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.

After watching Pulp Empire, I had a good feeling that this edit would be of the same caliber, at least in the sense of Audio. NJVC masterfully splices in the Raiders soundtrack into this mess of a movie, and the audio seems pretty professionally cut. Nice Work!

My issues come with the edit itself. There were a few cuts too many, and some scenes ended too abruptly. As I have edited films before, I understand that NJVC was working with an obviously limited amount of footage, so some odd cuts are bound to occur. What stood out to me were some dissolves from scene to scene: The shot of Indy over the Nuke-town fading into the FBI scene was jarring, and the quicksand to driving scene fade was noticeable. Like I said, with such a small amount of footage, not everything can be perfect, but I think a hard cut or a wipe of some kind might have fit more.

Like I said, the soundtrack is great. The original movie itself is bogged down with issues, which is the reason I only marked my enjoyment of this cut at 7. That being said, this version of the film is a perfect replacement for the original cut. I haven't seen any of the other major edits yet (TMBTM's, TM2YC's, or Q2's), so I'll check those out too.

Hi there!

I am not an expert as far as fanedits go, but I have watched some fanedits.

About IJKS, I did not dare to watch one until I read the description of your project.

Changing the music was a superb idea, and it works. From start to finish.

The cutlist was great and despite some messy stuff during the car chase, I could enjoy (enjoy!) this edit of the movie during all of it.

The ending was superb and the hard work must pay off.

Thank you! All thumbs up.

Some small criticism would be that the use of Raiders "Mystery" theme was excessive, but that is a small shadow in an overall pristine work.

Thanks again, never thought I would enjoy any of this material.

The looks of audio and video are also excellent.

Shame on Kaminski, shame on Koep, glory to you, man!! NJVC!!

I was actually able to fully enjoy this movie for the first time. Still the worst of the series, but now deserves it's place alongside the others in my collection. I no longer even mind Mutt as a character, with his obnoxiousness toned down. Quite a feat.

The Raiders score works very well. It feels more like a true Indy film. The cringeworthy moments are gone. Well done!