- Messages
- 11
- Reaction score
- 20
- Trophy Points
- 13
Unlike my Transformers edit, here's one which I finished very recently (and thus motivated me to get both listed in the database):
Until last year, there were a substantial number of James Bond films I had never seen, and so in the lead-up to No Time to Die (and ultimately, beyond that film's release), I made an effort to watch every film in the franchise. Two that I watched early on and which really stood out to me were those starring Timothy Dalton - he was distinctive to me as the best Bond actor who never quite got a brilliant film. In particular, I found The Living Daylights to be very disjointed in pace and tone (clearly they had wanted to reboot the franchise in a more traditional direction, but didn't want to move away from the Roger Moore campiness entirely), but the film greatly grew on me over time due to Dalton's performance, the charm and simplicity of the central romance, and John Barry's incredible score.
Ultimately, I went ahead with an edit, primarily focussing upon the following factors:
The film has been shortened by 14 minutes to a running time of 1 hour 56 minutes. I have also recorded a feature-length editor's commentary for the film. If anyone wishes to see the changes enumerated, please let me know and I shall edit this post.
I'm very pleased with how my edit came out and how much it plays to the film's strengths (though the pace of the film does still sag a little in the second half, but not as much as before). It's still not my top favourite Bond movie, but I think it's now a consistently enjoyable traditional spy adventure, with a brilliant central performance and a cute romantic thread.
Ultimately, I went ahead with an edit, primarily focussing upon the following factors:
- Removing the instances of humour that contrasted strongest against the tone that the film is generally aiming for (a few campier jokes have been left in, mostly to do with Q).
- Removing the more sexualised content in the film. Dalton's Bond doesn't come across to me as a sex symbol at all, even if he is still set up to be a womaniser and a romantic, so the instances of women beyond Kara fawning over him came across as inauthentic. Not to mention they somewhat undermine the significance of his romance with Kara.
- Trimming Kara's actions (particularly in the second half) so that she doesn't come across quite as vulnerable or dim-witted. Her character is naturally not an action hero, but there were ways in which she could be depicted as more capable and straightforward.
- Improve the pacing of the entire film, by trimming or excising the many shots, long takes and even entire scenes which only serve to awkwardly pad the film's running time and bloated plot. Much like my Transformers edit, I was striving with this one to keep to the editing and visual language of the existing film as much as possible, so there were some instances where I couldn't make cuts due to pacing/visual/soundtrack reasons (though fewer than in Transformers).
- Remove the Felix Leiter sub-plot of the film. I think this is always on people's lists when editing this film, and for good reason - it's executed poorly and adds nothing to the story.
- Improve the music levelling across the film. I'm not sure if this is inherent to the film's original mix, but lots of scenes (particularly action scenes) on the Blu-ray edition suffer from distinctly quiet music. I improved things where I could, though there were technical issues with using the CD score in tandem with the movie's soundtrack that meant I couldn't fix things with the ease I expected or to the extent I wanted to.
- Rework some of the scenes with the Mujahedeen to not seem quite so dated.
- Rework some of the opening title sequence to feel more in-line with the film's plot (ultimately only a few minor effects and one new shot were added to this). Anything I added had to fit in with the effects of the time and the aesthetic of the existing sequence (which meant that a brand new shot I spent a day or two animating ultimately got scrapped for not quite blending with everything else).
- Do all of the above without affecting the fundamental flow of the film or causing any jumps in the score.
The film has been shortened by 14 minutes to a running time of 1 hour 56 minutes. I have also recorded a feature-length editor's commentary for the film. If anyone wishes to see the changes enumerated, please let me know and I shall edit this post.
I'm very pleased with how my edit came out and how much it plays to the film's strengths (though the pace of the film does still sag a little in the second half, but not as much as before). It's still not my top favourite Bond movie, but I think it's now a consistently enjoyable traditional spy adventure, with a brilliant central performance and a cute romantic thread.
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