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Me too. I never saw any of the brilliant moments others identified in this film.
I feel the Craig era is split into 2 eras (so far still hoping he comes back for 1-2 more films I will even take more One word S titles if need be)
Era 1 (my preferred era) Bond Begins Casino Royale Quantum of solace and (in my opinion) Goldeneye Reloaded and Bloodstone. Where bond is dark the jokes are few and it's very action and espionage orientated (to me quantum of solace feels like a modern from Russia with love and yes I know I am the only one who thinks this)
The issue is like Connery and Moore (not so much Brosnan whose first three films I feel were actually quite good then die another day happened sigh) the producers started to get well lazy which brings us to
Era 2 the Mendes era. The issue here is both Skyfall and Spectre have extremely similar issues. Specifically
1. Both have a main villain whose plan is simple but done in such a crazy convoluted way that info is lost on the audience (how did C rise so high without no one realizing he was a bad guy especially after Quantum of solace, or how did Silva plan his escape that well)
2. Both have throwbacks to earlier films which causes huge continuity issues. ( how did Blofeld rise to power in quantum/Spectre and why did the British government just stop caring about Mr. white and why does bond's db5 have gadgets?)
3. Thomas Newman
But over all Skyfall which used to rank low is growing higher as for Spectre I have a feeling it will grow as well.
Yes, I definitely see Craig's Bond films as two halves - CR and QoS seem to go together and SF and SP have a different feeling to CR and QoS
Yep very true and the first half is far better and more interesting than the second. In tge past few days I've attempted to watch SP twice but I just end up wanting to switch it off and watch one of the Bond films that came before. SP isn't a horrible film, it's just a huge disappointment and didn't live up to the hype that surrounded it and it also is a film that didn't justify the budget allocated to make it. I don't see this film rising through the ranks at all.
@Risico007, I was expecting trickier questions, actually. How did C rise so high? Well, it isn't exactly hard to believe that a corrupted man could get high into office, as we see news reports of real men and women doing it every day. And, because C was working towards an increased surveillance program to then utilize at Blofeld's behest, he could manipulate the mounting issues internationally of terrorism and other disastrous and dangerous developments, using those threats to move forward plans to make the world a more surveyed one, which fit his SPECTRE agenda perfectly.
Blofeld's rise to power in SPECTRE is left more of a mystery, but you do get the feeling that he built himself on powerful connections that made him a great force of power in the organization, and made him the kingpin, essentially. How he has been able to remain the head of the organization is easy; as with mob organizations, the leader is left in the shadows to pluck away at strings and manipulate from afar, while the agents between them and the foot soldiers at the bottom rung of the criminal ladder take all the heat and buffer them from law enforcement action and other mob-like enemies.
As for Mr. White, I don't think there's any reason to assume that the government just stopped looking for him. They have his last know location, or thereabouts, but he's so well hidden that it isn't hard to imagine most missed him completely. The place he's at looks uninhabited, and only Bond was able to find his hiding spot, nobody else.
As for the DB5, it's not hard for me to imagine that Bond had the car outfitted with some equipment in light of Q Branch's capabilities, and the same with the DB10, for use on the job.
On a side note, I was recently looking through some Bond wikis, and I actually found this background info on SPECTRE, Mr. White and his connection with Blofeld that was meant to feature more prominently in the film itself that really helps to color the history of the men and the formation of the organization:
"In a scene from an earlier draft of Spectre, it was revealed that in the 1990s, a man calling himself Ernst Stavro Blofeld became part of a battalion of the French Foreign Legion called 'Les Spectre de St. Pierre' in Morocco. A fellow member of this battalion was the man who would later become known as Mr. White, and who would also become a member of Spectre. It is implied that the platoon was already involved in criminal dealings. At some point there was a sandstorm and Blofeld and White were left for dead by the rest of the battalion with eight fellow soldiers, without rations, in the middle of the desert. Blofeld killed the other eight men in the night, leaving only White alive to help him to get to and carry the 'food' (the eighth dead soldier). After the sandstorm was over, Blofeld, with White's assistance, developed the shadowy criminal organization named after his legion, SPECTRE.
Some years prior to the events of Casino Royale, Mr. White got married and spent his wedding night in a hotel in Tangier, L'Américain. He and his wife had a daughter, Madeleine Swann. Every year, they returned to the same suite and brought Madeleine with them, indicating a happy family life. Blofeld says he once visited the White family home, suggesting that Mr. White was already a high-ranking member in SPECTRE, and was close to Blofeld. In a deleted scene it was revealed that White was Blofeld's second-in-command.One night, a man came to White's house, in order to kill him. Madeleine, who was playing in her bedroom, and was unnoticed by the intruder, saved her father's live by killing the man with a Beretta M9 pistol that her father kept under the sink in the kitchen. Some time after the incident, Madeleine grew estranged with her father and his lifestyle as a callous and ruthless assassin, which leads to her leaving for the Sorbonne and severing all contact with him. Between the events of Quantum of Solace and Spectre, White's wife divorced her husband, and it could be inferred that the woman seen with White at the performance of Tosca in Quantum of Solace was his wife."
Pretty cool, huh? I love how apparent it is, even here that Blofeld has always been very bloodthirsty and selfish, willing to kill any man to stay alive, only keeping those around who can help his own agendas. This fits the image of who he is in SP perfectly and adds so much more to his character.
Why is none of that if the finished film FFS? Nice one Sam.
How such basic and crucial elements of the storytelling got left by the wayside amongst the pretentious tracking shots and world record breaking explosions is a joke.
Way too much was omitted/hidden, much like all the Spectre rings being made out of the meteor. Didn't have the slightest idea that this was the case until someone mentioned it a couple weeks back.
I think this would've probably been better. I enjoyed the torture scene, the Blofeld reveal gave me goosebumps, but the dinner scene would have accomplished that. It also would've allowed more exposition about Blofeld's origins such as the cool background with Mr White that @Brady posted, and it also would've removed the problem of the drill doing fuck all despite what Blofeld said it'd do.
I'm guessing the torture sequence was an addition made by Mendes or the producers doing filming because they liked the bit in Colonel Sun. It makes for a great individual scene but it was a mistake to include it in this film imo. The dinner scene would have been better. Should have saved it for another time.
Yeah I know what you mean, they even set it up with the chauffer, the rooms with the clothes laid out, etc. Why all the pleasentries if he was going to torture Bond (and not for information or anything, just to be sadistic, which again doesn't fit a villain who prepared a room for him and sent a Rolls Royce to pick him up) almost as soon as he met him? A dinner scene would've better fit the 60s, Dr No gentleman villain vibe that they'd established in those scenes imo.
Now if they'd had dinner and he'd grown tired and angry at Bond and then decided to torture him, or even if that sense of "okay I'm sick of you now" had come across during their conversation in the control room, it would've been another story. But as it stands the whole torture scene does seem a little jarring. It isn't really set up beforehand, and it's immediately forgotten after (he goes back to being super Bond despite the drilling). A great individual scene but it doesn't fit in the film at all. Weird choice since the original script already had it spot on with the dinner scene.
Obviously the running time would be getting excessive so bin the limp London finale and have the climax in the crater base.
Do you not think, though, that there'd have been even more bile projected it's way for being utterly cliched? The finale is no masterpiece, but it's different and visually distinctive.
Therefore, if anything, 2015 was the year for Bond to forge forward with something new. Something different.
In a way, due to the competition, 2015 was calling for something unexpected like SF from Bond, rather than something like SP, which was derivative of the past and homage driven, drawing inevitable comparisons to the other films of the year (some of which did Bond better than Bond imho).
Arguably, 2012 was the year to deliver something more like SP, being the anniversary year, but then they already did that for the 40th anniversary by homaging in DAD & it didn't age well, which could have explained the completely different approach taken for the 50th anniversary film.
I like the idea of a dinner scene ala Doctor No before any torture scene. Then have Bond escaping/inflitrating the base with Madeleine intercut to M/MoneyPenny/Tanner and Q doing the London stuff trying to stop C. Wring out some more tension and build up (plus make the torture scene count for "something"). Add a doomsday style countdown before the "big base 'splosion"/Bond flies off with Madeleine into the sunset. The end. Cliched - perhaps - but I really don't care if it's actually more exciting, better paced and still true to the story. This is just my opinion of course...
Well of course without the finale in London ever existing we might then criticise that things were a bit cliched without knowing how much worse things would have been if we'd stayed on the alternative timeline and kept the London stuff.
For me the scene when they are arrive at the crater is simply brimming with a classic 60s DN/GF vibe, and in a good way - not like the lazy DB5 homage for example.
I'd have liked to have seen them see it through with a dinner scene ('I had hoped there might be a place for you in SPECTRE James'. 'I'd prefer the revenge department. My first job would be finding the man who killed Vesper and M.' 'I misjudged you. You are nothing but a stupid policeman.') before the torture and then a classic 'Bond destroys the villain's base and brings his plans crashing down' climax.
You could have the key SPECTRE server that was linked to Nine Eyes going live located in the crater and its this that counts down but instead of a tension less scene of Q shutting it down Bond blows it up in classic style and Blofeld escapes a la YOLT. Lovely stuff.
Cliched is one way of looking at it. 'Classic' would be a more positive spin on it.
Well I kinda see what you mean, the numbers just don't match up to your assumptions.
Critically Craig smashes Brosnan all over the place.
GE-78% CR-95%
TND-57% QoS-64%
TWINE-51% SF-92%
DAD- 58% SP- 65%
Brosnan's average for 4 films: 61%
Craig's average: 79%
Not even close. Same at the box office. Brosnan's worldwide average is 370 mil, Craig's is 793 mil. Adjusted for inflation, it's still a complete and utter blowout victory for Daniel Craig. In short, you have no idea what you are talking about. ^#(^
Quantum - could've been easily explained away that Greene left the organization is a precarious state, which is why he was executed when he was found roaming around the Bolivian desert... Spectre, in an attempt to tie up loose ends, dissolved the organization. .......... this could've easily been discussed between Bond and Mr White in White's cabin..
The Spectre Ring / Meteor connection - again.. a simple ADR job from Wishaw on this would've saved so many of us scratching our heads..
The White / Blofeld connection - part of this could've been started by White when Bond finds him in his cabin.. and the rest could've been finished by Blofeld at his crater lair..
in terms of the torture.. i don't mind the drilling.. but i really loved what they had in the original script - with Q getting kidnapped, and Bond being locked onto a solar furnace... it was different and unique, and it also really utilized the smart blood tech - something that was dropped halfway through the film we got - a potential plot point that they just gave up on.
Well to be fair to Brosnan if the figures are adjusted all his films would be around 600-700 million range and there are a lot more markets that these films play in now so I don't think you can ever do an exact comparison.
The critical consensus is just a trend thing, critics just follow the crowd.
It's going back awhile but I thought Daniel Craig was fantastic in Remington Steele.
'Twilight' (2008) average critics rating: 5.4/10
Tells you all you need to know about RT critics.
I quite liked the finale in the abandoned MI6 building, I wouldn't get rid of that. We had big battle setpieces at the end of QoS and SF anyway. The SP finale was something original and I really enjoyed it. I just wish that M had actually killed C, and I wish that they'd stuck with the London blackout idea from the script instead of just having Bond be captured again. Still a brilliant finale though imo. Loved the creepy Scaramanga's funhouse vibe of the old MI6, the shot of Bond staring down Blofeld's helicopter, etc. Brilliant stuff. And while you're right about the lack of tension with Q and Nine Eyes, I thought a lot of tension came from Bond desperately looking for Madeline and then from their escape. The stakes were more personal and the finale was more sombre and tense than big and bombastic. Which I thought was great and a fitting end to the Craig era which has focused on more personal character driven conflicts.
The torture scene was really good but it just felt out of place. It's immediately forgotten about, Bond is still able to effortlessly shoot or take down henchmen, he's even able to bring a helicopter down with just his ppk, despite Blofeld saying he'd lose his memory and motor skills and all this. It feels very shoehorned in, even if there weren't the leak to use as reference it'd clear that it wasn't in the original script.
I think SP over time will become less appreciated and while not that much in the series touches CR for me (except FRWL for me personally) I think QoS will improve in appreciation while it seems that most people fall in to a SF or SP camp and for all its own flaws - I'm firmly in the SF camp.