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Totally agree.
Those are the major occurrences, but I think the books depict a journey of a man that puts him through it progressing over time, mind and body. He starts off falling for a woman who uses and betrays him, that kills herself instead of facing him, leaving with to deal with the aftermath. In the next books he gets dropped by a woman he wanted to pursue, has a big relationship that ends unsuccessfully, experiences torture via many villains, finally marries, loses the woman to a drive-by, goes off to kill the man behind it with his bare hands, and then finishes the series wondering what his future will be with retirement age nearing and he himself nearly dead from his last mission. It's never sunshine and rainbows for Bond, and at times, it's like the universe has something against him.
This is neither here nor there, but I had to reply...
I agree. CR and QoS are hilarious at parts, but I feel this is lost on some who still view them as dark and miserable for the entire running time. Neither of those films carry the ominous mood of SP, either, which adds to their more witty nature, as the tone isn't brought so consistently to a darker one as SP can be.
I think all the movies have their moments, and each of them have moments that are some of the best bits of wit since the best of Maibaum in the 60s.
In terms of fun, it is such a subjective thing, it depends completely on one's sense of humour, on whether you focus on plot, themes or atmosphere, and on what you compare it to. Personally, if I am watching Bond purely for fun, then give me any Brozza, or Golden Gun or Octopussy. However, blending the light hearted into the fundamentally dark world of Bond is a very tricky balance to strike, and obviously different directors use different techniques to achieve this. For me, I actually prefer the balance of QOS and SF, where you have an essentially serious character who, in between breaths, can still see the lighter side of things, and thus it gives those moments more power. However, I see Spectre as a natural progression from this, where Bond is now in his absolute prime, he oozes self-assurance and apart from very brief moments of panic (Hinx train fight), he basically has it all under control (hence the lighter tone of the car chase, his recovery from the torture chair). So I think the lighter aspects of Spectre mainly relate to Bond's character and make sense in terms of his development, while the darker aspects relate mainly to the crazy world he inhabits.
Finally, I still think the PTS is untouchable after many rewatches. The swagger, the grand scale, the sheer danger of the helicopter and the music all work perfectly. That scene alone would already put Spectre in the top half for me.
My mother is at the same point in her life. Also not really a "personal tragedy through extended episodes of existential crises."
Okay, I will give you this as being notably traumatic for Bond. Still, I think your characterization of the books is off. I would call what happens to Bond something more like... extreme violence inflicted upon his body. I don't know. Fleming always puts him through the wringer, but it's not personal and there is no accompanying existential crisis (except in CR, when he considers leaving the service after being tortured - but that's the exception).
I wouldn't call it untouchable - Newman's recycled music is a bother - but I will admit that the PTS is a blast. Most fun I've had in a Bond film since CR.
I really like CR and SF, two of the better 007 films.
I rate QOS right on par with CR. They're two halves of the same film—two very distinct halves—and equally quality in my book. In my ratings, I have CR one place higher, but the difference in my enjoyment between the two is negligible. Definitely the best two of the millennium. And if you want to call Quantum the best, you won't hear an argument here.
I am exactly the same..i have CR at #3 and QOS at #4 ....
Having said that, there could be no QoS without CR. The later film relies heavily on a lot of characters and history from the previous entry. CR can easily stand alone without QoS, but the later film cannot (imho) stand alone without CR.
1. I think they tried to appeal to both the casual fan and the hardcore fan - I think the step-brother angle was designed to give the casual fan a reason to care because the reveal of the name Blofeld perhaps didn't mean much to the average movie goer. At the same time the many tiny nods in the film I think are meant to signal to the hardcore fan that this is classic Bond returning.
2. They tried to appeal to fans both the Broz-Pierce version of Bond as well as the Dalton-Craig version. So you have a brutal train fight and a torture sequence alongside the couch in the PTS, the old bloke in the Fiat and a more smooth, detached Bond.
3. They spent up big on real stunts and set pieces to try to counter some of the criticism of the komodo dragon CGI and the like. Thus, they kind of locked themselves into sequences (Westminster, some would say Rome, the explosion in the desert) and then had to build a story around it. Had they not been so ambitious, we could have finished the film with a massive shoot out at the crater base and Blofeld escaping.
4. They (Sam and Daniel not least) put so much of themselves into the film and the filming. The main reason Spectre's action may generally not feel as visceral as some of the earlier Craig movies was because he blew out his ACL trying to perfect the incredible fight with Bautista. They then had to cover for DC's injury in various ways which I'm sure would have frustrated him.
5. They tried to cover a huge amount of plot in a short space of time, which left some people thinking that the story and characters were wafer thin, when in reality they had probably cut down many meaningful elements of the story in order to get the film within a reasonable time frame.
6. Partly due to the reasons above, they had to write an ending to the film that catered to all of the possible future outcomes of the franchise - will Craig return or not, will Waltz or Seydoux be back etc. It is easy to be critical of some aspects of the third act but the way it was done does leave the door open for Bond 25, the challenge for the Bond team will be to utilise this opportunity in a creative way and I think whatever they come up with will still have a significant effect on Spectre's legacy.
I guess, in summary, I see Spectre as a film where the Bond team genuinely tried as hard as ever before to create a critical and commercial success, but their ambitions ended up locking them into certain decisions which a simpler, more focussed movie could have avoided. In that respect I see Spectre as a modern-day Thunderball, it will probably always divide fans but it still has so much quality to enjoy, and I personally love it.
The bigger questions are, what lessons will EON learn from Spectre, and where will they take us next?
There's a serious risk that if I ever again have to sit through Bond and the Scooby gang running around to Newman's "The Moors" guitar riff on a 20-minute loop, my brain will atrophy due to boredom.
It's basically become a trope at this point. I think it has to happen again in the next film, if they want to keep fans happy.
OHMSS is one of the easiest films to rip apart for logic, so I wouldn't go that far. Some films are just easier for us to accept than others, that's all. If we like a Bond actor or narrative journey, we can accept slip-ups or moments that we would've handled differently with more ease.
I wasn't speaking strictly about logic, rather overall quality. On the logic front I think OHMSS is pretty sound though, give or take your views on whether or not Bond and Blofeld have met before and the slack you're willing to give Bond and Tracy coincidentally meeting on the ice-rink while he's being chased. And in terms of overall quality—apart from the beef some have with Lazenby's performance—I think that really would have to come down to nitpicking.
If we're speaking on quality, there's aspects of SP that are also very artful, especially when it comes to photography/framing, sound design, some use of color, etc.
OHMSS has plenty of moments that just make no sense. Probably the biggest of all, even beyond the illogical Bond/Blofeld meeting, Bond and Tracy running into each other at the exact moment the former need her, and the strange psychological mind therapy/control, is the fact that somehow Blofeld was able to do all this stuff in a two year period or less:
*Get all the necessary papers he’d need to convince people he could be a real heir to the title of a Bleuchamp count.
*Get plastic surgery to alter not only his appearance (including height, somehow) as we know of him in You Only Live Twice, but to also sever his earlobes in order to appear like a descendant of the Bleuchamps.
*Make a reputable name for himself with his newfound alias in the medical field, purchase Piz Gloria under the guise of a medical professional (naming the institute after a surname he hasn’t even been able to legally verify to anyone) and turn the base into a running clinic.
*Pick a sizable team of scientists who would agree to make both vaccines and viruses for him that he would need to keep delicate track of around the facility so as not to cross-mix them.
*Assemble a client list of allergy sufferers to invite to his clinic and cure these patients in order to attract positive attention to his work, driving even more women to seek his medical expertise.
*Select and treat a specific set of female patients from around the world with allergies specific to the crops he will be threatening to destroy if the United Nations fail to meet his demands of amnesty.
Blofeld would have to do all this and who knows how much more in addition to balancing all the other interests SPECTRE has as an ongoing criminal organization, which is a helluva lot to take, even for a Bond film and even for a villain built up to be as mythically powerful as Blofeld is.
Just saying, OHMSS ain't perfect, and GF, as adored as it is, is the same bonkers trip down logic lane. But these are what these movies are, and few to no Bond films are safe from this criticism, save for maybe FRWL and a good bit of DN. They're escapist films, so let's escape. We just have to look at the films with the same pairs of eyes without giving special treatment to our favorites.
Just, it would still be griping.
But again, I wasn't speaking about logic to begin with.
It doesn't make sense, but vintage Bond has a special place and that's fine, as I love them all too. It's just that in today's climate everyone's a critic and EON would never be able to get away with what Cubby did in the 60s, at all. Those movies have different standards and we're easy on them because they're iconic; it's harder for new films to be treated fairly because of it.
The Bond series has constantly slipped-up, then made good, so it's just a natural thing we have to prepare for. I am much happier now than I would've been had I lived through the films post-1969 where it all went downhill (with OHMSS being the last "masterpiece"), or witnessed the low returns of the brilliant Dalton approach and the big hiatus. Mistakes are made, but I think the series is in a phenomenal place, heads and tails above what it has been for a long time, critically and financially exceeding Brosnan, having better traction than Dalton's films, and I'd say being more popular than Moore's low returns at parts of his era. It's why so many of Dan's films stack up there with what the Connery films were able to pull in. They are of the same sort of spirit, and recall a vintage feeling while still giving the character reverence.
It makes sense for these movies to feel 60s in style, because Bond is that man out of time character in my head. He's a traditionalist combating a swift-moving world that doesn't have time for his antiquated way of doing things. Craig's Bond is that sort of man, and the films portray that thusly. I'm having a riot of a time.
Not to speak of both the Bond girl and his boss get killed.
What a brave chap, he still has a huge grin on his face at the end of it.