Short Round, Indy’s precocious 12-year-old aide in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, was described by former LucasFilm archivist J.W. Rinzler as the real hero of Indy’s second big-screen adventure. He catches Indy and Willie Scott with his perfectly placed car in Shanghai. Later, he defends Willie, uses a burning torch to break Kali’s spell over Indy, and does the same to the young Maharajah, who then calls in the British cavalry to shoot Thugee soldiers before they can kill Indy, Willie, and Short Round on the rope bridge.

Shorty, as Indy called him, certainly played an integral part in the film. But, as the first screenplay draft shows, Short Round had his biggest heroic moment cut from the final film. While Indiana Jones is passed out in the plane after ingesting a poisoned drink from Shanghai gangster Lao She, Shorty has to take matters into his own hands and fend off two biplanes with a machine gun.

No explanation is given why the sequence was cut. But it was likely canned for either its cost, its impact on the running time of the film, or that it detracts from the main hero of the story, Indiana Jones.

A version of this sequence does make it into the film. After escaping Shanghai, Indy, Willie Scott, and Short Round discover the plane is running out of fuel and the pilots have bailed out. Indy can’t fly the plane, but just moments before it crashes into a mountain, Indy finds an inflatable raft, which the trio uses to escape and land on the icy slopes below. 

The escape is the same as it is in the screenplay’s first draft and the first-revised draft, but all mention of Short Round’s battle with Lao She’s biplanes has been removed in the final film. Most likely, to give all agency to Indy. 

Let’s look at the lost sequence, and spot the ideas that made it into the final film. (Look out for how Shorty’s lost sequence was rewritten for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade)

Just hours after Indy, Willie Scott, and Short Round have left Shanghai, the DC3 airplane is in chaos when two biplanes sent by Lao She attack. Passengers are terrified. The pilot hands out parachutes, and passengers are bailing out of the aircraft hoping not to be hit by machine gun fire. (This is the first difference with the final film. The passenger plane is a cargo plane that the trio shares with chickens. And the pilots don’t hand out parachutes. They sneak out the back door and leave Indy and his companions to die).

Indy is unconscious, passed out as his body recovers from the poison that spiked his drink at Club Obi-Wan in Shanghai. 

There is one parachute left and Willie and Shorty are fighting over it. 

After Shorty’s close call, he tries to shake Indy awake. No luck. Shorty then grabs Indy’s pistol and starts shooting at the two biplanes from the side door. A sudden spray of bullets smashes windows and hit a fire extinguisher, which sprays in Indy’s face. He awakens suddenly…

This scene (above) remains in the final film. While Indy works out how to fly, Shorty finds a machine gun–and takes total control of the situation. Shorty quickly takes out the first biplane.

Shorty blasts after the second biplane. Following the biplane with his gun, Shorty makes a critical error which is reminiscent of a sequence in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

The moment Shorty destroys his own plane’s engine was reworked for Last Crusade when Indy’s father accidentally shoots up the tail of his own plane.

The plane is crippled, and narrowly misses crashing into a mountaintop.

This action moment remains in the final scene. But in the first draft, this is also how the final biplane meets its demise. Following too close behind the DC-3, the pilot of the last biplane cannot see the mountain peak until it is too late.

Indy races into the passenger cabin, grabs a deflated yellow lift raft, and drags it to the open door. As in the final film, Willie screams, “We’re not sinking, we’re crashing!” 

After some superfluous dialogue that is edited out of the film, the trio drops from the plane as Indy pulls the inflation cord. 

It is interesting to see how the sequence was altered for the final film. The final sequence keeps many elements, but overall it is a lot simpler.  The passenger plane was changed into a cargo plane which the trio shared with some chickens. While the pilots help passengers escape in the first draft, they do not in the final film. Rather, they bail out of the aircraft while the trio sleep, leaving them with no parachutes.

In the final film, Willie wakes first to find out that no one is flying the plane. No mention is made of Indy recovering from the poison. Nor does shattered glass and spray from a fire extinguisher wake Indy. Willie just fans air in his face with his hat until he wakes up. There’s no fighting over the last parachute. Shorty instead looks for other parachutes while Indy tries to work out how to fly the plane. Shorty says there are “no more parachutes”. At this point, they move to the back of the craft. The wheel of the plane touches the mountain peak (like in the first draft). From then on, the sequence is almost exactly the same find the yellow life raft.

Storyboarded, But Scrapped

According to Rinzler, in his book, The Complete Making of Indiana Jones, the sequence was storyboarded but scrapped during preproduction in April 1982. The book shows four storyboards of the sequence, but no explanation for its removal is given.

While the sequence was rewritten for Last Crusade, the second Indy film inherited a few action sequences that were brainstormed for Raiders of the Lost Ark during the 1978 Raiders Story Conference, including the mine cart chase.

The first draft of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom can be read at this link below.

Read First Draft of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom