City of the Gods script
My thoughts on Darabont's Indy 4 script. First, I just finished reading it last night. Being the Indy fan that I am, I am not sure why it took so long to get around to reading it, but I am glad I did. My overall impression: probably would have been received slightly better than KotCS by fans, but not by much.
SPOILERS FOLLOW!
Things I liked:
Marion's character was written more like the Marion from Raiders. I read some complaints about Marion's marriage to the rival archeologist. I thought the story would have been better with her just being the girlfriend of the rival archeologist, but the marriage didn't detract from the story for me.
Yuri as the friend turned enemy ala Mac was better developed. Replace Yuri with Mac in the script and it would be better. You'd have to write out the communist ties.
The quest was better written, but Indy's involvement in it seemed a bit contrived (mistaken for another agent and travel to Peru under that guise).
The government's case against Indy as a communist was resolved.
The warehouse/area 51 scene was pretty good, but some of KotCSs elements were better. The Doomtown scene was almost the same, but resolved better. The fridge still gets nuked, btw!
Indy's dismissal from Marshall College was better written.
When Indy revealed Oxley's captivity by the rival archeologist, I thought it was a great way to show Marion her "perfect" husband had a sinister side and may not be what she thought. Overall, though, I liked Crystal Skull's Oxley better. (I am delighted in the fact that this script made it clear Oxley was more of an associate of Indy's father and his age was closer to Indy's dad, backing up my argument in another thread that Oxley should have Abner in the story).
Indy breaking into the museum was humorous, although possibly out of character. I liked the fact the idol from Raiders was there though. it lets us know that little piece of the story from Raiders was resolved and also serves as a tie-in to the first movie.
Generally, the script was better than KotCS, but the ending I felt was weaker because of the "dream" sequence for each character. Why Indy was released by the alien made no sense to me. He said he chose Marion as his deepest desire. I guess it wasn't considered greed by the alien??????
What I didn't like:
The aerial dogfight could have been tailored into a great action sequence. As written, though, it was far to unbelievable (moreso than the drop from the plane in a liferaft from Temple). Indy makes a hop from plane to plane in midair not once, but twice. The pilot of the enemy plane starts intentionally chopping the wing of Indy's plane with his prop while Indy is standing on it. Not physically possible! This sequence needed a rewrite.
The pale man with the scar was underused and killed off far too early.
The plot to steal the plutonium by the Russians seemed a little contrived and not well explained. The Ruskies paid the scientists who orchestrated the theft with a Crystal Skull. Why did these guys have access to the plutonium? were they nuclear scientists or archeologists or what?
The giant snake swallowing Indy was pretty lame. As they got closer to the city animals and insects became larger, but never really explained why. I guess the science that powered the city caused things to grow immense, but not really explained.
The drop into the tree during the jungle chase is still there, with Indy driving a truck into the tree and then slowly riding the bending tree to the ground. Then the tree snaps back up and crushes some commies. I thought this scene and the variation in KotCS was LAME.
A variation of the Tarzan vine swinging is still in the draft, but this time it's Indy chasing Oxley through the trees. It was better in City of the Gods, but still lame to me.
The assistants who turned on Escalante at the end were just thrown in at that point to capture all of the players and make them work together. They proclaimed they were capitalists, but they were lame and seemed out of place to move the plot. Yuri could have filled that role, and he was a character we were already familiar with.
It never explained what drove everyone crazy that entered the City EXCEPT for Indy and crew. The alien killed those that sought the knowledge they possessed at the end. It did not make them crazy.
"Welcome to Earth." dialogue.
Sorry for the long post, but that's my two cents. I think I would have liked another rewrite. I know GL and SS wanted to shoehorn Mutt into the screenplay. I think they could have done that with Darabont's, made a few changes to a couple of scenes, and Darabont's script would have made a better movie.
As for the movie we got, I like it but do not LOVE it. I think, with Darabont's script going through another polish or two, I would have LOVED the movie it could have been.