Gotta love how the first movie opens with him stealing an idol from an uncontacted Peruvian tribe, and the heroic music swells as he narrowly escapes with spears flying around them.
Granted, this takes place in 1936 and his actions were the norm for the period, but despite coming out in 1981 the movie plays this scene out rather uncritically.
He narrowly escapes with his life after having the idol stolen from him by his rival, Belloq, who works for the Nazis and actually hired that Peruvian tribe to be his little private army. Belloq then orders the Peruvians to attack Jones and he barely escapes on his hired plane.
The opening scene is them discussing that the tribe would kill them just for being in the area, and then Belloq taunts Jones saying he can’t warn them that he’s scamming them because Jones doesn’t speak Hovitos. No where does it say he hired them.
So the entire point of my original comment was to give Indiana Jones a bit of vindication from the thinly veiled slander that he was nothing more than a tomb robber working for the colonialist west. How does your correction that Belloq was scamming the Hovitos, not paying them, make any difference to Jones’s character?
It doesn’t. You said Belloq hired them to be his personal army, which paints the Hovitos as complicit in working against their own self-interests. As in, they were the betrayers of their own people and were selling out to Belloq for some cash.
But no, the reality is both Jones and Belloq were out to screw them: Jones by directly robbing them, and Belloq by first scamming them and then robbing them. Both were being imperialist and the Hovitos were the victims.
Yeah, but if the tribe made those traps that still work perfectly after hundreds of years, imagine how advanced they must be by now. Dr Jones was probably within miles of a hidden techno utopia and never had a clue.
Temple of Doom had way more questionable scenes in it with the banquet, the heroic British soldiers at the end and… Short Round. Did they really have to name him that?
Although the cultists were based on a real group and I actually saw something that looked like the heart thing in an Indian movie, so maybe that’s based on something real as well.
When I said “something real”, I just meant a preexisting idea in India. The movie was Baahubali. There was a scene where the villain was trying to reach his hand into the hero’s chest in exactly the same was as the cult leader in Temple of Doom.
More that the hand was open and the figures being pressed directly into the skin, as if he was going to grab the heard directly without cutting it open first. It’s not something you see often as there’s the sternum in the way. I don’t know if there’s some Indian myth it’s based off of or maybe some other piece of Indian cinema. It was a very specific scene, but it’s 5 hours to go though, so I’m not going to be able it quickly.
Gotta love how the first movie opens with him stealing an idol from an uncontacted Peruvian tribe, and the heroic music swells as he narrowly escapes with spears flying around them.
Granted, this takes place in 1936 and his actions were the norm for the period, but despite coming out in 1981 the movie plays this scene out rather uncritically.
He narrowly escapes with his life after having the idol stolen from him by his rival, Belloq, who works for the Nazis and actually hired that Peruvian tribe to be his little private army. Belloq then orders the Peruvians to attack Jones and he barely escapes on his hired plane.
Where do you get that he hired them?
The opening scene is them discussing that the tribe would kill them just for being in the area, and then Belloq taunts Jones saying he can’t warn them that he’s scamming them because Jones doesn’t speak Hovitos. No where does it say he hired them.
Scamming them is even worse, no?
He didn’t know Belloq was there until after he had robbed them.
So the entire point of my original comment was to give Indiana Jones a bit of vindication from the thinly veiled slander that he was nothing more than a tomb robber working for the colonialist west. How does your correction that Belloq was scamming the Hovitos, not paying them, make any difference to Jones’s character?
It doesn’t. You said Belloq hired them to be his personal army, which paints the Hovitos as complicit in working against their own self-interests. As in, they were the betrayers of their own people and were selling out to Belloq for some cash.
But no, the reality is both Jones and Belloq were out to screw them: Jones by directly robbing them, and Belloq by first scamming them and then robbing them. Both were being imperialist and the Hovitos were the victims.
Yeah, but if the tribe made those traps that still work perfectly after hundreds of years, imagine how advanced they must be by now. Dr Jones was probably within miles of a hidden techno utopia and never had a clue.
Temple of Doom had way more questionable scenes in it with the banquet, the heroic British soldiers at the end and… Short Round. Did they really have to name him that?
Although the cultists were based on a real group and I actually saw something that looked like the heart thing in an Indian movie, so maybe that’s based on something real as well.
I doubt it.
There are 1.4 billion people. I think there’d be a stereotype about them doing black magic if it was an ever prevalent thing.
To be fair to the movie, it isn’t trying to say all Indians worship dark gods. It’s just depicting a cult that happens to be in India.
When I said “something real”, I just meant a preexisting idea in India. The movie was Baahubali. There was a scene where the villain was trying to reach his hand into the hero’s chest in exactly the same was as the cult leader in Temple of Doom.
The heart thing is not unique to India?
It’s a very common thing to take the heart out by villians everywhere.
More that the hand was open and the figures being pressed directly into the skin, as if he was going to grab the heard directly without cutting it open first. It’s not something you see often as there’s the sternum in the way. I don’t know if there’s some Indian myth it’s based off of or maybe some other piece of Indian cinema. It was a very specific scene, but it’s 5 hours to go though, so I’m not going to be able it quickly.