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
Numerous flaws, and far more Lucas than Spielberg, but still fun. I was only truly disappointed by the CGI monkeys, because I was hoping Mutt was going to develop a fear of monkeys the way his pop has a fear of snakes, and grandpa has a fear of rats. It didn’t happen. The monkeys became his silent allies in an awful, arbitrary cartoon bit.
Rod Hilton is tremendously insightful and original, as always.
June 17th, 2008 at 5:28 pmI had no problem with the aliens… but then I was kinda ready for it, seeing as how it’s been rumoured as a plot point for YEARS (one draft was called Indiana Jones and the Saucermen from Mars). It was no dumber than that really old knight in The Last Crusade.
The whole jungle section though; that shit makes NO SENSE. One minute, the russians are chasing Indy, the next, they start absailing down the cliff, despite not having the skull, and not knowing where they’re going.
And my biggest problem;
HE ONLY USES HIS WHIP TWICE, IN THE FIRST TEN FUCKING MINUTES.
And he only gets called “Indiana” or “Indy” about four times.
June 17th, 2008 at 5:30 pmI still liked this movie as it was better than Die Hard for the simple fact that it still had an Indy touch for me. What about you Rod? This or Die Hard 4?
June 17th, 2008 at 5:47 pmYour script was, unfortunately, dead-on and flawless.
“Unfortunately” because you illustrated perfectly why George Lucas needs a lobotomy.
Marry me, dammit.
June 17th, 2008 at 6:34 pm“Harrison Ford emerges from the fridge with his face covered in black soot, holding a sign that reads ‘ouch’.”
BAM!
Way to hit that nail right on the head with the Wile E. Coyote, Looney Toons reference, Rod! Out of all the Indy movies, this was the most unbelievable, cartoon-like one ever! And I LOVE Raiders and Temple of Doom(not so much Last Crusade). Lucas and Spielberg have changed Indiana Jones from a semi-believable tough guy who does what he has to do, into a fucking cartoon character.
Easily the best script you’ve done in recent memory, and a hell of a great read. Well done, Rod. Bravo!
June 17th, 2008 at 7:17 pmRod: Funny as usual, just a question. While i read it i detected quite a bit of anger in your writing i didn´t catch in other scripts, is it my imagination?
June 17th, 2008 at 8:06 pmHonestly, though, all I blame Lucas for is the rejection of Frank Darabont’s draft, and even then, it’s only theorhetical.
Oh, I think I heard about that draft once, and it actually sounded even worse than the final movie. At least it’s nice to know that they fixed up a bad script rather than dumbing down a good one.
June 17th, 2008 at 8:08 pmThat was the best Monkey Island/Indiana Jones & The Fate Of Atlantis/Any point&click LUCASARTS adventure game REFERENCE EVER!
Never knew Rod for SUCH a video game geek (besides the movie guru we all know and love).
June 17th, 2008 at 8:15 pmThank you, derp. You said what I came here to say.
I’m tired of people screaming “CHILDHOOD RAPE” simply because a movie is released a couple decades after the previous installment. The Indiana Jones series thrive on ridiculous pseudo-science and farfetched situations. They’re B-Movies by two guys who love B-Movies. And yes, it WAS better than Temple of Doom.
June 17th, 2008 at 9:17 pmI can immediately think of more enjoyable scenes in Temple of Doom than ANYTHING remotely entertaining in Kingdom of Crystal Skulls.
In fact, walking out of the theatre in that hazy state of embarassment, remembering Temple of Doom was like a breath of fresh air.
June 17th, 2008 at 9:25 pm