Review Detail

A different take on editing Indy 4.
Inspired? Yes, adding Orellana's backstory shifts the focus from Indy to the aliens. History, almost, repeats itself: Indy is simply one more explorer to go down this path. This fleshes out the worship and protection of these gods / aliens. In the original it feels to me that these gods are from a forgotten past, but if so the presence of warriors protecting them makes no sense. For that the worship needs to exist in the present and not only in the past. TMBTM shows us that worship continued into the recent past, making it an easy step to assume it continues into the present. This also clarifies who wrapped Orellana and his men and why (they couldn't have wrapped themselves after all, at least not the last man).
Do I prefer this over the other available edits? No. I feel the focal shift to improve the alien story and extensive cuts reduce Indy's story too much. In all, an impressive thinking-outside-the-box edit that adds a good backstory. Perhaps the backstory would feel better proportioned in a 3-hour extended edit?