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Noted!
You really don't like the Cruise movies, don't you? :))
When it began production, there was a WGA strike (same one that limited Maibaum's participation in Licence to Kill). So they adapted original series scripts. With one of them, original writer William Read Woodfield refused a credit.
Interesting trivia. Thanks for sharing!
Was the 80's series filmed in Australia - or am I mistaking it for a different 80's tv series?
Don't have to...evidence is there! I do remember the t.v. series with Peter Graves and if I recall it wasn't really an action show. It was usually about Phelps assembling a team to pull off a con of some sort, hence the mask business which the films emulated.
The first film had DePalma at the helm, whose films I admire, but apart from the Langley break in, it was a bore.
MI2 had John Woo directing and I loved his own stuff but he was completely wrong for this. The slow mo stuff was laughable and I can't even remember the villain
MI3 had Vic Armstrong on action duties, and I hated his work on Bond and he brought the same low excitement level to this franchise.
It did have Phillip Seymour Hoffman who did give it some gravitas, but all the personal stuff didn't fit .
Ghost Protocol is probably the only watchable one. Had a a couple of good set pieces and
score and the ending on that strange car park place was well staged.
Rogue Nation blew its best stunt in the trailer
(Not to mention stealing it from OP, who did it better) and Sean Harris, so chilling in 'Harry Brown was poor here and spends the movie with a constipated look on his face!
I only saw the first two in the cinema, and I probably won't bother with the new one, it looks more of the same!
Mission: Impossible holds more than just a candle to the Bond franchise and has quite the large fan-base as well as keeping active in the market whereas with Bond we don't know one end of our stance from the other. The panic in the "Bond 25" thread alone should tell you something.
Yes, the 1980s M:I series was filmed in Australia.
Now that I think about it, I think I read at the time it was originally going to be what we now call a reboot -- i.e. same characters, but new Phelps, new Rollin, new Cinamon , etc.
Then, Peter Graves came aboard and it was a continuation of the original. Barney Collier's son was on the team (played by Phil Morris, Greg's son). One episode (which I am pretty sure was a remake) had Barney wrongly imprisoned in some country, with Greg Morris as guest star. I think Lynda Day George showed up as a guest star as Casey, the character she played in the original.
I like some of them, the fourth one in particular I thought was great and I think the new one looks very good, but I agree with this. It started off trying to do its own thing in a lot of ways but it's pretty much evolved into them trying to beat Bond as his own game. And I think Bond just has a magic around it that comes from its history and uniqueness that other films just can't recapture. They're technically very impressive (found the last one pretty bland and dull though to be honest) but they'll never have that magic. For me, personally, the only way a spy film can match Bond is by trying to do something different. I loved the original Bourne trilogy for example, and even Kingsman which had all the trappings I thought did well to set itself apart with the added violence and self awareness. MI in its current form is basically just "Bond with Tom Cruise and no sex". And that's fun because the stunts are great and the theme song is cool but without them what have they got really? Obviously I'm biased but I think Bond was lightning in a bottle and I don't think any other films can capture that.
I've heard a lot about how MI is "beating" Bond and how the producers should be crapping themselves but I just don't see it. I think it might depend on where you're from as well to be fair. In Britain Bond is a cultural institution. It's a proper event when a new Bond film comes out. But MI is just another blockbuster.
McQuarrie pretty much said as much last year, but more tactfully.
They are executing on 'formula' far better than Bond is at present, and doing it with style too. I'm glad, because if it wasn't for MI some of us would be quite depressed at the moment. The keen anticipation on this thread and elsewhere for the 6th installment shows that they've earned our respect and goodwill. I'd go so far as to say some of us are more excited for this film than we are for B25, at least based on what we know about the next Bond flick at present.
I wish Cruise and Co. all the success they get with Fallout.
Best villain, Cruise at his pinnacle, wonderfully lensed and many great action setpieces. My favourite by far. The last two were also great.
I can understand why many feel that GP and RN are stronger films , but MI3 connects with me and if forced to choose, is #1 in my rankings.
As far as comparisons to Bond, that is a complex debate, but simplified, the last 3 MI films are generally superior to the last 3 Bonds, in almost every dept.; only CR gives MI a run for their money, with SF getting honorable mention.
It’s slightly strange that MI is closer to traditional Bond territory these days, but I guess you can’t expect the Bond series to spend all these decades doing just one thing without ever aiming for some variety.
The only mild disappointment is that I would like MI to be closer to the original MI tv series, which it hasn’t ever really aimed for.
He was a rather colorful character. Besides being a writer, he was a magician and a photographer.
https://hmssweblog.wordpress.com/2017/12/18/william-read-woodfield-photographer-magician-writer/
I do tire of the lamentations of Bond I constantly hear, though. I don't see the death of Bond when I see any MI film, as they are now going by the Bond playbook from atmosphere all the way to stunts which makes such criticisms amusing to me. This trailer was very much a Craig Bond MI movie, with all the same elements you would expect from a Craig Bond film: ominous photography, characters facing personal and professional crises, an earnest development of the main character and a revealing of his past, talk of him being past it in his profession, his superiors thinking he'd gone rogue when he's just trying to do the right thing, etc. People can enjoy the MI films all they want, I do too, but let's not forget what these films are. They're only getting more and more like the Bond films, with the last two being like older Bond movies and this one feeling like a Craig one. It's great to see them do well, but their formula is about 50 years old and started in 1962.
The only criticism I have of Fallout beyond the spoilery marketing is that the stories of the films really are staling a bit. I mean, another movie where Ethan and his team are rogue again? MI2 is the only MI film where Ethan is actually working for someone on a job, and everything else is the same wash and repeat mix of him getting booted from IMF and having to work to save the day from the outside with scraps of resources. For once I would like to see him actually in the field with full resources and working with a team alongside his own agency, and not against it or outside it. The Bourne films have the same problems, always a man against government recycling of story beats. It just gets old.
This brings to mind a very hollow Bond comparison I always hear, of how Bond goes rogue too many times in the new films. When, in reality, Craig's Bond has only actually gone rogue during the second half of SP, and that's only because the man had no 00 section to work for. In every other instance from CR to SP Bond is not rogue because he's working under M's orders in the name of his government, and not outside of it (even in QoS, which people still think is a revenge film from Bond's perspective, somehow). His mini-retirement in SF doesn't even count, as he's not actually on the job, he's off of it and could only be considered rogue if he was in the field while working as a non-MI6 agent.
I would like to see more freshness in MI, that's all, but I am happy to see the effect the Bond films have had. The movies are only getting more sophisticated and the characters more dimensional, with smarter writing, sets, cinematography, glamour and style, and the Bond influences are evident in each movie since MI2, but especially with these recent films. I think the competition of the MI films can only be good, as it makes EON see what else is in the market and what they must meet. The action has been very impressive in these MI films, for one, the biggest area I think EON could take inspiration even though their stunt work is also largely "done for real" and practical with few exceptions. It will be interesting to see what Bond 25 we see as a result of MI: Fallout, as I'm very invested in what comes of the former far more. I care more for Bond because Bond means more to me and the films make me care, whereas the MI films are some nice blockbuster fun to have every once in a while but are also very clearly marked for death.
The MI series is headed for a point of no return as star vehicles like these films must inherently be prepared for. No Tom means no MI, and I think any attempt to go on without him, the star of the show, will result in what happened when the Bourne franchise thought a movie without Matt Damon was a good idea. Hunt isn't like Bond, he can't transcend the ages, or outlive the star. Fallout brings this to the forefront of my mind simply because, as I watched the trailer, it felt very final. Like this was it for Ethan, the last job and the one that paves the way for his exit. I now think it's more likely than before that this could be the one Tom goes out on.
Actually, I'd argue if anything the Craig films have taken ideas from the earlier MI entries. After all, it was Cruise who brought us a film in 1996 directed by Brian De Palma which subverted the tv series by making Phelps a villain (not quite the bastardization that Brothergate was I admit, but you get my point). It had emotional heft and an arty flair when those elements were anything but fashionable in the spy genre. He then followed it up with a John Woo helmed entry and a film that was quite different tonally and style wise from what had come before, but still one that was far more emotionally weighty than what EON had pumped out up till then. The third one took it even further with a domesticated Hunt, which is something I've seen some clamour for here for B25 (e.g. Bond with Maddy in semi retirement). With the last two he's taken it back to 'classic Bond' (meaning a light touch with lots of stunts & eye candy, an unflappable hero, and wry humour injected in just the right quantities and delivered to perfection), because he saw a gap in the market. As I said a few posts back, I'm glad he filled it. I'm not surprised he's trying a different approach again with Fallout, which is par for the course for the MI series. From what I've read, he's going to tie it back to the past and I'm intrigued to see what he comes up with.
Broccoli has been doing that with each Craig film too, by going for a different tone and approach and bringing in auteurs, which is quite different from what they used to do in the past with the more 'assembly factory' approach.
It's quite true that Tom Cruise is one of the last of the heavyweight actors from an earlier generation. There aren't too many around with his star power and continued box office heft (perhaps Denzel or Hanks are the others). When he moves on from MI, they will have to reimagine. This series has lasted far longer than Bourne however, and they have established other characters who we can relate to and care for. It's not a one man show, although Cruise is certainly the big kahuna and his departure would perhaps be equivalent to Connery leaving after YOLT.
I'm not sure what Paramount will do after he hangs it up, but a more 'team based' approach is what others have advocated here, and I'm onside for that. They need to define what the series stands for and then go for it.
The reason why they're so good is that they are filling a void that Bond once occupied, and they're doing better than Bond has been post-CR when it comes to action filmmaking and storytelling.
the Bond team are giving the public what they want. ;-)
Well, Bond has the nostalgia factor. Fewer people went to see MI films growing up compared with Bond.
MI is quite different and far lesser as a franchise. It's a testament to their efforts and skill that they have been able to narrow the gap considerably and make so many of us long time Bond fans appreciate it so much. I respect them for that.
I believe it can survive Cruise if they want it to and if they play their cards right. It all depends on what they want to do with it.
Money than Bond ! with better scripts, better stunts etc. Odd that the less well made
with bad scripts and terrible action sequences that Bond gives an audience, seem to
be what the audience want.
the average age of a cinema audience member today is between 13 and 23, so I
doubt Nostalgia plays much of a part.
Thankfully, Bond will reinvent as it always does. That is why it has lasted for so long. MI has yet to show it can do that, and this is where their real challenge will be.