Review Detail
9.9 4 10
(Updated: March 19, 2023)
Overall rating
9.4
Audio/Video Quality
10.0
Audio Editing
10.0
Visual Editing
10.0
Narrative
9.0
Enjoyment
8.0
The Man With the Golden Gun is a movie I tend to rate higher than most people, and higher than I probably should, despite its enormous flaws. Mainly because of two reasons: I am a massive Christopher Lee fan, and I find the character of Scaramanga a fascinating nemesis for Bond, being in a nutshell a dark reflection of 007, the only real difference between them being that Bond works for a legitimate government and tends to just kill bad people. I just wish the film was more centered on Bond vs. Scaramanga and less on yet another doomsday device, but oh well.
So in regards to this edit, I found it to be an extremely solid one, but at the same time one that doesn't really fulfill my vision for the film, which is incidentally one that I've been intending to eventually edit myself. A lot of the cuts would be the expected ones, and exactly the ones Ed has implemented, but other spots would differ quite significantly.
The points in which we differ are basically two: one is that this edit sadly cuts my favorite bit in the film, Scaramanga fondling Andrea with the golden gun. For me that scene enhances the character inmensely, conjuring into the viewer's mind images of twisted sexual perversion (again, the dark reflection of Bond himself) that make the subsequent dialogue in which Andrea tells Bond how much he hates Scaramanga come across as so much creepier.
And the other thing is that in this edit one of my major problems with the movie stays mostly unaddressed: the extreme stupidity of Goodnight (for my tastes the worst main Bond girl of them all, and before you say "Christmas Jones", there the problem was the casting, not the character), and the way Bond treats her like absolute trash. Sadly, those things play here like in the official version.
In any case, most everything else is greatly improved, and if your issues with the film aren't the same as mine, this will work absolutely great for you, as loads of goofiness have been removed, and expertly so. Any complaints I may have, have everything to do with my own vision and nothing with Ed's work. Editing-wise it's completely flawless, as are video and audio quality.
I may favor a different approach, but this is still a really good edit with so much to recommend!
So in regards to this edit, I found it to be an extremely solid one, but at the same time one that doesn't really fulfill my vision for the film, which is incidentally one that I've been intending to eventually edit myself. A lot of the cuts would be the expected ones, and exactly the ones Ed has implemented, but other spots would differ quite significantly.
The points in which we differ are basically two: one is that this edit sadly cuts my favorite bit in the film, Scaramanga fondling Andrea with the golden gun. For me that scene enhances the character inmensely, conjuring into the viewer's mind images of twisted sexual perversion (again, the dark reflection of Bond himself) that make the subsequent dialogue in which Andrea tells Bond how much he hates Scaramanga come across as so much creepier.
And the other thing is that in this edit one of my major problems with the movie stays mostly unaddressed: the extreme stupidity of Goodnight (for my tastes the worst main Bond girl of them all, and before you say "Christmas Jones", there the problem was the casting, not the character), and the way Bond treats her like absolute trash. Sadly, those things play here like in the official version.
In any case, most everything else is greatly improved, and if your issues with the film aren't the same as mine, this will work absolutely great for you, as loads of goofiness have been removed, and expertly so. Any complaints I may have, have everything to do with my own vision and nothing with Ed's work. Editing-wise it's completely flawless, as are video and audio quality.
I may favor a different approach, but this is still a really good edit with so much to recommend!
D