It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
Just listened to the whole 90min of this Spectre dedicated Empire podcast, including 30 min w Sam Mendes.
Thanks for linking @brady.
The three hosts are very engaging and very Bond knowledgeable. Great discussion. Very much worth listening to.
The Mendes part is like the SP blu-ray commentary we never got.
I think there is an intention to get Craig back, but if P&W turn in something less than or on par with SP, Craig may pass.
Dan is always involved with the scripting process, so what he wants to see will be there.
Backing up, Bond falls for Vesper in a very short period. She's beautiful and likeable enough. But what's key is they shared the success in the casino, then more importantly the dire straits of being kidnapped (and "kidnapped") by Le Chiffre and Bond's enduring a horrific torture targeting his manhood and his life. People going through extreme circumstances behave that way.
Harder to see in the films, but part of the Bond character is set up to fall for the latest Bond Girl that comes along. He doesn't try to marry every one, but he really does take to them and they're always worthy of that at least in the short term.
Bond wants to be with someone who he doesn't have to lie about himself to (as he wanted with Vesper), and no other kind of woman besides Madeleine would be able to accept his past life and be able to move past it with him. Her father was a dangerous man who did dark things, and because of that she understands the machinations that drive men to kill. Though Bond isn't that black hearted, he is assured that she is able to forgive what he's done on the job, and is willing to move away with him so that both of them can settle down and forget their dark pasts without ever having to worry about hiding who they were/are.
In a sense, Bond is attracted to her, but doesn't adore her. She is his last chance, and he takes the opportunity to turn away while he still can. But what he feels for her isn't to the level of Vesper, as it never could be. The first time he gave his heart away, much of it got eaten through betrayal. He only has so much to give to whoever came after.
As with many things in SP, it just took me completely out of the experience and made me think I was watching amateur hour. I have a feeling they knew there was a problem while they were making it, which is why she didn't show up in much of the trailers.
When something clicks on screen, there is no reason for people to have to explain it to viewers. We just feel it. The electricity was there in CR.
Craig had more chemistry with Kurylenko than he did with Seydoux. When Camille kissed Bond in the car at the end there was significance and credibility. None of that existed in SP, to me anyway.
I honestly can't believe this is the same team that gave us SF, where everything they did resonated and was impactful.
As I said in another thread, SF felt like it was made with love and dedication. SP reeks of a by the numbers 'let's get this over with' affair.
When in the finished product it barely resonates, completely making the title song an it's tenuous link to the film useless.
A song about the shadow of SPECTRE over Bond's MI6 career would have made much more sense thematically instead of some Bond pastiche with a love theme, that said the quality of the film got the theme it deserved, the worst of the series to date that is.
Have to agree. As much as the analysis above makes sense on paper, this is not what comes across on screen sadly. A very flat relationship.
We're all set in our ways at times, often down to a mix of our own preference and nostalgia, but I don't think this stance gets us too far.
If we're not to discuss how we feel other films are effective, especially ones like SP who many believe doesn't even deserve to exist, dissenters won't understand where the supporters stand. Part of my goal isn't to convince people on the whole, just to argue why I find it to be far more powerful and well told than many think, as I have done with QoS for nearly a decade now, happily converting some fans to it over time. Sometimes the result of me sticking my neck out for SP ends in me being called bought and paid for by EON in a cheeky way, or more prickly criticisms that I've lost it or don't know good storytelling when I see it (as a degreed writer), but if I feel something strongly I'm not going to let drama queens silence me.
The whole point of a forum is to talk. If we only bother chatting with people who agree, people who like a film and those that don't like it won't really understand where each other stand on the issue, and there also exists no chance for people to be recruited to either side of thought. People's posts on here have made me look at Bond films I'd never given a proper chance to before, like DAF and some of Moore's films, and I know many who've read the writing of myself and others and were able to see things they hadn't spotted on their own that changed a movie entirely for them. Putting in no effort just doesn't work with me, when you can get those kinds of positive results out of it.
I agree with this. Craig had better chemistry with the women in each of the three previous films (plus Giannini and Wright) than he did with anyone in SP.
IMHO, the greatest problem with SP is casting. There were script issues but I've seen Waltz in many films and he is usually good enough to make reading the phone book interesting. Seydoux has been impressive in other roles. Bellucci is the only one of the three who acquits herself admirably.
Seydoux's best scene is when she is drunk in the hotel...I had high hopes that the chemistry would start firing up then, but it never did.
I wonder what it would have been like had Birgitte Hjort Sørensen been cast as Madeleine (clearly that was the role she was up for). Maybe she and Craig would have had the chemistry that the final film lacked.
And the scene with Mr. White could have been twice as long and still worked as beautifully (with more Blofeld backstory?)...he's basically in the Draco role here.
@Birdleson, well said. I have noticed the same thing.
Same here. I'm all for sharing different viewpoints, playing devil's advocate, and seeing things in a light I may not have before, but the pressing need on these forums to try and convince people to enjoy something they don't is a bit extreme. Just like the analysis of particular scenes/love angles/relationships I see - you can explain it until the end of time, but if it doesn't work for me, I'll never agree.
Like @Birdleson said, we've all watched the films by this point and we all have our own feelings on each one. I love GE, and some people hate it; I accept it, doesn't bother me in the slightest because it doesn't remotely detract from the entertainment I get out of it, and it never will.
I can probably discuss in detail why I feel this way for pages upon pages. As you say, it's pointless. I realize the majority of the forum thinks it's a PoS and that Moore trying to be Connery tough didn't work (I disagree and think it's his best performance). I don't take it personally that one of my sentimental favourites is regularly lambasted here. While it's hurtful to read some of the vitriol leveled against Ekland's Goodnight in particular (an endearing character from my perspective), it is what it is and as long as it keeps bringing a smile to my face that's enough for me.
I realize I am the one who could be delusional in this case, but c'est la vie.
"Fascinating anatomical titbit, but the most useless piece of information l ever heard. Unless the Bottoms Up is a strip club and Scaramanga is performing there.You'll have to do better."
Priceless, and delivered like only he could.
It's these kinds of comments that could turn the tide of opinion, which is why I don't view it as a useless exercise. If people like @timmer felt this way, he wouldn't have posted all the things he sees in DAF that made me re-examine it recently for instance, which I probably wouldn't have done outside of a bit of debate on it. A large part of the reason I look forward to going in and reviewing all of Moore's and Brosnan's films again-movies I historically don't take to-is because I've spent months reading great impressions on them from members that I'm going to take to heart and try to see openly for myself.
Maybe I'm in a minority here, but I want to be challenged and discover positives in things I may not at first like, and I don't mind pointing out where I erred if I see something truly spectacular in a film I had long lambasted. So when I'm in a debate with someone over a film I recall all the times I know people converted me to something and all the times people have told me I did similarly with them, and I try to-with no air of earnestness or nastiness-share my perspective and the wealth of things I see in films some may not like. It may annoy or displease some, and they are within their right to tell me to shut up, but I know others such as myself like the discussions and find them valuable to expand their Bondian horizons. The alternative is shutting others off and just liking what you like without letting the chance of new things in, and that doesn't really work for me. My time as a Bond fan here has been very dynamic, not static, and that makes me very proud.
LALD however I think may be slightly overrated
That Hamilton trilogy is brilliant on campy weirdness though.
I think Mendes was aiming for a bit of that with SF
Silva definitely feels like he'd be at home in a Hamilton film, @Getafix. Well spotted. Though I would hope Hamilton would make him say a few less "Mommies."
Very well said,and you just beat me to it !!
Just what I was thinking.
To be honest,there is something in EVERY Bond film that appeals,be it one scene,one chase,one moment,one conversation.
Craig scores pretty highly on all but the last, so I imagine there will be lots of fans who will look back on his era very positively and with a sense of fondness. Additionally, he will always be the 'reboot' Bond who started from inception, which is something none of the other actors had the benefit of (even Connery was introduced mid-stream with no back story).
Plus, one last movie of around 2 hours and 30 minutes would get him basically around the entire length of Connery's own tenure over 6 films (because Craig's movies have been at least twenty to thirty minutes longer than Connery's except for QoS), so everything balances out. We'd end up getting around the same time spent with Dan's Bond, if not much more, than we did Connery's Bond, and I'd be quite fine with that.