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I think it’s going that way, although obviously every actor still gets stick from some quarters. Back then Brosnan’s scripts were all his fault for not speaking up and he never had a handle on the role and all the rest of it. Now Craig has too much control and he hates the role and the fans or whatever. In both cases I’ve found the negativity tiring because it’s never just “I didn’t like this film”. There always has to be someone to blame for ruining everything. Brosnan had his time, now Craig’s starting to have his, and I reckon the next guy will have his eventually too. And “Babs” gets it every time, of course, irregardless of who’s playing Bond.
And while Dalton still isn’t remembered as fondly as he should be among general audiences, I think he’s actually very popular on fan sites like this now. Him and Connery seem to be the standard people hold suggestions to on the who should be a Bond actor thread. To me it seems like it’s the Barbara Broccoli Bonds that get the most stick on here, while the Cubby years are generally looked at more favourably.
And why is that, do you think, Hm? Dare I suggest "sexist, misogynist dinosaurs"?
I think you should not be silent, let off all the steam you want...I thought it was a great film alllllllllll the way up to the second they killed Bond then they lost me...luckily it was at the very end like I said before where I would have walked out of the theater like I did in TFA when they killed Han Solo.
Someone on here said 'he only dies once in 25 films, I can cope with that'. Which is like Alan Partridge saying "the Titanic had many hours of pleasurable cruising before it hit the iceberg".
I think there is a bit of that in the “babs” nickname, but to be honest I think it’s mostly down to a kind of reverse recency bias. On any fan site like this, it’s usually the new stuff that brings out the most critical viewings, and the most fierce debates. Once we’re in the Gregg/David era then I imagine it’ll be their new films that get picked apart, while Barbara will get to join Cubby on his “it was so much better back in the day” pedestal. I think it’s cyclical.
I can't remember the last time I didn't care for a Bond film, I even enjoyed QoS at the time, which was a bit of a mess. But NTTD was just sooo disappointing after that wait.
They finally did it, they blew him up. Goddamn them all to hell!
Oh yeah to be clear, I didn’t mean you (or anyone else) personally mate, we all have our own opinions. I just meant generally. I think it’s just a consequence of the new ones being discussed more. More discussion = more criticism. Whereas with the old ones, we’ve already dissected them so many times that we can just take the good and the bad and enjoy them for what they are.
Like DAD for example. I actually agree with a lot of what you were saying on the last page, I can have a lot of fun watching that one now. But I definitely wouldn’t have said that back when the tsunami surfing wounds were still raw.
My own personal feeling is that NTTD renders the Craig era as a pointless experiment. 15 years of reimagined characters and world-building for what? To blow it all up in one movie? I still view the Bonds of Connery, etc. as being "alive" so to speak whereas Craig's Bond is now an alternate, negated version of Bond, one who had a bizarre arch where he married a woman named Madeline instead of Tracy , got another version of M killed, and was adoptive brothers with a crappy version of Blofeld.
It's like the filmmakers had no clear idea of what to do with Craig-Bond after Casino Royale (which I now see as a fluke due to how good it was) so they went the Fast and Furious route and made it about "family," i.e. retcons and melodrama. I guess using interpersonal relationships to contrive action sequences is easier than coming up with an actual plot.
What a waste of time this era has been. Full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.
Indeed. Can't say the same for the previous few movies, though.
You're accusing the producers of melodrama... but what do you call your own sentiments?
You call the era "A waste of time?" That's a bit dramatic, isn't it? You make it sound like these Bond movies control your life. Surely you can't be so naive as to think that you would like them all. We're talking about 25 films (27 if you're into creative bookkeeping); naturally, you're going to love some and dislike or flat-out loath others. Many of my favourite films series have good ones and bad ones in them. It happens only rarely that a series of more than say four or five films can consistently offer me stuff I absolutely adore. But was Raiders a waste of time because KOTKS didn't end Indy's career on a note we all enjoyed? Was Die Hard a waste of time because number 5 is junk?
You say that these films signify nothing. What are they supposed to signify, then? In what sort of way do Bond films have to signify anything at all? I was under the impression that most people here prefer their Bonds to be nothing but simple entertainment, a collection of traditional gimmicks, without subtextual layers of whatever. You don't want the drama, yet you're angry about these films not finding some deeper meaning?
Furthermore, they contrive action sequences rather than coming up with an actual plot? You do realise we're talking about the James Bond films, don't you? Tell me again about all those mythical Bond films that didn't throw in random action scenes just to give us an amazing rollercoaster ride. I can count them on one hand, the ones that won't throw in an action scene unless it makes perfect narrative sense to do so.
Melodramatic? I'd say that's what you are when you call an experiment failed without having checked its final outcome.
I think some people are intentionally melodramatic in the way you describe, @DarthDimi. They want to not like things so they have something to complain about ad nauseum.
Agreed, @NickTwentyTwo. I can't remember who posted it, but I read an excellent comment today in one of these threads, stating that people should just admit they don't like the film for reasons so-and-so, without seeking explanations outside their own taste. There are films I don't like because I don't like them, and I don't like them because I don't like the plot or I don't appreciate the look of the film or whatever. But to try and piece together all of these convoluted cause-and-effect analyses of a film series metamorphosing into something it "isn't supposed to be" according to some non-existing rule-book (Fleming, Cubby, the classics, tradition, the opposite of Marvel, ...) reeks of a genuine disappointment one tries to work through by blaming someone else. Sometimes, we don't like something because we don't like it. And that's fine. Those who have issues with that should shut their mouths. What some of us don't like is when hard, objective reasons are being sought, typically because they make zero sense and plunge the complainer deeper into silliness.
And yes, I will watch a Bond film when it comes out, no matter what. I'll reserve my judgement till after my first viewing. My predictions have been proven wrong so often that I have learned to always wait and see. Long ago, I "knew" that certain films were going to be great, and found out they weren't. I "knew" that other films were going to rock, and they didn't. Even if the next Bond film features Justin Bieber as Bond and Kim Kardashian as 'M', I will go and see it, so that I can at least talk about the film from experience afterwards, rather than from reading the wiki page.
I agree with you to an extent. I love CR and QoS, I like SF, SP is an abomination and NTTD is meh. The Craig era had so much potential but it's clear they didn't know what they were doing in terms of the direction they were heading in. Barbara's love for Craig seriously clouded her judgement and compromised the artistic integrity of who the character is by giving Crsig too much of a say on where the films should go. Killing off Bond and especially in the manner he died was quite pathetic. Not only that, but to be told hell return at the end of the credits just renders not only the film but the whole Craig era rather pointless.
Furthermore, besides CR, The Craig era just isn't fun to me. QoS and SF I can still enjoy because of the action and characterizations but I have no time for the last 2 Bond films. They're highbrow bullshit. This era could have existed as a separate component to the Bond films that came before but now, it just comes off as a pretentious bastard child that was 2 films and 9 years too long.
Can I ask why you think this about the last two but not QoS or SF?
QoS to me is probably the most pretentious film of the series, and that’s why I‘ve never liked it. I’ve always found that film to be the absolute definition of style (when they’re not cutting every two seconds and you can actually see what’s going on) over substance. A glossy perfume advert sort of aesthetic trying to cover up the lack of a script, poorly edited chase scenes that exist solely to represent the elements or whatever it was. Not a fan. And SF, while brilliant, still had something slightly smug about it in my mind. That Tenyson scene, and “an exploding pen? We don’t really go for that sort of thing anymore”. As someone who’s quite fond of exploding pens, that annoyed me.
But then we did get an exploding watch. And gadget filled Astons and secret bases and all the rest of it. The last two felt much less ashamed of being Bond films to me, basically. They kept what was great about Craig’s first few, while bringing back the fun campy stuff and old iconography that they’d so self consciously gutted. That’s why I enjoyed them so much. I guess I can kind of see where you’re coming from, because they are still quite emotionally and thematically heavy, in that Craig era way. But no moreso than his other films, and “highbrow bullshit” seems a bit of an unfair label to me when we’re talking about a film with bionic eyes, naff puns and nanobot doomsday weapons. I’ve had a ridiculous amount of fun with the last two personally.
I'm a 20th Century Bond fan.
Sure, I still hate MR, and AVTAK tests my patience a bit, but mainly I enjoyed the living daylights out of the Bond movies of the 20th Century. I grooved to the hollow volcano, DAF being closer to Flint than Bond, the bizarre silly in Moore's first two, the YOLT redux that was TSWLM (Jaws aside), heck even I still have a soft spot for NSNA even though that felt like the 60's Batman to me (see who did the screenplay-?)... Was a big Remington Steele fan back in the day, so when Brozz got the part I was happy, even if TWINE was a little off the mark for me.
Then the the 21st Century happened.
Desmond was gone. The last true connection to the films I loved.
Overload the CGI & green screen. Super-tech it. Let Halle Berry play Halle Berry... there was a good movie in there somewhere, enough alcohol makes it so.
No, wait! BOURNE!
Hop on a trend & make the coin. Get the dude that made GE work! And it kinda did.
NO! Even MORE like Bourne*! Quantum of editing.
Wait! Let's do betrayal, fall from grace, rebirth & sacrifice! Very cool religious-like stuff!
Made a billion, now lets go back to dopey a bit (worked for MR!).
Now, we need one more from our star/cash cow like in 1985, acquiesce to his condition!
So, basically for this whole Century I have been trying hard to like these Bond movies.
NTTD is the last f**king straw.
I'm still a Bond fan.
I've got 18 or 19 films to choose from (20 if I'm drunk).
* side note: I kinda liked the first Bourne movie, but in the second they KILLED his girlfriend who was an IMPORTANT part of why I liked the first film. Bye Bourne.
PS: And like @DarthDimi said, these movies don't rule my life. I am a fan of multiple movies, movie series & TV shows. Bond & Star Trek just happen to be my longest connections.
PPS: Abrams Trek sucks. ;)
Me calling the Craig era an experiment is my critique of it. I don't see how it's melodramatic. "Melodramatic" is those Star Wars fans who say that Lucas raped their childhood because he put midichlorians into Episode I.
I'm actually pretty easy-going on the Bond series. The only one I really don't like is Spectre. That one just baffles me because I truly don't understand the reasoning behind it. With NTTD I do. It was the culmination of both the trend-chasing that marred the Craig era and the willingness of EON to cater to his ego.
The past ten years has seen the destruction of numerous franchises by short-sighted or simply untalented filmmakers who didn't really care that they were destroying things made by other people. Now the Bond series has followed that trend, and I'm just fed up with it.
There’s more drama in this post than in the last ten minutes of SF. Poor Cubby… look what they did to his boy!
I actually agree! Not about @slide_99 being dramatic though. About his point. If you don't really love these movies or are not exceptionally invested in this character it's very easy to say "go ahead, do whatever, it's all good"*.
An objective analysis of the available data will lead to the conclusion that his objections are valid, even if you do not share in those objections personally.
*Yes, you read that right. If you are okay with whatever they do with any movies or shows you are a casual fan. No show or movie series or every scene within either will be perfect. An emotional response from a viewer calling 'lazy' or 'bs' on a movie or episode or a part therein means they care.
But endless hatred is the same as endless love.
Critical thinking matters.
Genuinely asking for some clarity on your point.
Strawman. That's not what I said. Read it again, without a chip on your shoulder.
I'm not arguing against a point that doesn't exist. I'm genuinely asking for clarity on your post. That's why I said as much.
"*Yes, you read that right. If you are okay with whatever they do with any movies or shows you are a casual fan."
Given the context of the discussion, I think I can be forgiven for asking about this point.
To clarify, as an example, Murdock here loves MR, and I hate it. We can agree to disagree. If these movies elicit an extreme emotional response from time to time it means you are a true fan. To just love (or hate) what's spooned out for you means you really don't care. It's fine to find NTTD meaningful. It's fine to hate it. But to say it's badly made is intellectually dishonest. To say it's great writing is intellectually dishonest. To say films I love are great, but films I dislike are crap is intellectually dishonest.
Most movies are not all that well written. Writing isn't easy, ESPECIALLY by committee. ESPECIALLY these days.
Love NTTD, but don't pretend that it's a top level Bond (or any other kind of) movie.
I love Connery's last EON film (DAF), but I can't pretend it's a great film.
We agree then. But it sort of feels like even you saying "don't pretend it's a top tier movie" or "to say it has great writing is intellectually dishonest", sort of to me feels like you yourself are committing this intellectual dishonesty you're talking about.
It's sort of like you're saying "it's ok to love or hate the films, but to make any objective statement about the film one way or another is intellectually dishonest", and then proceed to make several objective statements about the film.
I think it's okay if you think NTTD has great writing, why not. I hate DAF and OP, and if someone came up to me and said "those movies have great writing", that's really great they found that about them. The last thing I would feel to tell them is that they're being "intellectually dishonest". But I feel like there are a lot of ""intellectuals"" around, and I'm certainly not one of them.
Okay, that is a fair question. I have two reviewers in my head. One is heavily subjective and the other is (as much as is humanly possible) objective.
Subjectively I hated NTTD more than any other Bond movie.
Objectively it's not at all a bad film, just cobbled together by committee like most big films today.
SPECTRE was cobbled together by committee as well. I happened to like SP better, but not because it's a better FILM, but because it made me leave the theatre with a smile on my face.
Sorry if I came off like a jerk in my previous post. I do jerk too well sometimes.