Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: The Spence Edit

so i watched this one straight after 15MaF crystal skull edit i will say on many levels i had preferred this one due to it not cutting as much because im just a fan of longer movies and i think a lot of the jokes arent as bad as others im also someone that grew up with this movie with it releasing 4ys after i was born.

I've seen a lot of Indy 4 cuts. Sometimes I have a lot to say, but other times the edit does what it needs to and functions too smoothly to have much to say. Which at the end of the day is the minimum that every edit should reach.

My thoughts:

- The opening Paramount/mountain fade shot is done pretty well. But it does linger a long enough for me to wonder why I'm looking at it. I can see little things floating around in the open air around the mountain which I think is a nicer touch than just still image of the sky or backdrop.

- You kept the rocket sled gofers! Noooo!
- The timing of Indy's line delivery of "knife to a gun fight" is so much better.
- Cutting Oxley dancing around the Soviet jungle campfire. Why? I fail to see how this really achieves anything aside from shaving a few seconds off the run time. Not really condemning this choice, I just don't see what it contributes.
- Lots of little nips and tucks through out the rest of the film were appropriate.

Overall, this was a pretty conservative, light touch, edit. Better than the original cut for sure. For me personally though I would have preferred a heavier hand in the edit room but this does the job quite well and should be watched over the theatrical cut.

This is a fantastic edit of a movie which gave very little enjoy from the offset. Spence has taken out a lot of the flab from this movie and it's incredible to see how what's left is so much tighter. This doesn't change the central problem that Indy as a character is about historical magic, not futuristic sci-fi and that the introduction of Mutt and re-introduction of Ravenwood weighs down the story as well as Indy himself. If you accept that, then you can focus on what Spence has achieved here: The gophers and monkeys aren't excised entirely, but you don't resent them when they do briefly pop up. The edits feels entirely seamless and you mostly feel a sigh of relief when the movie is over instead of groans and agony. TLDR review? Spence has polished a turd. Bravo, sir!