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Posted by Dale Dassel from iax-minden-ppp0014.iamerica.net on April 14, 1998 at 20:53:00:

In Reply to: Re: Temple of Doom & Indian Cinema Parallels posted by Michaelson on April 14, 1998 at 19:41:25:

: : : From what I have heard from a graduate assistant here at the University, apparently the problem was one of the separation of the classes regarding who would, or for that fact could, interact with whom in the script. It was political, social, and traditional problems that reared their heads in the development of the movie. Incidentally, it was also stated that it was the first time that the Hindi language had ever been spoken in a movie seen outside of India/ Sri Lanka. This is the information I was just told a few minutes ago. I was aware of the Hindi language information, but brother, the other was an eyeopener because of the deep seated feelings that were conveyed regarding the political problems this movie reared. As was shown in the movie, the history of the British and their history in India is still spoken by their people as almost current events, not past history. Yes, I believe it would make a MOST interesting paper indeed, considering what I just experienced. Regards. Michaelson

: : Excellent information! Thanks...Now all I need is some kind of formal
: : document, etc..for me to work off of...Damn..there's GOT to be
: : an essay, article, etc. out there somewhere :)

: : -Ari

: I'm pretty sure you can draw a parallel in histories written about the classic movies, specifically "Bridge over the River Kwai", which incidentally was the last movie that had been filmed in Sri Lanka before T of D, and if my memory hasn't totally given out, they filmed there for about the same reason...that being the British presence on Indian soil, even thought the subject matter was not as hot as what T of D was doing. You could at least start there. Regards. Michaelson

Now, without further ado, may I present the complete article from
The Official Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Collector's Magazine.



After Macau, I went with Scotty to India where we travelled
very extensively looking for possible locations. We covered a lot of
ground-India is a big country-and we found most everything we wanted
except a gorge to string the rope bridge across. But the locations
were widely spread apart and I was concerned about which rivers had
to be clean enough to allow the actors to swim in them for some scenes.
I collected water samples out of each area and sent them back to
England for analysis.
It was always in the back of my mind to shoot part of the
movie in Sri Lanka. Other movies, including Bo Derek in Tarzan, had
been shot there and I knew that the rivers were probably cleaner. We
travelled from India to Sri Lanka and were pleasantly surprised. I had
been concerned that as a location it might prove to be too lush, but
virtually every kind of location we needed was there with the single
exception of a suitable maharajah's palace. So our original assessment
from this trip was that we would spend three days shooting at the
palace in Jaipoor, India and then proceed from there to Sri Lanka to
shoot everything else. But it didn't work out that way in the end...
There were problems with the Indian Government. They began
putting restrictions on what we could do and these eventually became
creative restrictions. They wanted to change the script and wanted
approval of the movie once it was finished. So we ended up abandoning
the idea of shooting in India and opted to create the exterior of the
palace at ILM (the Lucasfilm special effects "factory") with Mike
Pangrazio and Chris Evans, ILM's special effects matte artists,
painting those scenes.
-Robert Watts
Producer


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