Ok. Here goes. Covering minutes 15-22. Thoughts appreciated...
-------- 15 MINUTE MARK --------
- When Mac is in the truck with the commie driving towards Indy, Mac says "you don't know him" too many times. I think it should go, "Don't get clever, Boris. You don't know him." Then it should skip the "know him. know him." Cut to the shot outside the car but remove the first two times Mac says "You don't know him", leave in the next time he says it but leave out all the rest until "You don't know him. You don't know..." CRASH. At the very least take out where he says "know him. know him.".
- On rocket sled, maybe take out shot of the their faces near the start being pulled tight by the wind, so we just see it take off, continue down the tunnel, then exit to the outside. Remove the stupid gopher shots. I'm personally fine with the stuff after the sled stops. It's a little silly, but it's in the vein of Last Crusade and we've taken out a fair bit of stupidity up to this point.
- Here's the big tough one ... the nuked fridge. I'm wondering if there's a way to rework this whole section by entirely removing Indy from the test town. Here's what I'm thinking off the top of my head, but I'd like some help with this one...
##################### DOOMSTOWN REVISITED
I'm thinking that the people in the test town may or may not be looking for Indy, but even if they are, it doesn't mean he has to actually be there. What if we change the order so that it goes like this:
1) Show the car driving through the town when Indy jumps over the fence but zoom in slightly to take Indy climbing over the fence out of frame
2) Show establishing shots in the town of the manequins that Indy sees after he realizes it's fake people in the house and runs outside. Start the warning and instructions for the blast, continue showing the various shots of manequins but remove Indy reaction shots. Audio will need to be stretched out a bit because of the removal of reaction shots, so it can be stretched out over the zoom out from the town to the bomb.
3) Show soldiers jumping into car (try to remove Indy's "wait, wait" from off screen). Cut out Indy running into scene.
4) As the car of soldiers drives away, hitting some manequins, I'm pretty sure a bit of photoshop work could remove Indy from the frame long enough to get the car out of frame. Cut as soon as car is out of frame to remove Indy running up and saying, "Sure! Great! Don't wait for me!" Briefly show car driving away, removing Indy from frame again.
5) Show Indy cresting the hill from earlier when town first comes into view, show the closer up view from that shot.
6) Cut to interior shot of house after Indy's in the fridge, just to show the initial flash of the blast, which I think works even without knowing Indy is there because of the juxtaposition of the quiet violence starting outside with the quiet (dead?) calm inside. Continue through manequins catching fire and melting and the houses exploding.
7) Show car driving away with blast catching up, but remove flying fridge. Remove reaction of looking up at fridge, go straight to car being engulfed by smoke.
8) Take out fridge landing, bouncing and sliding to stop. Take out Indy falling out of fridge. Cut in after he's fallen out but zoom in a bit to obscure fridge behind him, or remove fridge from fame if possible. Show him starting to get up from behind, but cut in and out of that shot so we don't see the gopher ... or better yet, remove gopher from frame.
9) Show Indy walk up the hill and see the mushroom cloud.
So, now this scene never has Indy in the town. Instead, it makes it seem he took longer to get to the top of the hill overlooking the town and that the commies looking for him got there first, only to realize they were just in time for the blast. As they drive out of town, Indy just crests the hill and sees the town for the first time, but unlike him, we know what's about to happen. We cut back into the town and it immediately explodes, destroying the commies driving away. And when we cut to Indy lying in the ground it seems like the blast knocked him back down the hill he was climbing, and he walks up to see the mushroom cloud ... which means he will still need to be scrubbed down at the FBI interrogation coming up next.
I don't know about anyone else, but that seems to work quite well in my head. One possible change is that there may not be any need to blow up that commie car, considering it seems the only reason that bit is in there is for the fridge out-flying it gag. So we could cut right from the explosion to Indy knocked onto the ground.
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-------- 22 MINUTE MARK --------