Where would you rank SPECTRE? (no spoilers)

Perilagu_Khan

bondjames wrote: »

Perilagu_Khan wrote: »

dalton wrote: »

Perilagu_Khan wrote: »

dalton wrote: »

Birdleson wrote: »

The problem with Hinx is symptomatic of the entire film. Too much attention paid to mimicking the past, rather than creating something newly iconic.

That's certainly part of the problem with Hinx. The other would be that, other than his brief introduction and then the fight with Bond on the train, he doesn't do anything. The rest of his screen time is devoted to either driving or sitting in a vehicle while just letting Bond do his thing almost uninterrupted.

Well that's kind of what Bond henchmen do. They are silent but deadly types who have a few--if any--spoken lines, and their purpose is to be the brawn behind the evil brains. The characters are almost never developed, and they don't "do" much of anything other than fight, assassinate and drive vehicles of sundry sort. People are not critiquing Hinx according to the standards of previous henchmen; they are critiquing him according to irrelevant standards, and then panning him when he fails to meet them. It's really a case of grasping at thin reeds to bash SP, when there are plenty of legitimate failings in that film that are worthy of legitimate criticism.

The problem is, he doesn't even rise to the level of doing what we've seen from the previous henchmen. Yes, you're correct in say that he's supposed to be the "brawn behind the evil brains", but aside from his introduction scene and his final one, he doesn't even accomplish anything that would raise him up onto the level of even some of the more mediocre Bond henchmen.

He makes his eye-gouging kill in his introduction. Then his menace is reduced to tailgating, pointing a gun (albeit a cool one), and staring into a security camera, before his big fight with Bond.

Then what of Krasno Granitskii, generally reckoned the acme of Bond henchmen? He offs a flunky in the PTS, gets slugged in the gut by Klebb, then spends almost the entirety of the film loosely shadowing Bond before the terminal punch-up. You see, henchmen are not usually the main adversaries. They are generally handmaidens to the primary villain. Hinx was used about the way most henchmen are, but his impact was far greater than his screen time.

If you look at it technically, then you're correct. However, the feeling I got in both cases was quite different.

Grant and Bond never meet until the end. Grant shadowing Bond created a sense of foreboding for me, because I didn't know what would happen when they finally would meet. When they did, there was no disappointment at all. From Grant impersonating Nash, to red wine with fish, to the brilliant fight. It built up to the conclusion nicely and when they met, it was as expected - thrilling. That is the key point for me.

With Hinx, he does meet Bond, when he chases him. Then again at the clinic and car chase, where he is beaten, and then finally in the train. So we see how Bond reacts to him, and it's with relative calm and disdain (at least in the clinic and during the car chase) rather than fear. Moreover, he beats him each time. Only in the train do we see some real fear from Bond, when he realizes he can't beat him one on one, but that would have been much more effective (in my view) if we didn't have the intervening lacklustre confrontations between the two. Go straight from the Spectre meeting to the fight in the train, and have Hinx kill others in between (even White potentially).

Regarding different standards being used to judge Hinx, as @Birdleson said with the Star Wars example, when you keep doing something that you've done before, you can do it bigger and better (and that's arguable with Hinx) but after a while it's just repetitive. The standard 'moves' when you have the fourth train fight, or umpteenth car chase. It's not judged by the same level as DN or even TSWLM for that matter, but by a higher one, as it should, precisely because it's increasingly derivative the more times you do it. That's why I found the QoS chase interesting - because it was quite visceral. Same goes for the CR Aston flip. Very unexpected, that.

And all of this is subjective anyway. There is no objective 'standard'. Just the one in the eye of the beholder.

Two quick points.

1. Unlike FRWL, SP was not designed for the great confrontation to be between Bond and the henchman, but rather between Bond and the main villain, in this case, Blofeld. Now one could rightly argue the relative merits of Bond v. Blofeld in SP, but to an extent such a critique is otiose because FWRL and SP is apples/oranges.

2. I would argue that the standard of judgment, if anything, should be more modest for the later films for the simple reason that so much material has already been exhausted. There are only so many vehicles to use in chase scenes. There are only so many different spins one can put on a fight. At some point explosions all begin to look rather alike. Ergo, it is deucedly difficult NOT to be somewhat derivative nowadays. That said, I do believe SP was more derivative than necessary, with M's removing the magazine from Denbigh's gun the most egregious example.

dalton

Birdleson wrote: »

You see @dalton , it's your own fault for not understanding your own wicked and jealousy ridden motivations.

Well, nobody's ever accused me of being intelligent.

bondjames

Perilagu_Khan wrote: »

bondjames wrote: »

Perilagu_Khan wrote: »

dalton wrote: »

Perilagu_Khan wrote: »

dalton wrote: »

Birdleson wrote: »

The problem with Hinx is symptomatic of the entire film. Too much attention paid to mimicking the past, rather than creating something newly iconic.

That's certainly part of the problem with Hinx. The other would be that, other than his brief introduction and then the fight with Bond on the train, he doesn't do anything. The rest of his screen time is devoted to either driving or sitting in a vehicle while just letting Bond do his thing almost uninterrupted.

Well that's kind of what Bond henchmen do. They are silent but deadly types who have a few--if any--spoken lines, and their purpose is to be the brawn behind the evil brains. The characters are almost never developed, and they don't "do" much of anything other than fight, assassinate and drive vehicles of sundry sort. People are not critiquing Hinx according to the standards of previous henchmen; they are critiquing him according to irrelevant standards, and then panning him when he fails to meet them. It's really a case of grasping at thin reeds to bash SP, when there are plenty of legitimate failings in that film that are worthy of legitimate criticism.

The problem is, he doesn't even rise to the level of doing what we've seen from the previous henchmen. Yes, you're correct in say that he's supposed to be the "brawn behind the evil brains", but aside from his introduction scene and his final one, he doesn't even accomplish anything that would raise him up onto the level of even some of the more mediocre Bond henchmen.

He makes his eye-gouging kill in his introduction. Then his menace is reduced to tailgating, pointing a gun (albeit a cool one), and staring into a security camera, before his big fight with Bond.

Then what of Krasno Granitskii, generally reckoned the acme of Bond henchmen? He offs a flunky in the PTS, gets slugged in the gut by Klebb, then spends almost the entirety of the film loosely shadowing Bond before the terminal punch-up. You see, henchmen are not usually the main adversaries. They are generally handmaidens to the primary villain. Hinx was used about the way most henchmen are, but his impact was far greater than his screen time.

If you look at it technically, then you're correct. However, the feeling I got in both cases was quite different.

Grant and Bond never meet until the end. Grant shadowing Bond created a sense of foreboding for me, because I didn't know what would happen when they finally would meet. When they did, there was no disappointment at all. From Grant impersonating Nash, to red wine with fish, to the brilliant fight. It built up to the conclusion nicely and when they met, it was as expected - thrilling. That is the key point for me.

With Hinx, he does meet Bond, when he chases him. Then again at the clinic and car chase, where he is beaten, and then finally in the train. So we see how Bond reacts to him, and it's with relative calm and disdain (at least in the clinic and during the car chase) rather than fear. Moreover, he beats him each time. Only in the train do we see some real fear from Bond, when he realizes he can't beat him one on one, but that would have been much more effective (in my view) if we didn't have the intervening lacklustre confrontations between the two. Go straight from the Spectre meeting to the fight in the train, and have Hinx kill others in between (even White potentially).

Regarding different standards being used to judge Hinx, as @Birdleson said with the Star Wars example, when you keep doing something that you've done before, you can do it bigger and better (and that's arguable with Hinx) but after a while it's just repetitive. The standard 'moves' when you have the fourth train fight, or umpteenth car chase. It's not judged by the same level as DN or even TSWLM for that matter, but by a higher one, as it should, precisely because it's increasingly derivative the more times you do it. That's why I found the QoS chase interesting - because it was quite visceral. Same goes for the CR Aston flip. Very unexpected, that.

And all of this is subjective anyway. There is no objective 'standard'. Just the one in the eye of the beholder.

Two quick points.

1. Unlike FRWL, SP was not designed for the great confrontation to be between Bond and the henchman, but rather between Bond and the main villain, in this case, Blofeld. Now one could rightly argue the relative merits of Bond v. Blofeld in SP, but to an extent such a critique is otiose because FWRL and SP is apples/oranges.

That's a fair point, but you brought up the Grant comparison, not me. My issue personally is with 'tension' in the Hinx scenes. It's there at the start in the meeting and at the end with the fight. In between, it's strangely missing in confrontations with Bond (the hero is even the aggressor in one scene), and that's not a function of the character so much but of the rather lackluster direction. They conceptualized him well enough but didn't, in my view, use him well enough, thereby doing the character a disservice. For that I blame Mendes & not even the script writers, because I think he should have been able to see the potential issue when filming it.

That double barrel hand gun for instance should have been used to blow someone away imho. It's like they stopped short rather than going all out with this character. Even Patrice was more chilling during the respective chase scenes in SF, with that machine handgun that he shot off and wounded Bond with.

Perilagu_Khan wrote: »

2. I would argue that the standard of judgment, if anything, should be more modest for the later films for the simple reason that so much material has already been exhausted. There are only so many vehicles to use in chase scenes. There are only so many different spins one can put on a fight. At some point explosions all begin to look rather alike. Ergo, it is deucedly difficult NOT to be somewhat derivative nowadays. That said, I do believe SP was more derivative than necessary, with M's removing the magazine from Denbigh's gun the most egregious example.

And you may very well be objectively correct with your assessment. However, that's not how it works in real life with irrational human beings. Expectations increase when the back catalogue is this exceptional. They created this higher expectation themselves imho by poking fun at their own history during the Craig era. Lines like "Do I look like I give a damn!" and "We don't go in for that any more" raise expectations that we won't see something we've seen before. That this time it will be different. Then when we do see something familiar without a meaningful twist, it's a bit of let down for some. Difficult thing to balance I'll admit and not everyone can be pleased all the time.

chrisisall

I rank SPECTRE very highly because IMHO the Fleming Bond's time is over and done with.
Once the internet was firmly established and everyone got cell phones the dynamics of the Bond character HAD to change drastically.
LTK is the last 'connected' Bond film. With GE it was all rebooted for the new era... though strong elements remained... TND began the new era in earnest, making the '5 minutes into the future' feel of the old Bond films obsolete.
That lost, we got Brosnan (who I frankly love because he's, well, Brosnan) doing a 'future Bond' action hero that was not extremely edgy but comfortable to many.
Then came Craig, embracing angst in the place of the overconfidence to displace uncertainty that early Connery & Dalton defined.
This brings me to SPECTRE. To Hell with all the (many) narrative & directorial shortfalls- Craig gave me back my favourite conflicted, sublimating & high functional Bond.
And that's more important than anything else to me- the character.
PLEASE give me a perfect character in a lacking movie rather than a lacking character in a well made movie.
*end of long rant*
B-)

BondJasonBond006

chrisisall wrote: »

I rank SPECTRE very highly because IMHO the Fleming Bond's time is over and done with.
Once the internet was firmly established and everyone got cell phones the dynamics of the Bond character HAD to change drastically.
LTK is the last 'connected' Bond film. With GE it was all rebooted for the new era... though strong elements remained... TND began the new era in earnest, making the '5 minutes into the future' feel of the old Bond films obsolete.
That lost, we got Brosnan (who I frankly love because he's, well, Brosnan) doing a 'future Bond' action hero that was not extremely edgy but comfortable to many.
Then came Craig, embracing angst in the place of the overconfidence to displace uncertainty that early Connery & Dalton defined.
This brings me to SPECTRE. To Hell with all the (many) narrative & directorial shortfalls- Craig gave me back my favourite conflicted, sublimating & high functional Bond.
And that's more important than anything else to me- the character.
PLEASE give me a perfect character in a lacking movie rather than a lacking character in a well made movie.
*end of long rant*
B-)

You're the best =D>
Some people obviously get off dissecting a movie to bits as if it were science, superior literature or high art.
You just showed them the truth.
Bravo. ^:)^

vzok

I get that you can look at the train fight in Spectre and say it is just a redo of TSWLM, but then we could say that of the TSWLM train fight being a redo of FRWL / LALD.

If we rule out car chases or train fights for future Bonds as being derivative, then we are going to struggle to find places, chase and fights for Bond to do.

chrisisall

I've though about this... SPECTRE riffed, but riffed well, unlike, say, The Force Awakens.

vzok

Birdleson wrote: »

That's disingenuous though, your oversimplifying the criticism. That isn't the argument. None of us said all chases and train fights are derivitive. SPECTRE is overly derivative because there are specific shots, aspects and actions in that train fight which I have to believe we're intentional nods to the previous two. The people making these films are far too Bond saavy not to be aware of that. I did not feel that way watching LIVE AND LET DIE fir the first time. That's why this fight comes off as less than it could have been to me, and I assume a few others on here. It's another reminder that there was very little to SP that did not rely on riffing on the past.

True, but I think the Bond series has often recycled scenes, lines, plots before.

BondJasonBond006

Spectre "relying on riffing on the past" to use @Birdlesons words (no offense meant) is the point of the movie. Don't you people get that? It was Mendes way to honour the long lasting legacy of the franchise. He does the same with Kubrick in his movies.

I love Spectre even more for that fact. It was so good to see that train fight resembling the other ones. Why should this be a flaw??? It's a goddamn homage for Christ's sake.

The things people will complain about in Spectre have come to the level of absurdity.

dogrowup007

Birdleson wrote: »

It's not a matter of "getting it", it's a matter of not being impressed or entertained by it. The story underneath the allusions is threadbare.

I concur with @Birdleson. As I wrote in the Daniel Craig appreciation thread, he is too much at ease in Spectre. He is no longer Bond, he shows us how much fun he has playing Bond. And that for me takes the edge of. Yes, I know, this is a Bond-movie, so we know who's gonna end on top (pun intended). But in Spectre, I missed the intensity the previous 3 Craig-movies did provide.

As a matter of fact, in the train-scene, I was just waiting for Madeleine to appear and shoot Hinx.

BondJasonBond006 wrote: »

Spectre "relying on riffing on the past" to use @Birdlesons words (no offense meant) is the point of the movie. Don't you people get that? It was Mendes way to honour the long lasting legacy of the franchise. He does the same with Kubrick in his movies.

I found that Mendes honoured the legacy of the franchise far better in Skyfall, which also includes many winks to the previous movies.

dalton

Birdleson wrote: »

BondJasonBond006 wrote: »

Spectre "relying on riffing on the past" to use @Birdlesons words (no offense meant) is the point of the movie. Don't you people get that? It was Mendes way to honour the long lasting legacy of the franchise. He does the same with Kubrick in his movies.

I love Spectre even more for that fact. It was so good to see that train fight resembling the other ones. Why should this be a flaw??? It's a goddamn homage for Christ's sake.

The things people will complain about in Spectre have come to the level of absurdity.

It's not a matter of "getting it", it's a matter of not being impressed or entertained by it. The story underneath the allusions is threadbare.

I think it's also a matter, at least for me, of being tired of the franchise being so reliant on call-backs, homages, and nods to the previous films. The Craig films are overflowing with these references. It's time for them to do something that's mostly original again.

Perilagu_Khan

Birdleson wrote: »

That's disingenuous though, your oversimplifying the criticism. That isn't the argument. None of us said all chases and train fights are derivitive. SPECTRE is overly derivative because there are specific shots, aspects and actions in that train fight which I have to believe we're intentional nods to the previous two. The people making these films are far too Bond saavy not to be aware of that. I did not feel that way watching LIVE AND LET DIE for the first time. That's why this fight comes off as less than it could have been to me, and I assume a few others on here. It's another reminder that there was very little to SP that did not rely on riffing on the past.

Such as?

BondJasonBond006

The obvious homages left me jumping for joy in some instances.
Like the plane chase who resembles the tank chase very much. Even some camera perspectives are the same.
Or the great homage to John Glen with the birds startling Craig in White's house.
There is so much more and almost everything is a joy to watch.

chrisisall

My new SPECTRE Blu Ray cover courtesy of the great Murdock:


Hard to get a good image with the reflections and all...

Murdock

Wow seeing my Artwork on an actual cover is awesome! I'm so proud. Thank you very much @chrisisall. :)

Tuck91

I love the homages as much as everyone else, but they need original setpieces & sequences or there wont be much too homage in the later films.

IncompetentHenchman

BondJasonBond006 wrote: »

The obvious homages left me jumping for joy in some instances.
Like the plane chase who resembles the tank chase very much. Even some camera perspectives are the same.
Or the great homage to John Glen with the birds startling Craig in White's house.
There is so much more and almost everything is a joy to watch.

I actually still don't get how the tank chase and plane chase are the same. In some ways yes, but not really.

jake24

IncompetentHenchman wrote: »

BondJasonBond006 wrote: »

The obvious homages left me jumping for joy in some instances.
Like the plane chase who resembles the tank chase very much. Even some camera perspectives are the same.
Or the great homage to John Glen with the birds startling Craig in White's house.
There is so much more and almost everything is a joy to watch.

I actually still don't get how the tank chase and plane chase are the same. In some ways yes, but not really.

The Bond girl is captured and thrown into a car, from which Bond hijacks a much larger, outlandish vehicle to pursue her. Even some shots of Madeleine looking behind her to see Bond are quite similar to those of Natalia doing the same in the GE tank chase.

IncompetentHenchman

jake24 wrote: »

IncompetentHenchman wrote: »

BondJasonBond006 wrote: »

The obvious homages left me jumping for joy in some instances.
Like the plane chase who resembles the tank chase very much. Even some camera perspectives are the same.
Or the great homage to John Glen with the birds startling Craig in White's house.
There is so much more and almost everything is a joy to watch.

I actually still don't get how the tank chase and plane chase are the same. In some ways yes, but not really.

The Bond girl is captured and thrown into a car, from which Bond hijacks a much larger, outlandish vehicle to pursue her. Even some shots of Madeleine looking behind her to see Bond are quite similar to those of Natalia doing the same in the GE tank chase.

It only seems vaguely similar and in perhaps a coincidental way. IMO of course. I can see now why people find a connection. The part where the plane breaks through the house is also visually somewhat reminiscent of how the tank crashed through the wall in St. Petersburg, I suppose.

TheWizardOfIce

jake24 wrote: »

IncompetentHenchman wrote: »

BondJasonBond006 wrote: »

The obvious homages left me jumping for joy in some instances.
Like the plane chase who resembles the tank chase very much. Even some camera perspectives are the same.
Or the great homage to John Glen with the birds startling Craig in White's house.
There is so much more and almost everything is a joy to watch.

I actually still don't get how the tank chase and plane chase are the same. In some ways yes, but not really.

The Bond girl is captured and thrown into a car, from which Bond hijacks a much larger, outlandish vehicle to pursue her. Even some shots of Madeleine looking behind her to see Bond are quite similar to those of Natalia doing the same in the GE tank chase.

I really don't know how people come up with these theories.

So is the GE tank chase a copy of the car chase in TMWTGG then?

The Bond girl is captured and thrown into a car and Bond hijacks a vehicle to pursue her. There are even some shots of Mary looking behind her.

You have me in that Scaramanga's AMC Matador is 6 inches longer than Bond's Hornet so his vehicle isn't larger but a plane isn't an outlandish vehicle unless you live in the 1920s or the depths of the Amazon rainforest.

BondJasonBond006

TheWizardOfIce wrote: »

jake24 wrote: »

IncompetentHenchman wrote: »

BondJasonBond006 wrote: »

The obvious homages left me jumping for joy in some instances.
Like the plane chase who resembles the tank chase very much. Even some camera perspectives are the same.
Or the great homage to John Glen with the birds startling Craig in White's house.
There is so much more and almost everything is a joy to watch.

I actually still don't get how the tank chase and plane chase are the same. In some ways yes, but not really.

The Bond girl is captured and thrown into a car, from which Bond hijacks a much larger, outlandish vehicle to pursue her. Even some shots of Madeleine looking behind her to see Bond are quite similar to those of Natalia doing the same in the GE tank chase.

I really don't know how people come up with these theories.

So is the GE tank chase a copy of the car chase in TMWTGG then?

The Bond girl is captured and thrown into a car and Bond hijacks a vehicle to pursue her. There are even some shots of Mary looking behind her.

You have me in that Scaramanga's AMC Matador is 6 inches longer than Bond's Hornet so his vehicle isn't larger but a plane isn't an outlandish vehicle unless you live in the 1920s or the depths of the Amazon rainforest.

If you can't see the glaring similarities in the tank and plane chase, then all hope is lost with you or are you just counter arguing anything concerning Spectre on principle??

TheWizardOfIce

BondJasonBond006 wrote: »

TheWizardOfIce wrote: »

jake24 wrote: »

IncompetentHenchman wrote: »

BondJasonBond006 wrote: »

The obvious homages left me jumping for joy in some instances.
Like the plane chase who resembles the tank chase very much. Even some camera perspectives are the same.
Or the great homage to John Glen with the birds startling Craig in White's house.
There is so much more and almost everything is a joy to watch.

I actually still don't get how the tank chase and plane chase are the same. In some ways yes, but not really.

The Bond girl is captured and thrown into a car, from which Bond hijacks a much larger, outlandish vehicle to pursue her. Even some shots of Madeleine looking behind her to see Bond are quite similar to those of Natalia doing the same in the GE tank chase.

I really don't know how people come up with these theories.

So is the GE tank chase a copy of the car chase in TMWTGG then?

The Bond girl is captured and thrown into a car and Bond hijacks a vehicle to pursue her. There are even some shots of Mary looking behind her.

You have me in that Scaramanga's AMC Matador is 6 inches longer than Bond's Hornet so his vehicle isn't larger but a plane isn't an outlandish vehicle unless you live in the 1920s or the depths of the Amazon rainforest.

If you can't see the glaring similarities in the tank and plane chase, then all hope is lost with you or are you just counter arguing anything concerning Spectre on principle??

How is discussing the similarities between two chases a criticism of SP? And even if we accept that the SP chase is similar to the GE one how does that vindicate SP as a great film?

You're round the bend mate. Someone could say 'I don't like carrots' or 'I prefer swimming to playing tennis' and in your deranged mind you would see it as a criticism of the holy grail of cinematic perfection. I'm seriously considering reporting you to the authorities before they find you dismembering and cooking the body of a film critic who had the temerity to say SP was not quite perfect.

Love how you consider that SP directly nicking a chase from another film makes it good. Yeah let's just blatantly copy scenes from other films rather than try to come up with something original.

tanaka123

Homages are okay if they are subtle and don't fill a whole film. I fanboyed over the homages in Spectre and DAD, but was also dismayed. If a whole film is stuffed with homages it's very unlikely that a Bond film 20-50years from now will have a homage to Spectre - why? because it would be a homage of a homage. That automatically rules Spectre out from being a 'classic' from the get-go, because it has none of its own original, classic elements.

BondJasonBond006

tanaka123 wrote: »

Homages are okay if they are subtle and don't fill a whole film. I fanboyed over the homages in Spectre and DAD, but was also dismayed. If a whole film is stuffed with homages it's very unlikely that a Bond film 20-50years from now will have a homage to Spectre - why? because it would be a homage of a homage. That automatically rules Spectre out from being a 'classic' from the get-go, because it has none of its own original, classic elements.

I view all Bond movies as classics actually. But I get your point.
Mendes way is to pay homages to his favourite movies. In SFs and SPs case he also paid homage to past Bond movies. I find that absolutely ok.

Why Spectre shouldn't be a classic in 10, 20 years beats me. Do you honestly think in 20 years, new Bond fans who discover Bond 21 to 30 will give a damn if Spectre or Skyfall have borrowed from even older Bond movies??

What I do hope though is, that we are done with reboot nonsense, linking movies together or paying homages.

Next I want something like QOS with good editing or FRWL, FYEO.

tanaka123

BondJasonBond006 wrote: »

tanaka123 wrote: »

Homages are okay if they are subtle and don't fill a whole film. I fanboyed over the homages in Spectre and DAD, but was also dismayed. If a whole film is stuffed with homages it's very unlikely that a Bond film 20-50years from now will have a homage to Spectre - why? because it would be a homage of a homage. That automatically rules Spectre out from being a 'classic' from the get-go, because it has none of its own original, classic elements.

I view all Bond movies as classics actually. But I get your point.
Mendes way is to pay homages to his favourite movies. In SFs and SPs case he also paid homage to past Bond movies. I find that absolutely ok.

Why Spectre shouldn't be a classic in 10, 20 years beats me. Do you honestly think in 20 years, new Bond fans who discover Bond 21 to 30 will give a damn if Spectre or Skyfall have borrowed from even older Bond movies??

What I do hope though is, that we are done with reboot nonsense, linking movies together or paying homages.

Next I want something like QOS with good editing or FRWL, FYEO.

I guess what I'm saying is that, in my opinion, in my opinion, I'll say that again, in my opinion - for something, anything, to be considered 'classic' requires some level of originality.

stun_harvesting

@Murdock - I'd like to see one of those for every Bond film.

jake24

TheWizardOfIce wrote: »

jake24 wrote: »

IncompetentHenchman wrote: »

BondJasonBond006 wrote: »

The obvious homages left me jumping for joy in some instances.
Like the plane chase who resembles the tank chase very much. Even some camera perspectives are the same.
Or the great homage to John Glen with the birds startling Craig in White's house.
There is so much more and almost everything is a joy to watch.

I actually still don't get how the tank chase and plane chase are the same. In some ways yes, but not really.

The Bond girl is captured and thrown into a car, from which Bond hijacks a much larger, outlandish vehicle to pursue her. Even some shots of Madeleine looking behind her to see Bond are quite similar to those of Natalia doing the same in the GE tank chase.

I really don't know how people come up with these theories.

So is the GE tank chase a copy of the car chase in TMWTGG then?

The Bond girl is captured and thrown into a car and Bond hijacks a vehicle to pursue her. There are even some shots of Mary looking behind her.

You have me in that Scaramanga's AMC Matador is 6 inches longer than Bond's Hornet so his vehicle isn't larger but a plane isn't an outlandish vehicle unless you live in the 1920s or the depths of the Amazon rainforest.

Within the context of the scene, yes, it is outlandish. The two scenes are constructed very similarly. It's not something to see upon close inspection of the film, it's right there in front of you. It occurred to me as far back as the trailer.

mcdonbb

chrisisall wrote: »

TheWizardOfIce wrote: »

By all means criticise but try and cobble together a coherent argument at least.

My coherent argument is that I enjoy the Hell out of TND.
That is all. :D

Me too. I like your argument. If you take TND too serious you won't get it.

Wish TND was a bit less Americanized though.

ForYourEyesOnly

I rank it in the high teens. Something in the 20's would be much too conservative in my opinion, whilst anything higher than #15 or so feels like I'm overly rewarding the film for the mediocrity that it is. It's not horrible or degrading to Bond's reputation or anything, but there are better Bond films floating around.

Perilagu_Khan

bondjames wrote: »

Perilagu_Khan wrote: »

bondjames wrote: »

Perilagu_Khan wrote: »

dalton wrote: »

Perilagu_Khan wrote: »

dalton wrote: »

Birdleson wrote: »

The problem with Hinx is symptomatic of the entire film. Too much attention paid to mimicking the past, rather than creating something newly iconic.

That's certainly part of the problem with Hinx. The other would be that, other than his brief introduction and then the fight with Bond on the train, he doesn't do anything. The rest of his screen time is devoted to either driving or sitting in a vehicle while just letting Bond do his thing almost uninterrupted.

Well that's kind of what Bond henchmen do. They are silent but deadly types who have a few--if any--spoken lines, and their purpose is to be the brawn behind the evil brains. The characters are almost never developed, and they don't "do" much of anything other than fight, assassinate and drive vehicles of sundry sort. People are not critiquing Hinx according to the standards of previous henchmen; they are critiquing him according to irrelevant standards, and then panning him when he fails to meet them. It's really a case of grasping at thin reeds to bash SP, when there are plenty of legitimate failings in that film that are worthy of legitimate criticism.

The problem is, he doesn't even rise to the level of doing what we've seen from the previous henchmen. Yes, you're correct in say that he's supposed to be the "brawn behind the evil brains", but aside from his introduction scene and his final one, he doesn't even accomplish anything that would raise him up onto the level of even some of the more mediocre Bond henchmen.

He makes his eye-gouging kill in his introduction. Then his menace is reduced to tailgating, pointing a gun (albeit a cool one), and staring into a security camera, before his big fight with Bond.

Then what of Krasno Granitskii, generally reckoned the acme of Bond henchmen? He offs a flunky in the PTS, gets slugged in the gut by Klebb, then spends almost the entirety of the film loosely shadowing Bond before the terminal punch-up. You see, henchmen are not usually the main adversaries. They are generally handmaidens to the primary villain. Hinx was used about the way most henchmen are, but his impact was far greater than his screen time.

If you look at it technically, then you're correct. However, the feeling I got in both cases was quite different.

Grant and Bond never meet until the end. Grant shadowing Bond created a sense of foreboding for me, because I didn't know what would happen when they finally would meet. When they did, there was no disappointment at all. From Grant impersonating Nash, to red wine with fish, to the brilliant fight. It built up to the conclusion nicely and when they met, it was as expected - thrilling. That is the key point for me.

With Hinx, he does meet Bond, when he chases him. Then again at the clinic and car chase, where he is beaten, and then finally in the train. So we see how Bond reacts to him, and it's with relative calm and disdain (at least in the clinic and during the car chase) rather than fear. Moreover, he beats him each time. Only in the train do we see some real fear from Bond, when he realizes he can't beat him one on one, but that would have been much more effective (in my view) if we didn't have the intervening lacklustre confrontations between the two. Go straight from the Spectre meeting to the fight in the train, and have Hinx kill others in between (even White potentially).

Regarding different standards being used to judge Hinx, as @Birdleson said with the Star Wars example, when you keep doing something that you've done before, you can do it bigger and better (and that's arguable with Hinx) but after a while it's just repetitive. The standard 'moves' when you have the fourth train fight, or umpteenth car chase. It's not judged by the same level as DN or even TSWLM for that matter, but by a higher one, as it should, precisely because it's increasingly derivative the more times you do it. That's why I found the QoS chase interesting - because it was quite visceral. Same goes for the CR Aston flip. Very unexpected, that.

And all of this is subjective anyway. There is no objective 'standard'. Just the one in the eye of the beholder.

Two quick points.

1. Unlike FRWL, SP was not designed for the great confrontation to be between Bond and the henchman, but rather between Bond and the main villain, in this case, Blofeld. Now one could rightly argue the relative merits of Bond v. Blofeld in SP, but to an extent such a critique is otiose because FWRL and SP is apples/oranges.

That's a fair point, but you brought up the Grant comparison, not me. My issue personally is with 'tension' in the Hinx scenes. It's there at the start in the meeting and at the end with the fight. In between, it's strangely missing in confrontations with Bond (the hero is even the aggressor in one scene), and that's not a function of the character so much but of the rather lackluster direction. They conceptualized him well enough but didn't, in my view, use him well enough, thereby doing the character a disservice. For that I blame Mendes & not even the script writers, because I think he should have been able to see the potential issue when filming it.

That double barrel hand gun for instance should have been used to blow someone away imho. It's like they stopped short rather than going all out with this character. Even Patrice was more chilling during the respective chase scenes in SF, with that machine handgun that he shot off and wounded Bond with.

Perilagu_Khan wrote: »

2. I would argue that the standard of judgment, if anything, should be more modest for the later films for the simple reason that so much material has already been exhausted. There are only so many vehicles to use in chase scenes. There are only so many different spins one can put on a fight. At some point explosions all begin to look rather alike. Ergo, it is deucedly difficult NOT to be somewhat derivative nowadays. That said, I do believe SP was more derivative than necessary, with M's removing the magazine from Denbigh's gun the most egregious example.

And you may very well be objectively correct with your assessment. However, that's not how it works in real life with irrational human beings. Expectations increase when the back catalogue is this exceptional. They created this higher expectation themselves imho by poking fun at their own history during the Craig era. Lines like "Do I look like I give a damn!" and "We don't go in for that any more" raise expectations that we won't see something we've seen before. That this time it will be different. Then when we do see something familiar without a meaningful twist, it's a bit of let down for some. Difficult thing to balance I'll admit and not everyone can be pleased all the time.

Yes, I compared Grant to Hinx, but not FRWL to SP. But, no big deal, really.