The Indiana Jones franchise is one of the most beloved franchises in cinema history with three outstanding feature films. Of course, I’m not counting the widely disregarded fourth one. However, the second Indiana movie is a cultural icon that is a prime example of the Hollywood formula for writing a five-point screenplay. In Katz and Huyck’s screenplay, the duo writes a gripping adventure story for Temple, which is supported by a strong Suspension of Disbelief and a formulaic five-point story structure.
As discussed in the lecture, the most common method for writing a script in Hollywood is to follow a five-point structure. First things first, there must be an inciting incident to propel our hero into the story. The inciting incident for Indy and his gang are after they drift ashore to an indigenous village in India, at around 22 minutes. The village elders seek Indiana’s help to restore the ‘Sivalinga’ stone that was once the life of their village. The stone was stolen by the ‘Cult of Thuggee’ and their leader, Mola Ram. The elders are letting us in on the mission that they are giving the protagonist, therefore telling us what the movie is revolving around, these stones, and the significance they hold.
A stunningly short time after that, we see Indy’s motivations for getting the stones. At 28 minutes in, we learn that the Sivlinga stone that the village needs to prosper is actually part of a series of extremely powerful and ultimately very valuable Sankara stones. After a heart to heart with Short Round overlooking the village, Indiana makes the commitment to retrieve the stones and to set forth on a path to fortune and glory. The midpoint of the feature is when they finally make it to Pankot Palace and receive a lukewarm meeting from the British. As the night passes on and they are escorted to their rooms, the hospitality turns cold when Indy is attacked in his room. He manages to escape and leads the gang down a secret tunnel which leads to an underground ruin containing the Cult and the Sankara Stones. It is here that I would officially drop the midpoint when Indiana Jones stealthily takes the stones from the altar and puts them in his purse. Here, at one hour and 22 minutes in, Indiana has his treasure and the lifeblood of a village, all he has to do is leave.
Alas, the Cult has found and captured the intrepid adventurers. They force Indiana to swallow the blood of Kali Ma, which will brainwash him into a mindless zombie. Meanwhile, Shorty has been placed into a child prison labor chain gang and Willie has been selected for sacrifice to Kali. Audiences sitting in at 1:20:00 are convinced that our heroes cannot escape this time. As clever as he is, Shorty manages to escape the chain gang and makes his way to the altar to rescue Indy. Thus starts the ‘battle for success’ that is the climax of the movie. From 1:25:00-1:49:00, the characters fight to get back to the surface, facing and conquering almost every obstacle possible.
Temple of Doom is an interesting movie. Looking past the poorly written Willie character and some truly zany action sequences, it’s a solid feature film. The biggest example of a Loss of my Suspension of Disbelief was at the very beginning when the gang drops off the insanely high cliff in nothing but an inflatable raft. Unless they spread their weight equally, the raft would have flipped on the way down. Not to mention the massive height of the cliff. At least it wasn’t as ludicrous as surviving a nuclear blast in a refrigerator a la Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. However, Spielberg and the writers managed to create some truly stellar conflict for Shorty, Indy, and Willie. Especially during the climax of the movie, the number of brutes that Indy has to face, the rickety railcars, and the bridge standoff proves to be truly worthy crises that the gang has to push through. These events provide an excellent crisis fodder since they deal with crumbling infrastructure and the passage of time, something that the characters cannot control.
In watching Temple of Doom, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I can sit through an Indiana Jones movie, but somewhat disheartened to find out that it’s essentially a white-savior movie when viewing it with a modern lens. However, it is a perfect example of the formulaic five-point story structure present in Hollywood, USA, with a fair amount of conflict and ultimately very little Loss of Suspension of Disbelief.
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