Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom

After watching the Temple of Doom, I now consider myself to have a strong understanding on why this film was so dark and frightening, while being exciting and energetic.  George Lucas and Steven Spielberg teamed up to create one of the most controversial films of the twentieth century.  Lucas wrote the story of all the Indy films, having previously worked on the Star Wars franchise.  Spielberg was the director; his past works include Jaws, Jurassic Part, ET, and many more.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: Dir. Steven Spielberg. Perf. Harrison Ford, Kate Copshaw, and Jonathan KeQuan. Paramount 1984. DVD.

People consider this film to be controversial because of how dark and unnecessarily evil some of the scenes were.  Examples include the heart removal scene, child abuse, and lots of death.  While this movie was being filmed, both Spielberg and Lucas were going through breakups in their personal lives.  The idea behind making this film so dark was based on Lucas and Spielberg dealing with real heartbreak.  Lucas says during the heart removal scene, that symbolized his heart being ripped out which I find very interesting.
An article called "Temple of Gloom", Grantland: August 31, 2012. np. nd. Web. April 23, 2014.
http://grantland.com/features/explaining-indiana-jones-temple-doom/?print=1

This article is examining how Lucas and Spielberg's heartbreak influenced the film's dark behavior.  Film critics during the time this was released, were very offended by it.  One critic stated, "Taking your child to see the Temple of Doom is a form of child abuse".  Overall, I admire the fact that Spielberg and Lucas took a huge risk with making this film the way it is, and I believe it was a meaningful thing to do.