Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - Director's Cut?

I know there is no Director's cut of this movie. It's just in my imagination.

First, I do not think it's a bad movie. I do think, however, it's certainly the weakest of the four Indy movies and could have been better.
1.I like the Aliens aspect. I like the Russians being the villains as well (although sometimes it seemed they were all on the same page..weird). Very 1950s. I even liked the entire nuking the fridge scene.
2. To me, the first half of the movie was pure Indy. The scenes at the warehouse, the college, escaping the agents with Mutt, the research, etc. Enjoyable.

The movie begins to falter and fall apart eventually from the "Capture" on. The capture and camp scenes are not bad at all. I am not big on the character of Mac but in the Director's cut, there is not much we can do except edit.

If I was putting together this version of the film, I would certain eliminate most of the Jungle scene. Just cut out about 90% of it. No Mutt fencing. No back and forth (which got old after awhile). No Mutt and the monkeys. Keep some of the Indy and Marion banter in the beginning but that's about it. Just lead right up to the fight with the thug.

I think it makes for a much cleaner, crisper adventure. Oh, and add Sallah at the wedding scene.

What about any of you? What would you do (realistically) to make it a better movie?

 

Yeah. Eliminate the stuff with the monkeys and the weird ants crawling over each other to get to Spalko effect. Those scenes just felt over the top and too showy. Other than that, I think its solid as is. People claim a lot of the sequences were unrealistic. (I've heard many people say that the ghosts in the Ark didn't kill Indy and Marion because they didn't look at them? Come on!) The nuking of the fridge is comparable to the mine cart jumping the tracks and landing perfectly on the other side or young Indy escaping the circus train through the magic box. I think each movie should be allowed one unbelievable moment and that's that.

I had a great time viewing Crystal Skull in the theater. The audience I was with loved it just as much. I'll never call it a bad movie. Indy rules!

 

When I see "director's cut" I think the vanilla movie with additional scenes. Sort of like the director's cut for Terminator 2, as far as I'm aware, nothing was removed or changed, only added. I would be all for minor additions like a cameo from Sallah at the ending. Hel, I'd love to see Short Round at some point again

Btw, I was under the impression that the ghosts from the Ark didn't kill Indy and Marion because they didn't have any ill intentions about it, and the fact that they didn't look shows that they didn't need to witness its divine power, so the ghosts (whom I actually think are the Ark's guardians) didn't see them as a threat

 

I know that, sure. But it's hard to explain to other people. Especially cynics!