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That would be great...even better if Sam comes back for two more, too.
So if SP does disappoint like SF you would like Mendes back?? I have not been convinced by SF enough to warrant Mendes three shots when the 2nd better be an improvement on the first. While I am no great fan of QoB that movie at least had a coherent story and some impressive shots as well, yeah I rate that one higher than SF.
=)) We need Elba to read this!
@SaintMark the thing is like me he doesn't think SF was a failure and most likely enjoy the hell out of SP so your question is pretty moot.
It's a shame that this 50 + year series isn't to your liking at the moment, give it another a decade and they might have reheated the Moore era again like PB's films and you'll be happy again and you can stick your rose tinted specs back on and enjoy the cliched tick the box production line guff you obviously are craving EON return to.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/oct/13/skyfall-james-bond-first-look-review
Most of the snippets that I've picked up on from SP so far look really good, so I'm hopeful that Mendes' second Bond will be a major improvement. If nothing else, the locations and general look of the film look amazing.
I so agree with this. I like Craig's work, he is a very good Bond, but I too was disappointed with SF. I think they did Craig and Bond a great disservice in the plot. I too am optimistic that they will course correct for SP. I cheered when they took the script away from Logan as I blame him for some of the major problems I had with SF. As I noted in a previous post, Bond needs to remain an enigma. That is part of his appeal. They just undermine Bond with this childhood angst stuff. It's like Batman/Bond2.
I'm afraid one of the things that really put me off SF was having so much Dench. I didn't mind her to start with, but found her increasingly annoying as her tenure went on. SF felt like a rehash of TWINE to me. At least she won't be around to make a hash of SP. The best bit of SF was when she gets bumped off!
The plot may have contained similarities but that's where it ended. In terms of characterizations, acting, cinematography, casting & execution there is nothing similar about them at all imho.
True on both counts
How was SF a disappointment? I ask you take a look at the film's BO numbers...they tell a completely different story. EON brought Mendes back precisely because of SF's success financially. You can argue the film's artistic merits all you want (and I'll address those points in a moment) but what is not under dispute is the BO. And my guess is that SP will be just as big a hit. Thus...it's possible EON will reach out to Sam again.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion on all films as long as they can substantiate the reasons for those opinions. I'll offer a reason why SF is a much better film than you think, and it has more to do with the underlying themes than it does the plot. I think it's actually the most complex Bond film ever made. I'll just point you in the direction of certain scenes/moments, and then I'll let you figure out the importance:
1. PTS starts with a stolen hard drive.
2. PTS takes place on a train. Remember the U2 line about trains in "Zoo Station," which perfectly sums up its symbolic relevance in Western literature: "Time is a train, makes the future the past..."
3. M is asked to retire
4. Bond: "We're both played out."
5. MI6 goes from hi-tech headquarters to underground offices from the Churchill days
6. "It's a young man's game."
7. "Grand old worship..." heading to scrap.
8. Shanghai: the hi-tech buldings (contrasted to what was going on in #5)
9. "I like to do some things the old fashioned way" ... "Now you look the part...old dog, new tricks."
10. "Circle of life."
11. Deserted island
12. The rat tale..."You're living in the rune, as well."
13. Shooting antique pistols and emphasis on the age of the Macallen.
14. Subterranean London
15. The world is more opaque...quoting Tennyson.
16. Switching to the DB5
17. "Breadcrumbs."
18. Skyfall (contrast with #8)
19. The DB5 gets blown to hell
20. old-fashioned warfare
Those are just off the top of my head. Anyone can enjoy SF. But the film is of particular interest to those of us who grew up and entered adulthood before there were PCs, laptops, internet, iPads, digital anything. We listened to our music on tapes and records and watched TV though antennae and then basic cable. There was no cyber terrorism.
This why the conversation between Bond and Q in #7 is so crucial to the films meaning.
The plot of SF is rather simple. But that's only because the rest of it isn't so simple.
Don't you feel it's hammered throughout the movie, far more than done with subtlety during the story ?
If you miss the first "Sometimes the old ways are the best", don't worry, they'll say it again later, when they discuss old rifles, old whisky, old boats, old building, old tube station, old-fashioned ways or even the old 007 :) And look at that old knife, surely it will be important later.
Imagine we had Mathis explaining Hold'em three times during CR, even that masterpiece would have suffer from it ! In CR, the old way of doin' it had Bond smashing through a wall while the new kid is doing Parkour, no need to spell it out... The old vs new was done with a laugh : Instant characterization, even in the middle of an action scene, no need to put the dot on the i.
Now I cannot talk much here about SP's script, but I can tell you there's a similar kind of theme that is hammered again and again and again... Not central to the "plot", nothing you can guess from the info available so far, no way I can spoil you by saying this, etc, but a similar kind of theme is all over the script. The irony is that this time it's definitely more UK-centric from what I understand.
And those would be reasonable criticisms. It's a little heavy-handed. Yet, for me, it still works, because the film is still moving forward.
There was no such theme i CR. I think you're reading into that a but much. The parkour scene wasn't about old vs new: it was about stuborness...and yes, that theme is hammered throughout.
Quote of the day.
The problem with old vs new is that you can extend it to so many things : the stubborness vs the adaptation could be considered in some sense old vs new to. The QoS dialog about having supper with the devil can be also considered as a dialog between the new CIA and the old CIA too (or rather, the old way to depict CIA :) ). Etc.
Let's say that since GE and the dinosaur line, they have a problem each time they want to deal with the fact Fleming's Bond did not live in today's world. Even the Dujardin OSS117 movies' humour are all about "The world has changed, not him" !
In CR, they made it clear Bond was not the run-of-the-mill secret agent, and yet he was proficient with computers, he could even enter into M's computer, etc. It was the character that was different from the others, it was not a case of being out of this time/out of this world.
Now in SF, they have him somehow boast about having a radio. I felt we were almost close to seeing Bond on the boat turning some analog potentiometer to tune in some AM band to show that this stuff still work nowadays. And the new Q is now incompetent with computers, you don't feel you'd have the old Q pushing a wrong button...
I feel maybe the only time in SF that the old vs new is handled well, is when he removes his new earplug to put it in Moneypenny's glass, because that behaviour is a typical "Bond mistake" caused by his super-confidence. In the end only his incredible luck saves him once again when Moneypenny nevertheless come back to save him, even though he had removed his new way to ask for help (can you imagine Fleming's Bond, or even Connery's Bond, on the phone every ten minutes to receive orders ?)
Since when does performance quality and by extension credibility count for so little? Maybe only when its conveniently matched by the personal interest and style of the production. It is true Dench's M removed some of the sexist venom the franchise came to be known for in the 60s and 70s. Bond is never going to return to its roots because it would come across as being politically incorrect and feel the whiplash from both the box office and the studio's support.
One of two things is likely to happen: Either Dench's M will gain more praise over time for delivering a much needed change in adaptation of the character with the utmost quality or the dissenters will probably never truly love another Bond movie quite like their classics. By all indication, Fiennes' M will follow in the footsteps of Dench's character and likewise Bond films in general are moving towards attracting the maximum audience where everyone can enjoy watching them. That affords them the bloated production budgets to make the films as authentic and beautiful as possible. As is the case with SPECTRE, which has a budget about the size of the worldwide gross of each Dalton films even adjusting for inflation.
It's ridiculously formulaic and disingenuous to have the camera fixed only on Bond for the entirety of a feature film. For a character who is so dark in nature to not require other characters to be apart of the story telling is counterintuitive to the stories they are trying to tell.
M is supposed to be a small supporting role. It seemed that over half the film was about M and that took major plot time away from Bond. I've noted before that I thought Craig was reduced to playing a supporting character in SF and that is not a good thing for a Bond film. The ear plug business was horrid, as it made Bond look dependent on directions from mi6. Yes, he was getting info, but it still made him look like he was taking directions which is really wrong for Bond. SF's Bond was scripted to look weakened, but it went way to far. The more I think about SF, the more I dislike what they did to Bond.
They shouldn't have bothered.