Quantum of Solace: Bond’s Revenge

Review by Omaru1982 — June 7, 2011 @ 11:57 pm

*This rating was given before reviews were required*

Review by DwightFry78 — May 30, 2011 @ 5:50 am

Quantum of Solace is a problematic movie: it arrived as a followup to one of the best Bond films and it resulted very inferior to that, it seemed a pretty superfluous story as the character is pretty much in the same situation at the end than at the beginning, he only did away with some quite unimportant intermediaries to get to avenge Vesper but no big kahuna, plus the filmmaking style (or lack thereof) is the dreaded shake cam. It seems like there are multiple ways to improve on the movie by fanediting, but not a clear one to completely fix it. And Last Survivor’s effort, while solid, is not completely what I would have done. So let’s see…

What I liked: the fact that we got a prologue to fit with Casino Royale and have Vesper present again. What I didn’t like as much: that it was that long. It suffered from a bit of Superman-II-The-Richard-Donner-Cut-itis by delivering way too much background info that we who have seen CR already know. I think starting the prologue with the building sinking and Vesper underwater would have been enough.

What I liked: the “new” theme song. Miles better than the original, and yes, indeed it has a Bond feel. What I didn’t like as much: moving the credits sequence until this late in the movie (16 minutes), when we had already forgotten about it. I would have put it right at the end of the recap (“Bond, James Bond”, kick the song in). A matter of taste, I guess.

What else did I like? I was REALLY impressed by the way you handled the bodyguard kill. By implying that Bond did indeed shoot him and not just threw him off the roof, the line “I tried my best not to” gets a whole new meaning, and a very cynically in-character one. The slowing-down of the action sequences worked quite well, given the circumstances. And I include the opera house and Camille vs. Medrano modified bits. Not what I’d expect to see in a Bond film, but neither did I expect Forster’s epileptic cam. Maybe Vesper was a bit (just a bit) overused in the opera house sequence, but I never care for the original’s faux-Coppola (or was it faux-Eisenstein?) parallel stuff. I was very glad to see the different fonts for the different cities go, it was just overkill (I would have used no caption for Port-Au-Prince, though – the dialogue inmediately preceeding it already establishes it) Also, thanks for removing that “You and I had a mutual friend” line by Bond to Carlos. What the heck was that?

What else did I not care for? Sorry but I’m with Havok regarding Greene’s fate. What’s made of that in the edit is pretty much anticlimactic. I much prefer the motor oil solution. And I would have toned down much of M’s dialogue, sometimes she overstates everything so the dumbest member of the audience gets it, and also she seems a bit too upset by Bond killing left and right. Well, who gave him the 00 to begin with? I definitely would have removed the reference to the hotel room guy in Russia in the epilogue being still alive. Bond softens himself a bit too much there, methinks.

Technical stuff is, like LS’ previous edit Smallville Destiny, very good. I’m in the PAL zone so I didn’t notice the speed-up, this is the way Bond always plays for me. The cuts are totally invisible.

Is this the edit I would have made? No. Is it a good one? Definitely. Will it replace the original for me? No. Will it be a worthy alternate take and companion to it? You bet.

Overall, 8/10.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
(none of my comments are meant as a personal attack on the faneditor, these are simply my opinions and feedback)

So I finally watched LastSurvivor’s fanedit: Quantum of Solace: Bond’s Revenge. Let me start off by saying some things about Daniel Craig as Bond and my impressions of the original Quantum of Solace. I first saw Daniel Craig in Layer Cake. When I heard he was casted as the new Bond I was frankly a little disappointed as I felt a perfect candidate for the new Bond was Clive Owen. However, I saw Casino Royale in theaters and really enjoyed. There was the great opening. Lots of good action, and a grittier less refined Bond which was refreshing. Casino Royale was not without its flaws (Faneditor Kerr’s Casino Royale: Straight Flush Edition addressed many of these flaws IMO).

So then I watched Quantum of Solace. Hmmm no gun barrel Bond opening. A parallel action sequence of a horse race in Italy with an interrogation of Mr. White and a chase scene (which i found kind of unneeded, I would have rather that parts with the horse race been taken out all together). The horrible opening credits song. The Bourne style action sequences which were often to fast to follow and left you quite dizzy. This was clearly not a great follow-up to Casino Royale. So i finished the movie feeling that it was ok. Not great, not awful.

Enter Quantum of Solace: Bond’s Revenge. As usual, I did not read the cutlist before watching. But I did read the intention for the edit so had some idea of what i was in for. First off Gun Barrel opening! Yes! If nothing else, this fanedit is worth watching to see the revamped opening scene and the new opening credits song. LastSurvivor picked a great choice of song, the tempo and mood really fits the mold of previous Bond songs. The new opening sequence was good. The flashbacks give a good recap. Although in my opinion, it was a bit long. Other than that I liked the sequence. I think LastSurvivor picked the perfect place to insert the opening credits and song. As I was watching the original i thought to myself as Bond was hanging on the rope and looked up and fired the gun “this would be a great spot to end the intro and start the song and opening credits” LastSurvivor must have read my mind. The climax with the fight scenes with Bond versus Green and Camille versus the General were. Well done. 1) it was nice to see the slo-mo so you could see what was going on 2) the inserts of flashbacks reminded the viewer of the emotional motivations for both Bond and Camille (which was part of LS’s intention with this edit).

There were some interesting choices made with slow motion such as the parachute scene which if IIRC was not slo-mo in the original. The insertion of the brief Vesper flashback, in the scene where Bond is leaving the opera after interrupting the meeting of the Quantum group, was a little out of place. I guess Bond briefly staring down Green and knowing Green had some part in Vesper’s death warranted a flashback but my personal opinion was that it didn’t quite fit. The choice to not directly show Bond dropping the bodyguard off the rough and instead do it in split screen wth M talking to Bond on the phone, that worked quite well. Finally, the cutting out of Bond driving Green out into the dessert and leaving him the cannister and driving away. I definitely didn’t miss this scene, and the little cut necessary to take out M’s allusion to it in her conversation with Bond at the end of the movie was expertly done.

Overall I found this an enjoyable fanedit, in my opinion better than the original, but still I find something lacking in Quantum of Solace even after being fanedited.

Video and Audio quality were great, no jarring cuts, no audio drops outs.


LastSurivor, good work on this edit! You had a plan and clear idea of what you wanted to accomplish and in my opinion you definitely achieved your goal. Congrats!

Review by Aztek463 — May 26, 2011 @ 11:09 pm

I’ve been iffy on Quantum of Solace. I didn’t really care for it that much when it was released to theaters, although my opinion changed a bit on subsequent viewings. I actually did my own edit of this a few years ago, but I never released it. I was interested to see Last Survivor’s edit of this because, well, it sorta reminded me of mine. So without further ado, let’s see how it was, shall we?

VIDEO:
This is a nice looking edit. No combing, no pixelation, no digital artifacts. There was a slight quality drop from the commercial DVD, but that’s to be expected, and it wasn’t distracting save for when there were subtitles present (hard coded as part of the original picture. Yellow is an awful color). These were few and far in between, and not the editor’s fault in the slightest.
8/10

AUDIO:
No complaints here.
10/10

EDITING:
Last Survivor did a great job on the editing. The opening was great…while the Licence to Kill gun barrel theme didn’t quite feel right at first, as the opening shots of the film played out, it was a better fit than I thought it would be. The “previously on James Bond…” opening was very well edited, and with the music he used, it was suspenseful as well.

The new title song was great as well, it definitely fit, and I liked the inclusion of the credit for it. Good job!

The opera shootout and the fight at the end were done very well as…well, I guess. There was more emotion in both of them, especially the final confrontation between Camille and Medrano/Bond and Greene. The pace was great, and it didn’t seem “out of place” when the scene slowed down, in both cases.

I did feel that the opening flashback to Casino Royale went on a bit too long, and it probably could have been trimmed down a bit. Also, some of the scenes that were slowed down (the blood on the gun barrel, the car chase) were slowed down *too* much, to the point the video was a bit jerky. Not the worst thing in the world, but just for future reference, be careful slowing stuff down.
9/10

DVD:
Simple, but effective. It was quite pleased to see a scene selection menu (with different music on each page!) Extras include a trailer and info on the edit. No complaints.
10/10

I do have on major complaint for this edit, and it’s a doozy. In some scenes, particularly the flashbacks to Casino Royale, a good chunk of the Haiti sequence, and a little bit at the end, the video seems like it’s going a bit fast. The audio is not out of sync, but it appears as if perhaps the original source for this edit was PAL and not properly converted to NTSC. It also reminded me of how some HDTVs are configured improperly on the showroom floor of electronics stores, and the demos being shown appear to move too fast. What the cause of this was, I’m not sure, but it was distracting at times. I tested the edit on a few different players, the same result each time.

Don’t get me wrong…I really enjoyed this edit. It’s pretty damn close to my preferred version of the film. However, the aforementioned video issues are a distraction and take away from the experience, and prevents me from giving it a higher score. Maybe Last Survivor could look into fixing this or figuring the issue out and release a corrected version?

TOTAL: 7/10

Review from 17 June 2011

Watched this last night and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I’ll start off with the negatives:
1. The gun barrel sequence doesn’t work, I’m afraid. It looks strange, the “barrel” needs anti-aliasing, and the shot it opens into is near the end of the movie – and then it suddenly cuts to the intro sequence. If you *must* have the barrel, open directly into the opening shot of the film.
2. A natural place for the credits is “Bond, James Bond”. Where you’ve put it feels off, and it breaks the action.
3. The Opera sequence doesn’t quite work. I see what you’re trying to do, and I REALLY like the Vesper callbacks the whole way through, but the abrupt segue into Vesper was jarring. Perhaps if you put the shot of her in the mirror when he looks up in the bathroom after putting the Quantum earpiece in? I think the callback needs to start in a non-action part – and then maybe carry on into the action. Maybe also put back more of the opera – the opera dealing with death leads nicely into thoughts about Vesper – and revenge, which makes him brutal (which is what I think you were going for, which I really liked).
4. The explanation of the fuel cells (which I also thought was unnecessary at first) is actually required – otherwise the hotel just starts ridiculously blowing up for no reason whatsoever, and becomes an 80′s throwback!
5. The sudden cut to Camille in a Vesper-type dream sequence felt really off. It didn’t work at all, in my opinion. I liked the way you cut the action, but I think putting the Vesper chased/trapped sequence in juxtaposed with Camille’s fight would actually work much better.
6. You need the interaction with Greene saying “I told you all I know” – because that leads to Russia. Otherwise Bond just magically appears in Russia!

If you could address some of the issues above this film would replace the original. It is far stronger than the original!

And now the positives:
1. The opening sequence was FANTASTIC. It was jaw-droppingly good. The concept and execution – brilliant! (And then I read how much work it took! Kudos to you. And it was worth it!)
2. The movie as a whole is really well paced, hangs together nicely. What you’ve removed is hardly noticeable.
3. Technically very, very strong. I could detect once or twice where you’d edited the music, but nothing jarring. Picture was superb.
4. Fonts replacement – yes!!
5. Title song. Hm, original didn’t bother me, but replacement was flawless. Nicely done.
6. I liked the Bourne-type action – but liked yours equally well. The whole idea of revenge flashbacks in the action was great.

Well done, Last Survivor. If the issues mentioned are dealt with, this edit would be a solid 9, 9.5. As it stands I think the edit is a well-earned 7.
Thanks for a great hour and a half!