What’s the one where the main bad guys are like a tribal iungle death cult? Temple of Doom? I don’t remember nazis in that one; maybe that’s all they saw.
Temple of Doom gets a lot of criticism for being racially insensitive, but it’s actually my favorite in the series because it highlights religious extremism and fascistic devotion to leaders/idols/deities of a religion that isn’t the religion held by the majority of the series’ audience (Christianity), and that subtly recontextualizes how the Nazis of the other movies were religious extremists with fascistic devotion to leaders/idols/deities that the average Christian viewer may not recognize as a derivative of their own religious views.
On a sidenote, what a lot of people see as racially insensitive in Temple of Doom almost exclusively applies to the villainous Thuggee cult and not to the Indian villagers. There is a bit of a “white savior” trope, but you could argue that Indy was well-fed enough to fight and reputable enough to get into Pankot Palace, unlike the famished villagers.
it highlights religious extremism and fascistic devotion to leaders/idols/deities of a religion that isn’t the religion held by the majority of the series’ audience (Christianity)
The Road to El Dorado is one of my favorite movies for basically the same reason.
I recently watched that one with my kids and holy crap it does such a good job of correctly contextualizing the conquistadors as savage villains (and also holy shit it’s hilarious)
that movie isn’t perfect, and it still annoys me that they portrayed as the good guys. because when Western nations conquer and plunder other nations is only bad if they are nazis.
I mean, it doesn’t hold up any way you look at it, because the really weird dinner scene is supposed to be populated by a bunch of people who think what’s going on is normal. The only cultists are supposed to be the minister and the brainwashed prince. Even Indy isn’t particularly fazed. The one thing I’ll give you is that is the one film where the magical religious artifact is not Christian, so it’s the one movie that tells you that Jesus/Moses aren’t the only magic people roaming the Earth in that universe. Unfortunately it does so by depicting its exception as this gross, horrific cultish thing, which they never do with Judeochristian tradition even when they’re melting faces using it.
But mostly, politics aside… it’s just a mess of a movie. It’s made out of deleted sequences and scraps from Raiders, it’s one of the weird Spielberg divorce rebound movies, so the female lead is atrociously written, there’s no discernible plot and no discernible theme when compared to Raiders.
It has some really cool imagery, inventive set pieces and is charming in bits, but it’s the worst of the original trilogy by a lot.
The group being grotesque and alien to the audience is critical to what I like about it, because it holds a mirror up to the audience but the audience thinks of themselves as so distinct from the people of another culture and another part of the world that they don’t see the parallel. The Nazis’ practices were themselves a form of horrific ritual tradition performed by an extremist cult hellbent on consuming outsiders for what they thought was a sacred purpose, much like the Thuggees. An important datapoint that people might not know is that the Nazis were almost entirely Christian, and the villains in the movies showed their religious convictions via their pursuit of the artifacts. In Temple of Doom and in the other movies, the villains are driven by the religious practices and pursuits of a particular religious sect that is an extremist bastardization of the normal values and practices of the respective religion.
I had understood everyone at the dinner scene to have already been brainwashed into the cult (except for maybe the child Maharaja) and posing as relatively normal for their guests. Indy and the British guy in attendance likely held stoic expressions to maintain good standings with their hosts. The British guy does briefly swipe away a snake and doesn’t seem to ever eat any of the food. Additionally, I have genuinely seen monkey brain on the menu of a Korean BBQ restaurant before (screenshot attached).
I understood the theme of the movie to be a retort against cynicism and a catharsis for Spielberg following his divorce. Willie and Indy are both in it for themselves at the beginning (ex. Willie wanting to marry the Maharaja for his wealth prior to meeting him, Willie pursuing the diamond rather than Indy’s antidote, Indy seeing Short Round as a utility rather than as a friend or son-like figure, both Willie and Indy referencing their sexual desires and assets throughout) and heartlessness is symbolized by a literal heart removal and becoming a cruel automaton. Willie being horribly written is meant to be a foil to Indy’s same self-serving nature at this time in his life, only without his charisma and the audience’s familiarity. Short Round’s childlike selflessness and devotion to Indy and Willie as a faux parental couple (tying in with Spielberg’s split at the time) is what ultimately saves them and teaches them that “fortune and glory” is less important than nourishing a community and watching out for each other. Indy discarding the other Sankara Stones at the end of the bridge scene represents throwing away treasures which only have a selfish monetary value rather than a value that can help others. The plot on its surface is “get the MacGuffin because it’s treasure”, but Indy learns what he should actually be doing is “get the MacGuffin to help these people”.
Man, I just don’t see the need to justify or whitewash a movie just because you like it. I mean, I love Die Hard, but it’s a deeply misogynistic movie. That’s what it’s about. I can live with that. Back to the Future is pure Reagan era US exceptionalist nostalgia. That’s cool, I can live with that. Still a perfect movie, though. Don’t need to agree with it politically for it to be one.
And likewise I don’t particularly need to do mental gymnastics to justify the casual racism of a fun-but-not-great 80s classic.
FWIW, I’m pretty sure the profound implication in Doom is that the Maharaja is the only person on that table that is brainwashed. He’s the only one you get being reset on screen. He’s out there being all Voodoo doll evil and then gets healed by Short Round and gets over it. As far as we know, or the movie implies, everybody else there is either a true believer or oblivious to what’s going on below.
It’s not like the movie goes out of its way to go back to the fat, lip-smacking guy to show him going “wow, I was in so deep they made me eat live snakes from inside the belly of another snake”. He’s there to show that this stuff is normal, explicitly. The point is that the movie tells you foreign food is gross and kinda barbaric, but Indy is cultured enough to be all elevated about it in polite company (but will sneak out to get an apple later because he’s also a rogue who’s just like you). At most it contrasts with the poor people food they get offered earlier, except that was also shown to be mostly gross and unappealing. And all of that is just another spin on the gross bug thing later. You don’t need to overthink it, it’s a fairly straightforward bit.
Ditto for the selflessness theme. I mean, it’s there, for sure, but not for Indy. One of the weirder bits of this thing is that it’s technically a prequel, but Indy comes to the town and immediately is the high ground guy who wants to help and get the kids back because he’s already such a dad to Short Round and treats him like an equal. Willie is the one who’s an asshole about it and may or may not have learned a lesson from watching Indy be a perfect hero. The only time the movie shows them as being equally flawed is the one sequence where they’re both equally horny for each other but too stubborn to initiate things. And even then the moment there’s danger Indy is all business and ignores Willie while she’s there going “no, fondle MY boobs” for a joke.
Which doesn’t gel at all with Raiders Indy coming after, where he is some douche who used to date an underage girl, makes a living raiding tombs despite not always being the best at it, is willing to leave his girlfriend to be tortured by nazis for the sake of getting treasure and is generally 100% into it for the whole “fortune and glory” thing. The entire movie is about him learning humility and respect and accepting that there are things that aren’t for him to see or keep. Which is nuts, because he seems to be super into that in Doom out of the gate.
None of which matters, because Doom is mostly about repurposing cool set pieces they couldn’t ge to in the first one. Which was fine, but doesn’t make for as much of an all-timer, fully rounded out film as Raiders or such a sleek all ages action film as Crusade. It is what it is.
It’s a movie about a tough, old fashioned street smart cop who feels deeply emasculated about his wife having a good job and an independent life and the entire movie contrives a scenario where the tough conservative cop gets to be the hero among foppish, coke-addled LA yuppies, kill the Eurotrash villain and take his wife home wrapped in a blanket for a family Christmas dinner.
The final symbol of setting things right is unbuckling the watch she had gotten as a token of the company’s trust in her. It’s… they’re not even shy about it. That’s what the whole movie is about.
I mean, I’m far from the first to point this out, but in the original book Hollie is his daughter. Not that the book is progressive, but the movie is so patriarchal they swapped the daughter role for a wife role so they could shave twenty years off the lead actor and kept the rest of it just fine. Daddy knows best. Yippie ki-yay, feminazis.
You think the message is women shouldn’t have careers?
John MacLane has traditional male attributes like strength, perseverance, etc., sure, and he loves the family life he lost. Otherwise he didn’t strike me as particularly conservative. Over the course of the movie he reflects on his failing regarding the marriage and his wife. Yes, he has a crisis of his self worth as a man as you point out.
John McLane is a huge contrast to traditional 1980s action heroes. He is vulnerable, sobs, talks about his fears, suffers, doesn’t have huge muscles like Stallone or Schwarzenegger but more of an average build. John doesn’t win through physical domination, but by working with his friends, using his wits and creativity, and not giving up. He is often desperate, mostly running and hiding, not in control at all.
I interpreted this whole story as an example of how capitalist work realities break up and alienate families. Holly has to be at a work party on Christmas instead of spending time with her family. Her expensive watch is a symbol for this bondage to her career and employer.
The corporate bosses and the terrorists only care about money, power, and profit, while MacLane cares about family, love, and justice.
As an aside let’s remember the two wholesome black friends that support MacLane throughout. The bad guys are evil foreigners, America‘s old enemies, German and Japanese.
Maaaaan, it never ceases to surprise me how far people go to identify with media that works. Whether it’s left-wing people wanting to see an anti-capitalist screed in Die Hard, of all things, or conservatives going “keep politics out of Star Trek”.
Like, I know this… but I keep forgetting this.
And to be clear, I’m not insulting you, I get the impulse. But it’s a thing and once you work your way past it yourself it stands out a lot.
So, just to confirm. John’s very first interaction with the Nakatomi building is being confused by a touchscreen as part of finding out that * gasp * Hollie is listed with her maiden name. He then proceeds to get upstairs when he’s shocked that * gasp * some man smacks a kiss on his cheek. He experiences the casual sex and drug use of the yuppies and then meets with Hollie… at which point he, despite himself, proceeds to berate her for not using his name.
That’s not a critique of capitalism somehow being anti-family, that’s… you know… old man being appalled at the things modern kids do, just now transposed to a husband feeling lost because his wife makes more money than he does and is not that into him anymore as a result.
The entire setup is built on the insecurities of mid-80s blue collar men feeling left behind by modernity. It’s a catalogue of every excuse modern newspapers make for MAGA people.
Also, the two wholesome black friends are a stoner limo driver that exists mostly to prove that John is too blue collar to take advantage of the yuppie affectations and a cop whose entire story arc is that he shot an unarmed child but should get over it and go back to shooting bad guys instead of scoffing donuts.
Hell, Die Hard is my go-to example of how US conservatives manage to be exceedingly pro-cop but simultaneously convinced that the state is a bunch of incompetent fools. John and Al are impossibly competent. Salt of the Earth, see what’s going on immediately, fully developed humans.
Anybody else? Either an uninterested bureaucrat (the ladies handling the 911 calls) or an incompetent, arrogant idiot (literally every other cop and FBI agent). The cops also manage to be doomed by their bureaucratic nature despite being callous about human life, which is amazing. They are just ok with losing a bunch of the hostages, but because somehow they’re too by-the-book, the bad guys are able to factor them into their plan and trick them into opening the vault for them.
I just… it’s a deliciously jingoistic, reactionary, sexist movie. There is no possible counterargument to it. And yet it’s a) a magnificent film, just sheer, pure craft on screen, zero flaws, and b) still being semi-deliberately misunderstood because people have a hard time accepting a fantastic movie that disagrees with them politically so fundamentally.
Oh, also, you’re misremembering. John has zero issues with Takagi. Takagi is cool. He looks down on Ellis in front of John, which makes the two of them share a moment, and his refusal to give in to the threats is presented as a dignified act despite getting him killed. Meanwhile Ellis is presented as an idiot who is too dumb to figure out he’s about to get shot. Die Hard hates yuppies, sure… but it doesn’t hate capitalists.
What’s the one where the main bad guys are like a tribal iungle death cult? Temple of Doom? I don’t remember nazis in that one; maybe that’s all they saw.
Temple of Doom gets a lot of criticism for being racially insensitive, but it’s actually my favorite in the series because it highlights religious extremism and fascistic devotion to leaders/idols/deities of a religion that isn’t the religion held by the majority of the series’ audience (Christianity), and that subtly recontextualizes how the Nazis of the other movies were religious extremists with fascistic devotion to leaders/idols/deities that the average Christian viewer may not recognize as a derivative of their own religious views.
On a sidenote, what a lot of people see as racially insensitive in Temple of Doom almost exclusively applies to the villainous Thuggee cult and not to the Indian villagers. There is a bit of a “white savior” trope, but you could argue that Indy was well-fed enough to fight and reputable enough to get into Pankot Palace, unlike the famished villagers.
The Road to El Dorado is one of my favorite movies for basically the same reason.
I recently watched that one with my kids and holy crap it does such a good job of correctly contextualizing the conquistadors as savage villains (and also holy shit it’s hilarious)
I don’t really care for the racial insensitivity (it was the 80s, and there’s a lot worse than that out there).
But Willie Scott has got to be the most annoying character in the entire franchise.
that movie isn’t perfect, and it still annoys me that they portrayed as the good guys. because when Western nations conquer and plunder other nations is only bad if they are nazis.
That’s… a lot of arguing for not much payoff.
I mean, it doesn’t hold up any way you look at it, because the really weird dinner scene is supposed to be populated by a bunch of people who think what’s going on is normal. The only cultists are supposed to be the minister and the brainwashed prince. Even Indy isn’t particularly fazed. The one thing I’ll give you is that is the one film where the magical religious artifact is not Christian, so it’s the one movie that tells you that Jesus/Moses aren’t the only magic people roaming the Earth in that universe. Unfortunately it does so by depicting its exception as this gross, horrific cultish thing, which they never do with Judeochristian tradition even when they’re melting faces using it.
But mostly, politics aside… it’s just a mess of a movie. It’s made out of deleted sequences and scraps from Raiders, it’s one of the weird Spielberg divorce rebound movies, so the female lead is atrociously written, there’s no discernible plot and no discernible theme when compared to Raiders.
It has some really cool imagery, inventive set pieces and is charming in bits, but it’s the worst of the original trilogy by a lot.
The group being grotesque and alien to the audience is critical to what I like about it, because it holds a mirror up to the audience but the audience thinks of themselves as so distinct from the people of another culture and another part of the world that they don’t see the parallel. The Nazis’ practices were themselves a form of horrific ritual tradition performed by an extremist cult hellbent on consuming outsiders for what they thought was a sacred purpose, much like the Thuggees. An important datapoint that people might not know is that the Nazis were almost entirely Christian, and the villains in the movies showed their religious convictions via their pursuit of the artifacts. In Temple of Doom and in the other movies, the villains are driven by the religious practices and pursuits of a particular religious sect that is an extremist bastardization of the normal values and practices of the respective religion.
I had understood everyone at the dinner scene to have already been brainwashed into the cult (except for maybe the child Maharaja) and posing as relatively normal for their guests. Indy and the British guy in attendance likely held stoic expressions to maintain good standings with their hosts. The British guy does briefly swipe away a snake and doesn’t seem to ever eat any of the food. Additionally, I have genuinely seen monkey brain on the menu of a Korean BBQ restaurant before (screenshot attached).
I understood the theme of the movie to be a retort against cynicism and a catharsis for Spielberg following his divorce. Willie and Indy are both in it for themselves at the beginning (ex. Willie wanting to marry the Maharaja for his wealth prior to meeting him, Willie pursuing the diamond rather than Indy’s antidote, Indy seeing Short Round as a utility rather than as a friend or son-like figure, both Willie and Indy referencing their sexual desires and assets throughout) and heartlessness is symbolized by a literal heart removal and becoming a cruel automaton. Willie being horribly written is meant to be a foil to Indy’s same self-serving nature at this time in his life, only without his charisma and the audience’s familiarity. Short Round’s childlike selflessness and devotion to Indy and Willie as a faux parental couple (tying in with Spielberg’s split at the time) is what ultimately saves them and teaches them that “fortune and glory” is less important than nourishing a community and watching out for each other. Indy discarding the other Sankara Stones at the end of the bridge scene represents throwing away treasures which only have a selfish monetary value rather than a value that can help others. The plot on its surface is “get the MacGuffin because it’s treasure”, but Indy learns what he should actually be doing is “get the MacGuffin to help these people”.
Man, I just don’t see the need to justify or whitewash a movie just because you like it. I mean, I love Die Hard, but it’s a deeply misogynistic movie. That’s what it’s about. I can live with that. Back to the Future is pure Reagan era US exceptionalist nostalgia. That’s cool, I can live with that. Still a perfect movie, though. Don’t need to agree with it politically for it to be one.
And likewise I don’t particularly need to do mental gymnastics to justify the casual racism of a fun-but-not-great 80s classic.
FWIW, I’m pretty sure the profound implication in Doom is that the Maharaja is the only person on that table that is brainwashed. He’s the only one you get being reset on screen. He’s out there being all Voodoo doll evil and then gets healed by Short Round and gets over it. As far as we know, or the movie implies, everybody else there is either a true believer or oblivious to what’s going on below.
It’s not like the movie goes out of its way to go back to the fat, lip-smacking guy to show him going “wow, I was in so deep they made me eat live snakes from inside the belly of another snake”. He’s there to show that this stuff is normal, explicitly. The point is that the movie tells you foreign food is gross and kinda barbaric, but Indy is cultured enough to be all elevated about it in polite company (but will sneak out to get an apple later because he’s also a rogue who’s just like you). At most it contrasts with the poor people food they get offered earlier, except that was also shown to be mostly gross and unappealing. And all of that is just another spin on the gross bug thing later. You don’t need to overthink it, it’s a fairly straightforward bit.
Ditto for the selflessness theme. I mean, it’s there, for sure, but not for Indy. One of the weirder bits of this thing is that it’s technically a prequel, but Indy comes to the town and immediately is the high ground guy who wants to help and get the kids back because he’s already such a dad to Short Round and treats him like an equal. Willie is the one who’s an asshole about it and may or may not have learned a lesson from watching Indy be a perfect hero. The only time the movie shows them as being equally flawed is the one sequence where they’re both equally horny for each other but too stubborn to initiate things. And even then the moment there’s danger Indy is all business and ignores Willie while she’s there going “no, fondle MY boobs” for a joke.
Which doesn’t gel at all with Raiders Indy coming after, where he is some douche who used to date an underage girl, makes a living raiding tombs despite not always being the best at it, is willing to leave his girlfriend to be tortured by nazis for the sake of getting treasure and is generally 100% into it for the whole “fortune and glory” thing. The entire movie is about him learning humility and respect and accepting that there are things that aren’t for him to see or keep. Which is nuts, because he seems to be super into that in Doom out of the gate.
None of which matters, because Doom is mostly about repurposing cool set pieces they couldn’t ge to in the first one. Which was fine, but doesn’t make for as much of an all-timer, fully rounded out film as Raiders or such a sleek all ages action film as Crusade. It is what it is.
Why do you think Die Hard is deeply misogynistic?
Holy shit, do you not?
It’s a movie about a tough, old fashioned street smart cop who feels deeply emasculated about his wife having a good job and an independent life and the entire movie contrives a scenario where the tough conservative cop gets to be the hero among foppish, coke-addled LA yuppies, kill the Eurotrash villain and take his wife home wrapped in a blanket for a family Christmas dinner.
The final symbol of setting things right is unbuckling the watch she had gotten as a token of the company’s trust in her. It’s… they’re not even shy about it. That’s what the whole movie is about.
I mean, I’m far from the first to point this out, but in the original book Hollie is his daughter. Not that the book is progressive, but the movie is so patriarchal they swapped the daughter role for a wife role so they could shave twenty years off the lead actor and kept the rest of it just fine. Daddy knows best. Yippie ki-yay, feminazis.
You think the message is women shouldn’t have careers?
John MacLane has traditional male attributes like strength, perseverance, etc., sure, and he loves the family life he lost. Otherwise he didn’t strike me as particularly conservative. Over the course of the movie he reflects on his failing regarding the marriage and his wife. Yes, he has a crisis of his self worth as a man as you point out.
John McLane is a huge contrast to traditional 1980s action heroes. He is vulnerable, sobs, talks about his fears, suffers, doesn’t have huge muscles like Stallone or Schwarzenegger but more of an average build. John doesn’t win through physical domination, but by working with his friends, using his wits and creativity, and not giving up. He is often desperate, mostly running and hiding, not in control at all.
I interpreted this whole story as an example of how capitalist work realities break up and alienate families. Holly has to be at a work party on Christmas instead of spending time with her family. Her expensive watch is a symbol for this bondage to her career and employer.
The corporate bosses and the terrorists only care about money, power, and profit, while MacLane cares about family, love, and justice.
As an aside let’s remember the two wholesome black friends that support MacLane throughout. The bad guys are evil foreigners, America‘s old enemies, German and Japanese.
Functioning loving families are a good thing.
…
Maaaaan, it never ceases to surprise me how far people go to identify with media that works. Whether it’s left-wing people wanting to see an anti-capitalist screed in Die Hard, of all things, or conservatives going “keep politics out of Star Trek”.
Like, I know this… but I keep forgetting this.
And to be clear, I’m not insulting you, I get the impulse. But it’s a thing and once you work your way past it yourself it stands out a lot.
So, just to confirm. John’s very first interaction with the Nakatomi building is being confused by a touchscreen as part of finding out that * gasp * Hollie is listed with her maiden name. He then proceeds to get upstairs when he’s shocked that * gasp * some man smacks a kiss on his cheek. He experiences the casual sex and drug use of the yuppies and then meets with Hollie… at which point he, despite himself, proceeds to berate her for not using his name.
That’s not a critique of capitalism somehow being anti-family, that’s… you know… old man being appalled at the things modern kids do, just now transposed to a husband feeling lost because his wife makes more money than he does and is not that into him anymore as a result.
The entire setup is built on the insecurities of mid-80s blue collar men feeling left behind by modernity. It’s a catalogue of every excuse modern newspapers make for MAGA people.
Also, the two wholesome black friends are a stoner limo driver that exists mostly to prove that John is too blue collar to take advantage of the yuppie affectations and a cop whose entire story arc is that he shot an unarmed child but should get over it and go back to shooting bad guys instead of scoffing donuts.
Hell, Die Hard is my go-to example of how US conservatives manage to be exceedingly pro-cop but simultaneously convinced that the state is a bunch of incompetent fools. John and Al are impossibly competent. Salt of the Earth, see what’s going on immediately, fully developed humans.
Anybody else? Either an uninterested bureaucrat (the ladies handling the 911 calls) or an incompetent, arrogant idiot (literally every other cop and FBI agent). The cops also manage to be doomed by their bureaucratic nature despite being callous about human life, which is amazing. They are just ok with losing a bunch of the hostages, but because somehow they’re too by-the-book, the bad guys are able to factor them into their plan and trick them into opening the vault for them.
I just… it’s a deliciously jingoistic, reactionary, sexist movie. There is no possible counterargument to it. And yet it’s a) a magnificent film, just sheer, pure craft on screen, zero flaws, and b) still being semi-deliberately misunderstood because people have a hard time accepting a fantastic movie that disagrees with them politically so fundamentally.
Oh, also, you’re misremembering. John has zero issues with Takagi. Takagi is cool. He looks down on Ellis in front of John, which makes the two of them share a moment, and his refusal to give in to the threats is presented as a dignified act despite getting him killed. Meanwhile Ellis is presented as an idiot who is too dumb to figure out he’s about to get shot. Die Hard hates yuppies, sure… but it doesn’t hate capitalists.
You say all of that, but all three of those movies were great.
Yeah death cult was temple of Doom. Nazis was lost Ark
Last Crusade was also Nazis.
Dial of Destiny too. Which was…okay in the first half but went crazy in the second…