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Revisiting Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom on blu-ray (1 Viewer)

Will Krupp

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hilariously, I was imagining Molly Ringwald yelling racial epithets at another character.

No, but she hurls a few anti-gay slurs in that movie. Strangely, because I lived through it and remember that that is exactly how people talked at the time, it never bothered me. It's still a very funny movie.
 

Winston T. Boogie

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Well, and I guess that's the thing is it was made at a different time. Weird that 1984 seems like not very long ago. At this point in time I guess the thing is that white heterosexual males like Spielberg and John Hughes would not be permitted to make films where they make people of different ethnic backgrounds or sexual preferences look bad or ridiculous. But in 1984...well...anything goes as Steve might say or have his wife sing.
 

Worth

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There's no way Sixteen Candles would ever get made today. Not just Long Duk Dong, but the whole scene where the geek basically rapes the popular girl who's passed out from drinking. And this was a PG movie.
 

Tino

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I never got the impression the Geek "raped' her. More like she was drunk and threw herself at him. All worked out in the end. :P
 

Will Krupp

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At this point in time I guess the thing is that white heterosexual males like Spielberg and John Hughes would not be permitted to make films where they make people of different ethnic backgrounds or sexual preferences look bad or ridiculous. But in 1984...well...anything goes as Steve might say or have his wife sing.

To be fair, there weren't any obviously gay characters in SIXTEEN CANDLES that he was making fun of, they just used epithets back and forth as an insult. It is somewhat disconcerting coming from the mouth of the character we're supposed to sympathize with but, as I said, it was a different time and I don't get the impression, even today, that there was any real malice behind it. The racial stereotypes are a different story as we still allowed ourselves to laugh at "funny Asians" in 1984 and never for a second realized there was anything racist in what we were laughing at because, to our minds, it was all in good fun, right? Thankfully, we're more sensitive now to the way that humor like that can be both dangerous and hurtful. It doesn't ruin the movie for me because, as I said, I see it in the context of when it was made and released. I acknowledge, however, that I am not Asian so I really don't have any defense for it if someone can't place it in that context and IS offended. They have that right and I have no business telling anyone they don't.
 
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Tino

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Yeah.....and? Are you saying if you have (consensual) sex with a drunk person it's rape?[emoji15]
 

Tino

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I am. You really think the Geek raped her in 16 candles??
 

Will Krupp

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We wouldn't have thought it possible at the time but the fact that she was blackout drunk and her boyfriend had basically "given" her to the geek to bang by way of "doing him a solid" kind of points to the fact that her options were rather limited. I don't think she even knew who it was who was screwing her at the time. You may not call it rape but he certainly took unfair advantage of her condition.
 

Worth

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Yeah.....and? Are you saying if you have (consensual) sex with a drunk person it's rape?[emoji15]

I haven't seen it in a while, but I think the last thing you see is the prom queen passing out in his lap. When you see them the next morning, she has no clear memory of what happened, so it pretty clearly wasn't consenual on her part.
 

Tino

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Understood but do you still think it was rape? And it's ambiguous at best as to what actually happened as he doesn't remember and has to ask her if they had sex. And she says I think so. I'm just saying " rape" is a bit severe in describing the events.
 

Tino

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I haven't seen it in a while, but I think the last thing you see is the prom queen passing out in his lap. When you see them the next morning, she has no clear memory of what happened, so it pretty clearly wasn't consenual on her part.
Actually it's the opposite. As I said he asks her and she says I think so.
 

Worth

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I think technically it fits the definition of rape. Obviously, it's not presented that way in the movie, and she says something like she thinks she enjoyed it, but still, it's pretty reprehensible, as is the whole notion that Jake "gives" her to the Geek as a prize.
 

Tino

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I was just gonna say "how the hell did we get here ??" Apologies for veering off track.
 
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Tino

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Back to TOD, many complaints seem to be about Willie being whiny. Isn't that the whole point of her character? I think Capshaw did a pretty good job.
 

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At a mall in Mt. Kisco, NY, some months before IJATTOD opened, there was a "preview" of the film that people could watch free of charge if they would answer a brief questionaire afterwards. What was shown to us was a 10-minute sequence that included the entire "roller coaster" ride, which, of course, was pretty awesome, so I imagine Paramount got generally excellent feedback.

Upon seeing the full-length film some months later, I found myself disappointed, even hostile. It lacked the pacing, charm and originality of the first film and Kate Capshaw irritated the crap out of me, pretty as she was. I've since tried like hell to warm up to this movie. It certainly has its excellent moments, but it also feels forced. You can sense that Spielberg was trying to one-up himself, and several characters (Capshaw's and Ke Quan's) are major roadblocks. The forced, grotesque humor is less funny than it is distracting. The pace is all over the map, whereas RAIDERS was perfectly edited and respectful of its audience. And, of course, DOOM was not a family-friendly movie like the first film, with its child slavery theme and torture and removal of a human heart by hand, which led to the first PG-13 rating in history.

The third Indy film, for me, is vastly superior to DOOM but nowhere near the quality of RAIDERS. The fourth film, like DOOM, has its moments, but was an ill-advised revival full of unpleasant characters (I just can't stomach Shia LaBeouf) and the worst climax I can recall in a Spielberg film. So, for me, the first movie stands alone as a magnificent thriller without peer,
 

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