It is the second installment in the Indiana Jones film series and a prequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark. The film stars Harrison Ford , who reprises his role as the title character. In the film, after arriving in British India , Indiana Jones is asked by desperate villagers to find a mystical stone and rescue their children from a Thuggee cult practicing child slavery , black magic , and ritual human sacrifice in honor of the goddess Kali.
Not wishing to feature the Nazis as the villains again, executive producer and story writer George Lucas decided to regard this film as a prequel. Three plot devices were rejected before Lucas wrote a film treatment that resembled the final storyline. As Lawrence Kasdan , Lucas's collaborator on Raiders of the Lost Ark , turned down the offer to write the script, Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz , who had previously worked with Lucas on American Graffiti , were hired as his replacements.
Initial critical reviews were mixed, with criticism aimed at its strong violence, as well as some of its darker story elements, and there was controversy over its portrayal of India. Critical opinion has improved since , citing the film's intensity and imagination. In response to some of the more violent sequences in the film, and with similar complaints about the Spielberg-produced Gremlins which released two weeks later , Spielberg suggested that the Motion Picture Association of America MPAA alter its rating system , which it did within two months of the film's release, creating a new PG rating.
A third film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade , followed in In , American archeologist Indiana Jones survives a murder attempt from Shanghai crime boss Lao Che , who hired him to retrieve the remains of Nurhaci. Indy 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 Che.
The plane's pilots dump the fuel and parachute away, but Indy, 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. There, the villagers plead for Indy's aid in retrieving a sacred lingam stone stolen along with the village's children by evil forces from the nearby Pankot Palace.
