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:))
I agree completely there @TheLivingRoyale. Thing is, as critical as I may be, I am still a Bond fan. And with that comes some more less critical, unanimous love for the Bond-franchise. I'm not a professional reviewer. I'm still one hell of a Bond-nerd. Hence the stamp "Bond 24 will be better than M:I 5", even if we don't know that yet :-).
By the way, check this topic out. I really think it'll be interesting to see which of the two spy franchises will do better next year: JB or MI. http://www.mi6community.com/index.php?p=/discussion/7447/2015-may-be-the-biggest-movie-year-ever#latest
If the story is as poor as in SF Cruise and co has not really put in to much of an effort. ;)
That said I find that the MI movies recently have given a far better action content than the 007 movies have. Cruise seems to go out of his way to really think of great stunts while EON seems to be coasting along.
Which pains me to see as a 007 fan.
Time will come for the M:I-franchise when they also need to tone down the action in favor of drama, acting and dialogue. The thing I do NOT want is, that Bond 24 will react to Cruise's wunderful stunts. Don't forget that Bond has got 23 films under his belt. Let Bond "go with its own flow", not with Ethan Hunt's flow.
If there needs to be new inspiration for new Bond action/stunts, we can look for instance to free-skiing (snow equivalent of free-running), superfast alpine skiing as combined with a real Olympic event, Formula One racing, an extra long (8 min) car chase, new kind of mountain climbing action (alpine).
Things I'm thinking of now, and that Ethan Hunt still has to do. I'm confident Bond 24 will have it though.
That's what I mean about making it count. It was the one standout scene in CR. Never been done better since (even Die Hard 4 could not do it as well).
If this free-skiing thing is interesting maybe they will incorporate it into Bond 24. Apparently there are ski sequences in it.
SF is probably the least exotic-looking since GE, IMO! And you are basing this assumption on? We know hardly nothing about Bond24!
Thank you. Wrong choice of words by me earlier. I do not mean exotic. I mean atmospheric. Bond is definately more art house/atmospheric under Craig (particularly QoS in Vienna, and even SF in China). Compare the SF China scenes (music, cinematography, general atmosphere) with the MI3 scenes in the same location. Some of that is due to Roger Deakins, but Hoyte Van Hoytema is probably going to do the same for Bond 24
#sigh# One has to think big and stay positive as a Bond fan. Your remark would have more sense if you considered me an EON Productions-employee. But I'm really not.... I am foremost a Bond-nerd, so I have every right to say "BOND WILL BE BETTER", no...."THE BEST!" :-). If you read my entire post, or if you're bit more empathic, you would have known I said it because I love the Bond franchise, not because I know what's going to happen.
Definately? You must be joking!
But okay, let's compare the Shanghai scenes from both movies, SF and MI:3:
SF: Everything shot in London, except some establishing shots. Lot's of CGI used.
We see: Bond following Patrice from the airport, Bond in a hotel bar with a CGI background, Bond swimming in a pool with a CGI background, Bond following Patrice into a tall building (CGI background), Bond fighting Patrice against a CGI-background.
MI:3: Most shot on location. There's Hunt gliding between two of the tallest skyscrapers. Oh... and here's Hunt parachuting from one of these very tall on location buildings! But wait... there's even more: Complete havoc on the streets of Shanghai because Hunt is chasing a car while still in his parachute.
I certainly know which "atmosphere" I prefer, and it's not the one who relies mostly on CGI ;-)
MI:3 showed us how to take advantage of shooting on location. Shanghai was spot on. The Rome scenes were also spot on (although some interior Vatican scenes were shot somewhere else). The money was up there on the screen, and I liked that.
I found the Shanghai-scenes in SF laughable! Was kind of expecting something else/more, when learning for the first time that "Bond will travel to China." To know that SF had a much larger budget than MI:4...
As I've said before, Mi will easily ace the action sequences and will have far more than Bond 24. Bond 24, on the other hand will make its limited action sequences count. A 'less is more' approach.
I found more to like in the short SF China sequence (in terms of its hold on me emotionally and in terms of it being memorable) than the entire China sequence in Mi3, despite you being correct in everything that you said above. I can't really explain why, but that is what I mean about creating an atmosphere. It connects on visceral level, rather than a logical level. It's not about 'being on location' or 'body count' or 'number of stunts'.
I respect your opinion, but certainly - for me - "less is more" have never been part of the Bond equation. I prefer the opposite. Let's leave the "less is more" to movies like 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' and 'A Most Wanted Man' ;-)
I just don't want to see Bond running around like an idiot twirling a machine gun like a cheerleader's baton just to 'up the action quotient'. I think you know the movie and the scenes...a nadir for the series.
I think it's best for Bond to stay on the espionage, thriller page, which may mean less kills and action, but more brutal & realiistic scenes (a'la the staircase fight in CR).
They can't win by trying to keep up with the Hollywood actioners because it always becomes a fight to top the next one and before you know it someone is hanging around on a bad CGI para-surf.
At the end of the day no one is going to let Craig do his own scenes like Cruise does, and that's why we get superimposed CGI faces as folks are falling off trains at high speed, a'la SF. At least it was not too obvious.
But I think a key word is balance here. I don't want Bond riding a huge CGI wave, invisible cars or Bond turning into Rambo, either. But neither do I want the Bond-movies to be low-key espionage thrillers, only. Actually I don't think the Bond franchise would survive if they decided to start leaving out the big action setpieces.
You're right about that. And yes, it needs to be 'balanced'. That's the key. And impactful (make it count, like the absolutely fantastic parkour scene in CR)
The CGI face of Craig on the bike was awful. However I still think the scene of Bond running around twirling that gun was the absolute low for me.....it was like he was trying to spray someone with a water hose. Dreadful.
@bondjames, agreed on the SF PTS CGI: Craig's face took me right out of the experience, much like it did when Patrice fell (again, why they scrapped the real fall we saw in the trailers for that is beyond me) or when Bond hops on the CGI komodo dragons. It's weird seeing that come from a film that has real trains smashing through ceilings and massive estates blowing up.
I totally forgot about that bit. The part in the trailer was just phenomenal. I remember being confused in the theatre because I was looking forward to seeing that part on the big screen & it looked different. I guess I forgot about it because I was somewhat mesmerized by Severine's stare down of Bond. Not since Melina gave her stare down at the camera after her parent's death in FYEO have I been so frozen.....Newman's music during this bit was very moody too. Great scene.
By the way, that 1:23 min SF teaser trailer with 'the HItchcock fall' and the thumping music was one of the best ones they've done in recent memory. "Some Men are coming to kill us......We're going to kill them first....". Love it. Only probably equalled by the uber cool "You were expecting someone else?" GE teaser from 1994/1995. I remember QoS was shyte & I can't recall CR's.
Let's hope they give us a cracker of a teaser for Bond 24. Use the same pounding electro music too (I so want to know who composed that....it definitely feels like Newman). It's a key part of selling the movie and they nailed it with SF
I wonder when the title for "M: I 5" will be revealed. As the franchise now clearly gets into Bond waters by using titles ;-).
4 more MÏ-films, and we'll see something like this:
Skydance Productions
present
Tom Cruise
as
Bruce Geller's secret agent
Ethan Hunt from IMF
in
"M:I - "The Impossibilities Affair"
Doubtful as Ethan Hunt wasn't created by Bruce Geller.
MI was getting better with every film after the 2nd one, so I´m very much looking forward to this one. There´s lots to be done with that franchise. After all, MI4 was the first film at all featuring a whole team, which was one big basic idea of the original tv series.
I agree @Boldfinger . I also thoroughly enjoyed "Ghost Protocol" in cinema. While the movie was less complex, less focused on character development like "M:I 3", I loved it as a pure popcorn entertainment flick. The stunts were marvelous, the locations were stunning. And it fills the void left by the more "straight in your face" Bond flicks from the Brosnan-era.
I do hope the 5th film in the series will be like "Ghost Protocol", but perhaps with slightly more complex character drama. And I hope it mirrors today's politics in a slightly more realistic way.