 

Enjoyed Raiders and the Crusade, but The Temple...eh.

 

Let me put this in terms you can understand, pern:

A life, get.

 

The ID on Jock's plain in Raiders is R2 CPO. There is also an R2-D2 and C-3PO visible in the carvings on the columns when they first open the entryway to the den of souls.

If I recall correctly ToD actually takes place between Marion's bar burning and the travel scene that immediately follows. This was according to the fanboy bible, Starlog.

I, too, watched the trilogy earlier this week. It took a few days as ToD is guaranteed to put me to sleep. That's one of the few films that's always as bad, if not worse, as I remember it being.

 

Wow! i gotta agree with No. 10.

 

If I knew Pern in real life, I'd ask him to marry me. That is all.

 

You could let him burn down your bar. Then he'd have to be your goddamned partner!