Accountability by White43 and TheBigFish

Accountability

Objective : To tell "No Country For Old Men" from the perspective of Llewelyn Moss and Anton Chigurh by removing Sheriff Ed Tom Bell(Tommy Lee Jones) from the film. To create a faster paced story, by removing some redundant dialogue and some scene reorganisation.

FanEdit Information
Type of Fanedit: True Fanedit
Original Title: No Country For Old Men
New Title: Accountability
Original Runtime: 2 hours
New Runtime: 1 hr 27 mins
Time Cut: 33 minutes
Fanedit Crew : White43 and TheBigFish

Software Used: Womble, AutoGK

AVI Release Information
- Resolution: 720x320
- Audio format: 5.1 Dolby Surround
- Language: English

- Removed ALL scenes with TLJ, bar one which has been moved from the start of the film to a better location.
- Remove TLJ V/O from start of film and cut down the scenes of the 'country' at dawn.
- Change start of the film. No scene with Anton being arrested and escaping.
- Remove Anton pulling over a car and killing the driver.
- Some scene rearrangement to help flow and to build Anton as a psychopath.
- Trimmed Anton's scene with gas station man for redundancy. No more 'What time do you go to bed?'
- Trims to Carson Wells' dialogue : Validating a car ticket and 'ATM'. Harms his character.
- A new 'montage' to show the climax.
- It's not Carla's mother's funeral we're at.
- Carla visualises Llewelyn's death.
- Ending changed.

AVI available on RS.


Cover here

in case there will be a DVD of this one I have created cover art:

you can download it here

Nice artwork there Boon!

There will be a DVD - just thought I'd get an AVI out there first for the criticism......

Cheers for the cover Boon. Fully intend to get something out there......

- Change start of the film. No scene with Anton being arrested and escaping.
- Remove Anton pulling over a car and killing the driver

Click to expand...

No offense intended but why were these scenes removed?
Personally I felt they were 2 of the strongest scenes in the film, showing what a sick madman Anton is.

Regardless of my opinion, nice job on FE#2 White, hope to view this one soon!

elbarto1 said:

- Change start of the film. No scene with Anton being arrested and escaping.
- Remove Anton pulling over a car and killing the driver

Click to expand...

No offense intended but why were these scenes removed?
Personally I felt they were 2 of the strongest scenes in the film, showing what a sick madman Anton is.

Regardless of my opinion, nice job on FE#2 White, hope to view this one soon!

Click to expand...

Because we felt that it was weak. A man like Chigurh is caught by some inept Police Officer? How? Pulling over the car and killing the driver added nothing to the plot, it was redundant. We get what kind of a man Chigurh is from other scenes.

white43 said:

elbarto1 said:

- Change start of the film. No scene with Anton being arrested and escaping.
- Remove Anton pulling over a car and killing the driver

Click to expand...

No offense intended but why were these scenes removed?
Personally I felt they were 2 of the strongest scenes in the film, showing what a sick madman Anton is.

Regardless of my opinion, nice job on FE#2 White, hope to view this one soon!

Click to expand...

Because we felt that it was weak. A man like Chigurh is caught by some inept Police Officer? How? Pulling over the car and killing the driver added nothing to the plot, it was redundant. We get what kind of a man Chigurh is from other scenes.

Click to expand...

I dont feel Chigurh was very cunning - rather he was completely unconcerned with morals, rules and authority and would kill in broad daylight without a second thought to consequence. I didnt feel the cop was very good, just lucky to apprehend Anton, something I belive Anton allowed the cop to do.

I respect your choices though, and dont mean any slight to an edit I havent seen. I just personally liked those scenes is all : )

DVD cover added. DVD will follow shortly.....

I am going to watch 'Accountability' and comment because I am interested to see if White43 and TheBigFish have salvaged something good from what I thought was a contrived mess of a movie. I find Tommy Lee Jones a very suspect actor and do not see why he is so highly regarded, so his absence alone makes this worth a viewing.

Update

The new title "Accountability" is inserted seamlessly and the early Barden scenes are not missed. The visual and audio editing is faultless.

The major bone of contention is still there. Why does the thief return to the scene of the crime? Maybe some creative editing could have created a nightmare sequence, so that when the thief wakes, there is more of a plausible reason for him do what he, himself, admits is a "stupid thing" and take water back to the scene of the crime. So as it stands, there is just no sympathy for the fate of such an utter fool.

The scene with Barden in the trailer, looking at himself in reflection of the TV is not needed and cutting directly to him entering the trailer reception would have been smoother and have more impact. Also it would not draw so much attention to that extravagant prop of the gas bottle.

Accountability by White43

review by boon23

Prologue:
I am a true fan of the original, but since it's already a while ago since I last watched it and always want to give drastic edits a chance, I gave this one a try.

As for all my reviews: this is just my personal opinion of this fanedit. I cannot tell anybody else, if he or she will experience it in the same way or the opposite. So my review is not objective and does not reflect the opinion of fanedit.org.

!!!!This review contains heavy spoilers!!!

The edit:
It started with a plain black on white text for the fanedit title. Then the movie started. And to my surprise it worked really well to not see Tommy Lee Jones at all... until the finale started, when all of a sudden things don't fit anymore to the style. There are loads of fades to black and clearly stuff is missing, as there are huge jumps.
The original always took its time, that's the style it was told in. To break that spoiled the entire movie for me.
Until that point everything was truly nice to watch and really entertaining. I wish the editor could have kept the NCFOM style and finish what he started so well.
In its current state I cannot recommend this fanedit. The finale turns all previous entertainment to a bad experience and leaves me disappointed.
editing: 3 of 10 (the finale changes the pacing and style of the movie and makes the entire watching experience inconsistent)
entertainment: 3 of 10 (original 9 of 10)(taking into account the fun I had for 3/4 of the movie)

Image and video quality:
Image quality was good, the fades to black in the end were distracting though. No hard video cuts noticed.
Video quality: 7 of 10

Audio editing and audio quality:
The audio editing was good. I did not notice anything disturbing.
audio editing: 10 of 10
sound quality: 10 of 10
resulting in a 10 of 10 for overall audio

presentation:
It's an avi, there are no extras, there are no special end credits and a weak title sequence that just does the job. There is cover art. For an avi the presentation without self created end credits is not really satisfying. The info given for this fanedit is very little without much effort. Godzilla was a much more detailed project that showed creativity and enthusiasm. This one does not.

overall: a 4 of 10 rating from me for presentation.

Final result: 4 of 10
I am hoping for a fixed version.

Woah - that's a bit harsh Boon. I've watched it back with a few friends and no-one sees it as that bad, but of course you're entitled to your opinion.

It'd prove pretty difficult to draw out a 30 min ending, considering TLJ is heavily a part of that. We used what we could.

The original contains fades to black, this one only contains 2, not loads. It was too fast to go from Chigurh to the final scene in a blend. The fade after Lllewelyns death occurs in the original.

It's an avi, there are no extras, there are no special end credits and a weak title sequence that just does the job. There is cover art. For an avi the presentation without self created end credits is not really satisfying. The info given for this fanedit is very little without much effort. Godzilla was a much more detailed project that showed creativity and enthusiasm. This one does not.

Click to expand...

This seems a bit picky. It's an avi. A DVD will follow.

What does this mean : "The info given for this fanedit is very little without much effort. "

There are many edits on FE that have significantly less.

Godzilla was a completely different project and can't be compared.

Your score of editing at 3, implies that the edits weren't competent - but there were no harsh cuts were there?

white43 said:

Woah - that's a bit harsh Boon. I've watched it back with a few friends and no-one sees it as that bad, but of course you're entitled to your opinion.

It'd prove pretty difficult to draw out a 30 min ending, considering TLJ is heavily a part of that. We used what we could.

The original contains fades to black, this one only contains 2, not loads. It was too fast to go from Chigurh to the final scene in a blend. The fade after Lllewelyns death occurs in the original.

It's an avi, there are no extras, there are no special end credits and a weak title sequence that just does the job. There is cover art. For an avi the presentation without self created end credits is not really satisfying. The info given for this fanedit is very little without much effort. Godzilla was a much more detailed project that showed creativity and enthusiasm. This one does not.

Click to expand...

This seems a bit picky. It's an avi. A DVD will follow.

What does this mean : "The info given for this fanedit is very little without much effort. "

There are many edits on FE that have significantly less.

Godzilla was a completely different project and can't be compared.

Your score of editing at 3, implies that the edits weren't competent - but there were no harsh cuts were there?

Click to expand...

don't be offended, please, it's not personal at all.
But I can of course be more precise.
Let's start with the presentation. I have two choices for an avi: rate presentation or skip it. I decided to not skip it this time, so I rated everything that was there. Everything that can be counted for presentation, starting with custom titles and end credits, cover art and the FE info. Your fanedit got points for cover art and custom intro. If the info on the fanedit had been more detailed, if there had been disc art as well, if you took the time to create custom end credits, this would have been a lot more. I don't think there is anything picky about that. Take as comparison kerr's avi releases for LOTR.
Now to the editing: yes, I rated it as 3 points, even though more than 3/4 were 10 of 10. Because the flaw in the finale was so big to me that it spoiled the entire editing job. The death of Llewelyn Moss did not work at all for me, especially how his wife is suddenly there and we have a strange switch of daylight and nighttime several times. Then there is the introduction of Carla's mother, only to let her disappear with no explanation. The TLJ scene in the end makes the drug trade killing so important, yet this is not what the movie is about - and it seems strange as they are so late to the party. Overall it felt to me very jumpy.
Thing is: if your editing job had not been that good in the first 3 quarters, the downfall would not have been so deep, my disappointment less, but the rating not better.
I understand that you used what you could for the ending, but a fanedit is a different version of a movie and has to work for itself. It really does not matter if you have the footage to make something possible or not. In the end all that counts is if this version you release to the public is a good and consistent movie or not. I as audience do just want to be entertained.
Like I said and like you said it, it's just an opinion. And I have of course no reason to be harsh towards you and don't consider my review as that.

Thing is Boon, you need some sort of comment in order to improve.....

Yours is the first and I had some comments from Mollo.

I wasn't prepared to do a DVD without some comments first.....in case I had to go back. :wink:
A DVD presentation - I would change end credits.

Llewellyns deaths is pretty abrupt in the original, what you see is what TLJ sees anyhow(it fades on Llewellyn and TLJ witnesses the Mexicans running and finds Llewellyn dead. Llewellyn's girlfriend then arrives in the next scene which is night. TLJ says nothing.).

The ending plays longer as TLJ investigates the scene - Llewellyn's girlfriend knows to come to the place, as Lewellyn invited her. It plays exactly like the original in this sense.. Only here, it's not clear who kills Lewellyn. We took the decision that the funeral should be Llewellyns, the mother's funeral seemed a bit odd.

I could have course cut the final scene, but felt it was almost a tribute to TLJ that it all happened before they realised what was going on and including him in that. NCFOM just kinda ends abruptly with TLJ and this one is similar.

I have some ideas, but how to change the ending might be a little tougher.

I'm glad you enjoyed the first 3/4 anyway!

Sorry about the rant off - should have cooled my boots for an hour or two!

you are so right about the very strange death of Llewellyn in the original. It came as a big surprise and was the only thing that disappointed me a bit about the original.

boon23 said:

you are so right about the very strange death of Llewellyn in the original. It came as a big surprise and was the only thing that disappointed me a bit about the original.

Click to expand...

Absolutely. Was a bit of a letdown. So I'm not sure how to extend that. Ours is like a 30 second version of a 2 minute version!

My respects Boon for an honest review. Its obvious that you really wanted to like this and the rough ending really dissappointed you. So close. so close.
And I guess you took it well white43. 3 and 3 is a hard blow. i know what is like to get lousy scores.
So is this back to "In the works"? :-? I have a feeling this could have use some more private screening/feedback before it made it to the main site.

no. The fanedit did neither have technical nor plot wise issues that would justify a disapproval.