Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom: Willie Scott Edition

I always thought TOD was the weakest Indy movie.

I considered this to be true even after Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was released. Crystal Skull suffered from a lot of issues that affect modern cinema, but TOD was always bad. Different kinds of bads.

NJVC fixed Crystal Skull, changing the movie into something I can easily enjoy, Raiders of the Lost Skull.

TOD was something I never found really fixed...until now. I thought it was a pity, since it had some inspiring moments, and a young Indiana Jones, in a different, dark adventure.

I always thought it was because of including the kids in the story and the difficulty to film something realistic with so many kids... I thought that there was something not letting things work there.

But then I saw this release and watched it. What a big surprise. How Willie Scott was protrayed in the movie was the main lackluster... fixing Willie revives the film in so many ways!
Pace is better, character development and depth feels better, the story feels more real and natural....
This edit has left me with "my" go-to version of TOD. At last a version I can easily rewatch!

lapis did it for me. A version of the movie I can enjoy, despite its flaws (in the original movie).

This could be somehow considered a "feminist" edit, in the best meaning of the word possible and I cannot do anything else but strongly recommend its viewing.

I have been meaning to check this edit out for a while and finally got around to it. I think this second installment is often overly maligned. Yes, the love interest and sidekick can be annoying. Yes, some of effects are wonky by today's standards. But I like the idea of it more than Last Crusade, which I felt was more of a retread. I think an occult cult is a good bad guy for an Indiana Jones story. And I like the setpieces in this one better than Crusade. That said, Willie Scott was always an annoying character. This edit does a good job of minimizing that. But she still comes off as someone you struggle to see what Jones sees in her other than looks. Another misstep in this entry was thinking that kids needed an avatar of themselves to relate to. Short Round is not a good character and it has become worse with time. I wouldn't mind seeing Temple of Doom: the Willie Scott and Short Round Edition that gives the same treatment to Short Round that this edit gave to Willie Scott. I had to watch this by using Screen Mirroring to my Apple TV. So while there were some glitches in my viewing experience, I am almost certain that was due to the Mirroring so I'm not taking off nay points there. As someone who doesn't hate Doom as much as many others, I thought this was a good improvement. But I'd still like it to have gone further, particularly with regards to Short Round.

Like many others I think Temple of Doom is the worst of the original Indy movies. It's still a good movie but Willie Scott is a decent character at best and the movie is just so dark toned at times. Well this one didn't make the movie more cheerful but Willie got an improvement. I never really minded the outdated special effects but this one got rid of many as well which is nice.

I enjoyed this one quite a bit and Willie was a better character this time around. I don't think it's THE Temple of Doom edition for me but it's still a small improvement to already a good movie.

A few audio editing "glitches" slighty stood out but nothing major. Visual editing was good.

Nice work.
After some minutes in, there are some subtly noticeable transitions but nothing remotely jarring.
AV quality is excellent and favors some gorgeous shots and setpieces.
I'm only deducting more on enjoyment because of the movie itself. I can't believe Willie could ever be more annoying than this.
Or that the whole film is pure slapstick (I hope that is the case anyway, there's no other excuse for Indy punching a clueless waitress in the face).
But I'm mostly grateful and impressed by the subtitles. It makes a world of difference for me as a non-native speaker, and seeing that it's not a common sight with fanedits, I want to praise this extra mile of lapis molari's editing standards.
By all means, a definitive improvement over the original.

I've always loved Temple of Doom, even as the dark sheep of the original Indy Trilogy. Sure, Willie Scott (played by Kate Capshaw) was unbelievably irritating and added NOTHING at all to the movies, but it was still Harrison Ford in his prime as our favorite archaeologist-adventurer.

What Lapis set out to do would be nearly impossible without completely digitally removing Kate Capshaw, but in the end he did a fantastic job of toning down Willie's annoyingness. The edits are extremely clean and quick, and you really won't notice too much difference, though you will FEEL Willie is somewhat less screamy.

I thought the best changes were cutting Willie's dropping Indy's gun and complaining about cracking a nail (WHO CARES?! YOU'RE BEING CHASED BY PEOPLE TRYING TO KILL YOU!!), as well as completely cutting out all of her screaming at animals during the Indy/Short Round card game. In fact, the latter really does a good job of focusing on Indy and SR, letting you enjoy their relationship without being distracted by a poor joke/screaming Willie every 2 seconds. I also liked cutting Willie's 'I'm losing my voice' lines after falling off of the elephant, but I could have done with cutting her falling off too.

Ultimately, there is only so much that can be done with Temple of Doom. Spielberg himself said it was a troubled time for producer George Lucas and the two of them made a much darker film that intended. I don't have a problem with that. My issue is how horrible, annoying, and just plain arrogant the so called 'love interest' of Indy 2 was, and Lapis has done a great job of toning her down as much as possible. This fan edit as replaced the original cut in my library. Thanks Lapis!