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Comments
As for the bleak posters matching the bleak films; are we really calling the Craig films bleak and dark? I've never really gotten that. Maybe next to other Bond films there's a little bit of a "darker" edge, but when I watch these films I just see elements of real life and real dangers in them, like I would when watching a noir film. Maybe I've just got a strong constitution and it takes a lot from me to get affected enough by something to say it's dark, but that's not how I'd describe the Craig era if I had to pick a word. Maybe more earnest than anything, with an attempt paid to being sincere and relevant to what is happening in our world in each film; which often isn't sunny developments. Terrorism in CR, faux-ecological concerns and land control in QoS, tech terrorism and the ambiguity of evil in SF, and SP's look at surveillance and absolute power through that surveillance. Not really dark, just "real."
The poster argument will never convince me, though. The last great Bond poster we got that was truly exceptional in idea and presentation was The Living Daylights painted poster with Bond popping out of the gunbarrel, surrounded by art representing what is in the movie. After that point, what made Bond posters special died, and gave way from LTK onward to really shoddy posters based more on the manipulation of photos with silly effects than anything truly amazing. I wouldn't buy any of these posters and hang them on my wall. I'd faster design a better one myself, or print out one that my other fellow MI6 artists have done in the past that embarrass these posters into a corner of shame.
Well, it's a given fact really. Compared to Pierce Brosnan, Daniel Craig is very much involved in the entire creative process, from the very first bits of pre-production until the actual premiere. This picture gives plentiful proof IMO:
I actually meant it in a positive way @0Brady. Darker and slightly 'bleaker' brought a lot of good to the Craig-films if you ask me. You can also call it more realistic. Perhaps that's the better word. But by no means I used the words in a negative context.
I see he actually paints them himself, using nothing but his finger.
I wasn't saying I didn't believe you about the Craig poster picking thing, just that I'd never seen it.
Nor did I think you were viewing the Craig era in a negative way by calling it by those adjectives. Just saying I think there's better words for the effects it has.
Would you prefer me to lie to you and say 'I respect your opinions' when I clearly don't?
How can you give respect to an abstract concept anyway? I respect you as a person but asking to 'respect' the notion that the Craig posters are better than the legendary stuff we got in the past is never going to happen.
There's nothing wrong with dark and bleak. The CR teaser is a fantastic poster even if it is very noir. The problem with the majority of the Craig posters is they are just shit plain and simple.
Spot on.
29 years since the last truly great poster is too long.
I would hang the CR teaser and maybe the GE final on my wall but not many others.
Honourable mention to the Choppingesque DAD teaser which is excellent but I wouldn't put it on my wall due to the title of the film being on there too.
Maybe get someone who knows about graphic design to pick the poster rather than an actor then?
Is it actually a different actor...on that poster on the back??
Looks a bit like Clive Owen...
I actually think it could be Alex O'Loughlin:
He was seriously rumoured back in 2005 to play 007.
It could also be shots from actor auditions then used as a poster to also see how the idea or pose worked on the page.
This concept of Dan picking the posters is new to me, so I have no idea what to think.
Maybe now he might get input into these things but I find it hard to believe that a new actor in the role (who was getting pelters in the press and on the Internet) gets to have a say on things outside of his remit.
Dan getting the chance to pick poster art for release is no stranger to me than all the stuff he's been allowed to do outside of that, like his writing on QoS, how he's helped to produce the films, how he has hand-picked directors and other actors to join the franchise (Mendes and Bardem were both Dan's suggestions), and more.
It's crazy the control he's had, and I'd be very curious to see what Cubby thinks about his little girl allowing an actor to have such influence on his baby (as well as old partner MGW letting it happen), something he was always so strict on in many ways.
On the other hand, it's understandable in a way that Broccoli and Wilson gave Daniel Craig so much creative control over the franchise. They obviously want to make up for the mistakes their (step)father made with regard to Sean Connery and George Lazenby. During screenplay brainstorm sessions of "Goldfinger" in 1963, Sean Connery very much made a lot of suggestions with his pencil in the draft screenplay for GF. He thought the screenplay became to 'cartoonish' and outlandish as compared to FRWL, and didn't like Guy Hamilton's idea very much (it's all in Paul Duncan's "007 Archives").
"Cubby" didn't listen. I think EON Productions were very protective of the franchise at that time, late 1960's, early 1970's, because they very much were in fear that James Bond is not a franchise that can stay alive forever.
So Barbara and Michael instinctively thought that, while rebooting the franchise entirely (in essence the first ever proper reboot since James Bond came to live in 1961), they wanted the new Bond actor, Daniel Craig, to give the kind of creative control that Sean Connery always asked for but never got.
I wouldn't call Cubby's decisions at that time "mistakes." To make it seem like Sean's ignored script comments on Goldfinger were symbolic of Cubby's refusal to budge and give him creative control is a bit of an overstatement. I'm sure the lighting guy and Pinewood's janitor had their own feelings on the scripts, but Cubby wasn't going to let them steer the ship with him and the director of the time.
I think Cubby realized more than anyone that the character and franchise he led was bigger than the actor playing him, and that the ideas were to be generated by those paid to do it, and nobody else. Sean was paid to act, Maibaum and other supporting scribes were paid to write, just like you don't pay a gardner to build you a house. Ideas from the people outside the creative side of the production don't have to be squashed, of course, but not even the ideas of Connery have to be treated as above all others for special consideration. Of course, that's not to say Cubby and Harry didn't allow for him to get his way when it counted, either. When Sean made some critical comments on one of the drafts, Maibaum was brought back in following Paul Dehn's work on the script to improve it.
All this isn't to say I disprove of the control Dan has had, mostly because I think the control he's had has been limited enough for me to accept it (like him being allowed to choose Bond's style and things relation to his appearance of screen) and the choices he has made outside of that role haven't been screw-ups on the whole to cause issue (like drafting Mendes and Bardem to join the team). And of course it's grand that Dan has been allowed to do his own stunts so much, which is something I don't see Cubby ever agreeing to to this extent, as Sean, George, Roger and all the rest were his money makers and if they got hurt during a stunt, who knows how off schedule the films would be, hurting finances.
Obviously Cubby in his time and Barbara and MGW in theirs signify two diverse approaches to running Bond, and I don't think either are more wrong than the other, as they each had their triumphs and failures. I just wouldn't call Cubby's approach a "mistake" or make it seem like he was in the wrong for running things as he did. He didn't do it wrong, just different.