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Lets turn back to a director what if. I am not sure if this one came close to happening but lets speculate and have fun!
Martin Campbell is responsible for introducing two new actors in the role of James Bond. Pierce Brosnan in GE and Daniel Craig in CR. Both films were critically well received and audiences loved both films. I know on these very boards there was chatter after CR that Campbell come back to direct Craig's second film. Martin came out and said that it takes too much energy and focus to do one Bond let alone 2 back to back. So we never got a follow up Campbell film to CR. But what if Campbell had returned to the director's chair? Lets take a different tack for this "what if".
Lets say Campbell came back to direct a follow-up. What film would you have liked to see Campbell direct? Brosnan in a follow-up to GE (TND?) or Craig in a follow-up to CR (QOS)? What say you Mi6...what if Martin Campbell had returned to the directors chair to direct a follow-up to one of his introductions of a new Bond? Would the series been better for it? What actor would benefit more from his experienced hand directing a follow-up?
Using one of my suggestions! I think QOS would have been more connected with CR, but better edited. Maybe Stuart Baird would have come back.
Craig's 2nd outing may not be one that often gets ranked so low had Campbell returned. Honestly, several people I know think it's the series' worst film.
Unbelievable....
I would love to have seen Campbell directing a follow-up to GE. I think his steady hand and understanding of action for story would have vastly improved TND. I think he might have been able to stop TND from becoming the shoot'em up action movie it became. Pierce would have provided a more relaxed and multi leveled performance as well.
His direction for TND might have been more inspired than Spottiswoode, but he'd still would have had to deal with the script issues going on.
I like the pace of both of his movies, though I did think CR could have trimmed down a bit between the torture and Venice.
TND is a film I've always felt could have done with another director, and Campbell would have been the obvious choice, IMO. GE felt like a really good introduction to a 90's Bond, but it went wrong with TND, and I feel the Brosnan era suffered from it. Had Campbell done TND, the Brosnan era would have got some sort of consistency early on, and could potentially have developed into something even better than what we got.
Also, he would not have allowed the action to be edited as it was.
I rather like QOS the way it is. Yes it's quirky and a little different but I like the tight story and the way some of the scenes are handled. I especially liked the opera and the Quantum meeting.
What a shame...
I’d say he’s a very serviceable Bond director at best, but he is an extremely reliable one, especially in regards to kicking off an actor’s tenure. Many regard his films as being the best of both Brosnan and Craig’s. Though I personally think SKYFALL is Craig’s best, I don’t blame anyone for thinking CR is.
However, I think he somewhat lucked out on the material he got to work with. There’s a number of non-Bond films that didn’t exactly hit the highs of GE and CR, to put it mildly. I never finished GREEN LANTERN, but I had hopes Campbell would give it the same good kickstart as his Bonds, and that was quickly deflated.
It's difficult for me because I find Skyfall to be objectively amazing, personally I find it a bit boring. Goldeneye is one of my favourite Bond films, but that's largely to do with the fact that it was my first when I was a kid, but IMO it holds up.
I love Goldeneye and think it and Casino Royale are both incredible Bond films, therefore its hard to not associate Campbell with these successes. Had he directed follow ups I'm sure they also would have been amazing.
Having said that, I also really love Tomorrow Never Dies and Quantum of Solace so, six of one, half dozen of another.
I understand why EON wanted to strike while the iron was hot, though. The two preceding them where both huge hits.
Unfortunately I can't say the same about the rushed, shaky and anemic mess that was QOS.
Blasphemy. He reinvigorated the franchise twice.
Goldeneye was such an incredible start, and TND broke that streak with it's blandness. The Brosnan era never found it's footing after that.
Craig is doing fine on his own, and QoS only needed a better Editor.
But TND needed a lot more than that, and Campbell would have delivered.
AVTAK is a strange one. I don't love it but I do love the soundtrack. I like the casting and some of the harder-edged moments.
But I don't know why--with this film--they tacked away from the short stories that served them well in FYEO and OP, and would again in TLD and LTK. For AVTAK, they easily could have given us a mashup of, for example, FAVTAK and THR.
The film, and particularly the plot, just seem so tired and frankly on auto pilot, like, "Oh Moore's doing another one, let's crank it out."
Even though TLD was written for Moore (and the initial scenes would have had some interesting resonance for his eighth film!), at least Eon tried harder with that script and went back to Fleming.
TND didn't have a writers strike. What happened was that there was already a script that would focus on Brittain handing Hong Kong to China, but then EON felt the story would be dated so they decided to start from scratch, and that carried over onto filming.
The idea that TLD was written for Moore is a myth. In fact, Wilson's first pitch was that it would be about Bond's beginnings, but Cubby didn't believe in the concept and so it was scrapped (only to be revived for CR 20 years later). In fact, the film was written with no actor in mind as no one was cast yet, so Wilson basically wrote Bond with less emphasis on humor; a one size fits all kind of Bond for whoever got cast. Once Dalton was finally cast, they did what they could to try to tailor the script to Dalton's strengths.
I think it's most apparent with the Pushkin interrogation scene. There's simply no way Moore would have played the scene the way Dalton did, let alone the bit where he aggressively rips off a woman's clothing just to distract a guard.
I do think some of the scene's would have made sense with Moore, though. Bond seems incredibly world weary in the Prague scenes with Saunders and sniper Kara. That would have really struck a cord if Moore had played it. I think the myth that TLD had at least been partially written for Moore may have some truth. EON probably went back to the storyboard for the meat and potatoes of the plot once Dalton signed on.
He had his moments--the opening shot in GE, the pull back from Bond and Vesper in the shower in CR. But he's a workman-like director with little vision. As much as I love CR, too much of his work in that film looks like made-for-TV drama. In fact too much of it, (like the pan up, at the Skyfleet prototype in the hangar, with Arnold's bombastic score) is unintentioanlly hilarious, thirteen years later.
@ 1:31. LOL. This is really bad, cringe-worthy filmmaking. It really is. Overall, though, screw it: it's Bond, and Craig is fanstastic. I just will punt on the idea that Campbell is "the man."
Though as far as workman directors go I think he’s a step up from John Glen.
Come on, we're talking about him taking over for Roger Spottiswoode, not Terence Young.
Besides I'd say most Bond directors would be described by cinephiles as 'workmanlike directors'