What Could Have Been: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

We definitely dodged a bullet with Saucer Men from Mars, but City of the Gods definitely would’ve been a big upgrade from Crystal Skull

Just reinforces the fact that Lucas is sometimes his own worst enemy

I read the Darabont script years ago and it broke my heart that it wasn't the movie we got.

This movie definitely should’ve been made about 8-9 years earlier

When I heard "Indiana Jones & The City of the Gods" I thought it was going to be something more akin to that one old game where he goes to Babylon because the Russians were digging there in search of something even bigger than the atomic bomb. It even makes sense with the whole idea that we shouldn't have access to such destructive power. Still much finer than the mess we ultimately had.

Lucas was always at his best when he had people around him prepared to say "No, that's crazy" and stick to their guns. Yes, Darabont's script was way better than the one we got, and had a much better title - bad George!

The biggest flaw for me was the lack of Sean Connery. John Hurt's character was clearly meant to be Indy's father, but they had to recast the role/introduce a new father figure for Indy, and it needed to be Henry, not a guy we had never met before. This crucial part of the story would only work if we had seen that character before his mind had deteriorated. It's Mutt and Indy's entire motivation to go on this advemture.

The "nuke the fridge" was actually a great idea. It just happened in the wrong place. If it had happened during the film's climax, the audience would have embraced it because you can get away with a lot more during the film's climax than you can in the opening moments.

Lucas really needed more people to challenge his decisions around him in the 2000's considering this movie and the prequel trilogy.

Frank Darabont's script was really good. Too bad they changed it. Also, the "nuke the fridge" moment is from the first draft of Back to the Future where Marty hid in a fridge during a nuke blast to time travel home!!

Yes indeed, Darabont's script actually sounded like a more plausible and doable ending with a story to it. Would have rather seen that film than the one we actually got!

The more and more I learn about George Lucas, the more and more it seems like he’s his own worst enemy. For the original trilogy, he had people keeping his ideas in check, but after that he was giving free rein to do whatever he wanted. Had we gotten city of the gods, I think it would’ve made for a far superior Indiana Jones 4

I've chewed over what I would have done for Indy 4. This is my basic bullet points 1. Still a search for El Dorado/Akator, it ties into Indy's past and the Percy Fawcett Lost City of Z quest and a Spanish Conquistador, heck I even considered the reason Indiana Jones was after the Golden Idol at the beginning of Raiders was because it connected to Akator as a possible "key" the Spanish Conquistador used/the one adventure/treasure that got away. 2. The reasons the Russians want Akator is they're flat broke from WW2 and all that wealth would be an enormous boon to funding their space program/war machine 3. Marion is the one who calls Indy to the quest because Oxley sent her to get Indiana Jones. Also no kid of Indiana jones but Indiana Jones and Marion seeing they had their treasure in each other the whole time. 4. The Crystal Skull isn't an obviously alien skull but a human shaped skull that has properties similar to what it had in the movie. 5. The Crystal Skull was once a real human skull turned crystal because Alien technology/whatever the twist about Akator's Gold is ala a metaphor about atomic energy. But no aliens actually show up.

One of the drafts was being written by the third film’s scribe, Jeffrey Boam. It featured all the same traits, the Soviets looking for aliens for potential psychic properties. It was supposed to film in 1996, but they put it on ice when Independence Day came out and they didn’t want to be the follow up act. Jeffrey Boam’s last film ended up being The Phantom, he died four years later in 2002. George also intended for Indy to have a daughter, not a son (keeping it in continuity with the bookends of the TV show). It was Spielberg who had it changed to a son, since he had just done a Father/Daughter relationship in The Lost World: Jurassic Park

Yes, Darabont's script is pretty amazing. It's really remarkable how every single scene in it that survived to be in CRYSTAL SKULL is executed way better in Darabont's script. Mind you the 'snake scene' is so OTT I don't know how it would have played on screen. Indy is not afraid of snakes anymore, and he literally gets swallowed by a giant anaconda, then regurgitated, and so comes back his terror of snakes.

I've long held the bones of what we got were great. That a pulp hero man of action from the 30's should feel a little silly during a story set in the 50's. Where the genre motifs shifts on him from the pseudohistorical and mystical to the pseudoscientific and futuristic. Where he is both a relic of the past and out of place in the "modern" day , while also being more clear-eyed and sagacious about what is important in the grand scheme of things. Sadly didn't get much of that kind of introspection or meta awareness of the genre conventions that was always at the heart of the Indy movies.

I don’t hate it, but Last Crusade was just such a perfect ending. It’s like Return of the Jedi, we never should’ve seen these characters again after they resolved their stories

I think it's awesome that the script for City of the Gods manages to tie the atomic test at the start of the film to the ending, thus driving home the theme of man's hubris and thirst for power and knowledge leading to his demise. The version we got was entertaining, but the ending seemed disconnected from the rest of the film, with no real connecting through-line. I'm personally fine with the aliens, since the Indiana Jones franchise has always had supernatural and mysterious elements, but the way they were written left too many plot holes and problems in my mind.

Short round driving them off in their wedding is the best idea ever honestly

Indy dumping an entire mag into an alien is metal as fuck lmao