Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: The Abridged Script
By: Rod Hilton on Jun 17th, 2008 | Movie Rating: 
Shia comes face-to-face with his career in 10 years.
FADE IN:
EXT. NEVADA DESERT
PRODUCER FRANK MARSHALL immediately proves his commitment to using CGI “only when necessary” by featuring completely necessary CGI prairie dogs in the first shot of the movie.
A bunch of cars drive through the DESERT to AREA 51. HARRISON FORD’S SHADOW, then HARRISON FORD’S SHOE, then HARRISON FORD’S ARM, then HARRISON FORD’S HAT and finally HARRISON FUCKING FORD are eventually revealed.
HARRISON FORD
Alright folks, let’s get this show on the road. I want to make it to Country Buffet by four.
CATE BLANCHETT
Pryvet, Harrison. I am evil Soviet. You vill help me find Moose and Squirrel, yes?
HARRISON FORD
Holy Christ, you’re not going to talk like that the whole movie are you?
CATE BLANCHETT
Da. You vill help locate MacKuffin now.
HARRISON FORD
Fine. The thing you’re looking for is super magnetic, so if we just throw this gunpowder into the air it will lead us to the MacGuffin.
RAY WINSTONE
Nineteen years to write this movie and that’s how it’s going to start? Really? I think I’m going to write myself out of this movie as much as possible by revealing myself to be a double agent.
RAY turns on HARRISON. CATE escapes with the MACGUFFIN and HARRISON gets away, only to find himself in the middle of a NUCLEAR TEST SITE that is apparently located within walking distance of AREA 51.
HARRISON FORD
Holy shit, a nuclear bomb! I’ll hide in this lead-lined fridge to protect myself from the radiation that will permeate the area shortly after the ten-million degree heat generated by the blast is done obliterating every single object in a 5 mile radius!
Somehow, this WORKS. HARRISON FORD emerges from the fridge with his face covered in black soot, holding a sign that reads “ouch.”
INT. MARSHALL COLLEGE
HARRISON teaches his film class entitled “How To Ruin Millions Of Childhoods In 2 Hours” when he is interrupted by the DEAN, JIM BROADBENT.
JIM BROADBENT
Sorry Harrison, I have to let you go. The government thinks you might be a Soviet. Apparently someone rented “K-19: The Widowmaker” and panicked.
HARRISON FORD
Bullshit, nobody saw that movie.
HARRISON packs up props from the prior films, but is interrupted by SHIA LABEOUF.
SHIA LABEOUF
Hey, my mother and John Hurt have been kidnapped. My mom said you’d help me because every great adventure film needs an insufferable douchebag sidekick.
HARRISON FORD
Your mom knew me? Well it seems painfully obvious that you’re going to turn out to be my son, then.
SHIA LABEOUF
And yet, that’s going to be mentioned later in the movie as though it’s some kind of shocking revelation.
Suddenly, more CARTOONY SOVIETS show up and try to kidnap SHIA and HARRISON.
SHIA LABEOUF
Shit, they have guns. What do we do?
HARRISON FORD
Just wait until the movie gets re-released in a few years and they’ll be replaced with walkie-talkies.
SHIA and HARRISON escape on a motorcycle. Crazy stunts are performed in order to evade the SOVIETS.
SHIA LABEOUF
Are we really expecting audiences to put up with this? We’re violating like ten thousand laws of physics here.
HARRISON FORD
Are you joking, kid? That makes this the most realistic action scene in the movie.
EXT. SOUTH AMERICA
SHIA and HARRISON go to SOUTH AMERICA to look for the next CLUE. SHIA flips his knife around in his hand trying to look badass, but actually grabs it by the blade. Twice. Seriously.
HARRISON FORD
Alright, the walkthrough for the movie says that our next clue is in a spooky graveyard. We should probably save our game here.
SHIA LABEOUF
Pick up MAP. Use MAP on HARRISON FORD. Walk To TOMB.
They travel to an underground tomb and find a CRYSTAL MACGUFFIN using its super-powerful magnetic properties.
SHIA LABEOUF
That crystal skull looks like an alien head. And the Soviets were looking for an alien corpse stored in Area 51. Golly, there sure is a lot of alien stuff.
HARRISON FORD
If you’re trying to mentally ready the audience for the ending, don’t bother. I’ve read through the script, nothing can prepare moviegoers for what happens at the end.
Suddenly, SOVIETS show up and kidnap SHIA and HARRISON. They bring them back to their camp, where HARRISON finds JOHN HURT and KAREN ALLEN. CATE BLANCHETT embarrasses herself some more and eventually they all travel into the AMAZON FOREST.
HARRISON FORD
What are we doing in the Amazon?
KAREN ALLEN
Cate wants to return the Crystal MacGuffin to the ancient City of Gold.
HARRISON FORD
City of Gold? Isn’t that what Nicolas Cage was looking for in National Treasure 2? Are we seriously getting the plot for our shitty sequel to Indiana Jones by ripping off the plot of a shitty sequel to a shitty knock-off of Indiana Jones? I feel like that should unravel the space-time continuum or something.
A caravan of vehicles, led by a giant tree-cutting machine, travels deep into the AMAZON FOREST. HARRISON uses a CHEAT CODE to spawn a ROCKET LAUNCHER, then uses it to blow up the tree-cutting machine.
SHIA LABEOUF
I’m pretty sure the audience came here to see more Shia LaBeouf, so I’m going to fence Cate Blanchett in front of an obvious green screen.
HARRISON FORD
Wait, what are they chasing us through? Are there roads in the middle of the jungle? Why the hell did we bother showing that tree-cutting thing if we were just going to contradict the very thing it was trying to establish?
KAREN ALLEN
That’s what’s so great about this movie - we can just do whatever the hell we want, because even glaringly obvious flaws like that are dwarfed by the sheer magnitude of failure that is the rest of the movie.
To illustrate this, SHIA LEBEOUF flies up into the FUCKING JUNGLE and swings like FUCKING TARZAN along the FUCKING VINES with a FUCKING ARMY of CGI FUCKING MONKEYS. That actually FUCKING HAPPENS.
Everyone eventually winds up in the CITY OF GOLD.
INT. CITY OF GOLD
HARRISON solves a few simple puzzles and gains access to the CITY. Some natives show up and attack, but are quickly dispatched, making the AUDIENCE wonder why they were introduced at all.
HARRISON FORD
Alright, the aliens or whatever want me to return the crystal to some ridiculous alien throne room.
CATE BLANCHETT
Not zo fast. I vill return skull instead.
HARRISON FORD
Shouldn’t it have been taken as an indicator of a writing problem when the good guy and the bad guy in a movie have the exact same goal?
CATE takes the skull and places it on a THRONE. It then turns into an ACTUAL ALIEN and makes her head explode. The ALIENS pile into a GIANT UFO and fly off into SPACE.
HARRISON FORD
Wow. Considering that the first movie revolved around a magical box made by God that melts faces when opened, it’s really astonishing that this movie managed to be so incredibly stupid by comparison.
JOHN HURT
I can’t believe that the crystal skull wanted you to return it to the city just so that aliens could have blown your head up. Those aliens are total assholes.
SHIA LABEOUF
Seriously, what kind of jerks would intentionally trick people into thinking they were going to get something awesome, but then give them something so awful it makes their brains melt instead?
GEORGE LUCAS AND STEVEN SPIELBERG
Rich jerks! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
END
[...] thoroughly enjoyed the abridged script from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as posted on The Editing Room: SHIA and [...]
June 19th, 2008 at 11:30 am[...] Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - The Abridged Script: that would have been a shorter and more honest movie had they made it. {via} [...]
June 19th, 2008 at 11:45 am[...] Editing Room has written an abridged script for the film and it is hilarious (even more so if you’ve seen the film, which I [...]
June 20th, 2008 at 2:03 pmTEMPLE OF DOOM has more rousing thrills and technical excellence in the first 10 minutes than the wretched SKULL does its whole running time.
You could detect Spielberg’s love of CINEMA, the choreography, the editing, cinematography, the great music and kinetic action in that flick from beginning to end.
He wasn’t a lazy 1 take director in those days, shooting one film while editing another.
He has lost it. Even the method the movie opens, with the credits placement over the action and frame was so casuall and uninvolving - no menace, no drama -
The problem with SKULL is the script is full of holes and doesnt make bloody sense, and the humorous spoof above pretty much nailed most of the issues with the flick.
But most of all it didnt flow well, it looked like it was shot in the backlot somewhere - did they even go on location to shoot this? Exposition in soda joint - hartford chase - indy theme over map - shot of airport - small mexican backlot - deserted cemetery (looks like old set from 1976s THE OMEN - and so on.
In RAIDERS you could *see* Indy in Morocco, you could see him traverse from point A to point B in Sri Lanka in DOOM, you could se him in Venice in CRISADE - this movie really looks like they were lazy to travel and shoot this anywhere else. They probably made it as far as Hawaii maybe, shot some jungle scenes and then crammed them with CGI. Horrendous.
I saw TEMPLE OF DOOM in 70mm at the Empire Leicester Square and even though the violence was slightly edited by the British board of censors (heart being ripped out etc) it was a solid, very entertaining rollercoaster ride, it looked great, it sounded great, and it was thrilling - it wasnt RAIDERS but credit goes to Spielberg at the time for taking a dark detour - after the backlash of that flick he never really regained his INDY footing (although CRUSADE had some good moments, notably the opening River Phoenix prologue).
June 20th, 2008 at 3:20 pmNuff said. I really loved this script! - And I liked the movie until the alien-exploding-head-sequence. Of course, the other movies where much better.
Steven Spielberg has seen too much his own movies.
June 20th, 2008 at 3:43 pmOh, forgot to mention: Someone should take the “Insert CGI Stuff” button away from Lucas. Please!!
June 20th, 2008 at 3:44 pmHa ha silly Europe and their censoring
June 20th, 2008 at 3:49 pmGreat script really funny. However I do find your video game references overused and unfunny. Even if you haven’t used them for the last 5 or 6.
June 20th, 2008 at 6:06 pm[...] Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: The Abridged Script | The Editing Room PRODUCER FRANK MARSHALL immediately proves his commitment to using CGI “only when necessary” by featuring completely necessary CGI prairie dogs in the first shot of the movie. A bunch of cars drive through the DESERT to AREA 51. HARRISON FORD’S SHAD (tags: entertainment fan fiction funny movies parody people reviews movies/indiana-jones stupid) [...]
June 20th, 2008 at 11:34 pmI saw it twice, jut to be sure what I’d seen was as bad as it felt the first time through. It was.
Up front, let me say that I have no issue with the premise: it fits in perfectly with what Indy was: a throwback and homage to the adventure serials and war movies of the 30’s and 40’s that Spielberg and Lucas grew up on. (STAR WARS, for one, has entire sections of action and dialogue lifted from THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN and THE DAM BUSTERS).
This film, made 20 years later, picks up on the adventure films of the time, which were what? That’s right: science fiction. From THE BLOB to THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, fantasy adventure in the 50’s and 60’s was more about the frontiers of space and science than it was bushwhacking and lost tribes. I had no problem with that as a concept, and the tie-in to the crystal skulls was legitimate. Chariots of the Gods, baby!
But between idea and execution, a vast gulf appeared, and despite years upon years and draft upon draft by accomplished screenwriters, it’s the writing that most fails this picture. (And by writing, I don’t mean only the script that can nominally be attributed to David Koepp, but the many story and character decisions Lucas governed with his characteristic iron grip of misplaced self-confidence).
Lesson for filmmakers: even the most pedestrian of movies asks the audience to embrace the illusion that what they’re seeing is real. When dealing with a fantasy film (IJ being adventure fantasy, SW being space fantasy, etc.), it’s even more important that you not tax your audience’s credibility onthings that they knowand understand, because you need them to be willing to accept the more sensational elements of your story.
Case in point: yes, it was cool for Jones to be able to stand in front of a mushroom cloud (the only menacing thing in the whole movie, IMHO), but it was NOT cool that he could survive a nuclear blast by hiding in Bob Zemekis’ old fridge. Leaving aside the destructive force of the blast itself, or the intense heat, the rather sudden deceleration of the fridge’s impact in the New Mexico desert would have turned Indy into so much chunky salsa.
Another case in point: I know it was a throwback to Steven and George’s old days watching Johnny Weismuller play Tarzan to have Mutt swinging on vines, but - even leaving aside how embarrassing the whole jungle chase was, or the horde of McCarthyist monkeys - having Mutt *catch up* to vehicles moving at, what, 40 miles an hour? By swinging on vines? Come ON now. It’s not good enough to say “it’s an adventure film”: some things have to be at least minimally plausible, or it destroys the illusion.
RAIDERS was a huge success in part *because* Indy was a more “realistic” hero than your typical matinee idol: yes, he managed to do incredible things, but he was also a spectacular failure who accomplished things as much by luck as by design. It made cheering him on that much more enjoyable. That humanity was missing here. (This, by the way, is also why Batman will always be a more interesting character than Superman).
I will agree with others above that TEMPLE OF DOOM had a lot more to recommend it, despite its issues. CRYSTAL SKULL? Ugh.
Even leaving aside all the technical flaws, the character work was… oh wait, there was no character work. Despite being a long bloody movie that dragged and dragged, they still couldn’t find time for any memorable dialogue or scenes that weren’t mere exposition. That’s why Marion’s “grinning idiot” response to seeing Indy again was so wretchedly disappointing. I know Karen Allen runs a knitting circle now, but I’m sure she’s still got some acting chops, let her use them.
I’d pay good money - more than I paid to see this - to read Darabont’s treatment, but I’m sure Lucas will supress it to his grave, at which point his estate will supress it in perpetuity.
As far as ruining franchises, I find I am saved by selective memory: as far as I can recall, there are only three STAR WARS movies (if I’m being totally honest, there are only two), there was only ever one HIGHLANDER, one MATRIX, one PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, and there are definitely only three INDIANA JONES movies.
Self-delusion can be a wonderful thing.
June 21st, 2008 at 12:20 am