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Comments
You're not wrong, it's a balance. 1 out of 25 doesn't feel like too much.
I suppose the stakes here are that it is a definitive end to this iteration, for sure. I'd agree with you that it would disregard all stakes if Craig were to come back and the Swann storyline to be resumed.
And for the next film, they could either reboot or just do a DR. NO “we conveniently saved him with an antidote at the last minute, close call!”
I agree.
"That's not what I said." - Ernst Stavro Blofeld
There are also no stakes if last season was all a dream & Bobby's in the shower...
Strangely enough though,I guess it’s my second favourite of the Craig era as it isn’t as silly and ridiculous as Skyfall,not as boring and misjudged as Spectre,or as incoherent as Quantum Of Solace.
As uneven as QOS is, it's still my favourite of the Craig era, with CR just behind & SP following (the LOL of Bond landing on the couch in the PTS goes a LOOOONG way for me in making up for the other nonsense).
When that occurred, during my first viewing, I was so happy and optimistic that we were heading in that direction, and then it didn’t follow through. The rest was flat, with no joy, or anything else to compensate (solid action, drama, any cool element) for the lack of further fun. The other attempts at humor, during that bland chase scene, didn’t work. At least not for me.
@Birdelson SP isn't a great Bond, but after the nonsense of SF I found it to be lighthearted relief. Honestly, we haven't gotten a good Bond movie in 14 years.
SF is more coherent and has the best cinematography of the series, but the "old ways are the best" mantra is redundant and quite annoying if you ask me.
SP is more watchable than SF for me, even though I can see SF is the better made film. CR is obviously the Craig masterpiece, and QoS is all over the place really. But still watchable, pretty much because of its short runtime and quick changes. Some of it is fabulous (opera scene).
It's strange how Casino Royale totally broke the mold on what a Bond film was. But looking back on it now, is it the only Craig film where he was handed a proper assignment and followed it through? I think it might be!
NTTD for me, just re-visited a lot of ideas that I didn't like in the Craig era, and added some more, even worse. So as impressive as the film is, as a Bond movie it didn't work for me. I haven't bought the DVD and my Craig collection ends with Spectre.
The trouble is, when the next film comes around every comic on every chat show will make the 'Bobby in the shower' joke and audiences will politely laugh at its originality. 8-|
They'll be too busy scrolling social media crap posts on their phones while sitting in the theater missing important plot points from the next film, and when called on it they'll label you something ridiculous.
That’s unlikely, since they aren’t even attending Bond films according to demographic reports. Bond has become an old codger’s franchise.
Considering the films released this year, I'd have rather gone to see another bond film even if I did not like the ending.
The more they drift away from the literary character the less likely I'll be willing to go to the theater to see the movie...and the more they corrupt the general theme or story surrounding the character or characters the less likely I'll be willing to see the film. I did the same thing with Star Wars. Once they killed off Han Solo in TFA and introduced characters that mastered the force in 5 minutes I lost total interest and didn't bother going to theaters to watch the two films following TFA, which went against my core character after being a fan since the 70s. Instead I'll wait until the film is either free or so cheap on streaming services that it won't bother me to fall asleep on my couch half way through the movie.
That's true, but Bobby in the shower has somehow entered TV folklore as bywords for terrible and desperate plotting, like The Fonz jumping the shark in Happy Days.
I can see what you mean, but when it comes to being close to the literary character, there's been a lot of Fleming in the Craig era. Certainly more than the Brosnan era. I remember when Bond had the "You're not my type", "smart?" "No, single" dialogue in CR, I though that not many moviegoers would realise that they were referring to the book Bond, who usually made love 'with cold passion' to one of three married women in London.
Then there's the pills, no other incarnation of the screen Bond has addressed the pill-popping. And of course, the parent's graves, the home near Glen Coe, and in QoS, Bond is actually a bit drunk at last. Anyone that's read Fleming will know how much booze Bond puts away, (he seems to spend most of You Only Live Twice sucking a jug I noticed on a recenr re-read). And of course, Craig was the first Bond to order the proper Fleming Vesper.
NTTD also put a fair bit of Fleming in there. Although, like you Ken, I was very unhappy with the plot points, and their willingness to unnecessarily (in my opinion) kill off characters all over the place, I have to be fair and say they did pay due respect to the books through the Craig era. The real Fleming departure in the film series came in the seventies, (they even had Moore's Bond studying at Oxford).
I was mostly referring to the character of Bond himself, starting with his description. Reference to Hoagy Carmichael has been made numerous times, and while Ian always said that Bond was a culmination of all of the agents and commandos he interacted with during WWII, I'm sure he likely modeled the character after his brother Peter...and if you study those people they all had very similar features. I honestly didn't think Roger Moore "looked the part". Brosnan appeared to come very close after Connery in my opinion...then comes another light brown haired Bond with Craig which threw me off. The application of the occasional book reference while introducing major changes around them doesn't quite cut it for me to be honest. They are certainly nice references, but they aren't "complete Bond" in my opinion. As for the pills, I think it is obvious that topic likely wasn't appropriate for the screen while the booze was acceptable. I'm sure there could have been ways to taper those things a little and make them fit though. Same with the smoking. In the novels originally he was basically a chain smoker of a certain type of cigarette, while Brosnan gravitated toward cigars which I preferred and in CR Vesper did reference Oxford on the train. I suppose reasonably speaking most people don't mind a small change here and there but when you introduce enough of them you end up rewriting the character and the story altogether, and it seems at this point in time that is what they are trying to do without anyone noticing...for example the line about 007 only being a number...small change, but a total lead in for them to introduce an entirely different agent altogether that is NOT James Bond when for 50 years James Bond, a black haired white British agent of Scottish decent has been 007.
Yes, I didn't care for Craig's appearance either. Too short, not classically handsome, too blonde. Yep, I can see all that. The nearest to the book Bond I've seen on screen is Connery in his first few, or Dalton when he's pissed off.
The trouble with reading fiction, is we all have a different vision in our mind's eye. My Bond, when I'm reading is more like the Daily Express cartoon Bond. And not really like any of the actors at all.
Trouble is, how many people going to see a James Bond movie give a fiddler's fart if he looks the same as the one described in the books? One in a hundred, one in a thousand? I suppose we should be glad of what little Fleming we get on screen, this far down the pike.
Don't agree with this. Some of Moore's films still reference Fleming characters and scenes (DAF and LALD has quite a few). The biggest departure came in the 90's with Brosnan. Not one Fleming scene or character was adapted throughout his tenure (despite claims that DAD shambles-of-a-film is an adaptation of MR).
Likely because Ian didn't write those...there were only occasional references made to the original content...at least Brosnan looked the part though.