topdawg193

Musicman - I had that exact cut in mind, also.

I agree with you, jones1899, that there is far too much exposition, and feel that we don't need the 'what if's, or the musings about Oxley at this point; transitioning from 'what is this thing?' to Indy and Mutt going up the steps would be seamless.

Remember, with the whole 'return' business, in regards to the word 'return' being written all over Ox's cell and the realisation that Oxley left clues in the note to find the skull, I think it's safe to assume that the audience would be able to grasp that Oxley was the one who both found and then later returned the skull (we are even reminded of this in the following scene with Indy and Spalko in the tent; 'now I know why Oxley put the skull back - he knew you were looking for it').

It's good to hear that you're tackling this head on, jones1899 - on the topic of needless-exposition, what are your thoughts on other areas of the movie which you think ought to be trimmed down, dialogue wise? I think this removing-of-pointless-explanations is possibly the best way to tighten up the film, and give it some velocity in terms of pacing.

Ah, yeah, he is looking at Marion I suppose, so it could be him acknowledging his mother in action for the first time.

I can imagine it would be hard to trim this down, what with there not being a cut-away from Mutt, as you say. Would it be possible to somehow cut straight into him asking the question right after we see the shot of him sliding out of the truck-hatch? This would be opposed to trimming the look down; just cut it completely right into him asking the question. Or would that just not work at all?

By the way, I'm seriously digging your colour correction! It's looking really nice - not really finding it any 'brighter' than the original cut!

Laser, I was just watching your edit of the jungle chase and I have one other, minor suggestion. Is it at all possible to trim the duration between Mutt coming up to the front of the truck and then asking 'so, what's he gonna do next?' - there seems to be a strange lull in the momentum here, what with his pause/strange look before he asks that question. If his pause was trimmed, so that he quickly asks 'so, what's he gonna do next' almost immediately after he comes up to the front of the truck, it may seem less clumsy and more natural/convey a sense of excitement from Mutt, and get the action started sooner.

I initially thought that this pause signalled a dawning appreciation of Indy on Mutt's part, but he immediately responds 'don't call me son!' when Indy emerges a second later with the rocket launcher, and continues to remain sarcastic and aloof to Indy ('what are you looking at daddio?') throughout the majority of the rest of the chase (and we can really only identify Mutt's full acceptance of Indy as his father at the end of the film, anyway). So, we would really lose nothing by removing his pause, and may gain slightly better pacing in doing so.

Laser, fantastic stuff! The colour correction was great, and I loved the removal of Indy's-pants-ripping, as well as those damn CG monkeys! There won't be one CG critter left in your finished product at this rate, and that's a very good thing!

Also, I thought the pacing of the 'wows', said by Mutt and Indy after Mutt swings into action, was much better than in your previous cut of the jungle chase, and seemed 100% natural - you wouldn't realise that a cut was involved there, at all. And, did you shorten the interval between Mutt standing on top of Indy's jeep and Mutt getting caught up in the branch? That was brilliant! It seemed really clumsy before, but now the pacing never slows down, and the chase carries along very nicely!

I have only a few suggestions:

1.) Are you going to restore the missing nozzle-flash to Spalko’s gun just after she shoots at Indy, Mutt and Marion in the jeep, in the brief shot where we cut back to Spalko in her jeep afterwards (she continues to fire briefly, but there is no flash at the end of her gun).

2.) Is it possible to cut straight to Mutt grabbing the handle of the sword he finds in the jeep, rather than first trying to grab the blade, which seems plain stupid on his part (especially as it was revealed earlier in the film that he was an accomplished fencer/good with blades - he should know better!).

3.) Also, I completely agree with a previous poster that it would be better to cut out all instances of Mutt doing the splits – this cut could possibly be made, from when Spalko cuts his face straight into him falling down onto the other jeep. Even athough in your edit Mutt doesn't get stupidly hit in the crotch, him still doing the splits continues to seem farfetched and silly, in my opinon.

Finally, with regards to cutting out Ox saying 'Henry Jones...Junior!', I'm neutral either way, but if it had to be dropped, couldn't you remove that whole scene (the close-up of Ox)? Before that scene, there is a close-up of Spalko, and after it, there is another shot up-close at Spalko's face - could these two before-and-after shots of Spalko around Ox's scene not be spliced together, like you have done with other scenes in the jungle chase? That way, you could completely remove Ox's 'Henry Jones Junior' line, and it may actually improve the pacing, with things starting off much faster.

Brilliant stuff though, man!

Would it not possibly be easier to cut Indy mentioning 'who was that woman?' in the FBI scene, rather than cutting every mention of Spalko saying her name and rank and even Indy saying her name in the opening ('drop your guns, or colonel doctor Irina Spalko's dead')? It just seems like too many cuts at the start of the movie otherwise, and that could be messy.

Instead, one option would be to just cut Indy asking that one question 'who was that woman?' in the interrogation scene. This would still work:

Ross: Indy, thank God - don't you know it's dangerous to climb into refrigerators, those things can be death-traps.
Indy: Good to see you too, Bob.
Ross: Relax gentlemen, I can vouch for Indy.
Indy: What's going on? Russian soldiers on American soil? *Cut Indy's 'who was that woman?' here *

Perhaps then have a close-up shot of the FBI men, or General Ross, or even a wide-perspective shot, before cutting straight into the document on Spalko being thrown down onto the table and Ross telling Indy about Spalko, and the Kremlin's missions regarding paranormal artefacts. This way, it would still flow - after Indy asking 'what's going on?', he is now being told further information about Spalko, and this makes sense. Even his 'yep, that's her' remark would still be in place in this scenario.

Great stuff Laser - that colour correction really does tie in with the older films, and I think the detail and quality look excellent!

And cheers for the info Dr. M - I've decided to hunt down Adigitalman's Temple of Doom edit; think it might be just what I'm after.

Hmmm - I've been meaning to check out ADigitalman's TOD for a while now, Doctor M. Like you said, it is meant to be a gentle and subtle edit, which is right up my street, as I don't think TOD needs to be completely ripped apart - I actually think it's a great sequel, more action-packed and with greater spectacle than the first, but with key instances that just take you right out of the flick (Willy's noise levels being one).

I'm dying to know, though - could you tell me if the camp-fire scene has been cut from Adigitalman's version? I always thought that that scene could be easily excised, what with doing so making the treck to Pankot Palace seamless (those journeying-on-the-elephants scenes could easily flow together without the camp scene). That was one instance when Willy just got a bit too much for me, even Short Round a little bit as well, and I couldn't imagine how that scene could be trimmed to help this without being completely cut altogether. Heck, there's barely any necessarry exposition or anything at all in that scene; just pure annoyance!

^ Ha ha! 'Indiana Jones: Revisited'! Heck, why stop at KOTCS? Let's have a TOD de-Willied and de-Shortrounded while we're at it! And hey, I always thought that the Raven bar shoot-out in ROTLA could use a little touch of back ground music, ala Obi-Wan and Vader's duel in ANH:R!

Ah, wishful thinking...

^ Yeah, I agree with Antman on this one - the use of 'Henry Jr.' does seem more in keeping with the idea of Indy maturing and defining himself.

Also, with regards to Indy in the tent, he drops his voice when saying 'Henry Jones Jr.', so it's more like he is trying to hide the fact that that's his real name from Spalko, rather than the other way around. Having met at university, Ox would know Indy as Henry Jones Jr., and so whispers this to him in the hopes of jogging his mind. So here, we can see Indy actually preferring his nickname to his given name, continuing this joke that started in Crusade.

The name-issue might not be that much of a problem after all, then.

I liked Octorox's mock-up of a potentially greener-Dagobah. By colouring the planet seen in ESB green, as opposed to dropping in the planet seen in ROTS, it still retains that murkiness, that cloud-cover, which would result in Luke's X-Wing equipment going hay-wire when he enters the atmosphere. It would just have a more over-all greenish tint to it. Due to the samey-ness of the planets in ESB, I'd be for colouring Dagobah slightly greener than it currently is - maybe even changing the colour of the atmosphere-glow-line-around-the-planet from blue to green as well, just to subtly indicate the differences in environment between Dagobah and Hoth and Bespin.

Laserschwert said:

Nah, not completely dog-free, as the next shot (of the car driving into the distance) contains 30 or so prairie dogs scattering out of the way. But that shot makes sense, as it explains why there's a mound of dirt, and all the offensive dog-shots will be gone.

Yeah, definitely - that shot is really inoffensive compared to the other prarie-dog sequences, and never bothered me at all in the theatrical cut. And like you say, in your edit, it will give justification for the presence of a dirt mound in the first scene.

Perfect Laser! Finally, we have a non-offensive opening to the flick and could actually get Indy 4 prarie-dog free! And lmao at your second clip - you've got to include that as a bonus feature with your fan-edit whenever you get round to finishing it!

Fantastic stuff!

I'm totally crap at IT stuff of any kind, but could you not download VLC Media Player (VideoLAN) and play it on that? That player seems to be able to play literally everything under the sun! I never have a problem playing anything on it, no matter how many funny letters and numbers are in the file name!

Marion, your edit of the ending to the cemetery scene is flawless - really excellent! That's always how I imagined an edit of that small scene would be like. And it really grit-ifies Indy as well! Amazing!

Yeah, Laser's idea is also a good one - about having the shot off screen, and then seeing Indy raise the smoking gun in front of the camera. I'd be for that as well, but really, after seeing Marion's take of this, I think it's perfect as is. The nozzle-flash and bullet-impact-flash are spot on, and really well timed with the reaction of the crypt guard. Plus, with the bullet-impact-flash, it's still clear that Indy meant to miss, and that the shot was intended as a warning.

With the fridge scene, an idea that I had was cutting straight to the front of the Russians' car being englufed by the shock-wave straight after we see the shock-wave race after the car (which is the opening of Marion's latest mp4 file of the scene). That way, all scenes of the flying fridges are cut, and we can then go straight to the fridge landing/coming to rest (still think the bounces might be able to be trimmed a bit) and Indy rolling out. I agree with adding a delay to Indy coming out of the fridge, but maybe not as long a delay as the one that featured in Marion's latest mp4 file.

But top stuff!

Hmmm, yeah 3PO's lines at this point in the film do seem like needless exposition, and jar with the otherwise sombre mood of this scene (similar to his lines in ROTJ in Jabba's Palace - 'Look, it's Captain Solo! And he's still encased in Carbonite!'; needless exposition). Anything he says here has already been explained/will be explained by Vader and Calrissian, or is of no importance, so perhaps a trim is called for.

Reading some pages back, there was a little talk about maybe bringing the spinning star field back when the Falcon goes into hyperspace. As it was removed from ANH:R, for the sake of keeping visual consistency I would suggest removing it for ESB:R also. It does not feature in ROTJ, so it would be visually continuous if it was omitted in ESB:R as well. I'm aware that there were some complaints over its removal in ANH:R, but it never really bothered me at all (in fact, I didn't even realise it was gone when I first watched ANH:R until I read about it on these forums). Adywan gave good reason for its removal, and as it was removed there, it'd be as well to remove it from ESB for the Revisited edit.

Just putting in my two pennies worth.

Yeah, the cutting of these roles would cause gaping plot inconsistencies - they're not cameo or minor characters, in the sense that they do actually impact on the plot. The best route to go would be to trim any offensive instances of these characters, but avoid a severe cutting of the characters.

The Golden Idol said:

Yeah, but you'd still understand that it's her plan because she says "That's the idea" like a second earlier.

Hmm, lol, good point, I suppose you would.

By the by Laser, did you ever get a clean plate of the start of the film from the BluRay documentary? To make this film completely CG-Critter-Free!

Yeah, Marion's 'Trust me!' never irked me too much either - it explains that her driving off the cliff wasn't just some weird spontaneous move, but a thought-out manouvre (there's a shot earlier where we see Marion peer over the cliff from the jeep). Also, it was a nice role-reversal as well; usually, Indy's the brash one, telling people to just trust him as he blunders through, but here it's switched.

About cuttng Indy being fired and then made vice dean at the end, it would be hard to cut Indy being fired (with this being how he is wanting to leave the country on the train, and how he runs into Mutt, and takes up the quest for the Skull), but perhaps cutting Indy being made vice-dean at the end could be done more easily - there's only one brief shot of Charlie walking past the door with the lettering being put on it, explaining that Indy's been promoted, so this could be cut quite easily I'd imagine. I guess it doesn't really make sense for Indy to be promoted; it's never explained exactly how this promomtion came about, what with the Crystal Skull adventure having no bearing on the university whatsoever.

Ha, I never even noticed the cut from Spalko drawing her sword to Mutt finding his one- I thought that had always been in the film! Lol, I'll compliment you on that cut as well then!

Great edits there man! Taking away those few offensive moments in each really does improve the sequences a lot.

Really, they're practically perfect, but if I had to be a nit-picky pain in the ass :) ...

- Now that the trouser-ripping is cut, could we cut Mutt's 'oh, shit...' in the truck? And just go from Mutt tossing Indy the knife, to the knife landing on Indy's soulder, then straight to Indy dropping the knife behind him?

- Are you planning on adding the missing nozzel-flash to Spalko's gun at 0.04.56 (of your clip)?

- Is there any way of making Mutt go straight for the hilt of the sword, and not the blade first? This is at 0.05.51/53 ; is there any way to cut straght into this scene here so that he reaches straight for the handle? Lol, this always irked me - why the hell does he go for the sharp blade? Seems like a stupid thing to do, especally for someone so skilled at fencing/with switch blades.

- Although for like a nano-second, you can still see a couple of CG monkeys attacking a Russian soldier in Spalko's jeep just as Mutt jumps across to Indy's; could Mutt getting into Indy's jeep with the skull be handled in another way, perhaps, to eleminate this? Can these pesky CG monkeys be totally removed? I remember jedi jira's edit of this not having the CG monkeys in Spalko's jeep - did that edit not remove the wide-perspective shot of Mutt jumping or something?

Anal-retentiveness aside though, I can't wait for this edit; top stuff!

I'm actually reassured by Laser's point about there actually being metal in the gunpowder. It's good that this is the case, as I can't imagine how the gunpowder segment could be effectively cut out - doing so would seem to create either a jarring, clunkiness here, or else create a continuity error with regards to how Indy actually found the box. It might be more neat, then, if the gunpowder set-piece was left intact.

I originally thought that cutting straight from asking for a compass to the shotgun shells would work, but thinking about it, doing this cut would mean that it is never explained that the box/skull is magnetised (unless we cut after Indy talks to Spalko here about the contents of the box being magnetised, but we can't leave in this speech as Indy mentions gunpowder). Would it not perhaps look strange if Indy asks for a compass, then is seen to be receiving shotgun shells, climbing on top of boxes, dropping them, having the shotgun shells whizz into a box - if the audience wasn't aware that the box was magnetised, all this would seem confusing possibly.

Still, there may be a neat, continuity-respecting cut that is possible here which could avoid this problem. One cut I could imagine maybe working is cutting from Indy saying 'the contents of that box are highly magnetised' straight to him saying 'do you want my help, or not?', omitting the line about gunpowder. But as this speech happens right in front of the camera, without the perspective changing in any way, it may have to involve morphs, or other such tricky techniques to make this cut work.

But after the revelation of metal being in gunpowder since WWI, I can finally enjoy the gunpowder sequence as it is in the theatrical cut! Well, at least know that it makes some sort of sense!

Ach well, it's not like swapping those lines is a very important change.

It's great to hear that your waterfall edit is nearly done - really looking forward to your final product, I'm sure it'll be great.

Yeah, the thread itself isn't centred on one specific edit. Rather, it's just an area where ideas and suggestions for an edit of the film can be gathered and presented in a list, to help potential fan editors out there who are wanting to tackle an edit of KOTCS. As new suggestions are put forward, I update the list on Page 1 to keep things in order (have included your suggestion about trimming Marion and Spalko staring each other out for a few seconds, TheGoldenIdol).

Aside from Laserschwert, I also know that InfoDroid and UncannyAntman are planning on doing edits (read this over on the faneditforums; also, the fanedit homepage mentions that there are a number of edits of Crystal Skull on the go, and should start appearing relatively soon).

Laser, I remember you talking about adding FX to Indy's fight with Dovchenko to make it more gritty, and it got me thinking - should the same be done for the dead Area 51 guards? Could more blood/gore be added in the shot where they are being dragged off by the Russians, before Indy says 'drop dead'? They were shot by four Russian soldiers emptying their clips on them after all!

Yup, I've been updating the list as we go.

Lol, I know, I think I'm fresh out of ideas as well - there can't honestly be anything else we haven't covered! I think we really do have the definitive list of suggestions; if all or most can be implemented in a fan edit, I'll finally be able to let this film sit beside my original Indy trilogy DVD boxset. Right now, that's just not happening with the theatrical cut, on principal, lol.

On JohnGreenArt's suggestions - I included the suggestions about Indy figuring things out for himself, and also about cutting Mutt revealing that the torches at Akator had been used not long before they arrived (I'll go out on a limb and say that most, if not all, would agree wth these ideas), but am unsure about the other suggestions put forward - maybe these could be discussed, to arrive at a consensus before they are included on the page 1 list?

I think that removing the graveyard action sequence with the natives would severely damage the pace of the film - remember, this action seqence comes, thankfully, after a period of plot development and exposition; cutting it entirely could drag the film out. Also, it is in this sequence that it has been proposed that we could have Indy fire his gun, which he doesn't do anywhere else in the film (and this is a first for an Indy film), and this is a pretty crucial edit which would need to be done.

Also, I think cutting the 'Mac-drops-the-trackers-for-Spalko' segments would make it look very strange when Spalko just suddenly turns up in the main chamber where the Crystal Skulls are - and, it would mean sacrificing the scene where the Russians, under Spalko's order, ruthlessly shoot down the Akator natives. That scene, for me, added much needed grit to the film, and made us genuinely wary of Spalko, as we were seeing here (for arguably the first time) what she was capable of. Plus, I think the tracker-segments reinforce just how damn dastardly Mac is!

Finally, at the diner, cutting Indy asking about Mutt's mum would also seem inconsistent, in my opinion. Mutt's mum being captured by the Russians is one of the key reasons (if not the reason) why Mutt is choosing to personally get involved, and why Indy is being asked for help. So, Indy is bound to ask who his mother is - it would seem strange if he just didn't bother to follow up on that crucial piece of Mutt's tale. And it doesn't necessarily follow that Indy would then ask about Mutt's father - Mutt hadn't mentioned him at all, so Indy would assume he was no longer on the scene (having either died or left). Plus, cutting this would mean losing Mutt's hot-headed-ness (which becomes a considerable part of his character) when he is angered by Indy's comment ('there's been a lot of Marys kid...' - which is a great line! And a very Indy-like line!). Then, it would make Mutt's coldness to Indy after this confrontation ('oh, you're a teacher? Well, that's gonna be a lot of help...') seem out of place.

But that's just my two cents!

^ lmao, ah yes, the Russian soldier standing by the control box does subtly imply that a charge is used :P

Couldn't see the wood from the trees, I guess :D

And good point about Indy's worldly-ness being conveyed through his 'you're not from around here...' exchange with Spalko. Keeping it in does seem like the logical thing to do, in terms of preserving Indy's character.

Must've been having an off day :S