technical quality 5/5
fanediting 5/5
original 3/5
fanedit 4/5

4/5

And this edit of LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD really, really works!

In fact, I was surprised at how well it works! I was really curious how the absence of the jet fighter sequence (the portion that really ruined the movie for me) would be worked. It’s removal was flawless. Other than a huge action set piece it does absolutely nothing for the story. I think this cut works way better than the original. Sure, some people might ask then why the badguys did not notice McClane was following them in a huge semi-rig. But my interpretation of the retro-conned events is now the badguys never knew McClane had hijacked the semi and just drove behing them all the way to new hide out.

Let me put it this way, I watched this edit with my wife (who had never seen DIE HARD 4) last night and she is very critical of most action movies, AND SHE LOVED THIS MOVIE! In fact, she did not even notice it was a fan edit until I told her after the movie. High praise indeed! Very Happy

The story flows smoothly, I did not notice any hard cuts, the audio was excellent and in sync throughout, and the blueish colour tone worked well. One of the best fan edits I have watched recently. This is definitely my preferred cut of DIE HARD 4. Far superior to the thearical version in my opinion.

THUMBS WAY UP!!!!!

I’m a huge Die Had fan but not the biggest fan of the fourth entry so I thought I’d toss in my two cents on this edit.

I have numerous problems with Live Free or Die Hard. I feel that the film is sort of a cardboard caricature of the original films. I also felt that the story was very illogical with sequences that only moved the plot forward, but made little sense within the confines of the series (McClane flying a helicopter being one of those issues).

Using the US Unrated version of the DVD as his basis, Spence has done a great job making little tweaks and deleting about three or four of my seven biggest problems with the film. It’s a smooth edit that actually holds more emotional weight than the theatrical cut thanks to the deletion of the ridiculous jet fighter sequence. The flow of the film is also a bit more solid that the U.S. Theatrical or Unrated Cuts.

The overall picture quality of the fanedit is solid with little difference between my factory DVD. There were a few very tiny editing jitters, but that could have been my burner. The audio could have used some work, as it’s only in 2 channel stereo. Oh well. Regardless, this is still the best version of this film available. Buy the Unrated DVD, then download this and discard your old DVD.

Now, here are a few suggestions for further tweaking:

** My biggest problem with the US Unrated Version of the film is that it deletes the line, “I was out of bullets” after McClane “kills” the helicopter with the car. It’s replaced with a line that’s not nearly as funny or clever. I wish this could be cut back into the fanedit. It’s the only new quip from this film that I really liked.

** If it’s possible, I’d add more of Michael Kamen’s original “Die Hard” themes. They are used in the film, but sparingly and it would have been nice to see a few more themes integrated with this fanedit.

** One of my biggest problems with this fanedit, and it’s not Spences fault, the fanedit now just points to this issue even more (since the other issues are gone), is just how nasty McClane is to Nya, Timothy Olyphant’s girlfriend. I think that some of his nastier pieces of dialog could be cut so he doesn’t seem like such a pig when he beating her. It really didn’t fit with the character of McClane at all. I’m mainly speaking of the sequence when he runs into her belly towards the beginning of their fight. I also felt that their fight could have been tightened. I never cared for the pacing of that fight.

** I like that the Onstar, air bag sequence was removed, but it creates a small hole. How does McClane get a car? Isn’t there a quick shot of him breaking the window? I could be wrong, but I think showing that, then cutting to them on the road would fix that error.

** Another annoyance I have is that Justin Long’s character doesn’t like Creedance Clearwater Revival. Being a computer geek and having many friends who are also computer geeks, we were all annoyed that is character thought Creedance was lame. He wouldn’t think that! He’d think that Creedance was retro and thus, cool. Particularly the song that is playing. Perhaps changing the song would work. I may have trimmed that sequence a bit to account for this screenwriting error.

Other than that, this is a much more delightful, enjoyable film than either the US Unrated or PG-13 version. If only the film could be edited to make Timothy Olyphant’s character engaging or to delete the ridiculous subplot with Lucy McClane being kidnapped, and then not killed for whatever reason. Regardless, this edit makes this one slightly better than Die Hard 2.