Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods

❌ Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods was an early version of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull written by Frank Darabont. It's not clear how many different drafts did Darabont write but it seems that George Lucas read two or three versions of the script before finally rejecting it in 2004. In an interview with MTV, Darabont said that this rejection represented the loss of a entire year of his work.

City of the Gods included all the elements 'suggested' by George Lucas through the film's development and that can be seen both in the final film and in earlier drafts like Indiana Jones and the Saucermen from Mars: a 1950s set, aliens, UFOs, Soviet agents, army ants, somebody swinging on a vine, a chase on a rocket-sled and Indiana Jones surviving a nuclear blast inside a lead-lined refrigerator. Again like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull but unlike Saucermen from Mars, City of the Gods included a crystal skull as mcguffin and a returned Marion Ravenwood as Indy's love interest.

Spielberg and Lucas discussed the script's story in April 2000 (which they called Lost City of the Gods), which Darabont was hired to write in July 2002. He turned in drafts in May and November 2003. Lucas had issues with it, and he began rewriting it in (titling it Phantom City of the Gods).

First and second draft
The first version of the story (never released, so this might be not entirely accurate) was rejected mainly because of two reasons: the introduction of a 13 years old daughter of Indy and Marion as one of the main characters and the use of Nazis escaped to South America as main villains. The daughter idea was particularly disliked by Steven Spielberg, who he felt to be too much like the character of Kelly Malcolm in the sequel to Jurassic Park, The Lost World. For this reason, Spielberg petitioned Darabont to write off the character.

In the case of the villains, both Lucas and Spielberg agreed that the film set could not omit the Cold War so they decided that the villains should be Soviet agents this time. Darabont lamented the decission, but ultimately accepted it and began to work on a final version of his story.

Third draft
Darabont's third draft was (supposedly) leaked to the internet in June 2008, just about a month after the final film was released on theatres. Neither Lucasfilm nor Frank Darabont himself have officially recognized its validity but people who claimed to have read it long before Crystal Skull's final release claimed that this was, in fact, the last version Darabont sent to Lucas.

Prologue: Nevada
The story opens in Nevada around 1954, where a semi-retired Indiana Jones and his Russian emigree workmate Yuri Makovsky are working in a Zuni site. One night Indiana lends his truck to Yuri to travel to a nearby village but he sees Yuri meeting with other men and heading for a different diection, so Indy decides to follow the convoy and discover what are their intentions. After entering a secret US Army base in the desert, Indy discovers that Yuri is actually a Soviet agent and foils his plans to purchase an ammount of uranium and a mysterious package from two corrupt American scientists. However, after a chase through the compound Indiana Jones is captured by the Soviets, put in a car's trunk and left to die in a fake village during a nuclear test. Indy escapes using a refrigerator as shelter and is rescued by the US Army.

New York
After a long interrogation Indy is released by the US government but an FBI agent is assigned to watch him anyway, as the government still suspects him of having communist sympathies. Indy also loses his job at Barnett College and decides to forget the shock drinking. Once completely drunk, he decides to break into Marcus Brody's Museum during the night and steals some of the objects he brought in, like the Chachapoyan Fertility Idol. Indy is caught by the FBI agent after him, but a Soviet agent (one of the ones Indy saw earlier in the military base in Nevada) kills the FBI man and attempts to kill Indy too. Somehow, Indy recovers control over his actions and is able not only to escape the Soviet, but also to kill him. After searching the Soviet's coat, Indy finds the key to one of New York City Central Station's lockers and flees there avoiding the police, who believes him to have killed the FBI agent.

In New York City, Indy finds a crystal skull in the cabinet and instructions to meet somebody in a hotel room. Indy finds a gangster there that gives him a fake passport, a plane ticket to Peru and further isntructions to meet somebody else there. As it is revealed later, the man supposed to use that plane ticket was Yuri, who beats up the gangster.

Peru
In Peru Indy meets Marion, now wife of the flamboyant Hungarian noble and archaeologist Peter Belasko and who is still angered with Indy due to his leaving of her. She needs the crystal skull to find the mythical city of Los Dioses, a place in the Peruvian rainforest where (according to the legend) wishes can come true. Many expeditions had tried to locate it before but failed. The last one was headed by an old friend of both, Proffessor Vernon Oxley, who is missing since then.

Belasko claims that the Nazca Lines are actually a code that, in the correct order, can help to find the city, so Indy and Marion rent a plane to photograph the figures. During their mission, however, they are attacked by other plane piloted by Yuri and a dogfight follows, after which both machines crash in the Peruvian jungle. Indy and Marion are rescued by a mysterious German doctor named Von Grauen that lives among a tribe of Hovitos and returns them to Belasko's camp, but Yuri is captured by Peruvian soldiers. Yuri avoids hanging then promising the ruthless Peruvian dictator President Escalante that he will help him to take the skull and find the city. At the same time, Von Grauen is revealed to be working for Escalante when he sabotages Belasko's expedition the next day, and Yuri is able to contact by radio with a Soviet military airplane.

Back in Belasko's camp, Indy discovers a completely insane Oxley imprisoned in a truck cage, like an animal. Belasko is using him to interprete the Nazca symbols and draw the itinerary of the expedition. But at the same time Indy makes this public to the rest of the expedition, Escalante's men attack the camp and make them prisoner... and shortly after Soviet commandos called by Yuri show up. All want the skull. As a result, a Mexican standoff follows till it is suddenly broken by the attack of giant, hungry army ants.

Everybody flee the ants, most of them (like Belasko) jumping on a nearby river. Indy and Marion take a truck where Oxley is caged and are chased both by Soviet commandos on horseback and Peruvian Army jeeps. The truck falls on the river, being chased then by Peruvian inflatable boats. But as the boats are about to take on the truck, it falls over four waterfalls. Miraculously, the people on the truck survives while almost all the rest of the people on the river dies. When taken to land, Oxley flees vine-swinging through the jungle while Marion and Indy are captured again by Escalante (who is holding Yuri, Belasko and three of Belasko's men as prisoners, too). However, Belasko steals a machine gun and kills all the remaining Peruvian soldiers. Immediately, he reveals that he is a Soviet agent too, something that upsets Marion.

"Los Dioses"
Belasko finds the entry to the lost city but before entering it he is betrayed by his Peruvian aide Porfi. Everybody is tied to a jeep with a bomb about to explode, but they are rescued by Oxley in the last minute. When they enter the lost city of "Los Dioses" they find Porfi crazy and his two partners dead.

Finally they find the Main Temple, which has a complex aqueduct and still working electric golden wires despite its antiquity. In a chamber the group finds artifacts from all ancient cultures of the world, including an Egyptian skiff. And in the main circular chamber they find 13 headless skeletons made of crystal. The skull "tells" Indy what is its skeleton and Indy puts it over its shoulders.

Immediately, a mechanism activates revealing 13 alien mummies sitting on 13 thrones, each one in front of one of the skeletons. A supernatural voice asks about the other skulls. As it is told that nobody knows about them, the voice goes angry.

The voice claims to be from one of the alien beings that long time ago took over Earth and gave birth to all ancient civilizations and religions. In order to be kept alive, the aliens demanded human sacrifices, and built those skeletons to keep their 'souls' there once their corpses decayed. This voice says then that it is time to concede a wish to those five members of the groups with the greatest desire: Peter Belasko, Yuri Makovski, Von Grauen, Escalante and Indiana Jones.

Von Grauen wishes to restore the "greatness" created by the Nazis and a fake Adolf Hitler takes his heart apart, Escalante wants to be feared by everybody and he is converted in a poison frog, Belasko wants to know everything and his brains melts due to the excesive knowledge, and Indy demands Marion. Indy is pardoned then. While the other men die, the alien belonging to the activated skeleton slowly comes to life.

But Indy saves Makovsky. The alien, angry and needed of a four human body to complete his restoration, takes Oxley by the neck and begins to suck his life force. Indy shoots the alien with a riffle and kills him, saving Oxley's life.

The Main Temple begins to fall apart then and the remaining survivors flee through the aqueduct in the skiff. A giant OVNI, buried under the whole city, begins to take fly... till it stops, and crashes on the jungle producing a nuclear-like mushroom. Safe on the river by then, Indy beats Yuri and tells him to stay away from his country in the future.

Epilogue: Washington, D.C.
Back to the States, Indy is cleaned of all suspictions and receives the Congress Medal from US President Dwight D. Eisenhower due to his help in "destroying a Communist plot that caused a nuclear explosion in the jungles of Peru".

The movie ends with Indy marrying Marion and dancing while a drunk Henry Jones Sr. sings Frank Sinatra's Fly me to the Moon and Oxley moves the cutlery with the power of his mind.

Darabont's response to the rejection
Darabont felt very disappointed when Lucas rejected his script completely, losing what had been (in his words) a year of his work. According to Darabont, this decission was more shocking because Spielberg had read the same script before Lucas and had said that it was "the best script he'd read since Raiders of the Lost Ark" and that Spielberg wanted to begin the shooting the next july.

Darabont also noticed too many similarities between his script and the final film to not have been given any credit in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and announced the possibility of legal actions against Lucas.