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I like that :) I hadn't expected such a long discussion about Rory Kinnear/Tanner. I love that they've brought these characters back and do like how they were used in both SF and SP but feel they need smaller roles for awhile. I don't mind these roles being increased but not all the time. Bernard Lee got more screentime sort of TMWTGG-Moonraker. Desmond Llewelyn had varying screen time used quite a bit in LTK and not even appearing in LALD. I just think there should be that variety. It gets a bit boring when M is constantly out in the field, just as the Bond goes rogue shtick has been played one too many times. I'm sympathetic to the sentiment that Bond just gets a mission from M and away he goes.
I would say Tanner has gained some 'gloss' since QoS. Hairloss is a b*tch! :))
I would prefer they remain in the lab & behind their desks. Their involvement in the first 30 minutes of SP (up to when Bond nicks the Aston) was just about right. Everything beyond that was just too 24/MI for me.
True, while I like Spectre as it is, the Scooby Gang should stay in the background next time around.
Point well made but for me it's not that they are different from Lois, Desmond or Bernard, it's that they take up too much screen time and the films feel less like they're about Bond. I've felt that for a while and is one of many reasons I disliked TWINE.
However your comment about ensemble superhero films is a very good one and although I made the Nolan and Batman connections, this added influence had not occurred to me before.
Spot on. Their screen time in SP was way more than anything that Bernard, Lois and Desmond ever had but once Bond goes to Rome that should be it. If you must they can have about 5 minutes at the end like SF but Q turning up in Austria is completely nonsensical.
And another thing - for a bloke who Q has met once before in SF, why is Q (who is presumably fresh out of university and has just got himself his dream job) so keen to risk his career for Bond?
I can only imagine Bond must've covered for him in SF and said he didnt gormlessly hook up Silva's laptop to the MI6 mainframe and ultimately cause M to die.
This.
And for people who think they take too much screen time, they seem to forget that in both DN and FRWL, Bond appears quite a while into the movie. in the novel FRWL, he is absent for far longer. And let's not forget that he needs to interact with people and not only his enemies and the Bond girls.
I suppose if it had been done better......but it wasn't so I can't really tell.
Bottom line: these are repeating characters, and the more we see of them each time, the more these films start to look like team efforts. That was not the case before, and call me old fashioned, but I'd prefer if that is not the case going forward. This is not Mission Impossible or 24.
I agree and this is something Fleming said when asked if he felt the general public looked on spying as a dirty trade, I'm paraphrasing
'People don't consider it to be a dirty job. They see it as a romantic thing, one man going up against a whole army or police force.'
I love the fact that they are around like they are in SPECTRE. I read it as 'we didn't have Q/MP for two films, so now they're back we're going to give them something to do.'
I saw it is a one off, and enjoyed it with that understanding during the film. I wouldn't want them to hang around in every Bond film from here on. I missed them, as did many, for years so I loved every minute they were on screen in SPECTRE. Hopefully, they will return to normal business in B25, one proper scene each and perhaps a couple more moments in the film, especially the end.
And as I said before, MP´s charater is wasted as long as she is presented as some kind of inferior Bond girl.
You can´t meaningfully compare novels and films, they work completely differently.
That´s exactly the point. Make them interesting people and not empty shells, give them meaningful scenes.
I totally agree. I feel Mendes has frittered away a lot that was good about the reboot. what was fresh now feels a little stale and cliched again. I feel we've gone back to the Brosna era approach a bit - constant references back to the old films and lots of nostalgia.
It's all a bit introverted, navel gazing type stuff.
I want them to create new classic memories. The PTS in SP was great but after that there was nothing very original. We haven't had a truly amazing stunt or action sequence for years. I actually think if they stripped things back to basics and just choreographed and edited the action beautifully (dare I say in a John Glen style) then that would actually help Bond stand out from the crowd in the current frenetic action era.
CR certainly brought a lot of good and fresh stuff, as you said. MP + Q not in it, didn't really hurt the movie, but they could very well have been in it as well in one or two scenes.
But overall CR still feels like a real Bond movie.
QOS and SF do not. QOS is a common action-flick, that happens to have a character named James Bond in it. Change the name and omit M, and nobody would even think it could be a Bond movie.
SF had exactly ONE Bond moment. The Macau sequence in the Casino.
The rest is bland soap opera drama, Mommy was very bad, why Mother and Mother dies in her son's arms stuff, if packaged in nicest gift wrapping paper, shiny and glossy (cinematography).
Of course that appealed to the mass audience. If that's a good thing can be debated.
Spectre went back to the proper Bond themes. As you said it has quite a bit of Brosnan style in it and a lot of Moore-esque humour.
Box office shows this approach also works (still works). Some people have difficulties accepting this (I don't mean you).
After Spectre some more down to earth Bond movie à la FYEO or LTK would be a good thing. It sure has to have some decent action sequences but nothing too OTT.
As you said stripped back to basics with good choreographed action would be perfect.
Especially if it is anything like John Glen would have done.
I'll never understand why Glen is so criminally underrated on this site.
Moneypenny and Q were established at the beginning of the cinematic Bond, so they are a big part of it and omitting them after 40 years was just stupid.
I agree though, we have seen enough of the Scooby Gang. Moneypenny I want to see only behind the desk in the next one.
As for Q, I hated him in SF and the way they depicted him there was just plain stupid.
In Spectre he is spectacular and with Whishaw there could be a worthy successor to Llewelyn. I sure hope he'll have as much screen time in the next one as in Spectre.
M on the other hand should give Bond a mission and that's it.
Dench was way too much in TWINE, QOS and especially SF, to an extend where it begins to hurt those movies.
Er, the films have been different from the books since 1967. You're just realizing this now? :-?
Well, yes I can and so everybody, because however different they are... The movies are still based on a number of novels by a certain English writer.
That's the point: Q is not an operative and could have easily been killed by these three goons. And he went to Austria by his own initiative, not on orders.
I liked M and Q and Moneypenny a great lot in GE and TND.
If anything then it's M that was just wrong in TWINE and DAD and Moneypenny in DAD.
Q has some of the best moments in the Brosnan era.
Of course R is just ridiculously bad in DAD.
And my point being that with this purist way of thinking we wouldn't have made it to CR in the first place...
Q is fine but again..he shouldn't be too involved...
I would like if MP's role is just "oh James...you done messed up now.."
and Q is the guy that Bond phones to during troubles...(like once in the entire movie if then)
M being in action roles....hmm.. Fiennes pulls it off so well that I wouldnt' mind more of him....but....I still think that the movies should be Bond movies and not Bond + friends movies.
I wanted the characters back, but I don't want them hogging the limelight or taking away from Bond.....I don't need team MI6. For me, it diminished Bond in this film.