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M is wrong though; and strictly speaking Bond is only totally off the case when she intercepts him in the hotel and restrains him- and then less than 60 seconds later he meets her again in the hallway and she is assured that he is actually working for her, and she shows that she trusts him, so he's back on the books. It's certainly not until the end of the film.
I'd say LTK is different as he considers himself not to be working for MI6 anymore and out on his own: in the others he considers himself to be an MI6 spy doing the right thing, just not with the blessing of his boss. I'm not really sure where he's rogue at all in DAD- just the Cuba bit?
I must admit I'm not seeing the problem. Yes, Bond often disagrees with M and does what he thinks is right (and because he's Bond, he is right). What's the issue with that?
Those are more interesting and dramatic to me than him just standing in her office being told what to do, and I don't think they feel very similar to each other either. He wears a dinner jacket and kisses girls way more often.
I love this forum, you guys are so . . pedantic!
Thing is, screen Bond hasn't had a proper mission since the 90's, aside from CR I suppose. Time to get zombieBond back to work, I reckon.
Three out of a possible six.
To be completely honest, I never liked the idea of Bond breaking into M's flat. Dench's M seems like the sort of boss who'd immediately have the guy sacked or even imprisoned for doing something like that. I can't see any other version of Bond doing such a thing either.
That said I really didn't mind Bond going 'off grid' in QOS, or even at the end of SF. It made more sense from a story perspective for me.
I think it's a slightly random beat in the story: I'm not really sure what it's supposed to say about either of them, other than Bond getting a little bit of info from her terminal. It doesn't upset me but just feels a bit off somehow, where the scene where he's in her house in SF doesn't.
Part indicating his capabilitieties, part showing off.
It does serve 007's purposes to feel out his standing after the Madagacar job. Better than getting chewed out in M's office.
Funnily enough if I think he did it them, certainly Brown, they'd come off looking weaker and more vulnerable than Dench does I reckon.
Quite odd when you think that Mallory is the only M whose house we haven't seen :D
The point is that drama doesn't have to come so often from tension between Bond and his bosses. It could be found in the characters and situations faced by Bond in the mission itself.
Yes, but that's been established as a trademark of the character from the beginning. The fact it happens often shouldn't be any more bothersome than the fact Bond fires a gun in every film.
Well I don't think three times in twenty years is that often: and it's been different each time. They're only often if you watch all the films close together, and they're not really designed for that.
I would say that it is: but a bit more tension from other places just adds to the drama and excitement, I'd say.
Are we saying that nothing new can be added then? I refute that it is that repetitious, but it seems a rather arbitrary rule that repetition is good, but only repetition of some elements established before some point in 1974 or whatever it is.
I think the main reason is that it gets the two characters together in a scene for the first time that feels private enough for M to give him the talk she does. It shows Bond is a bit of a loose cannon who will follow his own path of investigation if needed, and it gives the sense that M can or will warm to Bond despite this. It's purely practical from a script point of view, and one could argue it even works. It's just when you think about it it's a bit silly and even out of character for M/Bond because of the script necessities it needs to achieve.
Regardless, I completely agree with you, it's a bit of a stretch and a random beat, especially when compared to SF.
"You've got a bloody cheek!"
* Bond raises eyebrow *
Take two people in a room: one wants something, and scene-partner wants something as well... Take this away and make a good scene (if a character didn't want something, then it's just Basil Exposition talking)...
Yeah you're completely right; it does everything which is needed and yet, yeah... I can't even put into words what feels off about it, I don't know what it is really. Maybe that Bond has no particular reason to do it (obviously we know he's there mostly to steal some info, but it's not really clear why M thinks he's there) - it's just a weird situation. Add to that some slightly odd lines: the 'half-monk' thing always felt a bit unwieldy to me; it's just not a snappy line. And the odd moment where she threatens to have him killed for saying her name when there's only them there... it's just a bit weird.
In SF it feels more understandable as he's flying under the radar at that point, so trespassing feels about right, and he kind of doesn't care that he shocks her because she made the order which 'killed' him. It's also got some actually killer lines ('enjoying death') and a couple of gags which really work ('you're not bloody sleeping here'): for me it's a far superior scene.
In CR it's just an odd scene that feels off to me, for some of the reasons I mention and others I can't quite put my finger on.
We never saw Robert Brown's M house.
I'd be quite happy seeing that change in direction again, even if it's just for 1 movie. Bond can then go back to being as rogue as he likes in the next one, and the Scooby gang can pop up wherever they damned well like, but it would be nice to see a return to the original formula for one more movie.
I also read that P&W wanted to call one of the Bond films Magic 44 (based on YOLT). It would be interesting to know what first drafts of scripts were like by P&W, and how much they differed from the end product.
If their first drafts were more in line with proper Fleming adaptations, and got tampered and altered by endless rewrites from others afterwards, then all is forgiven by me on calling them out, and I would then hold them in much higher esteem than I currently do.
I’ve nothing against that (obviously as I like a lot of movies which start that way!) but I’ve also seen it, and I don’t mind them taking a different way to do it at all.
Don’t forget the ‘87 one had him arguing with M and then disobeying his orders; ‘74 had M giving the nod to Bond going on a personal mission, ‘69 had M remove Bond from his mission and Bond attempt to resign as a result, even ‘79 had Bond going off the books for a while. Alterations of this ‘formula’ are part of the formula.
They pack their scripts full of Fleming stuff, some of it rather deep dives like the one I mentioned.
For me I think a lot of it comes down to the dialogue after a certain point. Like I said it's a very purposeful scene and technically functions correctly in the context of the movie. But yes, lines such as 'any thug can kill. I want you to take your ego out of the equation' and 'this might be too much for a blunt instrument to understand but arrogance and self awareness seldom go hand in hand' are not things I expect many people to actually say, even in a Bond film. They feel just a bit too cerebral and weighty, especially coming from a disgruntled boss after her employee has broken into her flat (as you say for little reason).
I do find one of CR's biggest flaws is actually its dialogue, as much as I like that film. Lines like 'you know what I can do with my little finger' are a bit strange and crude on rewatch too. It's one of the ways in which I've always found SF is a vast improvement in terms of script (things like Silva's speech about the rats feels far more natural and interesting by comparison, despite being just as weighty and metaphorical).
Yeah it's really over-written. Almost to the point where it's hard to understand what they're trying to say: they're just sort of swapping complex metaphors at one point rather than replying to each other in a conversation. Even just the use of 'half-monk' is so weird: monks aren't really part of people's metaphorical vocabulary. 'Priest' would feel slightly more natural perhaps.
Definitely: the rat speech is one of the all time best scenes in Bond, I say. It's beautifully written.
And the little finger line always stood out to me too: not for Bond's reply funnily enough (I quite like his punchline) but more that Vesper's line about 'if all was left of you was your little finger' is just a strange, unnatural thing to say- I remember it stood out as such to me in the cinema as well. I don't really love the 'armour' stuff there either: it's lots of metaphorical language being used in a way people don't usually talk. Obviously artifice in Bond dialogue is nothing new, but this is done is a slightly overly flowery and complex way, when it's dealing with stuff which is trying to connect emotionally with the audience.
I don't know who is responsible for this dialogue: it doesn't really feel like anything in the other films.