One of your favorite movies from childhood is a lie!
OK, not a lie.
But you're remembering it wrong!
Over on ESPN's Grantland.com, they're hosting a contest called Sequeltology. It's a tournament to decide the best sequel of all time.
Grantland does a podcast, and during this week's episode they talked about the contest.
Eventually the conversation turned to one of the bigger sequels from the 1980s – "Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom."
You will remember it as the one where the guy rips out someone's heart and eats it.
Anyway!
I learned something "shocking" listening to this podcast.
I learned that "Temple of Doom" is not a sequel at all. It's a prequel!
It takes place before "Raiders of Lost Ark," which came out three years earlier, in 1981.
I found confirmation of this fact on the Internet, of course.
Apparently "Temple of Doom" took place in 1935, and in the "Indiana Jones" mythology is considered Volume 23 to "Raiders"' volume 24.
Insane!
This has shattered my entire understanding of the "Indiana Jones" trilogy!
(No, I do not include the fourth "Indiana Jones" film, "Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull," to be part of the canon. Too much CGI. Too many nukes. Just bad.)
One immediate problem is this: Indiana spends most of "Raiders" professing not to believe in religion and magic, until he sees the [SPOILER] Ark opened and a guy's face gets melted off. (Still awesome).
But in "Temple of Doom," there is plenty of magic that Indiana witnesses. Did he just forget all that? (Or was this just the first sign that George Lucas is a terrible writer who punched WAY above his weight making Star Wars IV, V, and VI. Ding ding ding!)
Anyway, I can't be the only one blown away by this.
