AnImaginaryBoy said:
Does anybody know of any scenes missing from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull?
In another thread, James did a good job of compiling every scene that was in the comics/novelizations that weren't on screen. Some of these, like a prologue with Orellana, were entirely fabricated for the purposes of the novel and were never part of the script. Others were scripted and never shot, and finally others were shot and cut. As with the original trilogy, it's likely that Indy4 has no full deleted scenes so much as little extensions and bits and bobs that were removed. Here are a few I remember off-hand.
1) In the final film, after Spalko puts the sword to Indy's neck and commands him to find the crate, we cut to Indy leading them to the crate. Originally there was a bit where Indy offers some resistance, and Spalko responds by having her soldiers bring Mac outside and threatening to crush his head under one of the jeeps until Indy relents. This sequence was definitely shot as proved by production stills. There's
this one (and in one of the early behind-the-scenes videos released on the official site, you can actually see for a very brief second the filming of Indy's reaction), as well as another production still that I've only seen as part of a magazine scan where you can actually see Ray Winstone being forced under the wheels.
2) When Indy whips the gun away from the Russian soldier's hands at the beginning of the warehouse setpiece, there was a tiny bit removed: when Indy pulled the whip, it pulled the trigger on the gun causing the Russian to inadvertently shoot another Russian soldier (the one who Indy punched out), and then Indy finally pulls the gun out of his hands and towards him. The gag can be seen in the pre-viz on the DVD bonus features, and in TheRaider.net's podcast interview with the stunt guy involved, he discusses the stunt being performed on set, so it was almost certainly filmed. (I say "almost certainly" because the soldier's dead body cannot be spotted in the final film, even in the wide shots in which you would think it'd have to be visible. Of course, this could be coincidental or a case of digital airbushing to eliminate a plothole. You have to think, for example, that the body of the unconscious guy outside the Well of Souls in Raiders might have been removed in post if the movie were made twenty years later.)
3) There is dialogue between Stanforth and Indy at Indy's house that was deleted, where the two further discuss age and whether anyone will remember them after their death. (My understanding is that there is more proof of its existence than the text adaptations.) Someone certainly remembers the exact line even if I don't. (The deleted portion was likely between "We seem to have reached the age where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away" and when Stanforth decides to have "Just another half glass.")
4) I have no proof of this beyond my own observation, but it seems to me that dialog was cut in the diner scene between Indy and Mutt. There's a part where Mutt says "Well laugh if you want," and I suspect that something before that was cut, because Ford isn't laughing. Now granted, there can be a lot of explanations for this that don't mean deleted footage, but it's just a hunch on my part.
5) During the campus chase, Mutt and Indy were at some point supposed to interrupt the middle of a football game. There's reason to believe that Spielberg gave up on this idea while production was at Yale and that it was never filmed.
6) There was apparently some footage from the part with the cemetery warriors that got cut which involved Indy using his whip against one of them (evidenced by a production still and even the filming/practicing of the stunt on the DVD bonus features). Then there's
this much discussed image.
7) When Mutt and Indy find the skull in the crypt, at the very end of the scene the floor was supposed to give way, and Mutt was going to fall through and be hanging on for dear life over the Nazca lines. Indy uses the skeleton of Orellana to pull him back up. It's unknown if this was filmed or not, but concept art proves that it was more than just something added for the novel.
8) Similar to the diner scene, I believe some dialogue between Indy and Mac in the tent was edited out for length reasons. The cut that appears wonky to me is the one between "You're not looking at the big picture here!" and "Eventually they're going to let me out of this chair, comrade." Again, weird feeling cuts are a part of every movie and do not necessarily mean there was deleted footage, but that is my suspicion.
9) At least barb between Indy and Marion when they reunite is cut. The exchange, which is actually from the Darabont draft, is when Indy says, "Why are you so mad at me?" and Marion responds "How much time ya got?" You can see this in the DVD documentary. It occurs right before Spalko interrupts them.
10) There's a moment in the novelizations between Mac and Spalko at the start of the jungle chase, when Spalko threatens Mac and displays her psychic powers. There's no way for us to know whether it was in the movie's script or invented only for the books, but most agree it was a good exchange.
11) Similar to the above, when Indy and friends are in the amphibious vehicle going down the river, Mutt gets attacked by a piranha in the books. Was it filmed or ever intended to be filmed? Who knows.
12) At the very beginning of the waterfall sequence in the final film, pay attention to Indy and Mac on the left when Ox sits up and says "three times it drops." Indy is mouthing something to Mac silently, as though we're seeing the tail end of a cut conversation. It wouldn't surprise me at all if there was originally a bit where the characters talked to each other between the time the vehicle landed in the water and when the waterfalls suddenly appeared. This was probably an editing decision to keep the pace up. (Just as an aside, there are some good exchanges between Mac and the others peppered in this area in the text versions, such as him congratulating Mutt on his swordfighting skills which clashes with Indy, now the responsible parent. Again, I absolutely no proof this was in Koepp's script, but you have to think little character moments like this were on the page, and that they were mostly what was cut.)
I'm sure there were more, but, I've written enough. I'd like to think that there was a deleted scene explaining how the hell Indy, Marion, Mutt, Mac and Oxley somehow got through waterfall that led them to Akator, but considering the type of movie this is, I imagine not. Oh, and there's probably reason to believe that there were once a few lines about Akator that talked about the city's water/electric system, and there was probably more emphasis on the fact that it was a
giant underground city, whereas in the final film it really just seems like there's those two temples. Akator was conceptualized as a huge place.