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

December 19, 2011

*This rating was given before reviews were required*

December 19, 2011

This is My Review for the AVI version of this fanedit
Video-Audio:
The Video Quality was perfect. The whole thing looked superb, with no video problems whatsoever, Running smoothly all the way. the only small problem i had is that the video was rendered as 16:9 with black bars on the top and on the bottom. This about the AVI version, i dont know if this is present in the blu ray version as well but i didn’t mind it in the AVI version. The movie would have had black bars anyway when played on a normal 16:9 monitor. And the image wasn’t distorted or anything like that. Just something worth mentioning anyway. The Audio was also superb with no complaints here 9/10
Editing:
Almost all of the cuts were done very well, and most of the time i couldn’t tell where they were made. Some clever editing was done here with some scenes. The only one that comes to my mind and felt a little distracting was the quick sand scene. It felt a little too fast, a little too sudden. But it wasn’t a deal breaker, it was a minor gripe in an otherwise nicely edited and put together fanedit. there were some other scenes that felt a little off, but they were even more minor, not distracting and not really worth mentioning IMO. The audio editing was flawless. No noticeable abrupt audio cuts, the new score that was added fitted perfectly and was well edited to the film. Maybe at some points the music felt a little too loud but you could hear the characters what they were saying perfectly. 8/10
Entertainment:
A Huge improvement over the original and most of the major problems with the original were fixed. Gone are all those stupid over the top scenes (goodbye nuke the fridge, jungle boy with monkeys, flesh eating ants, CGI alien and more). None of the deleted scenes were missed. The film feels now like a proper Indy adventure. I also loved those small cuts in the edit that made Indy look even more badass. Really liked the part at the Camp when Indy looks through the eyes of the alien. Putting the nuke explosion, the alien and other scenes there was really cool! Also liked the edits on many characters that made them more tolerable and likeable. The Edited ending felt so much better than the original. No more spaceship crap. Furthermore i really liked the new soundtrack. Brings back even more nostalgia! In general, it felt more fast paced, more tight, more engaging and overal, much better film than the original 9/10
Presentation:
N/A It was the AVI version
Overall: 8/10

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 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.