Why is Temple of Doom a prequel?

Temple of Doom was the second Indiana Jones movie, but it was set before Raiders of the Lost Ark. Why was the decision made to set the second movie before the first? I didn't notice any story points that wouldn't have worked just as well set after Raiders.

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Best Answer

Lucas made the film a prequel as he did not want the Nazis to be the villains once more.

From Lucas himself:

Lucas: We made Temple Of Doom a prequel because we didn't want to use the same bad guys. We had ideas about the Monkey King. We had ideas for a haunted-castle movie but then Steve had just done Poltergeist and said, "I don't wanna do that again." We were struggling to come up with another MacGuffin. We couldn't find anything as good as the Lost Ark. We ended up with the Sankara Stones, which was a little obscure.

You can find the quote in its original context here.

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Is the Temple of Doom a prequel?

In case you don't remember, Wu Han was introduced in the opening scene of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, a prequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark released three years later in May of 1984.

Why is Temple of Doom so different?

Lucas added, \u201cPart of it was I was going through a divorce, Steven had just broken up and we were not in a good mood, so we decided on something a little more edgy. It ended up darker than we thought it would be.

Why was the second Indiana Jones a prequel?

The film takes Indy on an adventure to India, where he encounters the evil Mola Ram and his cult. According to George Lucas, the decision to make the film a prequel boils down to the fact that the creators didn't want to use Nazis as the bad guys again.

Why was Temple of Doom controversy?

YouTube Horror was on the map for Temple of Doom because Lucas wanted to match the dark tone of his other trilogy, Star Wars. Temple of Doom became notorious for all these reasons, but perhaps its biggest misstep was its racially insensitive scenes and reliance on Indian stereotypes.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - You Think You Know Movies?

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