History in Objects is a continuing series exploring Lucasfilm’s legacy stretching from their founding in 1971 to today, and their current article celebrates forty years of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, looking at the current Lucasfilm exhibit of memorabilia.
With this year’s 40th anniversary of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Lucasfilm historians recently created an exhibit of memorabilia from the 1984 film at their San Francisco headquarters, displaying various marketing and production materials, consumer products, promotional tie-ins and other items associated with the film. This special edition of “History in Objects” will focus on a handful of items in the display.
If Adventure Has a Name….Set one year before the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Temple of Doom was Lucasfilm’s first prequel story, and marked the end of the company’s first era of successive blockbuster releases, beginning with American Graffiti (1973) and Star Wars: A New Hope (1977). Originally entitled Indiana Jones and the Temple of Death, it was the first entry in the series to use the Indiana Jones name in its title, a reflection of the defining significance of Harrison Ford’s performance as the central character.
On the Cutting Room Floor
These storyboards depict the original “Children’s Escape” sequence, most of which was cut from the final film. After freeing the kidnapped children from their shackles, Indy, Willie, and Short Round lead them across the temple’s deadly lava chasm, but not before their improvised bridge catches fire, leaving the three heroes to escape via the mine cart tunnels instead. In the finished sequence, the children simply make their own way to freedom. These storyboard copies belonged to English cinematographer Douglas Slocombe, who studied them before the shoot at Elstree Studios. They were kindly donated by his daughter, Georgina Slocombe.
“No, Indy, It’s Left Tunnel!”
For Temple of Doom’s thrilling mine car chase, Industrial Light & Magic model builders created an elaborate series of scaled-down tunnels with tracks for miniature mine cars and stop-motion puppets to be animated one frame at a time. In order to film the chase from the point of view of Indy and the others, ILM needed to devise a way for a camera shooting motion picture film – in this case, in the sideways Vistavision format – to fit through the narrow passages. Their solution was to modify an existing Nikon single-lens reflex camera to shoot the footage one frame at a time while atop a special camera cart built just for the sequence. The Nikonflex, as it came to be called, provided one of the most innovative and memorable sequences in the film.
Share the Thrills (by bringing back your library books!)
Like the iconic “Yoda READ” library poster from 1983, the American Library Association tipped their hat to Indy in 1984 with a poster encouraging readers to “Return the Adventure” – an obvious play on the Raiders of the Lost Ark slogan “The Return of the Great Adventure” – and to return their library books. While not officially an Indiana Jones poster, the similarities to the archaeologist-adventurer are obvious, down to the fedora, leather jacket, and snake (which clearly gives the swinging book-toting hero a scare).
Read the story in full at Lucasfilm.com, and stream adventures with Indiana Jones on Disney+ now.
