Synopsis:

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.

Intentions:

The initial reason for embarking on this edit was purely for my lovely girlfriend, Sophie. She's a huge Pierce Brosnan fan, and having sat through Die Another Day a couple of times with her, I saw the opportunity to make it an easier watch for both of us! :)

Change List:

- 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.

Additional Notes:

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Other Sources:

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. ;)