""I bet you'll make it twenty miles before you consider drinking that.""
Being the first ever direct sequel in the 007 franchise gave creative license to the film makers to run wild with the movie, but they must've run outta steam when it came to editing the DVD.
As with the Special Edition release of "The Dark Knight" (2008), this film also lacks in special features, and the only really intriguing one provides just basic data for the armchair explorer, and not for the amateur film maker like me.
On the first disc are two trailers for the movie, as well as the "Another Way To Die" (4:31) music video by Jack White and Alicia Keyes.
The second disc totals 84 minutes & 37 seconds of bonus material. 24 minutes of which is an on location featurette that's the only one styled like a real making of documentary. It was okay, as not much data on the process was revealed beyond Bond22 being the most on location shoot for a 007 movie.
Six more featurettes focus on Olga Kurylenko's take of the boat chase sequence, the music, the start of the shooting, a second on location piece, and director Marc Forster, whom with his bald head, black jacket, thick accent, manner of talking, and unwrapped scarf on his shoulders seemed like the real artistic type that you'd figure made "Casino Royale" (2006) if you had to decide based soley on look and apparel in comparison to that film's real director Martin Campbell. Just another example of the irony to this movie.
The most underrated of the extras has to be the crew files, which consists of 32 webisodes running about 2 minutes each that interview a specific member of the crew about a particular job, like makeup, vehicle supervisor, SFX/VFX supervisors, editors, the composer, the lead stuntman, the on set nurse, casting director, second unit director, helicopter/plane pilots and more. Plus an introduction and conclusion by producer Michael G. Wilson who states that all 32 webisodes occurred over the 6 month shooting period, one of the longest of any 007 film. While these only provided the very basic descriptions of the tasks, it was still interesting, and enjoyable to watch through, despite that right when you start to like a particular piece, it ends and moves on to the next one.
The one I liked the most however was the interview with the director general of the Paranal Observatory in Cerro Paranal, Chile at 8,645' elevation, and 120 kilometers south of Antofagasta, Chile. Its 120 room ESO Hotel (European Southern Observatory) plays host to the scientists & engineers who work at the Paranal Observatory, and plays the role of the ECO Hotel in the climax of the movie.
While the observatory isn't seen as the cameras focus on the back of the hotel and to the right of the access road where the garage access is located instead of the actual facility on the left, it is without a doubt one of the most remote locations and exclusive privileges that a 007 film has been granted. However, it's greatly overplayed in the film's marketing (posters, trailers, production photos), as it's only in the movie for 10 minutes & 40 seconds, despite the beauty of the location. And the indoor Oasis was also not featured in the film, which was a slight let down.
Overall, the majority of these extras would've come off much better had they been edited together as one mega documentary rather than the 40 separate pieces they're presented in with the logo & copyright at the end of each featurette.
As an added bonus for picking this up at Target is a 42 paged "James Bond Vehicles Book" which features 125 vehicles that range from something as miniscule as the Liparus' monorail to Carver's Stealth Boat. And all the Aston Martin's in-between. Each vehicle displays the titles of the Bond films its been in, and has a synopsis of its role in said films. Even the characters who operated these vehicles are credited. 1 sketch by legendary James Bond production designer Ken Adam is featured, along with 3 photos for the first, last, and introductory page of the book, and 169 photos of the vehicles. It's actually very well put together, and is a good way to pass the time.
Physically there's (1) the DVD plastic case, (2) the cardboard slip case, (3) a second cardboard slip case that has only one opening on the right side to slide it in, and (4) the vehicles book, but the outer slipcase seems to a be a few centimeters too thin to fit both the DVD case and the book nicely inside as was packaged. So that's all together kind of annoying. Plus there's a lack of creativity as
all the front and rear covers are the same.
Also, given the film's short runtime, and length of Disc 2, then this whole thing could have easily been compiled on a 200 minute single disc DVD. Plus it'd cost the same for the extras as this two-disc edition, so it would overall be more convenient.
The deleted scene of 007 going to Guy Haines' estate and killing Mr. White is not featured on the DVD, as the director didn't want to kill the character off, nor let it the scene ever be viewed, thinking that doing so would garner false hopes about the future of this storyline, when he didn't want the next director in line to be still chained to the same story, thinking it better to end this way. Obviously the truth is contrary, as that decision actually boosts our hopes of Mr. White's return, as well as QUANTUM becoming the new SPECTRE.
So if you're a diehard Bond fan like me who enjoys a thrill ride every once in a while that breaks the genre rules of this franchise, then this is the DVD for you, but as I stated for "The Dark Knight," its replay value lies more in the film than in the extras.
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