Indiana Jones says that he only speaks Mandarin on "special occasions", then at the end of the movie he has to speak it to warn Short Round to hold onto the bridge so he doesn't tip off the Thuggees. By that point it had been over an hour since we last heard Indy speak in Mandarin so we've pretty much forgotten all about it. Clever method of exposition on Spielberg's part.
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Yeah, pretty much. Still, I don't think anyone would yell "foul" if Indy spoke Mandarin to Short Round; Indy's a world traveler, professor, and archaeologist who's been all around the world.
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I assume mandarin. Again they don’t speak it again until over an hour later after a whole bunch of freaky sh1t has happened and most of the audience completely forgot about that scene
shareOh yeah, definitely thought that intentional.
shareI don't really see it as foreshadowing. Indy speaks Hindi as well, without any foreshadowing whatever. One is expected to simply accept that Indy speaks whatever language necessary to the plot. In fact, Raiders is the only movie where he ever needs help with translation.
shareOK fine whatever you say, I just find it interesting that what seems like a throwaway line in the first 4 minutes actually ends up saving his life later.
shareSaving his life? All he needed to do was call out "Willy, Shorty, hold on for dear life; I'm cutting the ropes!" and then start hacking. Events would transpire in the exact same fashion, except there wouldn't be a tense build-up that way.
shareActually no because then the Thuggees would know what he was up to and they would have a chance to stop him. There was a reason he spoke to Shorty in Cantonese, the Thuggees didn't know Cantonese.
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Or grab hold of the ropes themselves.
The element of surprise is the reason why Indy was able to defeat the Thuggees on the bridge, if Indy said what he said in English he would have lost the element of surprise.
shareWhat element of surprise? What were they going to do different had he warned Willy and Shorty in English?
shareThey would have known to hold onto the rope and therefore more of the guards would have survived. Indy sent like 8 guards down to the crocodiles, if it hadn’t been for the element of surprise less of them would have fallen, I like picked up on this the first time I saw it.
shareThey would have known to hold onto the rope and therefore more of the guards would have survived.
Watch the movie again, clearly Willie and Short Round knew what was going on and the Thuggee’s didn’t. I’m not sure what kind of a point you are trying to make here. If you think it’s implausible that the Thuggee’s would have been tricked so easily then that is an entirely different discussion.
shareWatch the movie again, clearly Willie and Short Round knew what was going on and the Thuggee’s didn’t.
If you think it’s implausible that the Thuggee’s would have been tricked so easily then that is an entirely different discussion.
Not necessarily and just because the characters don’t act the way that you, Karl Aksel think they should that doesn’t constitute a problem with the script.
The discussion was that Spielberg foreshadowed something in the first four minutes and when he did it it seemed like a throwaway line and I thought that was clever. Whether Indy’s plan would have worked or not is a non sequitur.
Not necessarily and just because the characters don’t act the way that you, Karl Aksel think they should that doesn’t constitute a problem with the script.
The discussion was that Spielberg foreshadowed something in the first four minutes and when he did it it seemed like a throwaway line and I thought that was clever.
When they should have reacted is a non sequitur and does not address the premise of this post so you are dismissed.
Well that's fine, you disagree, good for you. I thought it was a clever way to introduce exposition without the audience knowing it was exposition. Exposition is tricky because you need to convey information in a way that sounds natural and not blatantly obvious that you are giving exposition (Han and Leia talking about Ben in The Force Awakens is an example of poor exposition) and I thought Spielberg found a clever way of doing it.
When they should have reacted is a non sequitur and does not address the premise of this post so you are dismissed.
I absolutely know what it means and you have asserted multiple non sequiturs, I'll say again: WHETHER OR NOT THE PLAN WOULD HAVE WORKED IS IRRELEVANT TO THIS DISCUSSION!!!!
The truth of the matter is that the plan did work in the film and Spielberg introduced how Indy was going to warn Short Round to hold onto the bridge in the opening scene in what seems like a throwaway line. That is literally the point of this topic. Are you really this stupid or are you trolling me?
By your logic if I were to say that "it was really cool how they setup Batman's sonar cell phone technology in the second act of the Dark Knight for it to pay off in the last 15 minutes" and then you respond with " that technology is impossible", that's a non sequitur.
I thought it was a nice moment, until Shorty started tangling himself up in the ropes and telling Willie to do the same.
That made it kinda obvious what Indy had just said, not just to the audience but to Mola Ram and the thuggees.
Still a great scene