Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull: The Race With The Devil Cut

I still remember going to see Kingdom of the Crystal Skull back in the theaters in 2008. My girlfriend at the time had never seen an Indy movie so we watched the first three in anticipation. The day finally arrived and we went to the theater. During the show, I was incredibly let down and honestly embarrassed that I made my gf watch the others. She tried to fake liking it for my sake because she knew how excited I was to see it. That was the only time I saw the movie all the way through.

Fast forward 15 years and we now have The Race with the Devil Cut. Finally, I can say that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a good movie and I truly enjoy it. This edit makes the film feel like it actually belongs in the same series as the previous three Indy films. The edits are seamless and all of the nonsense the original version of the film came with are now either gone completely or better edited.

I highly highly recommend this edit. DonkeyKonga did a tremendous job!

I’m rating the edit more than the source - I normally don’t care for alien movies. This version was paced much better than the theatrical version. I remember tuning out of the jungle chase sequence - the edit made it very enjoyable. Also the Peruvian Indian fight with all the silly flipping was cut - thank god. Overall it matched the structure of the original 3 much better

Previously the only Indy 4 edit I watched was a rather radical edit called Riddles of the Lost Gods which I very much enjoyed even with some minor changes I would have made to the opening...but much like that edit, this edit also proves that Indy 4 has a great film hiding behind all of the silliness and trimming the fat really shows it. In the case of this edit: Its a far more traditional Indy movie than the RotLG edit, and that's also a good thing. I watched the 3rd revision (I believe) of this edit and aside from a couple of artistic choices that I debated with the editor about (lol, I still believe in no nuke dang it), its almost flawless. I think if a V4 gets put out for this, it will (nuke included) be probably the most perfect cut you're going to see of this film.
Some of the choices made put a real burden on the editor, but it still worked out really well. Its different than RotLG and cuts things and keeps things that the RotLG kept/cut, but the main thing here is BALANCE between the silly and the serious and honestly both cuts proved that the theatrical cut just had way too many indulgences, and cutting a handful of the most egregious ones out makes immediately for a better film. So, keep the nuke cloud my friend, because everything else was so streamlined that it doesn't matter if its there or not.
Bottom line: Excellent cut. You absolutely should watch this.

UPDATE: Changed my scores to 10's across the board now. Just watched the latest edit with a fix to a scene I recommended and this thing is flawless now (well, if you can forgive the nuke that is, lol - its fine.).

I really enjoyed this edit! It had been many years since I last saw this film, as I found the original to be very disappointing. This edit has renewed my enjoyment in this film; it now feels like a 'proper' Indy film! The cuts were seamless, and the audio was really good overall.
I highly recommend this edit for anyone who was disappointed in the original, and wants to see how this film should have been released in the first place!

Crystal Skull is undeniably the weakest from the Indy movies, but DonkeyKonga's edit makes this movie way more enjoyable, the pacing and editing are great, lots of awful scenes/moments were either removed or shortened to a better experience, now the plot moves way quicker and doesn't have the padding the the original movie has, i can't recommend this edit enough!