No Time To Die - The Traditional Cut

[ScottCrane]

TRAILER

INTENTION
To bring it a bit closer to the experience of the pre-Craig 'classic' Bond movies by shortening the pre-title sequence and a few other scenes and give the movie a happy end.

The idea for the alternate ending is borrowed from fan-editor @variantfanedits, who was working on his own version a while ago. I tried to contact him to ask for permission, but he doesn't seem to be an active member anymore. That's a pity, because I think his idea is too good not to be featured on IFDB. It also fits in perfectly with my intention for this cut, so I've taken the liberty of incorporating his alternate ending, although I didn't cut it exactly like he did. But @variantfanedits will receive full credit for it of course.


LIST OF CHANGES

• Added FanOrg warning still (8 seconds)
• Replaced gun barrel sequence with the one from 'Spectre' (as the original one doesn't feature blood)
• Skipped Madeleine's flashback (and moved it to (1), see below)
• Switched the shot of Madeleine resurfacing and the wide shot of the beach (with Bond walking to the shore). Removed Madeleine from that shot (which is now the first shot of the movie)
• Skipped the dialogue in the car (and moved it to (4), see below)
• Various (micro)cuts during the rest of the pre-title sequence up until the point when Bond discovers the Spectre note in the cemetery (see clip below)
• Deleted all exterior shots when the Aston Martin is being shot at (and also a few interior shots), thus creating a more harrowing experience and further shortening the pre-title sequence.
• Main titles now clock in at 14 minutes
• Deleted shot of Safin playing with Madeleine‘s hair just before their meeting
• Inserted very short flashes of Madeleine's flashback when a grown-up Madeleine meets Safin again and opens his box.
• (1) Inserted madeleine's complete flashback after Safin says 'They still need me', starting from the first shot of young Madeleine (deleted the preceding shots of the flashback)
• Microtrim in flashback when young Madeleine is cleaning the floor
• Scene with Safin resumes after the flashback
• A few small trims during the scene in Q’s apartment
• Deleted scene of Safin showing Madeleine the flask holding the poison and talking about Mathilde being Bond’s daughter (this will only be revealed during the first encounter between Bond and Safin). The scene resumes when Safin shows his garden to Madeleine and Mathilde.
• Skipped the shot of Bond when he enters the water in the plane with Nomi (and moved it to (3), see below)
• Skipped the shot of Bond running through a corridor before he finds Mathilde's doll (and moved it to (2), see below)
• Deleted Safin stabbing Bond with the flask during their fight
• Deleted the shot of the blood drops in the water
• Deleted Safin's monologue after the fight
• Several (micro)cuts make Bond shoot Safin right away
• Cut Bond's dialogue with Q up until the point when Q says 'The missiles have already launched.' This way, we don't see too much of Bond having difficulty with walking.
• Replaced background music with the first half of the track 'Square Escape' from the soundtrack album, starting after Bond pulls the lever.
• Replaced sound effects where necessary until the end of the movie
• Deleted all shots of Bond climbing up, talking to Madeleine and dying
• Deleted shots of crying Madeleine
• Deleted shots of M and Moneypenny
• Repeated the shot of the factory where the roof is closing and reversed it
• Repeated the top shot of the centre of Safin's garden opening and the shot of the water streaming down into the factory
• Inserted shots of Nomi and Madeleine looking up at the rockets
• (2) Inserted the shot of Bond running
• Inserted the shots of the rockets nearing the island with Mathilde looking on
• Repeated the shot of Bond climbing out of the plane and reversed it. Removed Nomi from the shot.
• Inserted shot from exploding rockets
• Repeated the shot of the plane entering the harbor and reversed it. Removed Nomi from the shot.
• Inserted shot from exploding rockets falling down (up until the point when Bond comes into view)
• (3) Inserted excerpt of shot of Bond in the plane in the water (slowed down a bit)
• Inserted first half of the wide shot of missiles hitting the island.
• (3) Inserted remainder of shot of Bond in the plane
• Start of track 'Shouldn't we get to know each other first' (from 00:50:23 on) from the soundtrack album
• Repeated the shot of the controls of the plane and reversed it.
• Repeated the shot of the plane subtracting it's wings and reversed it.
• Inserted second half of the wide shot of missiles hitting the island.
• Inserted shot of Q releasing his breath
• Repeated second half of the wide shot of the missiles hitting the island, and fade to black
• Deleted scene at M's office
• (4) Replaced the car scene featuring Madeleine and Mathilde with the car scene featuring Bond and Madeleine from the original pre-title sequence. The sound of this clip already starts (with a fade-in) at the beginning of the preceding clip (showing the blue car driving through the mountains).
• Inserted shot of Mathilde smiling to her mother in the car. Zoomed in a bit so it can't be seen that she's in the front seat.
• Start of track 'Matera' (from 39:04 to 1:04:21) from the soundtrack album during Mathilde's smile. This track segues into the Amstrong song during the end credits.

CLIP

 

[ArtisDead]

Awesome! Very interested in this project!

 

[The Scribbling Man]

I was just thinking the other day that it was odd we hadn't had any No Time to Die edits.

Edit: is this completed? I'd be curious what your final runtime is.

 

[DigModiFicaTion]

Your approach has been something I've tried to figure out but can't get to happen due to visual continuity inconsistencies. Reusing some of the glider shots is doable, but Bond taking off his sweater and giving it to Mathilde is the main barrier to making this work for me as he's wearing that sweater in all of the shits used to get him off the island. Do you have a clip to share that shows how you approach this?

 

[ArtisDead]

...he's wearing that sweater in all of the shits used to get him off the island. Do you have a clip to share that shows how you approach this?

Really? I see an awesome "out of context".

 

[ScottCrane]

Edit: is this completed? I'd be curious what your final runtime is.

Yes, it's completed (only have to watch the final render) and with 2 hours 32 minutes it's 11 minutes shorter than the original.

Bond taking off his sweater and giving it to Mathilde is the main barrier to making this work for me as he's wearing that sweater in all of the shits used to get him off the island. Do you have a clip to share that shows how you approach this?

That's not the only continuity problem. How about the scars on his face and the limb walk? It wasn't so difficult to cut as much of his limb walk as possible, but I don't see any solution to the other problems. Still this didn't keep me from making this edit, and I sympathize with everyone who thinks this isn't good enough. But for me it is.

 

[FrameSniffer]

Really like the idea of this edit. I hope you can pull this off! Good luck.

 

[DigModiFicaTion]

Really? I see an awesome "out of context".

This phone autowrings (that's the correction for autowrong) my correct spelling all the time....well there's my first curse in the forums.

Yes, it's completed (only have to watch the final render) and with 2 hours 32 minutes it's 11 minutes shorter than the original.


That's not the only continuity problem. How about the scars on his face and the limb walk? It wasn't so difficult to cut as much of his limb walk as possible, but I don't see any solution to the other problems. Still this didn't keep me from making this edit, and I sympathize with everyone who thinks this isn't good enough. But for me it is.

Was this shared on Reddit a few months ago? I think I watched it or the test clips some time ago there. Wondering if it was yours.

 

[ScottCrane]

This phone autowrings (that's the correction for autowrong) my correct spelling all the time....well there's my first curse in the forums.


Was this shared on Reddit a few months ago? I think I watched it or the test clips some time ago there. Wondering if it was yours.

I don’t know about Reddit, and I just finished my version, so maybe it was @variantfanedits version?

 

[ScottCrane]

Did some more (micro) cuts and added them to the change list (in italic font).

The most important cuts have to do with Safin's flask containing the 'Madeleine-poison'. As he doesn't get a chance to stab Bond with it in this version, it's a loose end, so I thought it better to get rid of it. That it also shortens the movie further, bringing it closer in length to the classic Bond films, fits in well with my intention for this cut.

It would be easy to make even more cuts, like in the scenes showing how Bond lives in Jamaica and how he prepares breakfast for Mathilde, but I feel I would harm the movie by doing so. These scenes may not add much to the story, but they give Bond's character a bit more depth - and I simply love those scenes

 

[ScottCrane]

IFDB page is submitted, and movie is being uploaded.

 

[Wraith]

Count me in Miss Moneypenny!
Can't wait...
Great trailer too!

 

[Wraith]

There a couple of issues... I will message you.

 

[Frikken12]

Yes, it's completed (only have to watch the final render) and with 2 hours 32 minutes it's 11 minutes shorter than the original.


That's not the only continuity problem. How about the scars on his face and the limb walk? It wasn't so difficult to cut as much of his limb walk as possible, but I don't see any solution to the other problems. Still this didn't keep me from making this edit, and I sympathize with everyone who thinks this isn't good enough. But for me it is.

Interesting project, I'm going to be following it.

What's wrong with the limp if I may ask? He's not up and walking a lot during his escape, so why do you want to remove as much of the limp as possible? Your choice of Gunbarrel also puzzles me, there's plenty of people who have fixed the NTTD Gunbarrel, it would be easy to do, and if you didn't want to, any one of those people would be honored if you used theirs, (like with PSPegasus' which everyone used in their Eon-ized NSNA openings). In the classic era, the same Gunbarrel could be used again and again, but there comes a fresh Gunbarrel with each Craig film, and removing it would cheapen the experience IMO.

I've asked a VFX guy if he can fix Daniel's sweater and pop on some scars btw, as a favor to all NTTD editors. We're in a rare situation, we've got all the footage we need to get a complete, clean, continuity-error free, alternate ending if we work together.

 

[ccateni]

Interesting project, I'm going to be following it.

What's wrong with the limp if I may ask? He's not up and walking a lot during his escape, so why do you want to remove as much of the limp as possible? Your choice of Gunbarrel also puzzles me, there's plenty of people who have fixed the NTTD Gunbarrel, it would be easy to do, and if you didn't want to, any one of those people would be honored if you used theirs, (like with PSPegasus' which everyone used in their Eon-ized NSNA openings). In the classic era, the same Gunbarrel could be used again and again, but there comes a fresh Gunbarrel with each Craig film, and removing it would cheapen the experience IMO.

I've asked a VFX guy if he can fix Daniel's sweater and pop on some scars btw, as a favor to all NTTD editors. We're in a rare situation, we've got all the footage we need to get a complete, clean, continuity-error free, alternate ending if we work together.

I wouldn't be against helping out with this. While I'm new to VFX, I've been editing with Vegas for years and have at least a year of experience with Premiere Pro. So I would be interested in helping combine a fanedit with the best edits from each fan edit and combining it with the alterative ending that will fix the continuity errors.

 

[Frikken12]

I wouldn't be against helping out with this. While I'm new to VFX, I've been editing with Vegas for years and have at least a year of experience with Premiere Pro. So I would be interested in helping combine a fanedit with the best edits from each fan edit and combining it with the alterative ending that will fix the continuity errors.

That would be great! Let’s look into that

 

[ScottCrane]

I read a lot of good ideas! How can we initiate this joint project?

 

[ccateni]

I read a lot of good ideas! How can we initiate this joint project?

I have already sent a conversation to Frikken12, let me add you to it.

 

[bmurphy4]

I really loved this edit. I was wondering if some opening text or an opening crawl would be an option given how the film follows directly on from the events of Spectre?

"With Spectre seemingly vanquished and its leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, in prison, a retired James Bond aims to live out the remainder of his life travelling the world with Madeleine Swann. But a voice from the past still calls out to him and danger has followed 007 to Matera..."

This could be followed by the gun barrel sequence which opens up on Bond and Swann arriving in Matera. I feel the opening shot of Swann getting out of the water is no longer needed as the previous scene with Safin has been moved. The next scene of Bond and Swann driving along the coast has also been cut to facilitate the new ending so perhaps this shot could come out as well and just start with the shot of the Aston Martin pulling into Matera?

Just my suggestions - feel free to ignore! Thanks for all your work on the great edit.

 

[lapis molari]

@ScottCrane , I have a request: can you re-render the audio at a higher bitrate? Your stereo AAC track has 128kb/s, which is noticeably thin (anemic?) on good speakers. The source audio, of course, has a much higher bitrate. If you can't render it that high, just do 256kb/s or 384kb/s: those already make an audible improvement.

I know the convenience of rendering in stereo instead of surround, that's not my issue. It's only the low bitrate setting.

I would've written this in a PM, but I made this request to multiple faneditors over the years and I figured it may be helpful to post this in a public thread. To anyone who's rendering their edit: please check the quality setting of your audio output!

In return, I'd be happy to make English subtitles for your edit if you don't have them yet.