Raiders of the Lost Skull

[njvc]

UPDATED August 2012


Raiders of the Lost Skull

This is a new take on INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL. Utilising the soundtrack from RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, and exorcising elements that felt out of keeping with the original trilogy, this edit aims to bring the tone of the 4th Indiana Jones adventure back in line with STEVEN SPIELBERG and GEORGE LUCAS' original classic.

Changes in Version 2.

• Audio Remix in 5.1 surround (better integration of Raiders of the Lost Ark soundtrack)
• Addition of Ants/Fight with Russian scene during the Forest Chase
• Removal of Indy’s College promotion/wedding. Movie now ends at the top of the mountain
• New end credits sequence, featuring the score from Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Improved colour correction
• Minor tweaks and improvements throughout
• New motion menu for Bluray and DVD release
• New cover art/poster

INTENTION:

To make Indy 4 watchable again, and to see if it is possible to make Indy 4 feel anything like Raiders of the Lost Ark.

EDIT DETAILS:

Reveal message

[align=left]CUT LIST/Edits

There are hundreds of changes, but here is a general feel for the major ones.

Edits to entire film.

1-Film Score: The large majority of the score has been completely replaced with the score from Raiders of the Lost Ark. This was a painstaking process, matching each musical beat to this new edit of KOTCS. The intention was to improve the tone, and evoke the old feeling of Raiders through that classic music. As a result of these changes, many sound effects also had to be replaced to allow the new music to be integrated naturally into the film

2-Colour Correction: The entire film has been colour corrected, scene by scene, toning down the over saturated look of the film. This was achieved by fixing the white balance, and bringing the skin tones back within a more ‘natural’ range. This helps bring the film more in line with the other 3 films colour-wise

Major Changes to Characters.
Indy
- Silly/goofy humour removed (eg falling off the speed train etc)
- Cheesy lines removed (eg “I’m sorry, I meant drop dead comrade” “damn i thought that was closer”)
- Poor line deliveries removed (eg “It’s Oriana himself”)
- Improved action pacing (indy using his whip looked rather slow in the original...)

Spalko
- Removed her monologue when she first meets Indy. Also indy doesn’t get introduced, so his “who was that woman” makes more sense later.
- Entirely removed her sword fight with Mutt
- Removed as many bad lines as possible

Mutt
- Tried to make him less silly.
- He no longer sword fights or swings with monkeys.
- Just tried to make him less annoying in general

Marion
- Removed as many silly moments as possible.
- There were quite a few poor acting moments from Marion. I just cut what I could, but it was impossible to fix everything.

Mac
- Got rid of most of his “JONSEY”s from the film.
- Removed painful banter with Indy “bet ya 10 bucks we get out of this etc”
- Removed annoying dialogue like “you don’t know him YOU DON’t KNOW HIM etc”
- He’s no longer a triple agent etc. stupid idea.
- He no longer falls on the ground for no reason, then lies on the ground for no reason before being sucked into the vortex to another dimension. Added an explosion to make a reason for his fall, then he gets sucked in almost straight away.

Ox
- Removed as many stupid moments as possible. Including dancing with the Russians and twirling his stick around when he first meets indy in the tent.
-The “HELP” scene in the quicksand is gone.

Select Changes to individual scenes (not an exhaustive list, but a general idea)

Opening Scene
- Removed Gophers, Elvis Song, Car race to make the tone more menacing. Makes the impact when the Russian attack more intense.
- Shortened dialogue with Spalko.
- Shortened gun powder scene
- Tightened up warehouse chase, and added new sound effects/music etc.

Doom town
- Removed completely.

FBI scene
- Cut all dialogue alluding to the bomb. This was challenging and required a mask over indy's mouth.

Indy’s house
- Cut obvious and unnecessary dialogue “first Marcus, then dad”. Thought it was more powerful to just show this visually.
- Cut stupid expression on indy’s face after “taking them away”.

Diner Scene
- Reintroduced ark theme to replace skull theme
- Used music from Raiders basket chase instead of “shake rattle and roll”

Motorbike chase
- Many small edits, including tightening the jump from car to motorbike
- Cut library chase.

Traveling by plane (both scenes)
- Replaced music with travelling by plane music from Raiders. This meant replacing all sound effects of planes/boats etc

Graveyard
- Cut scene with the ‘living dead’ spidermen in the graveyard.
- There would have been no poison on the end of the dart that indy blew into that guys mouth anyway.

In the tomb.
- No more CGI scorpions
- Removed unnecessary dialogue
- Indy no longer goes to steal the knife.
- Indy doesn’t do the working it all out scene “he put it back where he found it” etc. This becomes obvious later, and just slows things down.

Russian Camp
- Modelled the interrogation on infodroid’s unfinished edit. Used footage from The Watchmen and Raiders to show what the Russian might do if they used the skull etc.
- Also used the sound design from when the ark is being kept on the ship In Raiders. Seemed suitable.
- Ox is less stupid
- Marion is (a little) less hammy

Quicksand
- Much shorter (no more stupid ox)
- No snake. This was hard to achieve, but I’m willing to live with it to avoid having that stupid snake scene.

Truck
- Shorter, punchier dialogue between the three when having their argument.
- No more comedy triple kick, or losing the knife. When indy kicks the guy, he goes down first time, then it’s straight to business. Indy doesn’t waste time.

Forest Chase.
- Very challenging scene to edit. Removed sword fight, mutt in the trees, as many shocking CGI shots as possible, ants, and fight with the Russian, Marion and her stupid facial expressions. This scene plays faster now, but at least feels like an Indy scene, instead one of the worst scenes in cinema history.
- Ants/fight with Russian reinstated.
-The jump off the cliff has been ‘zoomed in’ to give the impression the jump was not quite so high, and hopefully looks just a little more believable that they would attempt/survive such a stunt.

Waterfall
- Only 1. It’s still stupid, but 3 times less stupid.

Inside the Temple
- The natives no longer live in the walls
- Got rid of everyone screaming everyone else’s name.

With the aliens
- The skeletons do not merge into a CGI abomination. They remain skeletons.
- Mac doesn’t have a lie down for no reason
- Added “Water! Water!” from Temple of doom as they try to escape the temple.
- Removed Alien ship completely. They went to another dimension through a portal, so no need to see a ship.

The promotion/Wedding
- Deleted for version 2. Credits now start, with the closing credits music from Raiders, on top of the mountain.

So there you go, a bit of a rundown of some of the more significant cuts. Those of you who know the film well will notice many more. Hope you enjoy it!

RELEASE INFORMATION: (Password = fanedit.org)
- BD 25
- DVD5
- AVCHD

FEATURES:
- Motion Menus (BD and DVD)
- 5.1 Surround Sound
- Trailer (BD and DVD)

TECHNICAL INFORMATION:
PC 16GB RAM
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5
Adobe Photoshop CS5
Adobe Encore CS5
Adobe Media Encoder CS5
DVD Fab 8​

​

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[g1orkatsos]

i have just downloaded your fanedit. i am going to post a review tomorrow

 

[g1orkatsos]

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

Good Job!!!

 

[Neglify]

Nice. I'll have to check this one out now.

 

[njvc]

Thank you for review g1orkatsos. Very pleased to hear you enjoyed it and cheers for the approval.

 

[njvc]

Do I need to alert to site moderators that the edit is approved, or do they tend to do that themselves?

 

[Neglify]

Do I need to alert to site moderators that the edit is approved, or do they tend to do that themselves?

They're usually on the ball. It will most likely be added to the main area of .info next update.

 

[L8wrtr]

Page has been converted to TrueFanedit status. This will be moved on .info no later than the next release cycle, but ratings can now be given to the edit.

 

[TV's Frink]

They're usually on the ball.

Setttle down

 

[njvc]

Just so everyone knows, the poster art for this release was created by Randy Siplon, who has created a tonne of amazing fan art. The picture was used with his permission - I quoted this on the DVD artwork, but I'm not sure that's been uploaded by the mods yet. Anyway, you should check out his artwork. Fine stuff.

 

[revel911]

I am trying to download, but I am getting File Not found for both the Avi and Blu Ray

 

[Waslah]

It works for me. But I've noticed the last couple of days that JDownloader has been telling me "File Not Found" a lot for files that are available. I'm not really sure why.

 

[havok1977]

Hmmm interesting, any chance of an AVCHD release? BD burning is out of my reach and I really dont have enough incentive to invest in it, and I prefer to watch while playing a disc rather than a file

 

[stretch009]

Hmmm interesting, any chance of an AVCHD release? BD burning is out of my reach and I really dont have enough incentive to invest in it, and I prefer to watch while playing a disc rather than a file

Seconded. ^

 

[L8wrtr]

Hmmm interesting, any chance of an AVCHD release? BD burning is out of my reach and I really dont have enough incentive to invest in it, and I prefer to watch while playing a disc rather than a file

+1

 

[revel911]

I will try a newer version of JDownloader to see if that helps.

 

[felipemeyer]

It works for me. But I've noticed the last couple of days that JDownloader has been telling me "File Not Found" a lot for files that are available. I'm not really sure why.

The same happened to me some days ago. Its mostly due to layout changes on megaupload (but sometimes it can happen with rs as well). The solution is quite simple: make sure that jdownloader is closed and execute jdupdate.jar. Make it twice to be sure. After all updates are done, open jdownloader again and it shall work properly.

 

[njvc]

Ok, I'm having a go at creating an 8GB AVCHD version. All of this file conversion stuff is new to me, so apologies for the delay in getting the preferred version onto the site... I assume you can burn an 8GB AVCHD onto a dual layer DVD?

 

[L8wrtr]

si.

 

[Omaru1982]

Sort of review-ish thingy left on the main page. Gave it 9/10