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Comments
That's a good idea :-)
The problem is that I don't think the Spectre story resonated strongly enough to form the basis for a straight sequel. I would be happy to see Craig return but I'd prefer a more standalone movie. It seems they've boxed themselves in a bit during the Craig era, making it harder to change tack as required every few years. That's the downside of taking a clear sequential approach with continuity between films. None of that stuff used to matter much and they could change time easily if they wanted to.
Well!
I was talking to a mate about this the other day. It's something that's not really be discussed, but I think it's pertinent. The evidence suggests that, as they always have, the general public (I include myself in that) want Bond to be standalone event movies. Continuity does not seem to be a concern and in many respects could be seen as a hindrance. It's no surprise to me that CR and SF were the critical hits of the era, given neither had any baggage going in.
I've been advocating this for a while. Developing the character across films is more important that constructing a superficial overarching narrative.
Exactly.
GE was quite the step up from LTK- I think. And same goes for QOS to SF. (Not really sure about inflation.)
1977-1989 there were consistently two year gaps, and the b.o. went up and down, but mostly down. I think only MR and TLD did better than its predecessor.
Probably the truest thing I've ever seen written on here.
The problems of the Craig era in a nutshell that ended up resulting in the convoluted car crash of a third act in SP.
Going forward Babs needs to have this tattooed onto the inside of her eyelids so she gets reminded of it every time she blinks.
But the most successful Craig film was an stand-alone mission film: SF. So it seems this style of Bond film is still the most successful way EON can go. Sure we can delve into Bond's psyche like they did in that film, but it can still be episodic missions ( if we don't count the SP retcon).
I've discussed this in another thread somewhere, but I genuinely believe the appetite is for proper event movies every few years, rather than those that are episodic in nature as you find with most modern franchise movies. I think SF is very clear evidence of this.
I agree wholeheartedly, it just needs to be done well.
When Bond was doing stand-alone missions, the benchmark was always the latest film since there were no connections to the previous one. I believe it's easier for the franchise to stay fresh with stand-alones than sequels. EON are not backed in a corner when things to wrong (like MR, for instance), and can easily change the tone of the films.
This is an excellent point.
I think when Craig leaves they may move on from this approach, and go back to a non-linear timeline. It was something for the reboot era, but I don't think they are constrained by it, unless they choose to be.
The thing is I don't think the idea of doing it is the problem, it's just it hasn't been done well. Why it doesn't work in Spectre is because it hadn't been planned out that way. They got the rights to Spectre and Blofeld and mashed a way to get them to link in with Craig's other films - I really don't think when they made Skyfall they ever conceived of Spectre being behind it all - they made a definite step to move away from Quantum after QoS. If it was done in a thought out way and cleverly done it could work.
It absolutely could work in theory, but I think it's well down the list of creative options. Why would an audience want to wait three years for the next episodic entry in the Bond series, when they have television shows such as GoT sating their appetite on a weekly basis, or Netflix allowing them to binge. I think Bond to all extents and purposes operates in a different creative space to other franchise films like SW and Marvel. I'm all for some character development across a tenure and threads of continuity between the major players, but I don't think the wider narrative should act as the connective tissue between films. As others have mentioned above, the ability to switch gears in reaction to the previous entry has always been Bond's trump card and they shouldn't forget that.
EDIT: Moreover, Marvel, SW and co. are releasing these continuity stories at a much faster clip, and so the wait to know the next part of the saga is much less - as you note. We are increasingly becoming binge watchers due to tv as well.
Yes, spot on.
Couldn't have said it better.
The example I would use personally is MI:RN. I watched it once at the cinema and I'll probably go to see the next one. But I can't remember very much about it because I'm not that invested in it like I am Bond.
By having the films so intrinsically built on continuation you force yourself into a position (which we are at now) with very little room to manoeuvre. Assuming Dan stays, on neither ignoring or continuing the Blofeld story started in SP are ideal solutions.
And at the end of the day isn't this the bottom line?
The whole execution, from the moment they followed on CR with a secret organisation arbitrarily named Quantum in the misguided idea it made the title make more sense, to the final collapsing of the whole house of cards with the desperately cobbled together SP final act the whole thing has not only not been carefully mapped out years beforehand but actually comes across as being written about 30 seconds before they start the camera rolling.
I watched an interview with Vince Gilligan last and it's so obvious how much care and thought went into creating Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul and making sure it all interlocks so richly and rewardingly for the audience.
EON's writing team by comparison are cavemen haphazardly scratching patterns on a rock with bits of flint.
As a Bond fan it's embarassing quite frankly.
We got the usual responses from both Elba and Hiddlestone. Turner is a little more guarded.....
http://news.tvguide.co.uk/poldarks-aidan-turner-addresses-james-bond-rumours-in-our-bts-bafta-interview/
The producers seem to take more notice of the box office than the reviews of critics or the bond fans, so to them with sp making so much money they see it as a successful film and move on to the next bond film more confident than ever that the series will continue for many more years.
We all know the faults of sp but there's not much use in getting fired up everyday about it.
Get fired up for the big one ,Liverpool winning the CUP and bagging manu which is more fun than bagging sp son.