Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a 1984 American action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg. It is the second installment in the Indiana Jones franchise, a prequel to the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark, featuring Harrison Ford reprising his role as the title character. After arriving in India, Indiana Jones is asked by desperate villagers to find a mystical stone and rescue their children from a Thuggee cult practicing child slavery, black magic, and ritualistic human sacrifice in honor of the goddess Kali.

Not wishing to feature the Nazis as the villains again, George Lucas, executive producer and co-writer, decided to regard this film as a prequel. Three plot devices were rejected before Lucas wrote a film treatment that resembled the final storyline. As Lawrence Kasdan, Lucas’s collaborator on Raiders of the Lost Ark, turned down the offer to write the script, Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, who had previously worked with Lucas on American Graffiti, were hired as his replacements.

The film was released to financial success but initial reviews were mixed, criticizing its darker elements, strong violence and gore. However, critical opinion has improved since 1984, citing the film’s intensity and imagination. In response to some of the more violent sequences in the film, and with similar complaints about Gremlins, Spielberg suggested that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) alter its rating system, which it did within two months of the film’s release, creating a new PG-13 rating.

It was released to cinemas in the United States on May 23, 1984. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score and won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. A sequel, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, followed in 1989.

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