It’s
the holidays and we’re feeling it even here in the Sewer. This year
we’re taking stock of the many gifts we’ve gotten from the movies over
the years and celebrating them in the form of a Christmas carol. In our
own special way.
While the traditional 12 Days of Christmas
counts up from one, we think it’s more fun to count down between now
and the big day (and yeah, we built in some slack for ourselves). So
sit back and get ready for some great moments from some great CHUD
favorites, and some possible holiday gift ideas while we’re at it.
On the tenth day til Christmas my true CHUD sent to me…
Ten Thuggee Falling
“He no nuts. He crazy!”
Pick and choose your hated elements in Temple of Doom, but stay the fuck away from the rope bridge sequence. The setup is simple and classic; Indy’s stance, machete in one hand, whip in the other, is my favorite vision of the character, and one of the most iconic. This is a pristine example of Spielberg and Lucas bringing their beloved adventure serials back to life — the hero with treasure in hand, stuck in an impossible situation. But we don’t have to wait until next week to see how the cliffhanger ends. Instead we get to hear Amrish Puri deeply intone ‘welcome!’ and then see him chewed up by crocs minutes later.
(Let me defend the numbering here: if you actually count the Thuggee that fall, I think it’s many more than ten. But I’m going with what the master shots tell us.)
But as excellent as the rope bridge sequence is, the poor Thuggee get a bad shake. Few of the soldiers get the sort of character Spielberg (ironically) gave the Nazi rank and file in Raiders. They might as well have been born to feed the crocs rolling in the water below. The most personality these redshirts got was being turned into pixellated jumping jacks in the Temple of Doom arcade game; they didn’t even have it that good in the tough as nails Indiana Jones’ Greatest Adventures on the SNES. At least the toys were good.
Any film fan that has gone without deserves the Complete Indiana Jones box set, though you might want to wait for the full blu-ray release. Introduce kids to video game addiction at an early age via Lego Indiana Jones, or be really enterprising and track down the French graphic novel Indiana Jones and the City of Lightning which, in chronological terms, is Jones’ introduction to the cult of Kali.