Indiana Jones and the Saucermen from Mars

❌ Indiana Jones and the Saucermen from Mars was set to be the fourth film during the 1990s. It was scrapped and eventually elements of it were retained in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (the Nevada opening in particular).

Plot
The prologue is set in Borneo in 1949, with Indiana Jones proposing to Dr. Elaine McGregor after defeating pirates. She abandons him at the altar, because the government requests her aid in decoding an alien cylinder (covered in Egyptian, Mayan and Sanskrit symbols) in New Mexico. Indiana pursues her, and battles Russians agents, meddlesome CIA agents and US soldiers, and spider-like aliens, for the cylinder, which turns out to be a timebomb.

The script had cameos from Henry Walton Jones, Sr., Sallah Mohammed Faisel el-Kahir, Short Round, Marion Ravenwood and Willie Scott as Indy and Elaine's weddings.

Behind the scenes
Lucas began writing the story in September 1993, and Jeb Stuart wrote a script (where Indy's love interest is named Molly, and Indiana has to protect a live alien). Stuart was replaced by Jeffrey Boam in 1995. The following year, Lucas and Spielberg (who already had troubles with aliens as the MacGuffin) decided the script was too similar to Independence Day, which was breaking box office records.