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I hope so, but unfortunately Barbara is working on a film of Othello with Craig, so we might not hear anything until 2026. But there's always the videogame, which has been in development for over 3 years - hopefully we learn more about how that's going soon. Things are definitely looking up, the worst is behind us!
Yeah. James Bond fans are in a better place now. The upcoming game is indeed a good sign.
With you all the way on this. Yep, it's a generational thing.
I still expect scale, set pieces, etc., maybe back-to-basics is a more appropriate turn. I'm not sure there needs to be such a emphasis on going big above all else. Mission Impossible and John Wick have stolen a lot of the franchise's thunder in terms of spectacle and action, I have a hard time seeing EON being able to compete with them in those areas. They can, however, deliver superior storytelling, characters, filmmaking, etc.
Maybe insofar as the 40+ crowd is perhaps less likely to play video games or read comics (but it really depends on the individual in all honesty). Otherwise yeah, I agree.
I’ll also say this - say, hypothetically, we get a Bond video game in 2026, and then the next Bond movie in 2027. I suspect if a younger were to talk about this era in hindsight, they’d say there was actually kind of an abundance of Bond material in the run up to Bond 26. We had Higson’s OHiMSS in ‘23, The Road to a Million that same year, graphic novels, and then of course a Bond video game and a film. That’s not nothing, even if not all are to everyone’s tastes. This franchise is definitely alive.
The thing about Bond is that it requires the actor to do a lot of work physically, even if they don’t jump off cliffs or whatever like Tom Cruise. It always drums up a bit of publicity (Craig and his numerous injuries certainly did).
I think the major difference between Bond’s stunt work and MI’s in terms of publicity is that the Bond franchise tends to showcase the different teams/people working on these films. You get a sense of what the stuntmen do, how VFX factors into it, how the direction/editing helps this (it’s cool learning about the Matera sequences in NTTD for instance - wonderful use of practical and VFX). With MI I get the sense some people believe that Tom Cruise actually scaled the Burj Khalifa without a safety harness or a load of other people around him. I’m sure many praise it for ‘not using CGI’ (even though CGI and VFX is very much used). So on the one hand it’s not where I’d want them to go with the next Bond - making the lead actor look like some sort of Action Man by doing some sort of hyped up stunt to better another franchise (which may or may not be gripping). But at the same time an opportunity for a cool stunt shouldn’t be wasted.
I believe they also shot in Japan for SF (although Craig may well not have been there as you said).
It’s about what’s needed for the story. SF has a lot of UK locations, but it has its share of set pieces and locations. The older movies and books took place in a limited number of locations, and it works. Maybe we could have another Bond film akin to DN or FRWL where the bulk of the story takes place in a one or two foreign countries. Again, only if it works for the story.
The only shot, btw, they actually filmed in China was an establishing shot of the neon highway and the skyline that was later greenscreened. The rest was shot on London. Movie magic.
Those, and the chase through the Underground/gunfight at the enquiry may not have been as huge as some action scenes in other Bond films, but they were certainly set pieces.
Nice, impressive, isn’t it?
As @mtm said those are set pieces.
How can you justify the end sequence not being a set-piece, then? It goes on for a considerable length of time and starts off with a gunfight outside, has a helicopter crashing into a house and exploding, and ends with an underwater fight.
Thank you for refreshing my memory. You are right. I got caught in some Straw Dogs comparisons. Forgot about the choppa!
Technically I suppose the definition of set piece is:
“passage or section of a novel, play, film, or piece of music that is arranged in an elaborate or conventional pattern for maximum effect.
The Shanghai fight and the finale of SF are certainly elaborate (again, helicopters explode, we get underwater fights during that Scotland sequence… it’s less Home Alone and more Straw Dogs on steroids to paraphrase a critic whose name I’ve forgotten).
Anyway, I think it’s a bit of a myth that Bond needs massive stunts akin to Tom ‘Action Man’ Cruise in MI. I don’t think any of the Connery films have anything too elaborate. They have spectacle and odd, interesting set pieces, sure, but it’s only in the Moore era we get stuntmen parachuting or free falling from great heights. You can have a great Bond film and have that more grounded scale.
The staircase fight in CR is absolutely an excellent set piece; not least as it’s crucial to the story of the film with its aftermath.
OK but the shower stabbing in Psycho kinda sorta is an underwater fight...Oh never mind me, I'm just being a butthead enjoying the battle of definitions. As far as webpages go, is THIS running disagreement a setpiece ?
+1
If you're invested in the story and characters, it doesn't need to be a big action setpiece.
Compare the scene in TLD right after Saunders' death up to where Bond draws his gun on the mother and kid in the amusement park, with the rooftop chase later in the movie.
I know which of those two scenes I'd choose to watch over and over.
^This. The action fits the story rather than the other way around.
Here's another defintion floating around:
"A sequence that usually includes action, spectacle and a lot of money being spent."
FRWL didn't need the setpiece with the helicopter and the setpiece with the speedboats. They weren't necessary to the story and could be handled smaller or completely left out. I guess those kind of action setpieces are just there for those of us who like Bond-movies to be actionmovies with stunts, explosions, chases and such.
Possibly first introduced with TSWLM ski jump parachute, and moving onto the MR pts, OP’s Bond on top of the plane, TLDs cargo net fight and many more.
Has the Craig era been more devoid of this big stun?
The CR crane fight and perhaps the pts of NTTD are the best examples I can think of?
Does Bond need to return to that big impressive set piece signature stunt going forward with Bond 26?
In terms of setpieces I think the keyword here is tension that almost gives you sweaty palms.
A passive Bond and Maddy sitting in the DB5 in NTTD while the bad guys shoot the car up is tension. The Miami Airport setpiece with its ticking device is tension. Most of the poorly executed setpieces in SP weren't tension. Stunts alone may look cool, but they usually do nothing for me, probably because the signature stunts are always in the trailer to sell the movie, ruining the surprise.
By that logic the Shanghai fight with Patrice is still a set piece, as is the train fight with Grant in FRWL.
I don’t think the action sequences in Bond need to be absolutely integral to the story. The car chase in TLD is an example - in essence it adds little and without it the story doesn’t change. But it’s still cool and sometimes you need an action beat. Ideally it’ll move the plot along but not always. It’s just about entertaining the audience.
SF has more action and variety of set pieces than something like GF or DN. Both those films have a lack of bigger stunts even compared to FRWL’s helicopter and boat explosions (and those in themselves aren’t on the scale of TSWLM’s ski jump or MR’s free fall). I don’t think Bond always needs to ‘outdo’ itself or other franchises with increasingly massive ‘signature’ stunts (although even then the Craig era broke records with things like the SP explosion). Seeing as there’ll always be those sequences/spectacle in Bond they should just craft the most Bondian and interesting action scenes they can without specifically worrying about how ‘big’ it is.