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Having said that, I think SF is more original, and a more compelling and unique vision. It's a rare type of film in this genre, comparable to the superior film which inspired it, TDK.
QoS is more action oriented, true, but this kind of film has been done better in the Bond universe and by others too imho.
SF, on the other hand, I left very underwhelmed. The audience too, were very subdued at the end. Its well made, and acted, but it just doesn't get me excited at all, for a Bond movie! The only real sense of Bond, was when 007 turns the tables on Silva. Apart from that, I didn't find much of it memorable! And subsequent viewings haven't changed! I really want to like it, but I'll take QOS over it any day!
Living room, my wife asked if anything was wrong, had something happened ? :))
In a good or bad way? Only took me ten minutes on my first viewing to realize that I was seeing something special, and I was floored throughout the rest of the movie. Couldn't have asked for more.
And re-reading the Books, helped, but I now really like it. ;)
Though QOS has by far the superior score, my favourite of all Arnold's Bond scores.
For what they were doing. Putting on screen, the hectic, death at any moment life of Bond.
I had lost touch with the literary Bond with years of Brosnan. ;)
I was a big Bourne fan during those days, and the parallels to Supremacy were very clear to me as well, in an obvious way (and I'm not just referring to shaky cam but rather the whole finding 'comfort' and 'answers' after a loved one is killed while being misunderstood by 'higher ups' in the organization). So I didn't find it as original as others might have.
Having said that, I didn't hate it. I thought Craig was immense in it and liked the hard hitting (literally) Bond he brought in that film. I just wish the pacing was more traditional Bond like. The characterizations are actually quite good, but one has to think about it. It's not 'in your face'.
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I found SF to be a return (aesthetically and stylistically) to what I'd missed in Bond since at least the 70's. There was something very sweeping and Lean'ish about the way it was filmed, which was distinctively Bond to me.
them nameless anyway) but still nothing about them apart from
they're shady and powerful. So why should I care about the films central conflict at all? In Thunderball, Fleming devoted a couple of chapters to defining SPECTRE. Describing the various members, giving Blofeld a detailed fleshed out backstory, and showing through their meeting the inner workings of their organisation, what they're all about. It's been a while since I've seen the film but in QoS all we know from the meeting is that they're trying to steal all the oil but not really it's all the water so then why was Fields covered in oil what sort of message was that supposed to send god I do not like this movie. And the name Quantum
annoys me. Mainly because they clearly just shoved it into that last scene with Greene after the backlash over the title (seriously, keep it as "the organisation" and they wouldn't have even needed to retcon, it could have literally just been SPECTRE). The non Quantum villains and henchman are either forgettable faceless stock characters (Slate for instance). Oh except the out of place ridiculously cartoonish (for this film anyway) general who Camille wants to kill. Camille by the way I've never been a fan of. To me just comes across as dull. Entirely devoid of personality outside of sour faced and revenge driven. She does get a backstory but it doesn't land emotionally because, unlike the death of Melina's parents, the audience hasn't seen it, plus the general is a one dimensional cartoon and the whole subplot is, like the rest of them, underdeveloped. The fact that her not having sex with Bond is the most memorable thing about her says it all really. Mathis, who could have been a great recurring character, gets unceremoniously killed off. M, the head of the entireity of MI6, finds the time to jet off around the world in pursuit of Bond (at least TWINE and SF had plausible story driven reasons for Dench's increased screentime). And this subplot is so completely and utterly pointless. It hinges on M not knowing if Bond is in danger of snapping or not but the audience has been following Bond for the whole film. We know he didn't kill that agent on the roof. We know that he only killed Mitchell and Slate because they were life or death scenarios and we know that Bond is, despite his grief, still professional getting the job done. So this subplot is pointless and irritating. When Bond says he never left, we already know, we know he's been doing his job for the whole time. And Bond defying orders and going rogue, yawn. LTK did it perfectly, no point in it more (I didn't
mind in Spectre though because of how little consequence it was, and it made for some fun character interactions). The only purpose this subplot has is to give Bond his mandatory shag with agent Fields. A fun character but one that could have been removed completely. To be fair, I guess her death is a way of establishing Quantum's menace, so in that respect she served a purpose. But the GF homage undermines any emotional impact of her death imo. Takes me out of the film completely. Very misguided especially in a film that tries its best to avoid the tropes. M sends Fields because she doesn't trust Bond you see. Because he's a lose cannon. But not really. And then she does trust him in the end. In yet another character arc/subplot that was crammed into the film, detracting not just from the woefully underdeveloped main plot but from Bond's character arc of dealing with the loss of Vesper. Now, this wasn't actually necessary. Fleming himself ended CR with "the bitch is dead", no emotionally driven follow up, and the end of the film (with the introduction line, etc) seemed to point towards a fully formed Bond anyway. So if they didn't want to do it I would have been fine with it. But if they were going to do the whole emotional character arc thing, the least they could have done is commited to it. But no, it gets a few scenes but is otherwise lost in a sea of badly editing action scenes, forgettable underdeveloped subplots, etc. And the ending, while technically resolving things, has very little impact. We're left to assume Bond has found his "Quantum Of Solace" (apparently why they chose the title but then they got cold feet and named the organisation Quantum anyway, so they don't even deserve credit for that), but we don't see it happen. Would have been much more powerful, if a bit
cliched, if we'd seen Bond struggle with this decision while interrogating and beating up Yusuf before finally deciding to be the bigger man and not kill him. But no, the film skips over that completely. Then we end with the gunbarrel. I don't like it being at the end. But at least, unlike SF, there's a narrative reason for it. Bond becoming Bond, etc. But then again this annoys me. Because they already did that with the introduction line in CR. It's the same ending twice in a row.
QoS has positives for sure. Great acting, great cinematography, great score, and the script does have some genuinely great moments. But overall, it's clear that the writers strike damaged the film beyond repair. They really should have taken their time. But then with Forster at the helm I'm not sure if the film ever really had a chance sadly.
In the end, I think I can sum
up my rant by saying QoS is a film that lacks an identity. It tries to be so many things but doesn't commit to any of them, it doesn't know what it
wants to be (short but sweet action film? Emotional character piece? Stylish politically charged spy thriller?) so it tries to be a lot of different things at once, in only 90 minutes, and falls, pretentiously, flat on its arse. But the
one thing it doesn't try to be, that (apart from a misjudged homage and a handful of moments) it seems to
actively try to avoid being, is a Bond film. And that for me is unforgiveable. I don't think it's the worst Bond film but in all honesty, it might be the one I enjoy the least.
I've spent much time writing about QoS that I can't really be bothered to write about Skyfall to be honest xD But I really enjoy it, it's definitely top ten for
me and despite a couple of issues I have was a great way to celebrate the 50th anniversary. I came out of the cinema ecstatic, thinking it was the best Bond since Goldeneye and a top five film for sure. I don't rate it quite as highly any more, and imo Mendes surpassed it with Spectre (which I rank third behind only the Dalton films), but I still enjoy it very much. It's a fantastic Bond film. To answer the thread question, I definitely prefer it to QoS. QoS felt like it didn't even want to be a Bond film at times while SF basked in it, it felt like a glorious celebration of the franchise. Plus, I think SF was just a better written, better made/directed, better paced, just a better film in general really. Literally the only thing QoS did better was the score imo.
You rank Skyfall dead last? Now that is interesting. I can understand it though, it has its flaws and feels sort of disconnected from the first two Craig films (which I know you're a big fan of).
There's some good aspects to Quantum, but overall I do find it something of an over-packed disappointment.
One thing that also sticks out for me is how "advert-like" and artificial some of the film seemed due to possibly the editing choices.
People seem to go on about the opening car chase, but to me it felt too much like a big-budget TV advert. I've put this link on before, but when I first saw this ad I thought of the car chase in Quantum straight away.
Me. It's inexcusable that arriving to save Bond, you'd then drive off without him. :(
Evened the odds so to speak. Bond's a big boy. His nieces didn't want to leave Bond but Hip knew he could take it from there.
Or for Bond to yell " get the girls out of here " .... Just seems lazy to me. :(
Also even though it's not a favourite, I still watch it over and over.
Also, many people love the cinematography and I agree but this also fits in very well with the dialogue which is minimal in some places so it creates space for the visuals (plus the conventional editing rather than quick cuts).
While I prefer SF to QoS, my appreciation of QoS has risen since I first saw it; there's a lot to like in it. But one big reason why I prefer SF over the other is because I feel SF's villain and threat are greater than in QoS. "What does Bond have to overcome?" That's important to me in a Bond film; how much does he have to exert himself, pull out the stops, to triumph? Regarding the "threat", I think of TSWLM and the threat posed by Stromberg with the nuclear submarine tracking device, which I prefer to QoS's Quantum blockading Bolivia's water supply--though that wouldn't be good, I think stealing nuclear missiles has more of a global reach. Or as outlandish as it seemed, MR's Drax plotting to launch nerve gas globes into the atmosphere.
Then there's the matter of "revenge", which may motivate Bond in QoS (for Vesper's death), though truly he is tracking down Quantum, and by extension SPECTRE. Even in SF, Silva wants revenge against M, though he is using terror. Revenge seems to me like a smaller motivation or threat than the others that SPECTRE poses (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion). With all the news about terror attacks, why not write a script around that? Perhaps it would offend Muslims, but it could be a white villain. How about the North Korean nuclear threat? "Well, that might offend the North Koreans." It worked well enough with Russian bad guys during the Cold War. I think political correctness has really increased--there are good parts and bad parts to that. All that said, since TMWTGG was mentioned, I'll add that I do like it, and its focus on Bond's mano-a-mano dueling with Scaramanga.
Campbell showed how to bring the vitality of a Bourne and the gloss and style of a Bond. To me Forster abandoned the latter. I welcome a gear change, but I feel like you always need those glimmers of class, the little shard of light in amongst the dark that reminds you this is a Bond picture, however fleeting. In amongst all the angst he's still a man of indulgence. There is non of that in QoS.
I agree that SF was a bizarre change of direction after the highly successful reboot and (IMO) excellent QOS.
SF feels like a return to the Brosnan era for me - obsessed with ticking the boxes and keeping the 'fans' (or rather those who want 'shaken not stirred' and 'Bond, James Bond' in every film) happy.
CR and even more so QoS felt like a breath of fresh air to me. Bokd films but genuinely reimagined and refreshed.
I feel that Mendes through all of Campbell and Forster's good work out the window with SF. We went from fresh to very stale in three movies.
SP continues the backward looking approach of SF but is (IMO) a more entertaining and better written movie.
Wish EON had a slightly more coherent vision and were able to get consistently good writers on board. The series has struggled for decades now with poor plots and scripts.
Yeah, have you seen him recently? He's stupid old now.