RAIDERS OF THE KRYSTAL SKULL: Remixed by Jorge
 a TRUE FANEDIT by JorgeNearly two decades after the last appearance, Indiana Jones is back. The great Steven Spielberg and the great George Lucas, re-teaming with the great Harrison Ford and the great John Williams (cue triumphal brass!), to dig up one of the great adventure series in cinematic history and the result is. . . not bad. . . exactly. It’s not a desecration of the franchise. It’s just feels . . . tired. So the attempt is to bring some life into a tired film. member ratings: |
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INTENTION:
This one came as a surprise. I wasn’t planning on Indy 4 as my next release. It wasn’t even on my radar.
I had been working (and still am) on a fanedit of THE READER and another one called JOHN CARPENTER’S THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT.
But it was in the midst of fanediting when that dark day happened: Infodroid dropped out of his Indy 4 fanedit.
Suddenly what had been a sleepy tread about KOTCS became a tragic adventure.
What was going to happen? would Indy 4 ever have a fanedit made? who will take the reins?
It was all very tragic and exciting. Especially with the workings of new member Professor Hebrides who would post
assemblies of his work in progress and who did much too good a job promoting his edit because suddenly all I had was
Jones on my mind.
I had not seriously read the thread until after InfoDroid vanished into the jungle.
So some of their ideas percolated through me but over all I just approached the film like all my other fan-edits:
I am the audience and what do I want to see.
EDITING DETAILS:
Nearly two decades after the last appearance, Indiana Jones is back. The great Steven Spielberg and the great George Lucas,
re-teaming with the great Harrison Ford and the great John Williams (cue triumphal brass!), to dig up one of the great
adventure series in cinematic history and the result is. . . not bad. . . exactly.
It’s not a desecration of the franchise. It’s just feels . . . tired.
But if Indiana Jones looks tired, its exhaustion stems in part from two forces outside Spielberg’s control.
The first is almost 20 years’ worth of rip-offs: The Mummy did Indy no favors.
And whose fault is it that Crystal Skull reminded me of National Treasure: Book of Secrets?
Second: These same two decades brought huge advances in computerized visual effects, many of them trailblazed by
Lucas and Spielberg themselves. It’s natural they would use them on Indy.
But there are points in the film where the effects look so airless and digitized – so fake – that they ruin the illusion of
down-to-earth, jaw-cracking swagger that made Indiana Jones such darn fun.
None of the complex CGI sequences in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” can hold a candle to the
moment in another film when a young Indy, confronted by a black-robed swordsman chuckling ominously,
watched and waited while the guy twirled his scimitar, then pulled out his revolver and simply shot him dead.
But that was a long time ago, in a film that feels far, far away.
So the attempt is to bring some life into a tired film.
CUTLIST:
- The Spell of the Skull. Indiana sitting in front of the skull got a new treatment.
- Spalko’s Gift. Never liked Spalko’s demise. felt too much like a forced Raider’s melting face imitation. Changed it to a more mysterious outcome.
- Trimmed the Pyramid puzzle.
- The Rocket Sled. re-arranged it and added a POV shot I created. hated the sound of the clock ticking so lost that while I was at it.
- No Mac “You don’t know him!, You don’t know him!, You don’t know him!”. We know him.
- Trimmed the quicksand.
- No CG scorpions. In an Indy movie? c’mon! real tarantulas, real snakes, real bugs like fortune cookies. Sadly could not get rid of the ants.
- Added flashes to the machine guns at the gate ambush. those guys were shaking those gatts like pepper mills. without flashes it looked silly..
- Doomtown. Got rid of the original PA Voice. Now it’s just a siren until Indy runs back in and we get the countdown.
- Remixed the motorcycle chase. I hated the music cue. It felt silly instead of exciting. Used a classic raiders cue.
- No living dead at Orillana’s grave. There are no Nazca Ninjas, you big silly.
- Indy doesn’t try to figure out the skull when he finds it. It sounded confusing and forced to me.
- No monkeys and no Tarzan-Mutt.
- Trimmed the truck chase.
- Trimmed the sword fight.
- Trimmed the fist fight
- Trimmed the waterfalls.
- Trimmed the refrigerator
and maybe there’s more. As far as the new title, I wanted to invoke the original. I also didn’t like the “C” in Crystal so it’s Krystal.
Did you have a problem with SE7EN?
CREDITS:
Thank you to The Dark Audience. (you know who you are)
As always your help was invaluable.
Disclaimer: You must own the original movie before acquiring any FanEdited movie. We here at FanEdit.org respect the company’s copyrights, and don’t want to infringe on any company’s rights. Thank you, FE!
Maybe downloadable from Fanedit.info (enter and download at your own risk and responsibility)
| FANEDITFORUM LINK | IMAGES / COVER ART | TECH INFO | VIDEOS / TRAILER |
WARNING : SPOILERS AHEAD.
When I noted how much time had been cut from the film, I was a little dubious as to whether a decent storyline could be pulled from this film, but on the whole yes, it does still remain intact, but not without a few issues.
The new start seems to be a device to simply explain the most pointless action sequence in the film – Boom Town. I personally would’ve gotten rid of that whole sequence, it adds nothing to the plot and is simply ridiculous. however, I do appeciate you removing the silly car race.
The Warehouse has been trimmed up nicely and entire other sequences, such as Indy teaching and Jim Broadbent are entirely absent. They aren’t missed.
Mutt is much more likeable and Indy seems to get along with him much easier than before. Ox is trimmed down to the necessary – but now barely has any lines at all. Mac – well Mac doesn’t say much now.
There is some choppy editing in places and at a couple of points, it felt like we’d entered a scene in the middle of a conversation. For example, after Mutt and Indy are captured and Indy is all strapped up – he seems unsurprised to be seeing Ox and speaks to him as if he’s already seen him once. When Mac is explaining about double agent, this too, feels like we’ve entered a middle of a conversation. This also presents a few later problems when people refer back to conversations that seemingly never happened. Notably between Indy and Mutt.
Certainly during the jungle sequence, the kick to the face to Diatchenko felt abrupt and near the end of the sequence, unless I missed something the skull suddenly drops down in Ox’s lap. But I did like lack of Monkeys and Tarzan-Mutt. Oh and good work on getting rid of natives at Orellana’s tomb.
The added effect I assume from 2001 during ’spell of the skull’ was interesting. I’m on the fence as to whether it’s OTT and beating the audience a bit too hard with ‘do you get it????!!!’
So, to your ending. What I assume is your own V/O and then a picture of Cate from a certain other film trilogy….ehm, no. Sorry, but this didn’t work for me. I couldn’t quite understand the V/O…and am I to assume that Spalko got a happy ending?
So, all in all, this is an improvement on KotCS, but not by a massive amount. Still Boom Town remains and there are some choppy elements. I think having seen the work that ID was doing, whereby he started at Orellana’s tomb and then did a sort of ‘two days earlier’, he got rid of a ton of offensive items….his additions from ‘The Fountain’ made it very interesting. So perhaps that was what I was expecting.
Anyway, thanks Jorge for finally getting an edit of this film out there!
I’m going to give this a 7/10 – with the original getting 5/10.
Review by white43 — January 20, 2010 @ 5:48 pm
Raiders Of The Krystal Skull: Remixed by Jorge A Review by Mollo
WARNING : SPOILERS AHEAD.
Jorge is without doubt an extraordinarily talented FanEditor. His previous work has proved the point with eloquence. Yet I have been disappointed by his recent work, Frankenstein and The Dark Knight in particular.
Where the technique of those FanEdits is outstanding, Jorge continues to show a lack of attention when it comes to narrative and for me this is a very important aspect of a successful FanEdit.
Raiders Of The Krystal Skull is a case in point. The FanEdit begins with a short educational film about the terror of the atom bomb. Now this would make complete sense if the whole film was concerned with the terror of the atom bomb but it is not. The sequence where Indiana Jones finds himself in an atom bomb test site is a disposable action scene and nothing else. This scene bares no real relevance on the story as a whole. Jorge, by drawing your attention so directly to this new “atom bomb threat” idea, makes for a more forced and disjointed narrative. This is about aliens, right?
The new title sequence is done very well and I absolutely love the villains spreading out to fire their machine guns with the new FanEdit title of Raiders Of The Krystal Skull springing cheekily into view.
The area 51-warehouse scene is done very well but does feel a little choppy at times particularly when Indiana and baddie fall through a glass window in the floor. There is a slight pause before the fall through, which suggests action has been cut.
Most of the problems with the original movie are still present. The escape from the nuclear blast by use of a lead lined fridge for instance. I was hoping this particularly odious moment would have been exorcised. The Gopher makes a horrible appearance!
Also the chase in the jungle while heavily trimmed is still ridiculous, as is the sword fighting.
The waterfall madness, a moment as contentious as the fridge, is still here yet trimmed. The suicidal behavior, tree bending antics and ease of survival are all still here. Why does she think driving an amphibious duck of a cliff is such a good idea? Jorge reduces this sequence but it cannot change the ludicrousness of the action. Them falling out of the amphibious Duck and the sharp cut to all safe and sound in the water below feels to quick and awkward. Maybe a moment of pause by using footage of a waterfall would have helped the transition.
The ending is another weird piece of narrative purposely injected by Jorge. The spaceship leaves and obviously the FanEditor himself has added a voice over to represent the aliens. Also a sudden image from, I guess, Lord of the Rings is superimposed over the action. This all feels tagged on and strangely unsatisfying.
This ending and the final wedding scene are just too awful to take and the violation that is Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull continues unabated. If a FanEdit of this 4th installment has failed in the hands of the talent that is Jorge, I don’t hold too much hope that anyone else can save this mess.
Very Disappointing.
Review by Rock Savage — January 20, 2010 @ 8:00 pm
I have been waiting (patiently?) for an FE of Indy 4. I was very happy to see one appear today. I have to admit, I don’t think I can add anything else to what the previous two reviewers have already said.
I definitely want to point out that Jorge is an excellent faneditor and I have been very, very happy with previous work. Also, the original version of this movie, for me, is a 5/10 to start with and any edit is going to have a difficult time making it any better.
I would like to highlight a very good point that RockSavage mentions in his review: ” … narrative and for me this is a very important aspect of a successful FanEdit.”. I couldn’t agree more with this statement. Just editing out scenes and frames etc do not make a FE watchable. The movie still has to make “sense” – i.e. the plot must always be progressing forward to its conclusion and the remaining scenes/dialogue must make sense. Making great video/audio edits does not mean it is a good FE.
There are several scenes in this FE that absolutely feel like they pick up in the middle and there a few minor areas where the edit is a little “choppy”.
I DEFINITLEY agree that the a-bomb test site scene should have been removed. It is aboslutely pointless – it does nothing to further the plot (well, maybe so we can see the the FBI interrogate Indy so we can get some back story, I guess). Any FE should excise this trollop from the original. I completely understand that any movie requires a bit of suspesion of disbelief, but really? Indy survivng a direct nuclear hit, because he hides inside a 50s lead-lined refrigerator after being hurtled miles away? Really?
I liked the trimmed down warehouse scene, and forgive the couple of “choppy’ parts here. I defnintely liked the minimal “Ox” scenes. “Mac”? Well, Mac is Mac and the story, unfortunately needs him – to a point. Jorge does a fine job of trying to minimalize them both.
Final thought: After watching this FE, I realized that if someone got rid of all the things I don’t like about the original, there really wouldn’t be much of a movie left for me to watch. There are just too many “UGH” and pints in this movie for me.
Again, my hats off to you for doing this FE. The original is what it is and any FE is gong to saddles with that (I think back to the FE of “Temple of Doom” – a 3/10 original and the FE suffers through much the same way this FE does).
Review by flyboy707 — January 20, 2010 @ 9:32 pm
Final thought: After watching this FE, I realized that if someone got rid of all the things I don’t like about the original, there really wouldn’t be much of a movie left for me to watch. There are just too many “UGH” and pints in this movie for me.
I meant to type: “There are just too many “UGH” and “groan” parts in the original movie for me. Sorry.
Review by flyboy707 — January 20, 2010 @ 9:35 pm
When I saw the 77 minutes lenght I knew this edit will be a kind of “straight to the point” edit
and a way to rid off most of the usual things that annoy people in this movie.
I think that goal is almost achieved, minus few personnal thougths:
- The new music in the motorcycle chase is great, but it sounds like the voices of the russians have been redubed or something (?)
- When Mac says to Indy “about Berlin” we did not see the previous scene where he talked about it, so I found this a bit odd.
- There are are still two shots of gophers left – I personaly don’t mind the gophers a lot (just reporting it)
- The new “careful, you might get exactely what you’re looking for” edit, I think I understand what’s Jorge wanted to do here:
Make an Indiana Jones movies where the main vilain don’t get the usual fate.
I think it kind of works, despite the cheesiness, because of the short lenght of the edit, and the comic book style of the artwork,
and so it don’t really try to be a real fourth installement of the franchise IMO, but more an aternative way to watch this movie.
I’m not sure it will work on everybody though.
On a more positive side the movie looks less “family friendly” and the fat has been trimmed.
Less “smile for nothing” shots, less useless silly actions sequences, the story goes fast, etc. Good work on those.
Menus are great, trailers and bonus also. Good idea to put the Movie Saloon podcast as an audio option.(in the trailer page)
All in all, I wanted more (yes, I’m a greedy bastard!). but I’m still thankful to Jorge for giving us an Indy4 edit after all this time.
I would rate the original 7/10, yes, I’m not an absolute hater of the original, I kind of spent a good time the first time I saw it on the theater.
It’s just that, like Jorge’s edit, I wanted more from an Indiana Jones movie.
So I rate “Raiders of the Kristal Skull” 7/10 also.
Review by TMBTM — January 22, 2010 @ 3:41 pm
Certainly not a great fanedit. It has its faults which have already been mentioned and could’ve been better. But, it’s fun overall and better than the original. 7/10
Review by Adabisi — January 23, 2010 @ 4:51 am
It is definitely an improvement to the original since a lot of crap is gone (the natives at Orellana’s tomb, Tarzan-Mutt…)
I also liked your trimmed version of the warehouse and the nuclear blast. (Yes, I am one of the few who liked the fridge scene even if it is not realistic)
But it could have been even better if some other crap were gone too:
-the sword fight
-the ants
-the amphibious off the cliff
-the natives at the temple in the end
Review by Kenobys — February 15, 2010 @ 1:40 am
Just a short review to say that I enjoyed this edit. It’s a fun, dumb film with lots of the nonsense gone. I’ve never minded Jorge’s ‘less is more’ approach (see his roughly an hour long “Hulk” edit for instance) Having said that, I do look forward to other edits of this film, as I always like to see another take on a film with a lot of goofiness in it. (well, except Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which I don’t care of I ever see again) There were a couple of things I’d probably get rid of from this or not have changed. (voice dubbing) Anyway, I’m going to give this edit 7/10.
Review by Ripplin — February 17, 2010 @ 11:21 pm
P.S. The bonus short film “Skhizein” is great! Very creative. No idea why it’s included, but that’s ok.
Review by Ripplin — February 19, 2010 @ 8:16 pm
This sucker surprised me a few times.
First off, I had never watched a Jorge fanedit before, so I was very excited when this was announced. Since there was no real WIP thread, my expectations were simply a result of Jorge’s reputation. And then the reviews came in, and while there were some positives, it sounded like this was a disappointment. My expectations were dramatically reduced, which in hindsight seems to have been a good thing.
Turns out I really enjoyed the edit. I liked parts of the original but the overall experience was not what I was hoping. While this still isn’t exactly what I was hoping for, it was much, much closer. I even think I will watch this again in the future. The runtime is short, but I didn’t have a problem with that. Some specific thoughts:
Opening nuclear film: I thought this was out of place. Not only is Doom Town unimportant to the movie, but it doesn’t open the movie either. On the plus side, the short film comes before the true opening (the Paramount logo), and because it is a separate chapter, I will just skip it next time.
New “proper” opening: I loved this. No car chase, but rather we start with the Russians arriving and gunning down the soldiers as the titles are shown. This worked great.
Warehouse: Really works well. I actually didn’t mind seeing the ark in the original, so I sort of missed it here, but not a big deal.
Doom Town: I actually kind of like this sequence, except for the fridge. And while the fridge is ludicrous, so is some of the other Indy action in the series. So while I wouldn’t mind a cut with Doom Town gone completely, this didn’t bother me too much.
Motorcycle/Library chase: I thought this worked very well, except for the Russian dub. It surprised me and for a bit I didn’t quite understand what it was supposed to be. Unnecessary but not too harmful ultimately.
“No Nazca Ninjas, you big silly:” In addition to this cut description making me laugh, I definitely liked how this played out.
Ox trims: Much better.
Jungle chase/Waterfall: The trims to the chase and fighting work well. No scorpions, no monkeys, no Tarzan all worked great. The ants didn’t bother me too much in the original, except I was so sick of all the bad stuff that came before the ants I was in no mood at that point. In this version I think the ants work much better as a result. The waterfall is still kind of silly (still don’t understand what Marion is thinking) but it works better, and I actually like the immediate cut to the craft in the water with them climbing onto shore.
Pyramid puzzle: I like this version better.
Ending: I’m a bit conflicted on this. I like the idea, but I think it would have worked better without the voiceover and LOTR shot. Keeping it more ambiguous would have been fine, and the additions stand out a bit too much.
A/V seemed very good. I can’t comment on the 5.1 upmix, as I was listening on headphones.
The DVD is nicely done. I sampled the commentary and it sounds like it will be worth the listen. I don’t like that it’s hidden on the trailers page, but not a big deal. The only other complaint I can think of is at the end of the movie, after the Remixed logo, the DVD stopped. No end credits and no return to the menu. I was especially surprised to see missing end credits – I thought this was considered a no-no.
Thanks for this, Jorge. It was well worth the time. 8/10
Review by TV's Frink — March 7, 2010 @ 5:22 pm
Indy 4. Redeemed? Kind of.
We all hated Indy 4, and for good reason. It was excessive in the wrong areas, incoherent in others and full of WTF moments. But worst of all, Indy rarely acts like Indy.
Raiders of the Krystal Skull was the first FanEdit that I watched from this site (not counting Revisited and the Phantom Editor’s work which i had seen before coming to FE) but I had already read of Jorge’s reputation so I selected a movie I knew was in need of help to see what could be done with a movie that had reached this impressive level of inaneness.
**SPOILERS AHEAD**
Technical
Watched on a 52″ Plasma, the image was great. No obvious artifacting or compression and audio sounded fine. No monkeying with the levels. Jorge’s foley work during the motorcycle chase was simply 1st class. I noticed the improved music choice instantly. This however was soured somewhat by the dubbed Russian. The effect was too deep and the level too loud. Every time it happened I was taken out of the moment.
Editing/Story
For the most part, Jorge was merciless with the editor’s virtual blade, and in a bloated mess like Indy 4, this is a good thing. I was disappointed that Doomtown remained but to be fair, Jorge has cleaned it up tremendously well, to the point even that it is almost tolerable, but ultimately it is a pointless story point which only exists to deliver that amazing shot of Indy standing under a mushroom cloud. As Q2’s edit demonstrated, the sequence is entirely unnecessary.
Fortunately I was then immediately rewarded with the loss of the ‘Indy is a Red’ subplot which never paid off in the normally deft hands of Spielberg. Losing the Red subplot also meant losing Broadbent’s admirable performance which was intended to fill the void left by Denholm Elliot’s passing. Sadly it added nothing to the film. I was sad to see him go, but the result is worth it. The up-down aspect continued when I saw that the motorcycle chase sequence went through the library.
But at that point my disappointments ceased and the quality of Jorge’s edits really took force. From that point on through to the climax I was able to focus on what little story there is.
Jorge increased the pacing and intensity. The edit focuses on action, but not just action, but PLAUSIBLE action. I can’t count how many times I realized, many minutes after the fact that some idiotic thing had been removed. Equally as important, Jorge cut out an impressive amount of the stupid and juvenile jokes and dialog. The result is that once the journey starts, the movie begins to feel somewhat like an Indy film. Indy still makes some un-Indy choices, you can’t get away from the fact that he was terribly written, but Jorge manages to contain the damage.
The edit holds tight right up to the finale. I greatly admire Jorge’s intention here. It is Bold with a capital B. But as with most of the reviewers, it just felt flat for me. It’s not worse than the original ending, but I’m not sure I’d say it was an improvement either.
Overall Enjoyment
Raiders of the Krystal Skull makes an interesting contrast against Q2’s edit of the same film. They both shine where the other falls short and it is a tough say which I prefer because they both demonstrate different qualities. Like Q2’s edit, this is overall an improvement over the original and in some areas it’s staggeringly better, but it loses big points for me with the inclusion of Doom town (which is handled well, but remains pointless) and the odd ending.
Overall Score
8/10
Review by L8wrtr — September 1, 2010 @ 1:42 am