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M: invites Bond to brief him the mission, rant a little should the occasion call for it, and send him out the leather door.
Q: Just give him a few gadgets and get back to work on your tech stuff and whatnot.
Moneypenny: See Bond come in while you're on the typewriter/computer, flirt a little and send him directly to M's office. Should Bond come back, flirt a little more and ask him about your chances for a dinner date with him, then send him out.
That's all there is. That's all I want from these characters. Nothing more.
This is where political correctness has destoryed things. Fear off offence with sexual harassment in the work place. And even more focus on it after Weinstein. They have been very obvious in their toning down of any nuendo between Bond and MP.. Craig's Bonds relationship with MP is painfully platonic. Other than a few bits of banter in Skyfall.
True. The Moneypenny scenes are too PC.......they've even made her black to make sure!
And we have that very thing from DR right up until DAD - that's 20 movies. From CR onwards they have worked to find a fresher approach which feels more fitting for the 21st century. We can argue about whether or not the new M, Q and Moneypenny are essential or not, but I think the general wider audience have affection for those characters and like to see them, but the old approach was (for many) becoming stale and out-of-date.
It was sufficient for all the classics. Good enough for me, if you ask me.
I don't have to know what Q is doing in his pajamas, drinking some hipster prolytic digestive enzyme shake (what's that, again?) and showing off to everybody his cyber knowledge is unbeatable (only to be made a fool of by Silva), or worry about his cats. He's a nerdy geek, we get it. Just give Bond the gadgets, demonstrate them to him, tell him to bring them in one piece and that's all. That's all there is to Q.
As for M, we don't need to see his every political encounter with other members from the Whitehall and clash with them. That's not what I want to see in a Bond film. If I want that, I'll just go and watch The Thick of It with Malcolm Tucker roasting every government official he encounters every two seconds.
Tanner? I'll be much satisfied if he only appears once every five or six films to aid M in his briefing over a very critical assignment his better knowledge in the case commands him to be there.
No more Scooby Gang.
Mirrors my feelings exactly.
Sure, you're entitled to your opinion, but Bond has survived for 55 years because the producers have strived (sometimes successfully, sometimes less so) to keep Bond moving forward - into the 21st century now, a very different place to the world of the 1960's, 70's, 80's etc. Whether you like it or not, Mi6 (M in particular) have played a more dramatic role in the Bond films since TWINE (probably GE when M became a woman) and, because that has increased the Mi6 characters' screen time and relevance to the stories, that naturally means adding more flesh on the bones and nuance to characters like M, Q, Moneypenny. Bond evolves to survive - if the films didn't, the franchise would die.
I'm simply saying that after 20 films (over 40 years) which played it the same with the supporting characters, it made perfect sense to explore new angles because things were becoming creatively stale. Eon re-booted Bond after DAD because they felt (correctly IMO) that they had reached a creative dead-end with the old approach.
They need Bond to operate in the spy-world of Mi6, hence they need those characters, M in particular, (beloved by much of the audience), and they've given M, Q, Monneypenny a bit more to do because the traditional approach was too old hat.
What they did next, however, was different. Sure, they're all financially successful (and I'd rather not repeat my long-written comments about Skyfall for, Lord knows how many time would it be), but they all are worn out. Quantum of Solace mimicking the Bourne films with little to no originality, Skyfall being a Nolan Lite Dark Knight ripoff, Spectre giving us a Spooks/MI5 story relating to surveillance (done to deah) with a Winter Soldier spin, none of them matched the genuity of Royale.
Bond has to work in the spy world of MI-6, because first and foremost he's a spy. That doesn't mean the department secretaries and quartermasters or chiefs of staff should get involved. We have the 00-Section for that if they want additional characters to be involved. They could tackle different kinds of stories, and heck without the Bond tropes if it may, and still feature Bond as the main character. All they have to do is to tell a spy story that doesn't mimic what came before, whether a Bond film or non-Bond film. They don't have to capitalize on M, Moneypenny, Q, Tanner... I'm even afraid they'll bring Loelia Ponsonby and Mary Goodnight altogether to establish them as former field agents turned MI-6 personnel just for the sake of variety. That's just uninspired.
Bond on a mission with a great story told. That's what a Bond film needs. M doesn't have to be kidnapped or held at a gunpoint in every film. Drama? No problem. But, that should come with the mission. Not personal connections or other characters from the MI-6 secretarial and desk-bound departments having newer iterations and importance to complete the story. That's just bad.
Spot on !!
The re-boot wasn't a stunt it was a bold move to inject new blood into a creatively stale franchise. (Eon admitted after DAD they really didn't know how to keep going because the creative juices were running dry.) And what they've done with the re-booted franchise has proven very successful with audiences and a lot of critics too, that's not subjective, the Craig films have been big draws, SF in particular, which puts M at the very core of the story. So I suspect Eon are satisfied they have (broadly) made the right choices. Who knows, when Craig's era ends, Bond 26 might re-boot again and you'll get the version you want, but right now that's not the way its playing.
I'm not advocating about the type of Bond film I want. If it's up to me, I'd commission another GE/TND type Bond film. But, that's not what I'm saying. The Craig films financially fared very well with the audience as did the Brosnan films for their times. Both have followed trends. Royale was rightfully successful both critically and commercially. Skyfall, and let's not deny it, please, was greatly advertised and the emotional aspect of it fared well with the critics because that's what is seen as a gem today. Analyze the film from head to toe, and it's cringeworthy. They advertised the hell out of the 50th Anniversary element which led them to obligatory Oscars. Then again, anything slightly good today is hailed as a masterpiece. They promoted it like no other Bond film. In tone, they have started to repeat themselves one after another. The rogue agent aspect, the Alec Trevelyan brother-like relationship to Bond, family reunion, dark and emotional melodrama. It's worn out. I am sure there have been people around in the production team who thought the idea of Bond and Blofeld being foster brothers was utterly stupid.
Believe me, from what I heard, I would very much rather they turned Peter Morgan's script to a screenplay and film it, than have had seen Skyfall. From what I've read, it was tonally a successor (and even darker than) to Casino Royale. A spy story with originality.
The rest of what you say is your personal opinion, which is fine, but the simple point I'm making is that the direction Eon has taken has (broadly, because nothing is perfect as we know) has worked - Mi6 and all. And SF, which does everything you seem to hate, was a huge commercial and critical success. That, as far as producers and filmmakers are concerned, is the target -- and SF hit the target. Nothing you say changes that fact.
Regarding the success of these films, it is only the last two Mendes entries which halve really shaken things up globally. CR and QOS were above average at the box office, but not earth shattering. So if one is analyzing this based on the evidence, Mendes is the most important element.
Regarding B25: I have a feeling they will move the time line forward quite a bit to accommodate Craig's advanced years. So an older Bond (possibly washed up) in a different environment, called back to face an adversary who ends up being revealed as none other than his long lost foster brother once more (perhaps pulling the strings via a surrogate). Not what I want, but I think it's what we will get. Bond as Logan.
Eon admitted they had reached a creative dead-end after DAD (and the movie and Brosnan's last 3 films are evidence of that). Eon recognised they had to change direction and be brave about it - and they were. And the result was CR. They made the right decision, otherwise I think we would have just seen the same old ideas being recycled yet again with diminishing creative and, in the end - as per Sir Roger's final films - dwindling box office returns. You can't just keep rehashing the same exact formula over and over again, you have to evolve to survive. That's what they've done - and it's worked.
Read Dynamite's James Bond comics, and you'll see what I mean. You don't have to blindly defend Eon to death, you know?
GE remains a highly celebrated entry after 22 years (on this site and with the general public) and did not require a total reboot.
So just because the current leadership reached a dead end doesn't mean there were not other ways to handle things. We will never know what could have been, but I am of the belief that the route they chose to take was not the only possible option. Irrespective, we are where we are and we will have to accept it for at least one more film.
Er? Nobody asked them to do it? Are you serious? Eon are running a huge franchise and have been doing so for 55 years - they make the decisions which keep Bond alive. They're the producers, they own it, it's their show.
Eon felt they had to change things (and they were right). The timing was good and the stars aligned because they also got the CR rights. So they took Bond back to his beginning as 007 - and it worked - big time. And, even if QOS and SP were wobbles, although I personally like them both, CR and SF were huge successes with audiences and critics - that's real. So Eon did something right.
Of course they could have could have gone in a different direction - you could say that about anything though. The Beatles didn't have to go all psychedelic with Sgt Peppers ...
Of course it's their show. They own the rights and they can do whatever they please (and that's what they've done). They've had more success than failure and that is testament to foresight, judgement, hard work and luck. They own one of the most bulletproof franchises in the history of cinema as a result. One on which the expectations of legions of fans from different generations rest.
However things can always have been done differently and sometimes better (from the perspective of some fans). That goes for actors, films and plots. I think most reasonable people will reach such a conclusion. That doesn't make those who hold such a view 'lesser' fans or 'turncoats' mind you. Just holders of a different opinion to the status quo.
I very seriously doubt that it's the " meanwhile back at the office scenes " that make the Bond franchise survive. Make that very, very seriously!
They should paint these words on EON's inner walls!