• Most new users don't bother reading our rules. Here's the one that is ignored almost immediately upon signup: DO NOT ASK FOR FANEDIT LINKS PUBLICLY. First, read the FAQ. Seriously. What you want is there. You can also send a message to the editor. If that doesn't work THEN post in the Trade & Request forum. Anywhere else and it will be deleted and an infraction will be issued.
  • If this is your first time here please read our FAQ and Rules pages. They have some useful information that will get us all off on the right foot, especially our Own the Source rule. If you do not understand any of these rules send a private message to one of our staff for further details.
  • Please read our Rules & Guidelines

Icarus - a fanedit of Die Another Day by Last Survivor

LastSurvivor

Well-known member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
1,844
Reaction score
429
Trophy Points
113
icarusposterpierce.png



Original title: Die Another Day

Fanedit title: Icarus

Studio: MGM, Eon Productions, United Artists
Faneditor: Last Survivor
Originally released: 2002
Fanedit release: January 2013
Original running time: 132 minutes approx
Fanedit running time: 110 minutes approx
Cut time: 22 minutes cut
Started edit: November 2012
Finished edit: December 2012

Synopsis and Purpose of Edit:
Captured, betrayed, tortured and escaping death at the cost of setting a highly dangerous terrorist free, Bond finds himself reaching deeper into his resolve than ever before as he attempts to recapture the very same man whose release bizarrely saved his own life. His investigations lead him to British billionaire Gustav Graves, whose orbital mirror satellite, "Icarus", is able to focus solar energy on a specific small area and thereby provide unlimited sunshine for crop development. However, nothing is what it seems, and Bond must stop at nothing to prevent the true nature of Icarus from becoming a terrifying reality.

Die Another Day should have been celebration of everything good about the James Bond franchise. Unfortunately, in trying to throw everything but the kitchen sink at the screen in celebration of 007's 40th anniversary, director Lee Tamahori and the producers ended up with an unfocused movie, riddled with poor innuendo jokes and some ill-advised ventures into the more fantasy CGI arena. The hope with Icarus, is to redress the balance and uncover what I believe is a genuinely good old-fashioned large scale Bond adventure. No invisible car, no CGI tsunami surfing heroics, the poor jokes removed, Icarus attempts to give Pierce Brosnan the Bond swansong he deserved.

Cutlist:

- replaced gun-barrel with the one from Tomorrow Never Dies

- When Bond takes on the identity of Mr Van Bier, have cut scene of him inside the helicopter placing the explosives underneath the diamond tray in the brief case.

- Cut reference from Colonel Moon about his hovercrafts being able to float over mines when Bond questions him about his weapons.

- Removed Bond’s line “Don’t blow it all once” when the briefcase of diamonds is being examined

- Trimmed the last part of the Hovercraft chase to remove the hand to hand fight between Bond and Moon

- “Saved by the bell” removed.

- Fanedit titles inserted during title sequence, and removed Madonna's "Die Another Day" for Joss Stone's "I'll Take it All".

- Trimmed the end of the scene when Bond is traded for Zao

- Removed the laser medical examination of Bond with the voice-over.

- Cut “I’m checking out” and “Thanks for the kiss of life” as Bond leaves his hospital bed

- Removed couple of frames as Bond leaps over the side of the ship, preventing his hands from coming back into view as it’s clear he landed on a crash mat.

- Cut Jinx rising from the water in slow motion

- Trimmed as much of the poor dialogue between Jinx and Bond when they first meet as possible

- In the hospital, as Bond walks through the window of a patients room, takes a grape and exits into the corridor, have trimmed a few frames to fix continuity error of Bond eating two grapes when he only takes one

- After Bond and Zao's battle at the hospital, have slightly rearranged the scene where Zao jumps out of the window so that Bond shoots just as Zao has already jumped through the window, rather than before. Surely as a double "O" agent, Bond wouldn't miss from such close range?

- Trimmed a couple of frames as Jinx dives backwards off the wall into the ocean below to try and make the "green screen" work less obvious.

- As Bond is seen traveling on a British Airways plane back to England, replaced The Clash's "London Calling", with the original scored music by David Arnold. Also trimmed the scenes inside the plane, to remove Bond's "Lucky I asked for it shaken" line.

- Removed Grave's line "As they say in fencing, what's the point?", as he's talking to the press outside Buckingham Palace.

- Madonna's cameo trimmed to remove the terrible jokes/innuendos

- As Bond meets M in the secret underground station meeting point, removed his line of "Then perhaps it's time you let me get on with my job?". The look he gives M seems enough to me.

- Cut Bond's virtual reality training sequence.

- Trimmed Q's gadget-prep scene, removing gags related to props from previous Bond movies, and also no invisible car is seen or referred to.

- "Speeded up" style editing shots removed as Bond approaches the Ice Palace.

- As one of Grave's henchmen opens the door of Bond's Aston Martin, have removed him introducing himself as " Mr Kill", thereby removing Bond's quip "Now there's a name to die for"

- As Miranda shows Bond to his room, removed one line of dialogue referencing a joke to do with her surname of Frost and the Ice Palace itself

- As the party at the Ice Palace begins, removed another case of "speeded up editing"

- Removed various jokes/innuendo lines at Party where Bond, Jinx and Miranda converse with each other.

- After the Icarus presentation, have removed scenes of the invisible car as Bond begins to investigate the true nature of Graves' intentions.

- As Jinx is interrogated by Zao, have removed him asking "Who sent you?" to which she replied
"Your Mamma. And she wanted me to tell you she's really disappointed in you".

- Fight scene between Bond and Kill has now been trimmed so that the lasers which were going off everywhere and would probably have cut them in two, now get turned off a lot quicker.

- After the fight, when Bond walks up to free Jinx have removed his line "So, the girl who doesn't like to get tied down, huh?", and then also her reply "You gonna get me off this thing?"

- As Miranda shows her true colours and says "It was good of you to bring your gun to bed with us", have removed Bond's line "Yes... occupational hazard", as he had already said it once as he was going to bed with her.

- Cut Graves' speech to Bond about his dubious actions with Miranda at the Sydney Olympics.

- Cut small shot of Miranda's blank reaction when Bond shatters the glass floor

- Cut Bond escaping into the Ice rocket and the scene thereafter, including the CGI travesty tsunami scene where Bond surfs his way to safety. Instead, as Bond escapes down the side of the Ice Palace he gets straight into his Aston Martin and Zao pursues him in his suped-up Jaguar.

- Once Zao corners Bond inside the melting Ice Palace, removed invisible Car shots

- When Bond and Jinx sneak on-board Graves' plane, have shortened various scenes to tighten pace, and poor one-liners removed.

- As Bond and Jinx freefall in the helicopter, have removed a couple of her lines and one from Bond.

- Moneypenny's virtual reality scene cut

- Bond and Jinx's romantic scene on the Island trimmed

- Grace Jones' "Storm" used over end credits.
Special Features:


Audio Commentary

About the Edit

Trailer

Technical Details:

16:9 Anamorphic. NTSC Single Layer DVD.

Dolby AC3 Stereo.

Software used: Adobe Premier Pro CS6, DVD Architect Pro 5.0, HC Encoder, Audacity, PgC Dmux, VirtualDub, Adobe Photoshop CS6

Special Thanks:

Sophie Payne, Uncanny Antman, Wabid

This edit is dedicated to my patient, wonderful fiancee Sophie. This edit is for you..... and hopefully a few other people may enjoy it too ;)
 

Dwight Fry

Well-known member
Faneditor
Messages
4,245
Reaction score
1,564
Trophy Points
123
Woo-hoo! Mission complete! Release has arrived! :)

Still, I have to ask:

LastSurvivor said:
Dolby AC3 Stereo.

Why no 5.1? I notice all your edits have 2.0 audio, and in this case at least it's not due to the source.
 

LastSurvivor

Well-known member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
1,844
Reaction score
429
Trophy Points
113
Why no 5.1? I notice all your edits have 2.0 audio, and in this case at least it's not due to the source.

Simple answer DF.... I have no way of listening to a 5.1 mix whilst editing and I really don't want to mess around with a 5.1 mix, listen to it back in 2.0 only and then release it to hear that it sounds rubbish.
 

Dwight Fry

Well-known member
Faneditor
Messages
4,245
Reaction score
1,564
Trophy Points
123
What I do in those cases is making sure the replacement parts in each mono track sound the way they should, coherently with the rest of the track and at the appropriate levels. Then, I listen to them all at once through my crappy stereo setup, and if it sounds all right, it's done.
 

LastSurvivor

Well-known member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
1,844
Reaction score
429
Trophy Points
113
Dwight Fry said:
What I do in those cases is making sure the replacement parts in each mono track sound the way they should, coherently with the rest of the track and at the appropriate levels. Then, I listen to them all at once through my crappy stereo setup, and if it sounds all right, it's done.

Cool advice DF. Will look into this for future edits... otherwise, hope you enjoy Icarus mate ;)
 

Neglify

Well-known member
Messages
13,968
Reaction score
31
Trophy Points
133
I also only have 2.0 audio setups, but I edit and export in 5.1 when it's available. I haven't gotten any bad feedback on those mixes and they all sounded fine when I played them through my speakers. But I don't do nearly as much sound replacement work as you do, so that's a factor.

You can always make 2 mixes, a 2.0 and a 5.1 and say something like "The 2.0 mix is the preferred audio mix".

Or just do what you feel is best.
 

bionicbob

Well-known member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
8,265
Reaction score
2,390
Trophy Points
168
Bond is BACK!
And Better Than EVER!!!

And it is all thanks to Last Survivor.

As LS has pointed out, the 40th Anniversary Bond film DIE ANOTHER DAY is a mess of movie -- too much bad dialogue, too much bad cgi and just too over the top and all over the place. Which is a shame, as the core story is pure classic Bond, but all that is lost on the audience by the producers kitchen sink approach to story telling and a director who I feel was ill suited for the Bond franchise.

But I knew there was a good Bond movie buried within, as I had seen evidence of it many years before in ADM's version BEYOND THE ICE. While that fan edit was very, very good, I can honestly say Last Survivor's version is aggressively superior and well worth the watch.

As with all of LS's edits, his passion for the material oozes in every scene. He knows Bond. He knows the character and franchise. He knows what works and what does not. And that knowledge gives him power and security in his editing.
He has deftly removed all the truly offending elements of the film -- horrible sexual innuendo, bad gci, the ridiculous invisible car -- and created a Bond adventure more fitting of this iconic character and a proper closing chapter to the Pierce Brosnan era.

It should also be noted, LS has once again done some fantastic audio work throughout this fan edit, replacing music in several key scenes with an expert's touch. Bravo!

To say I enjoyed this edit, would be an understatement. It was a wonderful piece of entertainment. I do have one tiny nitpick -- the John Cleese Q scene. In its new edited form it plays too short, throwing off the pacing of the film. LS acknowledges this in his commentary, but felt this was best for the over all narrative. Myself, I think to remove all acknowledgement that this is 40th anniversary film was maybe a mistake. For me, Q's workshop is the perfect place to pay homage to Bond's past exploits and was one of the few tribute moments in the original that actually worked. I also thought the VR training sequence that leads into it was logical and worked too. But as I said, this is personal preference and only a minor quibble.

Now no Last Survivor fan edit experience is complete until you listen to the commentary! Once again, a very informative and entertaining experience. Professional producers could take a lesson from LS on how to do a proper dvd commentary. He fills his commentary with not only how he made the edit and why he made the cuts he did, but shares his insights and history with the Bond franchise on a very engaging and personal level. Definitely a great listen!!!

And best of all, LS hints in his commentary that he may not yet be done with Bond. That another Bond edit or two may lurk in the future. I sure hope so!!! Bring on the Bond!

Thumbs WAY Up!:D
 

LastSurvivor

Well-known member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
1,844
Reaction score
429
Trophy Points
113
Hey Bob,

Many thanks for the glowing review :) Glad you had fun with the edit and it's always nice to hear that the commentary came across as interesting and engaging.

I do have one tiny nitpick -- the John Cleese Q scene. In its new edited form it plays too short, throwing off the pacing of the film.

Yeah, I can fully appreciate this. I was so torn about what to do in that scene. Part of me was saying "keep all the anniversary references and thereby maintain a good sense of pace", whilst the more devilish side was saying "ah, screw it. Be aggressive and just keep it short and to the point". Ultimately I think you may be right - sacrificing the pace of a film is a dangerous move and one I may well regret, but hey, you win some, you lose some ;)

Anyways, really glad you enjoyed it and that I made a fitting Brosnan swansong in the Bond cannon. Cheers :)
 

wabid

Well-known member
Messages
567
Reaction score
1
Trophy Points
16
Reading the cutlist, that was the one thing I already could tell I would miss.

As for the audio, while 5.1 is not all that important I do find the LFE channel is. Do you have the capacity to make edits 2.1?
 

bionicbob

Well-known member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
8,265
Reaction score
2,390
Trophy Points
168
LastSurvivor said:
Anyways, really glad you enjoyed it and that I made a fitting Brosnan swansong in the Bond cannon. Cheers :)


The pleasure was all mine.

Maybe next you can save LICENCE TO KILL and give Timothy Dalton the respect he deserves.

Like I said before, Bring on the Bond! ;-)
 

LastSurvivor

Well-known member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
1,844
Reaction score
429
Trophy Points
113
Maybe next you can save LICENCE TO KILL and give Timothy Dalton the respect he deserves.

Maybe Bob... Dalton is my favourite Bond after all, so who knows? ;)
 

LastSurvivor

Well-known member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
1,844
Reaction score
429
Trophy Points
113
A big thank you to dangermouse for his excellent review. Glad you had fun watching the edit, even if you had a couple of minor gripes... but hey, that's the nature of the game, or something like that ;)

Audio was in 2.0 instead of 5.1, so I docked a few points on quality. But other than that sounded great throughout.
Video was flawless, though a couple of slightly bitty shots during the ice palace escape and in a few of the "witty" exchanges it was clear something had been cut.

Seems my not using a 5.1 mix is getting me into a little hot water this time around, so apologies for anyone wanting a proper workout for their sound systems. Maybe next time.

Q is sorely missed. I think it was a mistake to cut this sequence - the film is overly serious, and this was a natural point of levity (and call out to the 40 year anniversary).

Yep, as with Bob's review, I concede that the trimming of the Q scene is a controversial issue. However, as for the film being over seriously? I'm not sure about that. I still kept a few of Brosnan's one-liners in there and as for the call out for an anniversary film, I'm afraid I don't like those kind of things drawing attention to themselves (ala the classic Aston Martin being used for Skyfall - I mean, yawn). But yeah, Icarus is certainly a more serious version of DAD, for sure.

My only real gripe was keeping in the bit with everyone being sucked out the window and the plane going out of control.

Can't disagree with you there, but if I hadn't shown that, I'm not really sure how I would have explained where all the rest of Graves' men had disappeared to! :D

Anyway, again, glad you had a blast watching it. Oh and Bob, cheers for posting your review on the IFDB ;)
 

Dwight Fry

Well-known member
Faneditor
Messages
4,245
Reaction score
1,564
Trophy Points
123
LastSurvivor said:
However, as for the film being over seriously? I'm not sure about that. I still kept a few of Brosnan's one-liners in there and as for the call out for an anniversary film, I'm afraid I don't like those kind of things drawing attention to themselves (ala the classic Aston Martin being used for Skyfall - I mean, yawn). But yeah, Icarus is certainly a more serious version of DAD, for sure.

I still haven't watched the edit, but I don't think it can be overly serious even if it tries. DaD is the complete opposite of overly serious. And as for those who identify Bond with really really really REALLY bad puns and one-liners, I remind you that was a leftover from the lowest days of Roger Moore. Humor (or, more properly, wit) was always present in Bond movies from the beginning, but he's not supposed to be a buffoon. The best thing about the Craig reboot is that it pretty much killed the pun garbage with fire.
 

bionicbob

Well-known member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
8,265
Reaction score
2,390
Trophy Points
168
LastSurvivor said:
Seems my not using a 5.1 mix is getting me into a little hot water this time around, so apologies for anyone wanting a proper workout for their sound systems. Maybe next time.


I personally don't think it is a big deal (says the man who only edits in 2.0 sound LOL). It's your hobby and your edit. I am just happy you are sharing them with us. You work with the tools you have and in the zone you are the most comfortable in.

I thought the sound was amazing. The music replacement was fantastic, especially Grave's parachute scene -- a vast improvement over the original!

Have I made it clear yet how much I LOVED this popcorn ride yet? :lol:
And I don't even consider myself a Bond fan, but this fan edit is brilliant fun in my book!
 

Omaru1982

Well-known member
Messages
931
Reaction score
18
Trophy Points
18
There's still enough of a recap to the 40th anniversary, the union jack parachute, the Halle Berry Ursula Andres recreation coming out of the water and possibly some other stuff, I'm not bothered about the Q stuff too much because John Cleese was never going to hold a candle to Desmond Llewllyn (despite his stepping down before his unpredicted death) This film was basically a stinking turd before and now you've made it into something to rival, well even better T.N.D or T.W.I.N.E ... at least until someone decides to edit those two :p
 

Neglify

Well-known member
Messages
13,968
Reaction score
31
Trophy Points
133
DVD5 is now on Usenet. NZB will be submitted to Info soon. You can use Binsearch to find it as well (LastSurvivor Fanedit).
 

dangermouse

Well-known member
Faneditor
Messages
1,100
Reaction score
2
Trophy Points
48
LastSurvivor said:
Can't disagree with you there, but if I hadn't shown that, I'm not really sure how I would have explained where all the rest of Graves' men had disappeared to! :D

The getting sucked out isn't so much of a problem, particularly if it's brief (at the moment of decompression there's some serious windspeeds going on as the air pressure inside aligns with outside!). The dive irritates me no end, though. Did the decompression rip the wings off? Bash the ailerons? No? Then why is the plane suddenly going into a dive. Eh, Hollywood, answer me THAT! :)
You could have Jinx put the plane in a dive, or at least a shot of her flying the plane not trying to stop it from crashing by pulling heroically at the control stick, as if jumbojets are flown by BRUTE FORCE. Ha!
Sigh, rant at DaD finished. Wishlist for Icarus still includes lack of Hollywood physics.... :)

By the way, Icarus made me buy DAD! Fanedits are anti-piracy.... I saw how you fixed the Ice Palace CGI debacle, had confidence that the rest of the film was equally as good, and so went out and bought DAD, so that I could watch Icarus. :couch2:
 

dangermouse

Well-known member
Faneditor
Messages
1,100
Reaction score
2
Trophy Points
48
Dwight Fry said:
I still haven't watched the edit, but I don't think it can be overly serious even if it tries. DaD is the complete opposite of overly serious. And as for those who identify Bond with really really really REALLY bad puns and one-liners, I remind you that was a leftover from the lowest days of Roger Moore. Humor (or, more properly, wit) was always present in Bond movies from the beginning, but he's not supposed to be a buffoon. The best thing about the Craig reboot is that it pretty much killed the pun garbage with fire.

Yes, LS *completely* changed that. DAD was Bond the buffoon. Icarus is Craig-era. In fact, a little more than Craig-era, hence my comment that he may have got a little too snip-happy in the end. I counted one quip. I thought maybe one or two more wouldn't be amiss, plus a little more time with Q (which I remember being the ONLY personal highlight from the film)
Watch Icarus - the change in tone is staggering (staggeringly GOOD!)
 

LastSurvivor

Well-known member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
1,844
Reaction score
429
Trophy Points
113
Dwight Fry said:
I still haven't watched the edit, but I don't think it can be overly serious even if it tries. DaD is the complete opposite of overly serious. And as for those who identify Bond with really really really REALLY bad puns and one-liners, I remind you that was a leftover from the lowest days of Roger Moore. Humor (or, more properly, wit) was always present in Bond movies from the beginning, but he's not supposed to be a buffoon. The best thing about the Craig reboot is that it pretty much killed the pun garbage with fire.

Fair point DF. At the end of the day it depends how you like your Bond, but admittedly DAD went too far one way, in the same fashion of the double taking pigeons from Moonraker or the Beach Boys' song playing during the opening ski chase in A View to a Kill. Hopefully with Icarus, you'll see what DAD could have been like had the jokes not been there - it's actually not that bad; trust me ;)

bionicbob said:
I personally don't think it is a big deal (says the man who only edits in 2.0 sound LOL). It's your hobby and your edit. I am just happy you are sharing them with us. You work with the tools you have and in the zone you are the most comfortable in.

I thought the sound was amazing. The music replacement was fantastic, especially Grave's parachute scene -- a vast improvement over the original!

Have I made it clear yet how much I LOVED this popcorn ride yet? :lol:
And I don't even consider myself a Bond fan, but this fan edit is brilliant fun in my book!

Thanks Bob. I can't lie. I am very comfortable editing in 2.0. I've done some testing of Icarus in 5.1 and I think I could do it, but you know I do tend to do a lot of audio rebuilding work on my edits, well the thought of having to work that out for 5.1 does scare me a little. But hey, we'll see how things go for my next project. And hey, glad you had a blast watching this mate. I'm more pleased with this than I was with my take on QOS.

Omaru1982 said:
There's still enough of a recap to the 40th anniversary, the union jack parachute, the Halle Berry Ursula Andres recreation coming out of the water and possibly some other stuff, I'm not bothered about the Q stuff too much because John Cleese was never going to hold a candle to Desmond Llewllyn (despite his stepping down before his unpredicted death) This film was basically a stinking turd before and now you've made it into something to rival, well even better T.N.D or T.W.I.N.E ... at least until someone decides to edit those two :p

Hey thanks Omaru. Really appreciate your comments and it's good see Icarus rivaling Tomorrow Never Dies and The World is Not Enough. The latter of those I particularly like - with a bit of trimming, that could be an excellent Bond film.

dangermouse said:
By the way, Icarus made me buy DAD! Fanedits are anti-piracy.... I saw how you fixed the Ice Palace CGI debacle, had confidence that the rest of the film was equally as good, and so went out and bought DAD, so that I could watch Icarus. :couch2:

Excellent - so anti-piracy are we huh? ;) Oh, and your point about trimming back on the "dive" of the plane is not lost on me at all. If ever I was to do a v2, I would certainly have a look at that scene again.

Keep the comments coming guys - much appreciated as ever. And, Neglify - you're the coolest dude around for uploading it to Usenet - cheers ;)
 

Nic

Well-known member
Messages
1,695
Reaction score
104
Trophy Points
68
dangermouse said:
Yes, LS *completely* changed that. DAD was Bond the buffoon. Icarus is Craig-era. In fact, a little more than Craig-era...

Dunno if I'd go that far, since the film needs the nonsensical "irradiate bone marrow to change DNA" plot thread or whatever silly thing was the original. Granted, LS' work tends to always be above average (I've read the good press on Smallville, Jaws 3, and I thought Rocky V was pretty good) but that'll just stick out like a sore thumb.
 
Top Bottom