MOVIES · STORY NOTES

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a 1984 American action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg from a script by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, based on a story by George Lucas. In the film, set in 1935, Indiana Jones finds himself stranded in British India, where he is tasked with recovering a village's mystical stone and rescuing its children from a Thuggee cult practicing child slavery, black magic and ritual human sacrifice in honor of the goddess Kali, portrayed as a demon.

Description adapted from Wikipedia contributors, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom · CC BY-SA 4.0. Text adapted for this entry.

FULL SPOILERS AHEAD

The story, including the ending.

These write-ups discuss major events and outcomes for this listed work. Each source and its coverage are identified below.

Source plot synopsis — includes the ending

In 1935, American archeologist Indiana Jones survives a murder attempt in Shanghai by Triad crime boss Lao Che, who hired him to retrieve the remains of Nurhaci. Jones flees from the city accompanied by his young orphan sidekick Short Round and nightclub singer Willie Scott, unaware that the plane they are traveling on is owned by Lao Che. The plane's pilots dump the fuel and parachute away, but Jones, Willie, and Short Round escape using an inflatable raft before the plane crashes. The trio ride down the slopes of the Himalayas and fall into a river before arriving at the Indian village of Mayapore.
The villagers plead for Jones' aid in retrieving a sacred lingam stone, along with the village's children, who were supposedly taken by evil forces from the nearby Pankot Palace. Jones agrees to do so, hypothesizing that the stone is one of five Sankara stones given by the Hindu gods to help humanity fight evil. Traveling to the palace, the trio are warmly welcomed and allowed to stay for the night as guests, attending a banquet hosted by the palace's young maharaja, Zalim Singh. During the night, Jones is attacked by an assassin, but manages to kill him. He discovers a series of tunnels underneath the palace and explores them with Willie and Short Round.
Finding a temple and a complex of mine tunnels, they observe Thuggee cultists conducting a human sacrifice. The cult, which possesses three Sankara stones, is revealed to have brainwashed Singh and abducted the children of Mayapore, using them as slave labor to find the remaining stones. During Jones' attempt to retrieve the stones, the trio is captured. Thuggee high priest Mola Ram forces Jones to drink a potion that places him into a trance-like state, under which he prepares Willie for sacrifice. Short Round is briefly enslaved in the tunnels, but he escapes and interrupts Willie's sacrifice by freeing Jones from his trance, allowing him to rescue Willie.
The trio defeat multiple cultists, collect the Sankara stones, and free Singh and the children, escaping an attempt by Mola Ram to drown them. When he and his men ambush the trio on a rope bridge, Jones severs it with a sword, causing several cultists to fall into the crocodile-infested river far below. As Jones, Willie, Short Round, and Mola Ram struggle to climb up the broken bridge, Jones invokes the name of Shiva, triggering the stones to burn through his satchel. Two stones fall into the river; Mola Ram catches the third, but it burns his hand and he falls to his death, being devoured by the crocodiles.
Jones catches the stone with no ill effects and climbs up as a regiment of British Indian Army soldiers arrives, alerted by Singh, to defeat the remaining cultists. Jones, Willie, and Short Round return to Mayapore to hand over the stone, and Jones and Willie embrace as the villagers celebrate its and their children's return.
Sources and content license

Source and revision history ↗ · Adapted from Wikipedia contributors, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Section headings and formatting adjusted. · Content license