Skyfallen

I could write an essay on the multitudinous reasons why I think 'Skyfall' is one of the worst Bond movies ever made. But I'll try to just confine myself to the things that LastSurvivor improved and the things he could have maybe fixed. You might be asking, why would I download an edit of a film I hate? It's a fair comment but LastSurvivor is great faneditor, so I wanted to see what 'Skyfallen' was all about.

First off the "Could have been improved" section...

The cinematography is absolutely hideous, so it would have been nice if LS had attempted to correct that a bit. However, I suspect that the colours have been pushed so far into the realms of insanity that they can't be brought back to reality. Oh look the silver Aston Martin is neon-blue, oh look that grass is neon-blue, oh look that guy's skin is neon-blue etc etc. As a Director, I can't stand Sam Mendes but at least his previous films usually have "They look nice" going for them.

Not a single element of the plot makes any sense and the attention to detail is totally absent. Just one example: When Bond is given his father's "old hunting Rifle"... it's not a rifle, it's a bloody shotgun! There are a few points where extra trims could have been made but to be fair, the only way to fix everything, would be to erase the film from existence.

Now the things that are improved...

The insane levels of 'immersion-destroying' product-placement have been toned down a lot. So the worst offenders like the VWs shout-out and Bond drinking a Heineken are gone. But Tanner can still be seen drinking a Heineken... while at work... just after his boss has been nearly asssasinated... because we'd all do that!

Adele's drab rhyming-dictionary title-song is gone and replaced by an inspired new piece. I was a few seconds into the start before I'd even realised it had been changed. Fantastic seemless work. The added/changed music throughout is genius and the joins are invisible. The music work is probably the best thing about the edit.

The cuts for pacing are also invisible but the improved feel of the film is obvious. Most of the 25 minutes that are removed will not be missed by anybody. Mendes making the longest-ever Bond movie out of such an action-free script was self-indulgence at it's worst. Thanks to LS, that is reigned in a lot.

Many of the key misjudged elements are removed, toned down or improved in some way. The uneasy "rapey" yacht scene is largely fixed, the CGI Komodo Dragons are gone (Shame the CGI Scorpion is still there though) and Bond being an a**hole after Severine is shot. The use of the gunbarrel opening is of course absolutely brilliant!

Lastly a few of things that didn't work for me...

The blur-crossfade into the first shot of Silva didn't look right. Since the audio carries accross the transition anyway, a hard cut would have looked so much more professional IMO. I felt too much of Silva was cut so his character lacked the impact that he is clearly supposed to have. Bardem's OTT camp performance was a rare highlight for me in the original film. The heavily zoomed shot of Bond just after Severine's death was a bit jarring (LS doesn't say if this edit was based on the Blu-Ray or DVD), I'd have thought that a zoomed HD shot would have cut quite well with the SD DVD presentaion. However the thing that got removed by this zoomed shot had to go, so it's easily forgiven.

In conclusion, if you love this film, this edit will be your go-to version. But also, if like me, you hate it, then it'll still be your go-to version. Because when I'm in the mood for a Bond-athon, at least I won't have to sit through the original cut ever again. I can pop in LastSurvivor's zippy upgrade.

Skyfall can be best described in the actual movie, "A Rubix Cube That Keeps Fighting Back", it presents a great deal of editing challenges to smooth over and perfect certain over-excesses in narrative and set-piece structure, and here Lastsurvivor does his best to present a leaner, more efficient production. His choice of song for the opening credits has been an ear-worm for me since I first saw his samples and Bond avoiding an encounter with hulking henchmen and terrible CGI dragons is most welcome and he makes his appointment without much fuss, a little bit of a grounded moment in Bond never hurts.

There are some areas I felt could have needed more work, Silva's first scene is transitioned into awkwardly with a slight blur in imagery, and there are slight audio dips when Bond is contemplating shooting at Severene, and again before the helicopters arrive to assist Bond. However, I loved his little touch with Bond now feeling slightly moved. This is a character we saw go through two movies of morning someone he got intimate with, so caring more about scotch is out-of-character for this take on Bond.

Aside from that, everything else worked well, and I like Silva taking the initiative and blowing the tunnel without that cartoonish goading. Guy has a job to do, faux pleasantries should not be a pastime.

Catchy tune, slimmer package, Skyfall is one of my faves because it represents a creative challenge, and Lastsurvivor is one of our top challengers

Last Survivor's very welcome comeback edit does not disappoint. My biggest grip with Skyfall, that it's a Christopher Nolan clone with little personality of its own, can not be fixed by a fanedit, but otherwise I found this edit very preferable to the theatrical cut, and more "Bondian" too. The pacing is better and, with 25 minutes of fat removed, it never feels like anything is missing. If anything, I'd have cut a few more bits, like Eve telling Bond about the YouTube upload (we've already seen that in the previous M scene, never deliver the same info twice on a movie, we can assume Eve did tell him offscreen) or the GB bumper sticker on the Aston Martin, which not only makes a SECRET agent's car more identifiable, but also if this is the same car we've been seeing since Goldfinger, and I assume it is since it has the machine guns, a bumper sticker of a particular country renders the rotating international plates useless.

LS succeeds in making Silva more menacing and less over the top. I liked his new intro, yet I could have done without the blurring, one isn't likely to find that in a theatrical release. A simple video cut would have worked fine. The replaced music is great, it really increases the overall Bond feel that I find lacking in the theatrical cut.

Despite the editor's high opinion on the cinematography, I do wish he had done some color correction. Roger Deakins is a good DP who has made fine work, particularly with the Coens, but here it tends a bit too much to the generic teal-and-orange look that's everywhere these days. I wish it had been toned down.

I'm also glad we finally got the audio commentary. I enjoyed it a lot. And thanks for the name dropping! :)

Recommended to all Bond fans, regardless of their opinion on Skyfall. Mission accomplished!

Hello everyone, been hard working with life. But I thought I'd chime in here with a review from my review pile of fanedits.

Skyfall was a film that I loved. It was a great celebration of the 50th anniversary for Bond. However, Silva felt a little over the top and kinda reminded me of the Joker from The Dark Knight. This edit is now my preferred go to of Skyfall. Last Survivor did a great job of trimming down the fluff and unnecessary things from it. This is an edit that I'd highly recommend.

I'm another one of those "I usually don't do reviews" people, but after watching your great Bond edit I felt like I should recommend it. The reason why I refrain from commenting most of the time is that the rating scores seem to be inflated, so in comparison anything but a 10 can only mean mediocrity - but in this case it isn't.

Narrative: When I saw this in the cinema, I was deeply disappointed, and I've seen every Bond of the last decades on the big screen. But with your cuts, it feels like a new movie and I can understand a bit better what's there to like about it in the first place. Unbelievable, what a huge effect a fanedit can have once a movie's biggest problem(s) are identified correctly. Doesn't fix my lack of sympathy for the "kidnap M and hide in a country house" plot, though :-)

Enjoyment: The most added value comes with faneditor's comments, and it really makes your work shine hearing what the ideas and limitations were. I'll check out your other Bond releases asap, and hope you'll do the "Licence to Kill" edit next, of course including another commentary track!

A/V: You mentioned the skipping in the opening credits yourself, and the important blend when cutting Silva's entrance imho doesn't fit in the visual style of the movie. Otherwise it's what you'd expect from a sd video source. Most cuts are seamless and I wouldn't notice unless you comment on them yourself.

Last and really last, I am again puzzled about the lack of a digital release (at least from .info) as a lot of people will watch this on a computer. So unless you're adding over-the-top dvd-only features using the old mpeg2 encoding is a waste of space. After cutting the black bars, re-coding to h264+aac, it's 1/3rd of the size with equal quality. If you'd offer an encoding yourself right away from the source, it would save bandwidth/disk space and imagine it would have better quality than a re-re-code.