Indiana Jones 4 Fan Edit (Released)

Since the film came out on DVD I’ve been waiting for someone to do a fan edit of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”.  Unfortunately the one or two started have never been completed.  So I’m taking it upon myself to do it.

I plan to do my cut based off some of the suggestions in this thread.  However, I am not a graphic designer/animator so some things I won’t be able to do such as removing CGI prairie dogs, fixing continuity of soldiers arms, etc.  If there is someone here proficient with After Effects or some other similar program that thinks they can do this I’ll gladly accept your help.  What I will be concentrating on is just cutting stuff that made “Indy 4” (not) cute.

I’ll keep my efforts posted here.

I will watch this thread with hunger in my eyes. Anything to improve the film would be great.

The other edit is still making progress over at the other fanedit site, but I'm excited to hear you're dong one as well. I think we can all agree this movie needs as much attention/help as possible. 

Good luck. Looking forward to seeing your progress. 

Huh.  Well, I'm gonna download it and see how it compares to what I was planning.  I may not have to do this after all.  :)

I thought he cut too much.  I expected to be making faster progress but life in general is just slowing me down.  My day job, a newborn and one of my own film projects are taking precedence, but rest assured I am making progress.

Since this is my first  fan edit (though I have been editing for twelve years now) I have a deep appreciation for all the hard work of the people involved, even bad films.  I'm not interested in completely restructuring the Indy 4.  What I want to do is remove the kid friendly elements that were just plain stupid.  This includes the prairie dogs, the bouncing refrigerator, swinging in the vines, etc.

So... in answer to your questions:

1. & 2.) The opening sequence will stay intact.  It really didn't bother me.  While we'll get the classic Paramount logo fading into the prairie dog mound there will be no prairie dog.  I think what I've done works really well here.

3.) I haven't decided about the wedding ending, but I didn't much care for it.  It will probably be cut.

4.) Both.  The source is from the NTSC DVD (sorry... no HD... just too much work to rip and convert from Blu-Ray on a Mac at this time) but I have plug-in for FCP that can convert to PAL.

5.) A very slight amount.  I will also be adding grain though to match the previous films.

6.) As of right now I plan on keeping the final audio mix 5.1.

@Timstuff: The ending definitely needs some work.  I haven't decided the best way of handling it yet, but not showing the alien is on the top of my list.  I'm sure I'll be able to make it work somehow.

Not sure about Irena's death yet.  That might be a little trickier to explain.  But it's something I'm going to work at.

That's an excellent suggestion.  I'll see what I can do.

About the wedding:

Have you considered keeping a trimmed down version of it with no dialog and Marions Theme playing over it?

There is a clip of this floating around here somewhere and it works like a dream. Plus it maintains the Indy versus normal family life arc. 

Just a suggestion.

I finally had time today to hammer out some work on this.  I've gotten through the first 30-40 min. of the film and have cut approx. 8 min.  So far I'm really liking how it's going.  I'm looking forward to showing this off when it's done!

Timstuff said:

I'd like to see that clip. It sounds interesting!

So would I.  I spent a half hour searching for it but couldn't find it.  Any luck?

Ok let me see if I can find it. 

Finished through the jungle/tarzan bit.  All tarzan crap has been removed.  About 20 more minutes to go in the film.

Timstuff said:

When I saw Indy 4, my reaction to the Tarzan part was "Was Spielberg high when he put this scene together?" There's so much wrong there that I don't even know where to start in describing it...

It was like watching the gymnastic girl beating up the dinosaur in Jurassic Park 2 all over again.

http://vimeo.com/4206207

Thanks for sharing that!

I've completed my version of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (dubbed The Essential Edition).  The new run time is 108 minutes (14 minutes cut).  Details are up at fanedit.info

Here is a rundown of changes:

- prairie dogs have been cut
- Indy's line "Not as easy as it used to be" has been replaced with the version from the trailer
- Spalko's psychic abilities have been cut, including her opening the warehouse door
- warehouse scene has been trimmed
- nuclear test scene has been cut
- motorcycle chase has been trimmed (no library sequence)
- Indy's line "Part time" has been replaced with the version from the trailer
- CGI scorpions have been cut
- Tarzan sequence has been cut
- giant fire ants have been reduced
- Marion isn't a walking grin anymore
- Mutt's emotional outbursts have been cut
- the aliens are now aliens and not inter-dimensional beings
- unnecessary dialog has been cut
- wedding sequence has been re-mixed
- picture has been desaturated and a film grain added