Couple of pretty drastic cuts!!
Here's what he had listed:
The edits thus far:
- The film begins with simple titles and the theme music. It's less traditional, but gets rid of the gopher and sets the tone bettter.
- Now the exchange goes "You recognize building, yes?" "Drop dead." then he calls for the other soldiers to hold Indy so he can punch him. Removing that first punch just speeds things up a bit.
- Some dialogue is removed from Indy and Spalko's meeting.
- We don't see the Alien. Spalko opens the box, looks inside wide eyed, and then Indy bursts into action.
- After Indy drops the gun that shoots the guy in the foot, it seems like he stands around and smiles about it before running while everyone decides not to shoot at him yet. Now, he just bolts.
- No gophers.
- No fake town. No fridge. No nuclear blast. It goes straight from Indy hiding in the desert to the FBI guys bringing him in.
- All references to the Nuke have been removed.
- Some little cuts during conversations to either speed them up or lose awkward deliveries.
- "Nice try kid but I think you just brought a knife..." DRAMATIC LONG PAUSE "...To a gun fight." Removed dramatic long pause.
- Cut the encounter with the little ninja guys.
- Cut Mutt's scorpion sequence.
- Cut Indy considering stealing the knife.
- Ah now my favorite. Marion's theme plays as she comes out of the tent. Indy doesn't shrug his shoulders like an idiot, just smiles at her. The banter ends with "Why, you lookin' for a date?!" That whole bit has been re-paced.
- It's now "For god's sake man, help!" the joke plays better and is a little bit shorter.
- I desperately tried to remove the snake, but I just couldn't make it work. Oh well.
- Cut Indy ripping his pants with the switchblade.
- There's a shot after Indy climbs on the roof of the truck where Marion just stares up and smiles like a goofball. I cut it, making the action start just a little bit faster.
- Ox doesn't randomly proclaim "Henry Jones...Jr.!" at the beginning of the chase sequence. People generally yell "Indy!" and "Jones!" a lot less.
- Lots of little cuts and trims in the jungle chase sequence. Marion doesn't coach Mutt on his fencing. No splits between the trucks. And absolutely NO MONKEYS. I would argue that the monkey sequence is one of the worst sequences ever put to film, and it's handled just as badly.
- Cut Spalko squishing an ant between her knees. Just felt sort of odd and out of place. Now we just stay with Indy's fist fight.
- The jeep in the tree thing is still there, but it's re-cut to happen a little faster, so it works a bit better.
- One waterfall. It's a re-cutting of all the waterfall sequences to make the best one.
- Mac is no longer a triple quadruple bastard agent. He's a double, and remains a good guy for the rest of the film. Now it appears that the Russians find the remains of the truck at the bottom of the waterfall and logically figure out where to go.
- The Mac dying/Spalko's brain melting stuff has been re-arranged and trimmed for better pacing.
- The Alien is still there, but he doesn't lean forward and sneer at the camera.
- There's some Temple of Doom music added to the water escape sequence.
- Indy doesn't say "Knowledge was their treasure" like 3 times.
- I removed Indy getting his job back at the college. At this point in the film, we don't really care. I just go straight to the wedding.
- I'm playing with some color correction, I'm not sure if I'm going to use it yet or not.
And that's kind of that. Now it's much better paced and the worst of the material is removed. I'm amazed at how much removing the Nuke sequence really helps everything. It removes that air of CGI aided silliness that the film starts with, so it feels more like Indiana Jones from the get-go. I think I can now watch this film without clawing my eyes out.
Now I know there are fifty bajillion people working on this, and I haven not read a single thing about what any of them are doing. I will probably post this and my other stuff I'm working on pretty soon. I want to make sure they're all perfect.