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i am hoping not I want bond to move on post Craig's era
I agree. The next era is going to be tough enough as it is leaving the shadow of Craig’s Bond behind. To have him play a role as Executive Producer would just make things tougher.
Good point.
I do find it funny that the Craig era is divided up into two different sections; Pre Mendes, and Mendes Post.
Indeed, given that we're talking five films. LOL
It’ll be interesting seeing how NTTD fits in with the others. It looks like it’s going for the same style of the previous 2 films, but also looks to be the most vibrant and colorful film of the entire Craig era.
Give me Pre Mendes any day. Mendes Post has trashed the Craig era. Let's hope NTTD leaves the Craig era on a high, so we can forget the Mendes blip.
Same here, that’s why I’m hoping we don’t get any more directors who think of themselves as “too good” for the franchise.
Where did you get that quote from? Mendes said that?
No, it’s in his style of direction. It’s just painfully obvious. He’s a great director, and Skyfall is quite good, but you can tell the style that he did bring to the Bond’s felt very pretentious. He lacks the working class craftsmen style of Martin Campbell, Peter Hunt, or Terence Young, which I think is what’s needed for Bond. Yes Skyfall is an incredibly rich film, and it’s style works because it felt appropriate to celebrate the franchises 50th anniversary that way. But Mendes isn’t without his flaws, and those flaws come to the forefront in SPECTRE. His “artsy fartsy” style is better than that of Marc Forester’s, but the man’s predilection’s to shake things to the very core is what holds him back imo.
I hate the start of Skyfall when bond falls to the bottom of the river after being shot and then reappears out of nowhere like superman. Very pretentious.........
I'm not sure why more is not made of this madness ?
More rubbish here :
To be honest, I liked how Skyfall started. It felt very much like it was influenced by the end of YOLT, and the beginning of TMWTGG. Did I find it jarring that he’s in Superman mode after being shot? Yeah, but I have similar issues when they do that in the Brosnan era as well. I agree the death by oil scene was complete rubbish. I’ve never been more annoyed by a reference to another film in all of my life. The subtext of the scene is also painfully obvious, and the way they follow it up with these fades with a Judi Dench voiceover felt insulting. That’s why Marc Forester ties with Lee Tamahori as my least favorite director of the series. The man was so full of himself. His whole desire to explore the elements of “Earth/Wind/Fire” just made me think of him as an over glorified hippy.
Personally, I really liked the technical and artistic direction of Spectre, from photography to editing, the whole fit well with the atmosphere that Mendes wanted to give, maybe in a pompous way, to his movie, create something twilight and macabre echoing with the title and several set pieces (the Day of the Dead in mind). Although when I rewatch the film recently I was baffled by the weaknesses of the script, I would welcome anytime soon something similar to Mendes's style of direction, which despite all its pretension remains much more clear than that of Forster for example and makes me think of the classicism of the early Bond flicks, but with an artsy flavour.
I’m sure they did have a huge uphill battle when tasked with following up Skyfall. I really loved SPECTRE the first time I saw it, for the exact reasons that you’ve mentioned. Even had it in my top 10 at one point, but the more, and more I thought about that film, coupled with with a 2nd viewing didn’t do the film any favors for me. But when you mention that Mendes shouldn’t be blamed for the faults of the script, it’s something that I don’t entirely agree with. A bad script is a bad script, but the director should be able to take the worse a bad script contains, and work it into something digestible for the audience. Terence Young had to work with Richard Maibaum to rework the script of FRWL, which started off as incredibly convoluted. Together they rearranged scenes, reworked dialogue, made the plot feel more intricate, all while the film was in production, and it worked. Mind you that’s a different example from the various issues with SPECTRE, but even then I feel Mendes was too busy focusing on the visuals, focusing on the action set pieces, focusing on trying to top Skyfall, and falls short as a result. I’ll give you that SPECTRE did feel like a throwback to the classic Bond era, and that’s a large reason as to why I loved it upon first viewing. But now I’d argue that’s one of its weakness. That style doesn’t work within the confides of the Craig era. Casino Royale started as a gritty, down to earth thriller that puts more emphasis on realism rather than fantasy. QOS was QOS, and that’s all that needs to be said about that film, and Skyfall continued that tradition, with an added flair to it. There was still some elements that felt out of place in Skyfall (the gadget laden DB5 being one of them), but it didn’t depart far from what CR had established. SPECTRE does unfortunately, and it’s lazy attempts to connect all the previous films are the what drives the nail into the coffin for me.
The SPECTRE ending was amateurish or lazy film making ?
The start of skyfall should have explained how he survived the fall. Amateurish or lazy film making ?
I kind of like SPECTRE’s ending...it felt nice seeing Craig’s Bond drive off to a happy ending after all the crap he’s been through. It’s a travesty that the ending of that film looks to be undercut by NTTD, in the same way that Skyfall was undercut by SPECTRE. This is why I have a huge issue with the connected storytelling aspect of the Craig era, all it does is just show EON shooting themselves in the foot because they wrote themselves into corners. I agree that they should’ve explained how Bond survived the fall, but it doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb for me.
I think that's a very strange way of looking at it. Bond is always supposed to be better made than it deserves to be; that's why having artists like John Barry and Ken Adam working on it, when they really deserved to be working on higher art than this, made it what it is. To resent Bond being made well is kind of misunderstand the whole point of it and I think says more about the person finding issues with a director being non-'working class' than it does the director.
Bond is supposed to feel rich and sumptuous and dripping in quality and artistry, that's the point of it, it's why Fleming filled his books with expensive brand names and lucid descriptions of exotic foreign locales. No-one has ever claimed he's perfect though, so to say he 'isn't without his flaws' is pointless. But he's never claimed to be "too good" for the series, nor has he behaved like he has. His crime in your eyes appears to be that he made one Bond film extremely well.
If you watch it again you'll probably think about it more after my comments about it.
It shouldn't happen in a bond film because they have so many writers.
Writing Credits
John Logan ... (screenplay by) and
Neal Purvis ... (screenplay by) &
Robert Wade ... (screenplay by) and
Jez Butterworth ... (screenplay by)
John Logan ... (story by) and
Neal Purvis ... (story by) &
Robert Wade ... (story by)
SPECTRE’s ending should have fare welled Craig as bond but no they insisted he come back because it wasn't a proper fare well....What crap ?
He only came back for the $25 million.......and more free omega's etc ;))
I really hate the criticism 'lazy'. It is, in itself, hugely lazy: these people are anything but lazy. Anyone who thinks they were sitting back with their feet on their desk saying "that'll do" and not flying across the globe, pulling all-nighters desperately trying to get their films to be the best shows a massive lack of understand of the nature of these things.
Yes, Spectre fell apart while they were making it; Mendes has said as much. We know they were being pulled all over the place by the studio on that one and there were a myriad of pressures, and ultimately Mendes couldn't save it. Would Terence Young have been magically able to save it? I very much doubt it.
I really hope that the new era will see the establishment of a stable creative team, already having several ideas for the future and a clear vision, that will be able to avoid the too many cooks situation.
I never acted as if Skyfall was a bad film though? So how can I perceive it as a “crime in my eyes”, when I’ve given Skyfall the credit that it deserves? Several times throughout this thread I’ve praised Skyfall for its strengths. I literally praised the film as being the perfect way to celebrate 50 years of Bond. The only criticism I’ve given Skyfall was that it was dragged down by the plot of SPECTRE, which I think is a legitimate criticism. I also don’t “resent” Bond films being well made, I’ve literally made a thread on how much I love Peter Hunt and OHMSS. “Resent” is too strong a word, even when we’re talking about Marc Forester, or Lee Tamahori. I may poke fun at the both of them, but that doesn’t mean I “resent” them.
“ I think says more about the person finding issues with a director being non-'working class' than it does the director.” How so? I’m pointing out that style of someone like Martin Campbell feels more suited to the material given then Mendes’ style. Meaning I think Campbell had a better handle on the action, and suspense then Mendes did. Campbell knows how to capture the grittier aspects of the violence, and the intensity of the suspense. I’m not implying that Mendes doesn’t have a handle on both of those; he does, but not to the degree of Campbell.
“Bond is supposed to feel rich and sumptuous and dripping in quality and artistry”, I agree, but let’s not act like Mendes is the only director to insert any of that into the films.
It’s true that Mendes never claimed to be “too good” for the material, nor that he acted as if he was. What I simply stated was that it comes across in the filmmaking, perhaps subconsciously, but the fact of the matter is that his “richness” only really worked once, and unfortunately didn’t work the second time. Is that a bad criticism? No, it’s pointing out that SPECTRE was more style than actual substance. If Mendes had spent more time working on the flaws of SPECTRE’s storyline, then I wouldn’t be here making these claims. The fact of the matter is I think Mendes’ “style over substance” direction on SPECTRE is why I don’t consider him one of the best Bond directors. He’s more akin to Lewis Gilbert and Guy Hamilton, than he is Terence Young, Peter Hunt, or Martin Campbell. Is that a dig against Mendes? No, it’s stating that he unfortunately fell into the trap that both Gilbert and Hamilton did. Gilbert’s direction was amazing on TSWLM, middle of the line for YOLT, and not that great on MR. Hamilton’s efforts result in two Bond films that I love, and two that I find to be incredibly weak. Even John Glen knew how important it was to have equal amounts of style and substance for his films, and he’s only really had 1 failure during his run (AVTAK). His other four films rank, for me anyways, along the top half of the greatest Bond films, two of which I actually consider to be in the top 10 (TLD and FYEO.)
“Lazy” isn’t a bad criticism, I’m sorry to say. When I say “lazy filmmaking”, I obviously don’t think of directors and filmmakers sitting on their arses doing absolutely nothing. What I consider “lazy” is the pathetic attempt to connect all of Craig’s Bond films together, to try and give the impression that they’ve somehow brilliantly planned this back from the beginning. I wish I could say I loved this idea, but I don’t. I despise it, and I despise it even more that they stupidly felt the need to incorporate Silva’s plot in Skyfall to make it appear that he was on board with Blofeld all along. That’s why I think Skyfall was unfortunately knocked down a few pegs as a result. I’m not saying the studio issues weren’t responsible for the flaws of SPECTRE, they were to a degree, but when the end result is a overall plot that’s so weak it nearly borderlines on stupidity, then I’m sorry but that’s an issue with the filmmaking, no matter how hard they tried.
I’m just hoping for more consistency in the next era. The Good, Bad, Good, Bad pattern of Craig’s era has been really off putting to me. Hopefully NTTD is good. Maybe a return to the Connery/Moore style Bond. And finally, for the darn Gunbarrel to be placed where it belongs. Not asking for too much haha.
Totally. What has plagued both the Brosnan and Craig era is this script rewrite frenzy on each damn film. Way too many cooks, and it shows. The films often lack a clear single vision. The exception is CR, as it was originally based on a novel, so the writers couldn't deviate too much away from the source.
We need to hanker back to the days of Maibaum again, but like a few have said on here, the studio execs have too much say these days. Too much input. This didn't happen during Cubby's time, which is why he could exert more control over the scripts.
We don't really know how much Bab's hands are tied behind her back these days by the studio exec committee, but would explain why every script appears to be an incoherent mis-mash of different ideas cobbled together, and why gaping plot holes are often exposed much later.
I think Goldneye and Skyfall are the other exceptions to this problem. I also don’t think that Purvis and Wade are the strongest writers. They’re perfectly fine, but I think what elevated Casino Royale was Paul Haggis.
I'm sorry, but how exactly is that pretentious? There are plenty of artistic touches in QoS that are unique to that film but this example feels off to me. Is the scene in Goldfinger pretentious, too?
I think it’s more to do with the M Voice Overs, and the overlapping images of watching Bond get arrested, while superimposing the shot of Fields lying dead on the bed. It’s incredibly pretentious, whereas the scene in Goldfinger didn’t exactly need to do something like that to hit you with the severity of the situation.