Fans of the first Indiana Jones™ movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, are undoubtedly going to recognize many details of the Temple of the Golden Idol LEGO® set which was released in April of 2023. It was the biggest of three Indiana Jones sets released at the same time. An excellent display piece, this set captures the opening action scene of the movie that came out more than 40 years ago.
In the movie, Indy, as his friends called him, was searching for a golden idol housed in a booby trap ridden temple. To get to the treasured idol, Indy and his companion, Satipo, must navigate deadly spikes, large spiders, a bottomless pit, and arrows, all meant to keep would be thieves out of the temple. Even if one makes it to the idol, he will find that removing it sets off a series of crashing stones and closing walls to prevent that person from escaping with the idol.
In this set, the LEGO designers went to great lengths to capture this sequence of events, including moving parts to simulate the treacherous traps Indy and Satipo found in that corridor to the temple. Once built, the set is a bit like the diorama sets we have seen for Star Wars™ scenes, but with the added bonus of several moving parts (the Star Wars Trash Compactor set also had moving, collapsing walls).
Broken down into 10 steps, the process of putting together the 1,545 pieces was quite enjoyable, though sometimes tedious. The base structures included the necessary technic pieces to enable control over moving elements such as the boulder that crashes down and blocks the entrance to the temple. You must pay close attention to which hole the connector pieces must go into the levers’ and arms’ holes correctly. If I got in a hurry, I would get one of these wrong and have to go back to correct it.
The first three steps (bags 1 through 3) builds the temple entrance and first room that has several spiders and a large boulder. The entrance is an ornate brick and rock structure with various greenery pieces and rock-carved faces. A lot of small, specialty pieces make up the construction of those.
The first room has a well positioned spider web piece and several spiders that are fun to occasionally move around. In Raiders, Indy casually wipes these spiders off of his back and from Satipo’s back just after they enter the temple. There is also a skeleton in the corner. In the movie, Indy notes that it was a previous explorer, Forrestal. “He was good. He was very, very good,” Indy previously said. While not noted on the box as one of the included minifigs, I like to think that the skeleton is the Forrestal bonus character. The large boulder that rolls from above in the movie is also built in here with a mechanism that allows you control it from the bottom front. It can go up and down by turning a knob with a skull picture on it.
Next, bags 4, 5 and 6 make up the bottomless pit and the section of the cavern that had specific stones that when stepped on, out shoots a small arrow at the trespasser. This section includes the falling door that slides down, sealing the entrance/exit of the temple cavern. Another skull adorned knob controls that sliding wall, which also has a sticker. The third skull knob controls the swinging piece that simulates Indy using his whip to cross over the large hole in the ground. There is a vine type of piece like the one he tried to use to pull himself up when jumping across this hole in the movie.
Tree roots, more greenery and rock structures give this section a very nice look. A Raiders of the Lost Ark logo sticker and two quotes from the movie are between the two knobs on this section. Satipo said, “Let us hurry. There is nothing to fear here.” “That’s what scares me,” Indy replies.
The last four bags made up the large room with the idol pedestal and the wall with all the face carvings and the large head that crashes down after Indy removes the idol. A nice touch is the bag piece that the Indy minifig can carry. He uses this in an attempt to make the pedestal “think” it still has the idol on it and will not trigger yet another trap. The wall with the face carvings is good mix of somewhat scary faces, silly faces and even a minifig head in one of the applied stickers. I think one is a dog with a native like headdress on. There were several stickers to apply throughout the set, especially on this section. I always hope I can get them as straight as possible to make the set display look its best.
The large rock-carved statue of the warrior head that falls down in the movie was an interesting part to build. Not so much the head itself, but more so because of the complicated mechanism behind the head that controls both its tumbling, and the idol platform lowering down. One skull knob on the front controls both. There is also a spotlight that shines when this knob is turned. Turning the knob slowly will simultaneously turn on the light and lower the idol. Continuing to turn it will eventually trigger the stone statue to fall down, but is caught by some chain pieces to prevent it from hitting the bottom and breaking apart, potentially losing pieces. This was a smart move by the designers.
Additional minifigs included in the set are a Hovitos warrior and Indy’s nemesis, Belloq. They are both well designed and make good LEGO representations of both. Belloq has a gun and the warrior has a bow and arrow. As in the movie, the warrior is clothed in only a front covering loin cloth. I suppose that makes this set rank a PG-13 rating.
Overall, I enjoy seeing this set on my shelf and turning the various knobs to make things move, swing, fall, light up and crash. I have fun positioning the characters as they were in the movie and reliving those scenes. A lot of details are packed into the Temple of the Golden Idol LEGO set.
