QUANTUM OF SOLACE: BOND'S REVENGE by Last Survivor

[LastSurvivor]

Original title: Quantum Of Solace

Fanedit title: QUANTUM OF SOLACE: BOND'S REVENGE

Studio: MGM, Columbia, Eon Productions
Faneditor: Last Survivor
Originally Released: October 2008
Fanedit released: May 2011
Original running time: 102 minutes approx
New running time: 103 minutes approx
Cut time: 6 minutes cut, 5 minutes added
Started Edit: February 2011
Completed Edit: May 2011

Purpose of Edit:

From what many consider to be the the worst Bond title song ever, to the frenetic action sequences which have come straight from a Jason Bourne movie, Marc Forster's take on James Bond struggled to maintain that special identity which separates 007 from the rest of the crowd. For this fanedit, I wanted to try and achieve a few things which I hope may inject the movie with more personal emotion and drum home the feeling that Bond's trail of vengeance, not to forget Camille's too, is very much what the film is about.

Plus, most of all, I hope that the climatic fight has now taken on a more thought provoking aspect, the kind of which is rarely seen in a Bond film (and yet definitely is felt in Fleming's work) . Oh, and make sure you watch it with a classy drink or two at hand (or in my case a pint of ale and a packet of crisps... shame on me!)

Started Edit: February 2011

Completed: May 2011

Cutlist:

Reveal message

- Inserted gun-barrel sequence to the beginning of the movie (accompanied by Michael Kaman’s “gun-barrel opening theme” from Licence To Kill)

- New extended pre-credits sequence: now begins with a shortened and slowed down version of the opening car chase, intercut with a recap of the events from Casino Royale. Sound effects and music added.

- Foot Chase through the sewers and along the rooftops in Sienna between Bond and Mitchell, now trimmed slightly and again slowed down. Some crowd shots cut.

- Title sequence now starts after the fight between Bond and Mitchell, with new theme song.

- Boat chase is trimmed

- Opera sequence altered. During the shoot-out between Bond and Greene’s men, instead of the opera scenes being shown I have intercut memories of Vesper in an attempt to make it more personal. Also, replaced music with “Vesper’s Theme” from Casino Royale. Sound effects added, action from the shoot out is trimmed and slowed down.

- Bond confronting the bodyguard on the roof is trimmed and moved to the scene where Tanner and M are discussing the identities of the Quantum group from the pictures Bond took. It now appears that Bond did actually shoot and push the guard off the roof. We do not see Greene’s men shoot the guard after the fall.

- Bond’s arrival to meet Mathis is trimmed. The boat and aerial shots are removed.

- Aerial battle and parachute scenes trimmed

- One long shot of Agent Fields’ oil-covered dead body is cut (we had already seen the body twice), and then slowed down image of Bond being disarmed.

- Hotel in the desert. The conversation between Medrano and the chief of police about the hotel’s unstable fuel cells has been cut. It makes it far too obvious that the whole hotel is like a bomb waiting to explode.

- Desert inferno… when Bond jumps down onto the Chief of Police’s car, the line he speaks before firing his gun is cut, instead shooting straight away – just seemed more real to me.

- Desert inferno II… the duel confrontation involving Camille vs. Medrano and Bond vs. Greene is considerably slowed down – Picture has been drained of colour and music has been changed in an attempt to add more emotional weight to the sequence. Scenes are also trimmed from both fights.

- Aftermath... Bond’s line to Camille, “stay here”, is cut, as is Bond driving Greene out further into the desert. Instead, the scene just goes from the desert with Greene hobbling away into Camille and Bond saying their goodbyes.

- M telling Bond that Greene’s body was found in the desert has been trimmed. She no longer says that motor oil was found in his stomach, just that 2 bullets were found in the back of his skull. The intention here is to really leave it up to the viewer as to whether Bond killed Greene or somebody else did.

- Bond theme has been removed from end credits. After the gentle ending of Bond dropping Vesper’s necklace in the snow, it just didn’t seem to fit for me. The End Crawl music by Four Tet has been retained, along with a replay of the new title song.

Technical Details:

16:9 Anamorphic. NTSC Single Layer DVD and AVI.PCM Stereo.
Software used: Sony Vegas Pro 9.0, DVD Architect Pro 5.0, PgC Dmux, VirtualDub, Xara Photo and Graphic Designer 6

Special Thanks:

Thanks to my lovely girlfriend, Sophie, as always. You gave me the idea for this edit in the first place and chose the title song, so this one really is for you.

Also thanks to L8wrtr for his continued patience and support and to everyone here at fanedit.org for taking an interest.

 

[Aztek463]

After reading through the cutlist, I must say that I am interested. I'll definitely be reviewing this when it's available.

 

[LastSurvivor]

Thanks Aztek463. As you can see from the cutlist, it's not a huge radical new take on the movie, but I hope it has enough tweaks here and there to improve on the original and give it a bit more heart and soul.

 

[Aztek463]

Kinda reminds me of a Quantum edit I did two years ago, adding in the flashbacks and moving the gunbarrel and so on. I never released it though, so I'm looking forward to seeing how you did.

 

[LastSurvivor]

Kinda reminds me of a Quantum edit I did two years ago, adding in the flashbacks and moving the gunbarrel and so on. I never released it though, so I'm looking forward to seeing how you did.

Yeah, I've just been looking through your old thread in relation to your proposed edit. Can I ask why you didn't bother releasing it in the end... I know I would like to see it

Anyways, hopefully you will get something from this version

 

[Aztek463]

I didn't really make that many changes to it and I wasn't fully satisfied with the results. But I did do something similar to what you did: I moved the gun barrel to the start, extended the pre-title sequence, and changed the theme song. I've thought about revisiting it now that I've got better software to work with, but it seems I may not have to.

 

[LastSurvivor]

I've thought about revisiting it now that I've got better software to work with, but it seems I may not have to.

Well, I may not have gone far enough for many people, but we shall see

Anyways, the edit is now up for all to download.. either in AVI or SL DVD format. As is usual, I would point you to the DVD release if you all can spare the bandwidth. Enjoy

 

[havok1977]

Congrats on releasing I'll be checking it out soonish

 

[Aztek463]

Note to those who download this:
There is a file within the disc structure (it'll be in the directory with the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders) called "SPREPARE.SPSS." Make sure you delete that before burning, as leaving that in the directory will cause the files to be literally 2mb too big to burn.

 

[Dwight Fry]

Note to those who download this:
There is a file within the disc structure (it'll be in the directory with the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders) called "SPREPARE.SPSS." Make sure you delete that before burning, as leaving that in the directory will cause the files to be literally 2mb too big to burn.

Yep, I've noticed that file in all of Last Survivor's discs. I'm not sure what it's for, probably for nothing. Must be a Mac thing.

 

[LastSurvivor]

Hmmm, thanks for pointing this out guys. Didn't realise this at all. Must be left over after DVD Architect has done its mastering. Maybe it is a MAC thing. Hope it doesn't cause too many problems. If it does, let me know and I'll have to adjust the RAR files and upload it again.

 

[Dwight Fry]

It doesn't cause any problems at all, it's just a small file outside the AUDIO_TS/VIDEO_TS folders, and it's a matter of just ignoring/deleting it. It didn't screw the disc capacity or anything.

 

[Aztek463]

Finished it, and posted a review on the main site.

In short: great edit, but there are a few issues that, unfortunately, cannot be overlooked. :-(

 

[LastSurvivor]

Hey Aztek, thanks for the honest and constructive review

Firstly, obviously I'm glad that on the whole you found the edit enjoyable. The title song does work well doesn't it? It's the thing that actually got me to do the edit in the first place - when I put the song to the credits I thought it worked so well that it inspired me to do a proper fanedit.

The criticisms about a little too much slowing down, I take your point, but I suppose I was so disappointed with the "Bourne" style in which the film was shot (or at least the action scenes) that I wanted to slow it down as much as possible. Maybe in a couple of instances I went too far, but on the whole I remain happy with it.

Glad the finale worked well for you. I almost didn't go for that ending at all as I was a bit concerned of too much slo-mo again. Ultimately however I felt it had more emotional impact and I still think I made the right decision.

Sorry to hear that it felt like it was running too fast at times. You are quite correct. The source material was indeed PAL. This was also the case with my Smallville edit and both are indeed converted to NTSC through Vegas Pro. Nobody has ever mentioned it on the Smallville edit, so I am somewhat concerned with the problem here. Having watched the edit a few times myself, I could not notice any problems with the speed, but perhaps you have a keener eye than mine.

As for doing a corrected version... Well, I'm not sure at all how I would improve it. The source files are deleted so all I have now is the rendered material which has been done through Vegas.

I do apologise to anyone who watches this and has the same issues which Aztek had.

 

[Aztek463]

You are quite welcome!

As far as the slowing down is concerned, I was happy with it over all, but like you said your self, you went a bit too far in a couple instances. It's a fine line to be sure, and it was only noticeable in one or two instances. Maybe the conversion from PAL to NTSC bungled up somewhere along the line...it happens. Maybe it wasn't an issue in Smallville, and the only reason I noticed it was because I'm so used to NTSC. There were a few instances I thought the audio was pitched a bit too high (by NTSC standards) as was the case with one Casino Royale edit, but I didn't mind, and in fact, I preferred it. Strange, eh?

No worries, I delete my source files shortly after I'm done as well. For the past semester at my university I was writing critiques on other people's writing, knowing they were going to do a revision, so that's just a habit. But hey, shit happens, and it's certainly not the worst thing that could happen. Keep up the good work!

 

[Dwight Fry]

The source files are deleted

I delete my source files shortly after I'm done as well.

Tsk, tsk, tsk. Never a good idea. It will save you a lot of work for a version 2 from scratch that might be a matter of minutes otherwise, or else will likely mean a defective final product. I myself don't intend to delete the source files of any of my stuff until I receive feedback from at least two different viewers. I have upgraded my yet-to-be-released Batman edit to HD but I still keep the SD files just in case, so go figure.

 

[havok1977]

So I felt in the mood for some Bond tonight, and of my pending fanedit queue i decided to go with this release from LastSurvivor; whom I've gotten a bit acquainted with lately due to his feedback of my work in progress.

Bearing in mind that these are just my personal opinions with no other intent than expressing myself, lets dive right...

VIDEO quality: Very good. I could not notice any significant difference between this and most of the SD discs that I own.

I see that Aztek mentions an issue with different speeds which are not noticeable to me, PAL to NTSC conversion is something I have not personally dealt with and can not really make a proper assessment.
In full disclosure I watch DVDs using an upscaling stand alone player which does some nice signal cleaning, which could be a mitigating factor.
With this present I still give video a 9/10

AUDIO quality: Again it is great, this being made off fairly recent and high profile/budget movies means that the audio sources should and are of prime quality. The editing is flawless with no noticeable issues even thou there are some significant replacement of dialogue lines at many spots in the edit. Much effort and patience goes into accomplishing this level of polish and so: 10/10


EDITING / ENJOYMENT : LastSurvivor took on a movie which I hoped someone would fix and I have to say that his labors yielded quite a good final product. Here are some points i would like to highlight:

- The whole reason for this movie to exist is Vesper and Bond's truncated relationship, his subsequent grief and the way he deals with what happened. It is a good thing to bring this to the foreground, and I felt that the new pre-credits sequence does a great job at this (the use of B&W and color was quite effective here)

And yet I felt the hammer falling on my head often hitting me with the same point during the rest of the edit, more than I think is good - specially the flashback at the Opera house, which in turn made the escape feel non existent.

- Still about the opening sequence, I felt some more of the actual car chase was missing, just a tad. And a small thing that should also be mentioned is that during one of Vesper's voice overs she is actually in frame with her lips out of sync, and it just felt a bit off.

- Fine choice with the theme song, it fits very well; kudos to the person whom you mentioned suggested it. To be honest I walked in biased here because I have never cared for the pop singer behind it, expecting to hate it; guess it would have been one of those cases of better off not knowing

- A great job was made to tone down the speed of the many action sequences that are present in the original release by using a clever choice of music and a semi slow camera that makes things feel somehow more real, yet I felt that the last one did not need so much of this treatment and therefore did not have the impact i would have expected, and the small flashback for Camille in there felt out of place to me.

- As it was surely planned, by consequence of the action sequence rearrangement the rest of the movie has a much better pace and the actual spying is properly showcased now. Very well done.

- There is a change in the final act that was honestly not to my liking: Greene's fate. I understand that this is a matter of personal preference, but I have to say that I preferred the original version.

Because of these opinions, for me this is a 7/10.

DVD Authoring: efficient and right up my alley

Final score for me: 8.5/10. Original: 6.5/10
All in all I did quite enjoy the new take and the disc will have a place on my fanedits shelf

 

[LastSurvivor]

Hey Havok...

Thanks for taking the time and effort to post a review and I'm glad that on the whole you enjoyed the edit. Was also very pleased, or should I say relieved to see that you had no problems with any scenes seeming as if they felt a bit fast (in terms of any PAL to NTSC problems) in the same way that Aztek did - Havok, maybe you and I need to go to the opticians?

I can totally understand your viewpoints on the various edits I made. They are all personal preferences after all and indeed hammering home the whole "Vesper" angle is perhaps a little too much on occasions. However, at the same time I really wanted a different way to handle the opera shoot out sequence as I never cared for it in the theatrical cut. I wanted it to mean more and also I wanted to slow the sequence down as by this point the movie was in danger of becoming little more than a complete Bourne clone with action scenes every 10 minutes or less.

during one of Vesper's voice overs she is actually in frame with her lips out of sync, and it just felt a bit off.

Fair point. I had problems with any of the Casino Royale audio, as when it was ripped, separated and then joined back together to make a large AVI file, it was always out of sync. So all the Casino Royale moments I use I had to manually line up all the dialogue. I think it works 99% of the time, but yeah, I noticed there was one moment when watching it back recently that Vesper's mouth movement does not quite match the dialogue you're hearing.

Fine choice with the theme song

Yeah, for me this is now "the" theme of the movie! lol. I just can't listen to that Jack White and Alicia Keys song ever again!

A great job was made to tone down the speed of the many action sequences that are present... yet I felt that the last one did not need so much of this treatment and therefore did not have the impact i would have expected, and the small flashback for Camille in there felt out of place to me

I always thought the change I made during the finale would cause a stir, in particular the use of the small flashback. I'm still pleased with it and I feel it lends the sequence more emotion than it has otherwise, but I have to be honest that during the various versions I went through I kept changing my mind. First it was in... then out... back in... and so on. I even made a special feature which had the scene as a bonus, explaining why I "didn't" end up using it. Then, I just thought... heck, it's a fanedit, I actually want the scene in there as I think it works, so I put it back in.

There is a change in the final act that was honestly not to my liking: Greene's fate. I understand that this is a matter of personal preference, but I have to say that I preferred the original version.

Yeah, this kind of follows on from the change to the final confrontation. After all the mayhem I just wanted the attention to be fully on Camille and Bond, hence I changed the outcome with Greene. I also had to "cheat" with a shot on Bond during his chat with M at the end. It's a blink and you miss techinical bit of cheating - but I think I get away with it... until now of course, because I've brought attention to it! What an idiot! he he.

Anyways, I'm glad you enjoyed the edit on the whole Havok. Thanks again for your comments.

 

[Dwight Fry]

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.

 

[LastSurvivor]

Thanks DwightFry Some really interesting points from you as always.

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

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Looking back at the original film, not to mention my edit, I am kind of thinking that perhaps I could have gone a little further and implied that Bond actually kills the guy in Russia. On the flip side however, at this point in the film I suppose Bond was starting to realise that there's little point in killing every lead (much like M points out) in cold blood. I thought it fit with the bodyguard scenario as Bond was still in full blown "blinded vengeance" mode, but by the end of the film that has been reined in somewhat.

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.

Yeah, again a fair point. I think I got so wrapped up in producing a full re-run of the story from Casino, to really tell how much Vesper got through Bond's emotional defences and then making it work in relation to the pacing of the car chase from Quantum, that I lost sight a little of how long it was. I still think it works reasonably well, but I have to concede that a bit of trimming would not go amiss As for the title song coming in at 15 minutes, I'm still happy where it is. Granted, it's a long time, but I still feel that if it comes as Mr White is asked to get out of the trunk we are then given hardly any breathing space before another long action sequence unfolds. For me there are too many action sequences in Quantum anyway, so it was my way of trying to break it up a little. True, it means there's a big long stretch of action at the start, but then at least there's a little space after the credits until we get the next one.

The slowing-down of the action sequences worked quite well, given the circumstances... 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

Thanks. I totally agree with your comments about Forster's shaky-cam style approach and I too really did not like his parallel opera house sequence. Vesper is perhaps used one shot too many, I concede that much.

I was very glad to see the different fonts for the different cities go, it was just overkill

Glad this bothered someone else as much as it did me! I found all the different fonts just plain annoying and again, you're right, I could well have left the Port au Prince title out as it's very obvious that's where he's going from the previous scene.

Sorry but I'm with Havok regarding Greene's fate

Fair enough. My reasons for trying to change it are mentioned in my reply to Havok's review, but I certainly understand people's disagreement with this.

Anyways, I'm glad you like it on the whole and your review is greatly appreciated