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

This is a fantastic edit of a movie which gave very little enjoy from the offset. Spence has taken out a lot of the flab from this movie and it's incredible to see how what's left is so much tighter. This doesn't change the central problem that Indy as a character is about historical magic, not futuristic sci-fi and that the introduction of Mutt and re-introduction of Ravenwood weighs down the story as well as Indy himself. If you accept that, then you can focus on what Spence has achieved here: The gophers and monkeys aren't excised entirely, but you don't resent them when they do briefly pop up. The edits feels entirely seamless and you mostly feel a sigh of relief when the movie is over instead of groans and agony. TLDR review? Spence has polished a turd. Bravo, sir!

I loved this edit. It solved all issues i had with the original move. It was faster paced and the dumb gags that dragged on the movie were way cut back. This really felt like a classic Indiana Jones film. The edits were seamless, I couldn't even tell. it goes to show both how good an editor Spence is and how unnecessary the removed stuff was.

First, my opinion of the movie in terms of an Indiana Jones fan:
I had high hopes this edit would salvage the situation, but it didn't - meanwhile, I think my expectations were simply too high.
Now don't get me wrong, I cannot and will not blame "Spence" for that!
But "Kingdom Of The Crystall Skull" just is not what I wanted it to be (namely a new adventure with Indy), it's more like visiting old friends. The movie takes not enough risks (even though there's loads of potential) to expand its universe or characters, but repeats old tricks or blinks eyes to the past. That's all nice, but "nice" is not "great". I think this kind of (supposed) satisfying of target audiences is the only thing George Lucas is able to do these days (or since the mid 90ties)...
Now my opinion on the technical side of things:
That all put aside, I definitely think the Spence edit is still an improvement over the original because it keeps in the movie's strenghts, has a good pace and doesn't bore as much as the original movie. The cuts are flawless, the story and the characters are all intact, and there was no moment I thought "now THERE was something wrong now!" - congrats, Spence!

As I have stated before when I review I don't go into all the techie stuff because I am not that well versed in editing etc. I look at Fanedits for enjoyment and how much they entertain me. For me when I saw this at the theatre when it was originally released it was a snoozer for me. And as usual the "fan" part of fanedit wins again. I enjoyed everything about this edit and I do wish this is what I saw at the theatre. After being away from the fanedit scene for about a year this was a welcome return for me. On a scale of 5 popcorns , 5 being best this is a 5. Thanks for the work and share

My go to KOTCS edit had always been 15Maf's but Spence edit has taken the mantle (No offence 15Maf's). All the issues I had with this film has been corrected by Spence in this edit. From the traditional Paramount logo fading to a mountain, to a less goofy klutz-y Indy and better streamlined action sequences (I even like the fridge scene as Spence's version is much less of a "Jump the Shark" moment). Spence has been on a roll with edits lately and you know you will get a quality edit with Spence's name attached. Well done Spence!