Skyfallen

Skyfall was a mixed bag. Most of it is wonderful (and a great improvement over the utter mess that was QoS) but some bits leave you wondering how on earth they ever made it to the theatrical release.

Overall this is a very good edit - and much better than my attempt at seeing what I could do - but is perhaps too severe in some places and not severe enough in others. Although the music changes are generally a definite improvement, I liked the original title tune more than the replacement here. I even miss a couple of the one-liners that have been cut, like the wing-mirrors one. I'm also uncertain about losing most of the villain's introduction, partly because the pair's willy-waving about who's the hardest does lead onto the (also cut) line about the waste of whisky.

Most importantly, we're still asked to believe that the villain's great plan is to be captured by MI6, knowing that - somehow - Q will be stupid enough to allow the captured laptop access to the MI6 network so that every door in the new HQ will open. One basic bit of computer security or one ordinary lock on a cell, and the film's nearly an hour shorter...

Back to the good stuff, losing the product placement is very welcome and the final fight makes as much sense as it's ever going to. The commentary is worth listening to as well.

Congratulations.

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.

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