Licence Revoked

Lastsurvivor has cracked the case!

A project that proved to be quite complex at times, altering Licence to Kill to work with a new narrative pays off here. Borrowing some elements of another editor helped point LS in the directions he wanted to take, and the result is a masterclass in editing and pacing that makes this Bond a skilled contender for the best entry in the series...certainly the best entry in LS' series of Bond edits to date just for the challenges and frustrations involved, and he managed to overcome them.

A solid film and a hard-fought victory in the saga of man vs the edit!

This edit of Licence To Kill is pretty good. The opening sequence was impressively well placed which I find it better than the original film. The scene placement where Bond's vendetta begins with discovering Leiter's body actually fits more with the title "Licence Revoked." The edit is overall fast paced without lingering too much and with the removal of certain unnecessary scenes for example, lessening Bond constantly shooing away Pam and Q which I find annoying in the original film. The removal of Leiter phoning Bond happily in the hospital makes Bond's payoff more worth it as a fitting end of his vendetta. The only thing I would change is keep a few scenes that don't affect too much which in the edit led to some jump cuts. In the other hand, most other instances of jump cuts were at least okay. For fans who have trouble with the original film's plot, I recommend people to give this a watch since here it's more pleasing.

I really enjoyed this edit. I thought the choices made for some of the changes were quite good and helped fix the narrative as well as improve the pacing. It felt like a really smooth watch and a quick one. The only problem I had is that some of the cuts felt a bit weird but I chalked that up to knowing the movie and the scenes that were cut.

Overall, a really enjoyable experience.

The beginning of the movie was a little a choppy and you had to pay attention otherwise you would be lost trying to figure who was Sanchez. The scene with Felix dead makes more sense as no one would have survived losing his legs, he would have bleed out. Cutting out some of the Semi Truck scenes was more believable, as popping a wheelie is a little too farfetched. Glad to see that the bickering between the women was removed and shortening the bar fight. I like your choice of music for the bar scene. Overall you have done a good job with the editing. Looking forward to seeing more of your edits in the future.

Cheers!

Have you seen the new Bond movie? I hope to see it within a week..

I've had a love/hate relationship with this film. It's not the best Bond, but it's the only one I owned on Laserdisc back in the day so I watched it often. I therefore watched this edit critically: with high expectations and great familiarity. The result was both rewarding and frustrating.

Rewarding because most of LastSurvivor's concepts are clear improvements to the story. Frustrating because the execution of those concepts, with the limitation of available material, results in narrative gaps. Not technically, the visual editing is flawless, but the flow of the story is jumpy. Although the cut bits were bad, their removal creates noticeable jumps.

Rewarding because most of the sound replacement work is unnoticeable. Frustrating because some of them are. I find the new song in the bar sounds like an overlay, intended for the viewer's ears instead of playing inside the space for the characters. A few times background music cuts too abruptly between shots. Not a hard cut, but still unexpectedly sudden.

One moment puzzles me: We open on Killifer with Sanchez, then the wedding where Killifer walks in, then back to Killifer with Sanchez. Is that wedding scene a flashback or is Sanchez being loaded so close to the wedding venue that Killifer can go back and forth?

The lasting takeaway from watching this edit is rewarding because many BIG narrative improvements work perfectly well. Top marks that Leiter dies (I have nothing against this Leiter, it just serves the story better) and the love triangle is removed. On the whole, this edit improves the frustrating story. Individually the improvements are solid, but collectively they remind me of "the whole is less than the sum of its parts".