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:P
BB MGW Sam Mendes and Jez Butterworth all busy with theatre projects. Maybe BB and MGW are hanging out in theatreland to try and get Sam back on board for B25 with Jez Butterworth on sole writing duties.
Hasn t something similar been done already? Was it Jane Bond, prhaps? Just rings a bell.
They better enjoy because if they go that route that may be all they're producing from now on.
Agreed. Bond is best when it has a little bit of tension/suspense and even darkness, but I don't watch Bond for psychological insight or melodrama. There are lots of other films I can and do watch if I want intellectually stimulating cinema. It annoys me that Mendes insisted on bringing his Cambridge student theatre pretensions to Bond, but wasn't able (in my view) to deliver the fundamentals of a satisfying Bond film - danger, sex, suspense, glamour.
The problem with Mendes and Skyfall for me is that it falls between two stools. It's neither clever arthouse drama, nor entertaining thriller. The writing is too poor and (IMO) the direction too sloppy. The end result is a rather bland, blancmange of a film.
Exactly right, but that's a criticism that could be leveled at the whole era to one degree or another.
True, but for me SF is the low point. The other three I all enjoy to some extent, even SP.
I liked SF ...balanced enough for me until the ending which was a bit too sentimental.
I found CR's ending far more sentimental, and perhaps that's why I don't watch the film all that often even though I rate it very highly. Not sure.
EDIT: Darn: I just realized I'm going off topic on this thread. Sorry.
Bond is all about danger, sex and glamour... And violence. If dark, I don't want the character to go through emotional breakdowns and dilemmas, doubting everything he believes in or why did he join the service, etc. I want him to be challenged, like in From Russia With Love, fighting shadows trying to outsmart the opposition, which he should do in the end and come out as triumphant. I want a villain that gives 007 a run for his money, and someone who's menacing. Not Alex DeLarge in a clown suit. The first two Connery films depict these elements beautifully. And Goldfinger to an extent. They should follow the path of those in terms of character development, filmmaking, atmosphere and narrative rather than following the cliches of the modern era, capitalize on the success of the past and immerse a pastiche story that wouldn't make sense built on those "homages".
I actually felt the Cold War was full of ambiguities. Capitalism and Communism are flip sides of the same secular materialistic coin. This is very much reflected in the Bond films, where the Russians are actually very rarely out and out villains.
I actually think the adversaries we face today in the form of extremist Islam are much more black and white in terms of who is right and wrong.
It's like the Mitchell and Webb sketch with the SS officers twigging that they're actually the bad guys. Do the black masked nutters slitting throats on video and raping Yazidi girls actually think they're the good guys?
I think the Bond villains should always be upper class.
But, for Bond to travel in the middle of Afghan deserts or whatsoever just to stop a brutal caveman would just be boring. That should be left to the likes of Strike Back or Black Hawk Down, if you catch my drift. It's more of a Chris Ryan thing.
No we didn't.
I agree. I wasn't advocating that Bond take on the Islamists. I was just saying that morality and good and bad in the Cold War era were notoriously nebulous - many shades of grey etc. Contrary to the post above which said that in the Cold War it was always clear who was good and bad.
Tbh, it is rarely entirely clear who is entirely on the side of good or bad.
I actually prefer it when Bond steers well clear of contemporary politics.
I don't think bad and good are at all clear these days. Occupying other countries, executing infidels--while there are vast degrees of difference in those two actions, everything is pretty messed/mixed up. YMMV.
Bond does steer clear of contemporary politics for the most part (as someone pointed out above, TLD is troubling in that regard). But the Cold War overtones in the novels or classic '70s and '80s Bonds are unmistakable. Bond is unimaginable without that, which is why many advocate for period pieces.
What made the Bond films better was that it didn't weigh on contemporary politics of the world and used third party adversaries as their antagonists. Despite the Fleming novels always putting the Soviets in the role of the villains, From Russia With Love's film adaptation did the right thing by bringing SPECTRE in to play the two world powers.
Nothing is black and white, just fantasies some want to believe. For the Russians, we were the bad guys, and for us, they were. There always have been complications in every era because let's face it, nothing is pure. Leaders aren't always matching their patriotic images, either.
Maybe so. But, they weren't depicted as villains, either. Just enemies of the western world. And some tainted beliefs.
And yes, the good and the bad are definitely mixed up now that there are no "empires" to demonize one another. Just corporations and organizations, arms dealers amongst. But, Bond should always steer clear of these guys. A Spectre type organization would always do nice and let us believe they are behind every chaos. Because... That's what makes Bond films entertaining. It's always about good vs evil, yet they are so fantastic they could just be true.
http://www.denofgeek.com/us/movies/james-bond/257462/james-bond-its-time-to-return-to-absurdity-with-love