YMMV / Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Willie briefly has a near-moment, where she's almost sacrificed in a horrific way, by a brainwashed Indy no less. Unfortunately, after surviving it, she goes right back into Damsel Scrappy mode, and the audience's pity disappears (even if she is at least relatively more helpful following this).
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Was Mola Ram aware of his atrocities or another brainwashed pawn as the novelization implies?
  • Was Indy originally planning to keep all the Sankara Stones for his own "fortune and glory" or did he always intend to return the rock to the village?
• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • Indy mentions that Short Round's parents were killed in the Japanese bombing of Shanghai. Many assumed this meant the bombing in 1937 at the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, which would be a goof as the film is set in 1935; however, there was, in fact, a bombing in 1932, so it works out fine.
  • The Thuggee were a real cult that did perform human sacrifice and worshiped Kali (indeed, the English word "thug" comes from their name). That said, the movie takes a lot of Artistic License. For one, they didn't pull people's hearts out (that was the Aztecs), but instead "just" strangled their victims.
• Americans Hate Tingle: Even though the movie was a box-office smash, the government of India were understandably not pleased with the negative depiction of their country, and their national censors temporarily banned it from being shown in India. The Indian government found the script so offensive, with absolutely ridiculous baby snakes, eyeball soup, beetles, and chilled monkey brains being served at the banquet, and Kali being misrepresented as a goddess of the underworld instead of a goddess of change and empowerment; the government denied filmmakers permission to shoot in India, with Sri Lanka being used as an alternative for the scenes that took place in India, which only made things worse with its Orientalism.
• Awesome Music: The very catchy "Slave Children's Crusade" or the majestic "Short Round's Theme"
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Short Round gets a lot of hate for his tendency to shout most of his lines, although there are a number of fans who like him for being a competent Kid Sidekick, and for how his relationship with Indy brings out the latter's paternal side. There's also some understandable debate over whether or not Short Round is a funny character who happens to be a plucky Asian kid or if he's just a walking racist joke. He's by no means a useless character, and has some of the funniest lines, but he has a tendency to shout most of those lines in broken English, all with an exaggerated fake Chinese accent.
  • Willie Scott. Her Gold Digger Jerkass attitude, her constant complaining about not having luxuries, being a Brainless Beauty, blaming Indy for all her troubles throughout the film at the end (though he does share some responsibility for it) and doing little to nothing productive or relevant to the plot has made her extremely unpopular with some Indiana Jones fans. Unlike other characters who act as The Load (such as Brody and Henry Sr.), who at least have a pleasant personality or help contribute to the plot, she does neither of those things. However, for others in the fanbase, she represents a humorous departure from Marion and is designed to be ridiculously and comically diva-ish, as opposed to being created as an intentional Hate Sink.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The opening Busby Berkeley-esque dance number, which is weird in itself as Willie sings in mangled standard Chinese, but certain elements of the number ramp this up even further — for instance, the huge sound-stage Willie disappears into that's populated by a completely different set of dancers, and is apparently somewhere inside the club (and still somehow visible to the patrons), the fact that the dancers can all apparently rise back into a standing position from a grounded scissor-split, and finally Willie somehow turns several red handkerchiefs plucked from the dancers' lapels into a huge red sheet (well, she does mention her grandfather was a magician...). All in all, very strange indeed.
• Character Perception Evolution: Initially, Short Round had a more polarizing perception from viewers, as there were a number of people who disliked his highly exaggerated Chinese accent and lack of an indoor voice, with some even finding him just as annoying as Willie Scott. As the years passed though, many people began to realize that Short Round had other positive traits outside of his Ethnic Scrappy Tagalong Kid status, such as his surprising level of competence in dangerous situations, and steadfast loyalty to Indy throughout the entire adventure. With Ke Huy Quan's return to acting in Everything Everywhere All at Once shining a light on his previous child acting roles, it led to an increasingly large portion of the audience wanting him to return to the franchise.
• Complete Monster: Mola Ram, head of the cult of Kali Ma, intends to find the Sankara Stones to bring forth the reign of Kali in a wave of slaughter. To find the stones, he has children abducted from their villages and enslaved, forcing them into grueling labor and abuse. Ram also has a habit of ritualistic sacrifice by ripping the hearts out from his victims and dipping them in lava to burn alive and screaming. Mola also uses the "Blood of Kali" to brainwash local politicians and royalty to become devout servants of Kali, doing the same to Indy and nearly having him sacrifice his own love interest Willie, and finally attempts to plunge Indy to ravenous crocodiles in the climax, dumping his own men to their deaths while attempting to hit Indy.
• Contested Sequel: Was it an interesting variation on the plot of Raiders, or was it too dark and gory to enjoy? It is generally seen as the weakest of the original trilogy, but reception of this movie warmed a bit among the fandom after the release of the even more divisive Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull who appreciate its weirdness and its attempt to be different from the first film and that it has many a Signature Scene for the franchise. Others however point out that the film is too hampered by its ridiculously inaccurate depiction of Indian culture and its indulgence of Mighty Whitey tropes to truly rise to any level of greatness. The presence of Willie and Short Round versus a returning Marion Ravenwood and Mutt Williams doesn't help things, either.
• Creepy Awesome: Mola Ram manages to be one of the most memorable villains of the series even among harder to please fans of the series for how dark he is with his infamous heart rip scene being a significant example of this. Considering his competition includes Nazis, this isn't an easy feat to accomplish.
• Damsel Scrappy: Willie Scott. After a boisterous Hard-Drinking Party Girl like Marion, it's hard for some fans to accept that not every woman's cut out for the adventure shtick. Even her useful moments (punching a mook strangling Indy, stepping on Mola Ram's hands as he tried to climb past them) aren't enough to be Rescued from the Scrappy Heap. But Spielberg and Lucas wanted Willie to be completely different from Marion, to the point that Kate Capshaw was asked to dye her brown hair blond, so this was always the intention.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Lao Che is a fairly popular minor villain for being intelligent enough to outsmart Indy and the added bonus of being played by the late Roy Chiao, to the point many fans requested him to be the antagonist for a fourth film.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Nonsensical depiction of Indian culture aside, Mola Ram is considered a very memorable villain, perhaps one of the best in the series thanks to his very intimidating cult of personality and the late Amrish Puri's larger than life performance.
  • Lao Che, who outwits Indy into getting what he wants and kicks off the plot of the film without suffering many losses. It helps that he is played by the late great Hong Kong actor Roy Chiao.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Indy panicking over crashing a plane briefly stopped being amusing when Harrison Ford got injured in a plane crash in 2015. Although, as a darkly comical moment, when Ford recalled the crash on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, he said "I didn't crash, the fucking plane crashed!", echoing Indy's line "We weren't brought here, our plane... crashed."
• Heartwarming in Hindsight:
  • Producing this film was very hard for George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, as Lucas was going through a painful divorce and Spielberg had a breakup with Amy Irving. But Spielberg would find love again with Kate Capshaw, whom he'd marry several years afterwards. He would say that meeting her was the best part of making this movie.
  • In 2023, co-star Ke Huy Quan won his first Academy Award for Everything Everywhere All at Once, after returning to acting after appearing in this and The Goonies. He credited Spielberg, who was involved in both in some capacity but directed this, for starting his journey to winning the award and supporting him after appearing in this movie. In general, Quan had difficulties obtaining roles written for Asian-Americans and appeared appreciative of his time on this movie, despite his character's base-breaking qualities. What's more, Harrison Ford was the presenter for the Best Picture award, which went to Everything Everywhere All at Once, and thus was there to personally congratulate Quan. They even briefly shared a hug, which solidified their reunion. "Fortune and glory", after all.
• Jerkass Woobie: Willie. Yes she may be an obnoxious spoiled Rich Bitch, but look at it from her point of view: she goes from a safe and comfortable life to an utterly terrifying ordeal—which she was dragged into against her will—including almost being sacrificed. It's hard not to feel at least a bit bad for her, to say nothing of the fact that she will probably have PTSD for the rest of her life.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "WE! ARE GOING! TO DIE! :(" was a popular meme on YTMND.
• Nausea Fuel: The banquet. Foreign Queasine taken to its outer extreme, and quite deliberately (to squick the British and encourage Indy and company to leave). It was cooked up by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas getting suggestions about what the most disgusting possible items to put on a menu could be.
• Narm:
  • The maharajah's condemning of Thuggee during the dinner scene sounds extremely stilted and unrealistic, though considering he's working for them at the time (though unwillingly) that was probably the intention. Kind of gives the "Did I get it right?" look he gives Chattar Lal a new spin, doesn't it?
  • Some of the faces Harrison Ford pulls make certain moments very hard to take seriously, especially around the bridge scene. "Mola Ram, prepare to meet Kali... in Hell!", a rather silly line in its own right, is delivered with enough raw ham to feed every Thuggee in the next three square miles.
  • "Willie…WE. ARE GOING. TO DIE!"—assuming it wasn't meant to be hilarious. Ford's facial expressions as he speaks this line are not, shall we say, subtle.
  • In the finale, on top of how the crocodiles are pretty obviously tearing apart empty clothes whenever mooks fall into the waters below, the screaming of the mooks as they're eaten sound over the top enough to not really be scary. As a matter of fact, Mola Ram's last sound being the Wilhelm Scream as he's ripped to shreds by them can end up being unintentionally funny instead.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: Indy and Willie, in the opinion of many. Certainly the opinion of Roger Ebert, whose review recommends that you get popcorn during the "nocturnal activities" scene.
• Rooting for the Empire:
  • Willie is so annoying, part of the audience actively roots for the Thuggee cult to kill her.
  • And on a literal level, one of the major criticisms leveled at the film is how its use of the Mighty Whitey trope seems to justify Western Imperialism (which is why the Indian government wouldn't let Spielberg film in the country).
  • On a related note, some Indian viewers and a few others listened to Mola Ram's big speech about using the Sankara Stones power to get rid of British rule in India, and think that it's a solid plan they can get behind (the part about destroying Hinduism before wiping out the other world religions presumably notwithstanding). Since the actor Amrish Puri is popular in Indian cinema as a really cool villain actor, they root for him by default.
• Signature Scene:
  • The sacrifice and Rollercoaster Mine scenes. The former for the Nightmare Fuel and Establishing Character Moment for the Big Bad and the latter for being an impressive chase scene that's been paid homage to ever since.
  • The scene where Indy reaches for his hat as the door closes. Whenever there's an Indiana Jones parody, this scene would often get homaged.
• Sophomore Slump: It's widely seen as the weakest of the first three entries in the series, due to Willie (and, to a lesser extent, Short Round) being a Base-Breaking Character, the Thuggees being less memorable villains than the Nazis, an inconsistent tone which sees the film lurch rapidly between being both Denser and Wackier and Darker and Edgier compared to the first film, and some heavily outdated racial politics.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • The movie contains some fairly obvious blue-screen effects that look bad even by the standards of the time. The Thuggee henchmen falling into the river past Jones at the end is one of the most notable examples.
  • Mooks fall into crocodile-infested water and... cut to crocodiles eating empty clothes with their screaming dubbed over. And the cherry on top is that they didn't even get crocodiles, obviously using American alligators as stand ins.
  • The severed monkey heads from the dinner scene are obviously made of plastic.
• Squick: The infamous dinner sequence. Complete with servings of snake carcasses filled with live eels, eyeball soup, beetles, and chilled monkey brains for dessert. The chamber full of bugs also qualifies, as does the dinner of half-rotted food in the village to a lesser extent.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The big slave driver guy gets what's meant as an Alas, Poor Villain moment, as he gets part of his sash caught in a rock crusher and starts screaming in terror as Indy tries in vain to pull him out, only for him to get crushed anyway. Considering he helped enslave a bunch of kids, and is even seen viciously whipping one in his first appearance, it's pretty hard not to just cheer as he dies screaming.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Indy forcefully grabbing Willie with his whip for a kiss without notice after an argument is viewed as very blatant sexual harassment now.
  • The overt Mighty Whitey themes of the story all about the heroic American superman going into India and fighting the evil and heavily embellished Indian death cult.
  • A lot in regards to how India and/or Hinduism is depicted in this film can be pretty uncomfortable to view nowadays, up to the point where the portrayal is widely Condemned by History even by fans of the movie.
  • The head slave driver is played by Pat Roach in order to keep up the Casting Gag of his character being beaten by Indy in the series, with him wearing Brownface to appear Indian. For quite obvious reasons, this would not fly today.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: The child Maharaja. The combination of his outfit being feminine coded by Western audiences, using a voodoo doll to torture Indy, has a moment with Short Round that could be interpreted as a Ship Tease, and his being dubbed by Katie Leigh who gave him a very child princess-type voice means you feel very sorry for actor Raj Singh.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The controversy over how dark and bloody it was for a PG film partially inspired the creation of the PG-13 movie rating in the USA and the 12 in the UK. It's a milestone in cinema history (alongside the similarly too-much-for-PG-not-enough-for-R Gremlins (1984)) for this very reason.
• The Woobie:
  • All of the kids enslaved and forced to work in the mines. Particularly the one we see get whipped repeatedly.
  • The guy who gets sacrificed, considering he's literally praying for his life the whole time and dies a very Cruel and Unusual Death.

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