Raiders of the Lost Skull

December 30, 2011

Very entertaining Indy 4 edit. A lot of the terrible moments are gone and what’s left is a pretty damn good movie. Still the weakest of the 4, but at least now it’s almost worthy of being an Indiana Jones movie. Picture quality is dazzling and the editing is perfect.
Two minor nitpicks though. The title “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” remains at the start of the movie. And, the added line “Water! Water!” is an obvious overdub due to Indy not moving his lips. But no big deal at all.
9/10

I've been watching fanedits for about 5 years now and reading reviews in earnest on this site but I have never submitted one. Well that's changing right now as after seeing this excellent fanedit from my (I believe?) fellow Aussie compadre njvc I could no longer contain my love for the art form under cover of silence. But I digress, on to the edit...

AUDIO EDITING:

Pros -

What drew me to the edit was the score change. As someone who regularly works with audio editing software and someone who has tried (will hopefully be finished one day) to remove and alter music for fan editing purposes, I understand how incredibly difficult this can be. FX can be replaced, but dialogue generally cannot so if the music and fx are particularly dense and you're trying to isolate dialogue amongst all that you're in for some very tough work even with the top audio editing plugins at your disposal. This would have taken a very large amount of time no doubt and to my ears all the cuts were quite smooth. More to the point, the changes enhanced the film greatly on an emotional level and that's really all that matters in the end, isn't it? So very well done, mate.

Cons -

I do have two very small gripes, however. First is the ant attack scene. When the bad dude is devoured in the ant hill, his screams become noticeably lower in volume until they are themselves all but 'devoured' by the music. I realise that there is probably a very good reason for this.. that you had to turn up the music to cover the original score, so it was most likely unavoidable. I suppose the only other solution would be to replace the scream. At any rate, a very minor quibble. The 2nd gripe is merely an echo of another reviewer on here and that's the somewhat excessive use of the "mystery" theme. I felt by the time we were getting near to the end of the film it had started to lose some of its effectiveness due to overuse. To my mind, the edit would actually benefit from putting a small measure of the original score back in to amend this, or simply choosing some other parts of the Raiders (or the other two films) score to work in its stead. Well, perhaps should you ever do a version 3…

VIDEO EDITING

Pros -

I do not have the experience with video that I have with audio but after watching fan edits for some time and teaching myself some editing software I believe I have gained at least an elementary understanding. There were no noticeable hard cuts that I could detect. The new colour correction is a vast improvement (though like some others have mentioned, I would love if it could be taken further). The skull montage is a work of absolute genius!

Cons -

The awful jeep on a tree scene - I really wish that was cut (I quite liked how TMBTM dealt with this in his edit). There were some other cuts that I felt were somewhat abrupt but I put that down to narrative more than editing technique. So, onto narrative…

NARRATIVE

Pros -

Well, where to begin? Everybody's most offensive moments are gone, the pacing is greatly improved, and the ending is far more inline with the franchise. I even managed to get through the whole movie without my attention wandering, and for film as severely hampered as this, that's really saying something.

Cons -

As is often the case with many fan edits, the film now feels a bit short (though considering how much was cut, not as much as short as you might think). Marion's character feels somewhat empty in this edit. I'm not exactly sure what you could do about this as I can't remember the original film clearly enough, but I felt she needed just a bit more screen time, a bit more of a chance for us as an audience to identify with her, and if that means putting back in some cringe-inducing dialogue that might be the lesser of two evils? The ending - though much improved - also felt a bit abrupt. Again, not sure what you could do about this exactly. Perhaps cut away to a slow shot of the mountain from earlier in the film (if there is indeed a suitable one) just to buy you a few more seconds to let the music carry the film off better? I don't know it's a tough one.

VIDEO QUALITY

I downloaded the AVCHD. Excellent quality.

ENJOYMENT

I thoroughly enjoyed this edit. It's quite amazing how much of an improvement it is from the original film. Most certainly is now my go-to version and there can be surely no higher praise for a fan edit.

December 15, 2011

I opted for the avi version because I don’t have a BR writer. A lot of the cuts you’ve made I’ve seen in one of the other edits of the film so it was nice to see those decisions get taken into consideration by more than one person. I really liked how you handled the removal of Doomtown, to me it works, you can argue why Indy is suddenly wearing very casual clothes in the next scene or you can endure his ‘miraculous’ escape in the theatrical version. I’ll that first option. You really took on board getting rid of the annoying traits of most characters, Mutt and Marion come to mind, Ray winston is mostly mute now, but it’s a small sacrifice.

Car chase was done well, the bit in class was stupid, I’ve always felt being a professor was Indy’s mild mannered alter ego, so to speak so the mixing of the two in the theatrical cut, never agreed with that choice.

Then the truck sequence, I like it much better like this, I’ve always wondered how it could be made plausible for Mutt to vanish into the trees and crops and come back without making it seem ridiculous. You provided the best option yet, not shortening the sequence, but removing it altogether. It was only when I got to the end of the film I realised how much was missing, like the ants and just about everything, some parts felt a bit odd, like the car’s sort of jump through the air, but it could be that I’ve seen the original several times to pick up on, first timers or casual watchers probably wouldn’t catch on.

From here to the end is just perfect. I got a little occupied with something during the quicksand sequence so I didn’t pay full attention but I seem to remember it played out okay.

From a narrative viewpoint this is the best existing telling of the 4th film. For editing and all that other stuff, I’d prefer one of the other guys who knows what to look for gives this film a watch, I didn’t notice anything particularly jarring.

December 18, 2011

Did you know that there was an Indiana Jones movie hiding in the monstrosity that is Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? NJVC does an excellent job bringing out the good aspects of this film (turns out there actually are some when the garbage is removed) and ditching the silliness.

Utilizing the Raiders soundtrack was a huge improvement. Coupled with edits to the warehouse sequence, the entire mood was changed from being over the top to tense and entertaining. This was true for many other scenes, and I was surprised to find that halfway into the film I still cared about what was happening on screen. A first for Indy 4!

The nuke was skipped over very nicely, and painful but unavoidable scenes such as the rocket train, car chase, and jungle nonsense are handled exceptionally well. Marion, Mutt, and Spalko are no longer irritating, and the obvious faults in the story have been taken care of.

Some favorite parts were the editors changes to Indy’s vision or whatever you call it when looking at the skull and making the ending much, much better. Yes, you can’t get rid of the alien situation completely, but I think this is the best possible solution. I won’t give away the ending, but I was pleasantly surprised that it can be made this tolerable.

There were just a few areas where I was able to sense the presence of the editor, but knowing what was removed made these little things very forgivable. For instance, there is a hard cut in the cafe after Indy says he ‘knew a lot of Mary’s’ and moments like the when Spalko and her men are heading down the cliff on ropes to escape the now absent ants feel a bit odd. These are small problems and still much preferred to the theatrical cut.

Fantastic job on this edit; I think I finally have an Indy 4 that I can watch for the fun of it. Raiders of the Crystal Skull just feels like an Indy movie should, and despite the ‘inter-dimensional beings’ crap, it is now an entertaining Indiana Jones adventure. Thanks NJKC

December 19, 2011

*This rating was given before reviews were required*