Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: The Spence Edit

I saw this movie the day it premiered and although I remember thinking it was just ok, I've since read many a review about how terrible people thought it was, and so I never thought to revisit it. But while I was watching this edit, I paused and went to find reviews from when it came out because the whole time I was thinking "This is great! How did anyone ever say this was bad!" I don't know how much of it is me enjoying Spielberg's direction in a kinder light or Spence's tight editing, but I had a blast watching this. It moves at a perfect pace, with enough time to enjoy all the characters while still keeping the momentum. I didn't notice a single frame out of place with the exception of Shia swinging in from nowhere but that was absolutely the right choice. It's a classic fun silly Indy adventure, what could be better! The only thing that tempered my enjoyment was the (obviously no fault to the editor) anachronistically bad CGI; Dead Man's Chest came out in 2006 and Transformers came out in 2007, how does this 2008 movie have such bad VFX compared to those?

Truly had such a good time watching this, I was never a Crystal Skull hater but now I think I'm a Crystal Skull lover!

I watched this after the original trilogy and it felt like a natural continuation of the same silly, exciting adventures. A major improvement to what was a decidedly unmemorable film. I'm glad some of the illogical nonsense moments were left in because I feel they fit right in with the rest of the franchise. The only bit that took me out was Mutt swinging out of the jungle which felt like it came out nowhere and reminded me that there was something removed. If I hadn't seen the original I don't think it would stand out though. Characters suddenly popping back into the action isn't uncommon in these films.

With this edit in my collection I can now feel like the Indiana Jones film series is a consistently enjoyable adventure all the way through. Thank you, Spence!

so i watched this one straight after 15MaF crystal skull edit i will say on many levels i had preferred this one due to it not cutting as much because im just a fan of longer movies and i think a lot of the jokes arent as bad as others im also someone that grew up with this movie with it releasing 4ys after i was born.

Watched this in anticipation for the indie 5 coming out to theatres.

The watch was definitely enjoyable, and I the only times where I could notice edits having occurred were when I thought "oh that scene dragged on for a lot less than I remembered". However, the edit can only do so much for the source material.

One thing you can say about Spence's edits is that they all feel genuine. What I mean by that is that rather than radically altering the story of the film Spence sticks to what's already there, and just uses light trims to punch things up. If you've watched their take on Justice League, Falcon & Winter Soldier, even Rise of Skywalker to an extent, you know what I mean.

The same can be said about this edit as well. I didn't want to watch a radically changed version of the movie (yet), I wanted a streamlined version of the movie as is, & Spence delivers. Even the "I like Ike" bit, something a lot of editors would cut out, is kept here, & it makes me appreciate this edit more. Much like superheroes, the adventure serials Indy is based on are cheesy, & I'm all for edits, and movies for that matter, that aren't afraid to embrace the cheese factor.

That said, there's stuff in this edit I wish were cut more. I'm totally fine with an Indiana Jones movie where he goes after aliens (& tying into Roswell was a nice touch), I just hate the part about how the aliens gave the Acatori agriculture & the like. Casual cluelessness like that really hampers by buzz when I'm trying to have a good time (even the first scene of indigenous people attacking Indy & Mutt has Indy reverse-blowdarting a guy).

Still, if you want steamlined, as-is version of Crystal Skull, check out this one.