SPECTRE, most fun Bond adventure in decades?

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  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,978
    Murdock wrote: »
    It did end well with 007 Everything or Nothing.
    asset.jpg

    This game was damn good fun, invoked a lot of the insanity of the action sequences during the Moore era, like the mission involving the highway chase between Bond's motorcycle and Jaws' 18-wheeler.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    I wish we'd gotten remasters of the Brosnan modeled Bond games. I never got to play any of them, and from what I've seen I'd love them. Having not played From Russia with Love is also a regret of mine, for obvious reasons.
  • jake24jake24 Sitting at your desk, kissing your lover, eating supper with your familyModerator
    edited February 2017 Posts: 10,591
    @Brady I recommend whipping up an old XBOX or Playstation 2 from eBay (they go for quite cheap nowadays, as do the games). All those titles are immensely enjoyable.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    @jake24, I still have a PS2 that is currently collecting dust, so I'll have to get it booting up and order Everything or Nothing and From Russia with Love some time soon to experience them. There'll be a bit of a gaming drought for me coming up I think, so maybe it's finally time to take the leap.

    I'm wary of ordering used copies on Amazon, however, for fear of getting scratched up discs.
  • jake24jake24 Sitting at your desk, kissing your lover, eating supper with your familyModerator
    Posts: 10,591
    I bought Nightfire off of Amazon (as well as some other games of the same generation), and they all arrived in excellent condition. It never hurts to look at the seller's history, either.

    I recommend adding Nightfire to your collection as well, as it's a another classic of the Bond gaming universe.
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,351
    Get all the PS2 Bond games. They are all worth playing.
  • jake24 wrote: »
    Birdleson wrote: »
    Apted and Tamahorri are not bad directors, they have both done work that ranks among the best out there. They aren't such great Bond directors is the thing if it.

    The latter is a psychopath. That said, many great directors are.

    One think you can applaud the Brosnan era for is the amount of risks it took. Apted was selected due to the abundance of strong female leads in his films, which served undeniable importance with regards to Elektra. Tamahori was hired because of his pacing and brutality, after the producers saw Once We're Warriors. Unfortunately, they gave him far too much creative control over the project, which ended up morphing into largely ridiculous, CGI-infested product (though many positive aspects retained). When it came down to Apted, much of his career focused on documentary films, and in turn, when on to be an inexperienced action/thriller director


    TWINE is a good story directed in a really, really mediocre way. DAD is just, after the climax of the Cuba scene with the horrible backwards high dive, a complete disaster.
  • Posts: 1,680
    I still believe to this day if Everything or Nothing was filmed with Brosnan in 2005 it would have been a great film. Brosnan could have easily done a fifth with a little tune up & solid workout,
  • jake24jake24 Sitting at your desk, kissing your lover, eating supper with your familyModerator
    edited February 2017 Posts: 10,591
    Brosnan was much more fit around 2004 than he was during DAD. Everything or Nothing, while a fantastic game, would have no place in cinematic Bond.
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,351
    I'd love to see people react to Bond's invisibility suit if done in a film. :))
  • BMW_with_missilesBMW_with_missiles All the usual refinements.
    Posts: 3,000
    Murdock wrote: »
    I'd love to see people react to Bond's invisibility suit if done in a film. :))

    @Murdock I would pay to see that Bond film and that reaction.
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,351
    I can imagine the rage Brosnan detractors would have. :P
  • BMW_with_missilesBMW_with_missiles All the usual refinements.
    edited February 2017 Posts: 3,000
    Murdock wrote: »
    I can imagine the rage Brosnan detractors would have. :P

    No doubt it would have come with some Brosnan style quip like "Oh Moneypenny, you can see right through me." that they would be groaning over to this day.
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,351
    Murdock wrote: »
    I can imagine the rage Brosnan detractors would have. :P

    No doubt it would have come with some Brosnan style quip like "Oh Moneypenny, you can see right through me." that they would be groaning over to this day.

    =))
  • jake24jake24 Sitting at your desk, kissing your lover, eating supper with your familyModerator
    Posts: 10,591
    Murdock wrote: »
    I can imagine the rage Brosnan detractors would have. :P

    No doubt it would have come with some Brosnan style quip like "Oh Moneypenny, you can see right through me." that they would be groaning over to this day.
    Excellent.
  • Posts: 1,680
    EON film adaption would have been at the very least fun & entertaining. Theres a reason Craigd video game adaptions never took off quite well.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    Tuck91 wrote: »
    EON film adaption would have been at the very least fun & entertaining. Theres a reason Craigd video game adaptions never took off quite well.

    Yes, they were overseen by Activision and produced by their CoD lackeys.
  • mattjoesmattjoes Julie T. and the M.G.'s
    Posts: 7,021
    I agree with this. The most entertaining entry since the Brosnan era.
  • Posts: 11,425
    For me QoS is the most enjoyable of the Craig era. But SP was quite entertaining. I'm not a fan of what Mendes has done with Craig's Bond and don't think his films will age well, but give me SP over dreary, joyless, SF any day.
  • Spectre is underrated, certainly not one of the worse! Dalton's movies were way duller and plain bad in comparison.
  • TokolosheTokoloshe Under your bed
    Posts: 2,667
    Apparently one of the lighter moments of SP's pretitle sequence wasn't quite so far-fetched :)

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-38980653
  • edited February 2017 Posts: 676
    Birdleson wrote: »
    Personally, that has nothing to do with why I don't like SP. I just didn't see the lighthearted romp that many others did; I would have loved that. I found the film to be oppressively dark.
    Agreed.

    There were a few good laughs in Spectre (e.g. the sofa fall, banter with Q) and the PTS is delightful... But I found much of the film to be grim and distasteful. We get to see/hear Mr. White kill himself (twice). Blofeld drills holes into Bond's skull (easily the nastiest thing to happen in any Bond film). And the whole ending, where Bond leaves Blofeld alive - there's something about the music, the way it's shot, the trashy cliched dialogue, and the heavy implication that Blofeld will kill Madeleine in the future, after it's been well-established that Bond cannot protect her - it just makes my stomach churn. It is the darkest, most senseless ending to any Bond film. So no, I can't say I found Spectre to be fun.
  • Milovy wrote: »
    Birdleson wrote: »
    Personally, that has nothing to do with why I don't like SP. I just didn't see the lighthearted romp that many others did; I would have loved that. I found the film to be oppressively dark.
    Agreed.

    There were a few good laughs in Spectre (e.g. the sofa fall, banter with Q) and the PTS is delightful... But I found much of the film to be grim and distasteful. We get to see/hear Mr. White kill himself (twice). Blofeld drills holes into Bond's skull (easily the nastiest thing to happen in any Bond film). And the whole ending, where Bond leaves Blofeld alive - there's something about the music, the way it's shot, the trashy cliched dialogue, and the heavy implication that Blofeld will kill Madeleine in the future, after it's been well-established that Bond cannot protect her - it just makes my stomach churn. It is the darkest, most senseless ending to any Bond film. So no, I can't say I found Spectre to be fun.

    Your first two points (White's shooting himself and the drilling in the head) are what I think contribute the most to Spectre being what Birdleson described as an "oppressively dark" film, but Newman's music is an enormous contributing factor here as well. The music is largely responsible for setting the tone of the film, and apart from the opening PTS beat and a couple "fun" moments during the intro to Rome and car chase, Newman's music is dour and ghostly and doom-portending. Even the love themes are cast with a spectral quality. Appropriate for the film then? If the film intends to be "oppressively dark," sure, but if it's trying to be fun, absolutely not.
  • Posts: 676
    @Some_Kind_Of_Hero You make a good point re: the music.
  • Posts: 676
    @Birdleson Yes, that too. I also find a lot of the film looks gray and foggy - like a ghost, or a corpse.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    I think this is all down to appreciating/accepting various approaches on the character. Not all Bond films should be interchangeable, and I think many dismiss this film for its approach to tone. If we can have films like the Moore era provided, we should also allow more introspective, thematic and dark movies too, in the vein of LTK and films like it. I find SP far more enjoyable than the lighter films, as it feels far more in touch with Fleming's original stories. He didn't right about a whimsical, easy going spy. The books depict a hard man in a hard world, facing depraved minds and personal tragedy through extended episodes of existential crises. SP captures this mood and uneasiness, and ponders Bond's place in his world. It actually has content and a message, and is produced on every level with an attention to film elements and the use of sound, color, symbology and more.

    I would much rather have films that are willing to take themselves seriously and that respect Bond's character and development than those that place him in the center of parody.
    Milovy wrote: »
    @Birdleson Yes, that too. I also find a lot of the film looks gray and foggy - like a ghost, or a corpse.

    That's a purposeful choice. One of the main themes of the film are ghosts that haunt the present lives of the characters. Then there's the Day of the Dead symbolism (the dead return to you from the "grave"), the characterization of Bond as a messenger of death from the PTS on, the use of White as a ghostly, cautionary figure, etc.

    It was made with meaning and content in mind every step of the way.
  • edited February 2017 Posts: 676
    I find SP far more enjoyable than the lighter films, as it feels far more in touch with Fleming's original stories. He didn't right about a whimsical, easy going spy. The books depict a hard man in a hard world, facing depraved minds and personal tragedy through extended episodes of existential crises.
    How many of the books have you read? Bond facing "personal tragedy through extended episodes of existential crises" is not a common occurrence in the books. The only time this happens is in OHMSS/YOLT.
    Milovy wrote: »
    @Birdleson Yes, that too. I also find a lot of the film looks gray and foggy - like a ghost, or a corpse.

    That's a purposeful choice. One of the main themes of the film are ghosts that haunt the present lives of the characters. Then there's the Day of the Dead symbolism (the dead return to you from the "grave"), the characterization of Bond as a messenger of death from the PTS on, the use of White as a ghostly, cautionary figure, etc.

    It was made with meaning and content in mind every step of the way.
    Believe me, the "ghost" theme wasn't lost on me. The movie kinda hits you over the head with the idea. Anyway, the point here isn't whether or not the "ghostly" feeling was on purpose - it's whether or not the film is the "most fun Bond adventure in decades."
  • Everything you say is certainly true, @BradyM, regarding what Fleming wrote and the place for darker toned and themed Bond films in the series. However the debate in this thread is whether or not Spectre is a lighthearted adventure full of fun and wit and humor or an overall gloomy affair. Everything appears to point toward the gloomy side of things, apart from Craig and Waltz who appear to be taking a rather chipper and flippant approach to the film. I would argue that the copious references to more lighthearted Bonds of old, like the white Goldfinger jacket and the TSWLM callbacks, confuses things further from a tonal perspective.

    How well this all works and the overall quality of the film or one's personal enjoyment of it, whether taken as lighthearted adventure or gloomy character piece, is a different matter and evidently fully up for debate.
  • In Craig's era, SP is probably the most fun in the traditional sense of the word, but the lazy attempts at writing and Craig's charmless persona bring the attempts at 'fun' to a halt.

    While SF is the best film of Craig's era - and a definitive return to form - the last film with the most fun, and sense of joie de vivre, would be DAD. Any Bond film prior to CR knew what Bond was about.

    Is it though? Compared with Skyfall maybe, but up against Bond's charming, youthful go-get-em-ness of CR and QOS? Even with QOS, which many for some reason take to be completely humorless, compare Bond's quips about Fields having handcuffs or even searching for the stationary with smashing glasses into the floor and Monica Bellucci crying and in the aftermath of it all being told he's going to a place of no mercy. Which is the breezier and more lighthearted? After meeting Felix, they shake hands and Felix tells him to get a move on and we get a brief bit of fun action music from Arnold, by contrast with White slumped dead in his chair. I'm sorry, but one left me smiling and the other didn't. I really don't think Spectre is more lighthearted than CR or QOS—and yes, I realize that is saying something.
  • QuantumOrganizationQuantumOrganization We have people everywhere
    Posts: 1,187
    Nonsense to say that DAD was the last film that knew 007, I didn't know invisible cars, Poor writing and space lasers was Fleming.
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