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The plots and people around Indiana Jones release on Sunday in Cannes

May 15, 2008, 15:48 GMT

Los Angeles - The first three Indiana Jones movies made some 1.2 billion dollars at the worldwide box office with their high adrenaline tales, irresistible heroes and squirm-inducing villains. Twenty-seven years have lapsed since the first blockbuster was released. Here are some memory joggers before the newest, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, makes its debut Sunday at the Cannes film festival. © Lee Roth / RothStock / PR Photos

Twenty-seven years have lapsed since the first blockbuster was released. Here are some memory joggers before the newest, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, makes its debut Sunday at the Cannes film festival. © Lee Roth / RothStock / PR PhotosTwenty-seven years have lapsed since the first blockbuster was released. Here are some memory joggers before the newest, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, makes its debut Sunday at the Cannes film festival. The opening of the first movie, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), sets the tone for the series. We meet Indiana Jones, the swashbuckling archeology professor, as he navigates a series of booby traps including a giant rolling stone. It is 1936 and Jones has been assigned by the US government to locate the biblical Ark of the Covenant, before the Nazis can get their hands on it and use its legendary power to make themselves invincible. Indy must battle his nemesis Rene Belloq, played by Paul Freeman, but is aided by his old flame Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) and sidekick Sallah, played by John Rhys Davies. The film is filled with chases, escapes and fights before Jones completes his mission and rescues the Ark - only for it to be forgotten in a massive government warehouse. The film earned 384 million dollars. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in 1984 was darker and more violent. It is set in 1935 and sees Indy in India, where he must battle the evil Thugee cult that practices child slave labour and human sacrifice and is on the trail of the Sankara Stone which will help it rule the world. This time around Indy is helped by nightclub singer Willie Scott, played by Kate Capshaw, and a precocious 11- year-old Short Round played by Ke Huy Quan. The movie was filled with memorable chases and sequences including the legendary mine-car pursuit. But perhaps the most memorable moment was a scene in the Temple of Doom in which a man's beating heart is ripped out of his chest - a shocking image for the previously innocent series. The movie was the least successful in the franchise, earning some 334 million dollar at the box office. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was released in 1989. Set mostly in 1938, the plot plunges Indy into a double search. His estranged father Henry, played by Sean Connery, has vanished while searching for the mythical Holy Grail. Indy is hired by businessman Walter Donovan (Julian Glover) to work with Dr Elsa Schneider (Alison Doody) to find his father and the ancient artifact. Donovan and Schneider turn out to be Nazi agents who captured Henry in order to get Indiana to help them find the Grail. Traipsing through burning catacombs in Venice, escaping a burning Zeppelin, and stealing a Nazi fighter plane, they careen towards the climax in a temple where Indy is helped by an ancient knight. He manages to keep the treasure from the Nazis and also save his father. The film earned 474 million dollars at the box office.

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supastringMay 16th, 2008 - 05:53:33

‘ Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in 1984 was darker and more violent’

A common misconception - It was darker in tone, but it wasn’t more violent

‘a man's beating heart is ripped out of his chest - a shocking image for the previously innocent series’

That just aint true – in the first movie, a man is liquidated by an airplane propeller, another run over by Indy in a truck, others are impaled by spikes, have their faces melted, and their heads exploded.

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