Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

Imagine creating not one but two iconic franchises in the history of cinema, then revealing that you fundamentally misunderstand their essence and appeal when making the inevitable sequel. I guess that's the George Lucas Promise (tm)... Especially irritating is the runaway mine train sequence that's only there to promote some theme park ride.

Don't let people say "you couldn't make this movie today" - this was a film that was labelled as racist even prior to filming commenced, as India refused to issue a film permit after reading the script. Particularly egregious to me is the film's implication is that India cannot be trusted to rule themselves without reverting to weird blood sacrifices, and that even the 'civilised' Indian is, underneath the crisp Western dress is some kind of death-loving savage.

The film’s omnipresent racism, which unsettles in two separate directions: not only the outrageously depicted evil of Mola Ram and his mindless, chanting acolytes, but the helplessness of the villagers under his control, who are in need of a whip-cracking white savior in order to rebuild their society.

— Adam Nayman (The Ringer)

While unable to condone the hokey, dismissive way in which Temple of Doom depicts an entire culture, I must admit that even the film’s racial insensitivity is not untrue to the spirit of Bollywood action films of the same decade. All the eighties Indian film industry cared to know about China, Hong Kong, and the Far East in general was that they invented kung fu (the Fu-Manchu-bearded karate guru was a common trope at the time) and possessed an impressive cadre of organized crime […]. As for white Westerners, there was more of a range, but many of the types from this time reflect the persistent scars of British colonialism: the women are either priggish (in period films) or one-note sexual dilettantes (in contemporary titles), and Caucasian men, particularly Brits, were often depicted as heartless looters, pillagers, and landowners or oddly unmanly bureaucratic henchmen.

— Farihah Zaman (Reverse Shot)

Perhaps the reason Temple of Doom is regarded as inferior to either Lost Ark or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is as simple as its religious context. Bluntly, the bookends remain resolutely Judeo-Christian. Here, Indy is forced to give serious consideration to the legitimacy of religious conventions outside of that tradition.

— Eric Henderson (Slant Magazine)