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Well, you didn't say anything beyond the claim that QoS is "poorly edited", and now you've gone on to clarify that you're not necessarily saying the editor did a bad job, I guess!
Well, no, not really. Forster has said he would use cuts to gloss over story, but that doesn't account for any of the cuts people complain about in the film. The car chase (as one example) isn't cut the way it is to cover up alleged story shortcomings. (To quote: "lots of cuts to hid that there's a lot of action and a little less story")
And while I wasn't there, the shots suggest it was planned to be edited in the way it was. I don't think they cut a shot of the gear stick from 30 frames to three. Having the number of shots they do suggests to me that this is how they were filming it. Unless they whittled down an extraordinarily long car chase. (To quote: "when you're shooting, you're also editing")
I mean, is the idea that they had their movie, found the story was a bit lean, and thought, "let's make the action sequences faster and therefore shorter, so people won't notice the lean story"? "Thank god we filmed a nine-minute car chase"?
No, opening comments usually don't go into too much detail. Answers usually come from questions, which you didn't ask, afterwards - instead, you went for assumptions.
Yeah, thankfully for me that's nowhere near the same thing as saying the editing is poor, I guess! But then again, I've a decent bit of experience in editing on a small budget scale so I know what editors go through, and can only imagine how that stress is amplified on a bigger production.
No, but it is an indicator of the mentality that went into the cutting of the film overall. The car chase is part of the film. How often do you hear of people saying "Damn, the plot in Quantum of Solace was terrible!" as opposed to "That would have been a great car chase had it been edited better"? So yes, really.
Indeed, quite a lot of films shoot an extraordinary amount of coverage. The thing is that most of them don't use every angle available to them - they pick and choose the best ones instead of cramming all of them in! :) But if you think that they planned it that way, then fair enough - everything about it, to me, suggests the opposite. And clearly, someone forgot to shoot or chose to omit the angle that explains how the boat jackknifes in the boat chase! ;)
Not really sure what this is a reference to - has someone mentioned a nine-minute car chase? I don't believe I did.
But that editing style adopted for every other action scene in the film ruins it for me.
Can't argue with the plot, performances, Craig's performance (and I am not his biggest fan), cinematography etc. The film looks great and I also like the score.
But the editing, how rushed the whole thing seems, and how it seems to do everything it can to avoid any sense of fun, means it's one up from the very bottom for me.
No I quite like it too, in spite of its flaws. While I think SF is the superior film, I enjoy SP more and think the good outweigh the bad.
And I also don't like the very sudden and slightly unsatisfying conclusion to it either: it just kind of goes against the grammar of these sorts of things to just have it suddenly stop- it's left to Arnold alone to try and build it to a climax rather than the sequence being built that way.
I still have a suspicion that it was shot to have some sort of tense climax with a Bondy payoff- my (total guess, but based on what's happening and the geography) is that Bond tipped the car onto its side to throw the gun out of the footwell and into his hand; but this got chopped out. I just don't think you'd write an action scene for a Bond film with an ending like the final version in the film. And all of the other action scenes in the film have him do something clever in a 007 way as a punchline to finish them. Something's gone missing here.
So the action scenes, which contain little story, were edited that way to gloss over the lack of story? That's what you get from what Forster said? Not because he wanted his action scenes "like a bullet", as he said? Was OHMSS cut the way it was to cover up George Lazenby maybe? Or were both these films edited the way the director and editor wanted them to be?
Not having any small budget editing experience, I'm just going to have to go with what Marc Forster says about his movie and what he was trying to do. Incidentally, he stands by the movie as it is, and expresses reservations about the final third of the movie, not the more frenetic first half.
Well, Forster says they edited while shooting, so I'll go with that.
Your theory seems to be:
They either didn't plan the action or planned it differently.
After shooting, Forster realized that the script (which he co-wrote during shooting) was a bit thin.
To remedy this, he decided they should use bits from all of the huge amount of coverage they thankfully shot in the hopes that this would gloss over plot weaknesses (which Forster believes manifest in the third act).
Luckily (!) an editor had already been hired who is known for this type of thing.
Okay
Well, to get the car chase in QoS in the way you hypothesize--deciding after filming that chopping a PTS planned in a different way will cover up plot issues (in the third act)--I would have to assume the original plan you imagine would have been a significantly longer car chase, or I suppose a significantly less interesting one.
I watched that boat thing though, and I have to say I don't know why the boat does that any more than I know how George teleports from the beach to the water to rather far out in the water. Maybe they didn't film/include Bond throwing the anchor into the water?
But I want to be clear that I like John Glen's editing in OHMSS, and especially the fights. I just think you're projecting your feelings about the film when you suggest it was all choreographed meticulously or that there's something particularly special about the sound effects (apart from their being quite loud!)
EDIT: Forgot to mention... We all hear complaints about the QoS plot all the time. Greene and Elvis suck, water supply plot sucks. Absolutely as often as the editing stuff.
That's not what I hypothesised, no. Hypothetically, it wouldn't have been any longer or any shorter. Coverage is not "x amount of extra actions to put into a scene", it's "x amount of the same action within a scene" i.e. twelve angles of a car going down the road. The former would impact the length of a scene, the latter generally does not. The Bell Tower fight would be a good example of shooting a lot of coverage. I don't think they use the same angle twice more than once. There's a crazy amount of set-ups in it.
Between the initial piss poor assumptions and the ill-reading of crystal clear posts, I think we're just going to go around in circles here, @ProfJoeButcher. I would expect a level of understanding of what it is you are talking about before presenting theories on someone else's behalf. It is not good form.
But, for the good of the thread, I'll bow to your controversial opinion that the editing in Quantum Of Solace is good! :)
Me: "the way you hypothesize--deciding after filming that chopping a PTS planned in a different way will cover up plot issues"
You: "That's not what I hypothesised, no."
Okay
The action editing wasn't the worst for me. For me it was more how fast everything moved around the time we meet Greene and hear about Slate and the geologist and all that stuff. Bond and the audience don't have a firm grasp of what's going on, and while it's clearer on a second viewing, it's not easy to follow the first time. Something like the car chase is not super easy to follow, but it's a car chase, and one gets the point.
They even seemed to wanted to heighten all of this with touches like having two conversations going in two languages in the taxi ride. But I see all of this intentional disorientation and lack of generosity in exposition as a major plus now, and it makes the film a more exciting ride on subsequent viewings. Couldn't have helped the initial reviews though...!
And at this point, as I always do when the topic of the QoS chase comes up, I am honour bound to mention that that chase covers somewhere between 350 and 600 km.
Depending on whether you want to believe the chase started at the house at the end of CR (which in reality is on Lake Como) and they then proceded to do a lap around Lake Garda, which is where we join the chase, or they only started chasing him there (which then begs the question why he is driving north along Garda a good 100 km east of his starting point, instead of going straight south to his ultimate destination Siena - maybe his original plan was to go to a secure location in Bozen and he took the scenic route instead of the quicker A22, but the chase forced him south to Siena) or this is all film magic anyway and it is supposed to only be one lake (which is obviously the answer), we have to wonder how they still chase him by the time he is in Carrara 350 km to the south (and a little thing I just picked up after watching this for 1007th time on YouTube: The Carabinieri in Tremosine Sul Garda very helpfully warn their colleagues 350 km to the south that the chase is heading towards the quarries...). I guess the 5 hours of car chase along the country roads around Milan and Parma didn't make the final cut as did the 160 km he had to drive to Siena without a door and caked in marbel dust after finally getting rid of those Alfas in Massa.
But that is just films being films, I guess. I just love that part of Italy very much, so I use every excuse I get to re-do the research on this. I have a similar rant for the PTS in SP, if anyone wants to hear it (which makes me think: Is anyone here familiar enough with Istanbul to try and follow the route in SF?).
Mind you, the worst one I've seen recently was in that dreadful Jack Ryan TV show, where Mr Ryan somehow managed to have a roof chase from Leicester Square all the way to the river! Which would suggest that there are no roads in London- just continuous blocks of buildings with no gaps :D
Tommy Cruise does a better job with his rooftop chase in Fallout, although even he manages a superhuman jump from the roof of St Pauls to the next building, which means he has to jump the width of an entire road :D
Oh yeah, I think it is pretty standard for films, especially action films. It's so common that I recall someone commenting on The Town how that car chase is really good because it only mangles the geography of Boston a little bit :))
Like you said: It's fun to figure out, but shouldn't be taken as a real, valid criticism of films.
Proof (if it were needed in the first place) that successful films make their own reality.
Yes indeed; don't worry I didn't think you were taking it too seriously :)
Mind you, I do think the Jack Ryan one does tip over that line a bit and shows the level of stupidity which that show works to.
Nice try, but it's more like...
Me: "the editing style was pretty much a retroactive decision (to distract from the film's flaws)."
You: "So I imagine that means there was a nine minute car chase?!"
Me: "No."
Pull the other leg! :))
A big Bollywood action flick filmed in Dublin that I was an assistant on about ten years ago. Ek Tha Tiger, it was called. I remember everyone being surprised when someone got kicked through a window and teleported across about a mile of Dublin City to land on a different street.
But it worked out nicely. The window came to be known as the "magic window".
I kind of agree and disagree.
In another unpopular view, I don't think CR shows any real sort of arc for Bond beyond transitioning from a guy who doesn't like dinner jackets to a guy who does. I know he's meant to become a cold, calculating killer in the movie, but he seems pretty sufficiently cold in the PTS with Dryden. Little difference to his confrontation with Mr White at the end, really. And his treatment of Solange and reaction to her death is about as cold as it gets too.
If anything, he seems somewhat softer. Unlike in the Casino Royale novel, Bond is deeply affected by Vesper's death, and when he says "The bitch is dead", it's in a tone of bravado. He doesn't look to be over it. And I guess that left the door open for QoS.
But as you say, none of it was really necessary.
I think QoS actually does an extremely effective character arc for Bond (probably the only one in the series, save maybe LTK). It's not the arc CR thought it was doing, but it's a great one, and well complemented by the character of Camille.
Much like John Barry seemed to think his Bond scores went downhill after Goldfinger, I don't think one always has to accept an artist's appraisal of their own work. Craig and Forster may have qualms about their writing contribution to QoS, but I honestly think it's one of the most accomplished films in the series in that very department.
I would be more nuanced. As much as I agree with what you bring up about Bond's psyche, and how his portrayal in QoS is quite inconsistent with the end of CR, a direct sequel wasn't impossible. One could imagine that a follow-up would see Bond regain some humanity, and no longer be a cold and calculating blunt instrument.
Yeah it's a big problem with QoS: they just didn't know where they were going with Bond. It ends with a big 'he's really 007 now!' moment, just like the last one did.
Star Trek Into Darkness did much the same thing with Kirk: in the first film he learnt to be mature and become Captain, then he got reset back to being an immature idiot for the second one so he could learn the same lesson all over again.
And then they do it again for Skyfall with the scene in M's office with Moneypenny and everything and it feels like: Yes! He is finally classic Bond and from now on we will get mission briefings in M's office and all the rest and then they again don't do it in SP... And then the ending of SP is all kinds of muddled. There is a tiny bit of "He's finally Bond" with the DB5, but Madeleine and the fact that he is driving away go in the exactly opposite direction.
As much as I love the movies of the Craig era, especially the last three, the lack of planning is weird for the reasons you describe, plus the fact he's meant to be a veteran in SF. The movies are all very good individually but they complement each other in some odd ways.
With SP though, I don't think there's meant to be any hint of "he's finally Bond". For once!
I can't speak as to whether NTTD will improve perception on SP yet (obviously!), but I think that it will likely always go down as a missed opportunity to me for these very reasons. The excitement during that final scene in SF was palpable in the audience, and everyone walked out excited for the next epic James Bond adventure, just like they were excited for where we were going next after CR.
And then we got SP, which wasn't very good in general but also managed to walk back on the character work that was so well done in SF.
Yeah, I was really reaching there...
It's a fun game, trying to group the Craig films together in various ways.
CR and QoS clearly go together as the one immediatly starts from the other.
Then Skyfall kind of steps to the side a bit, but has a massive change in the person of M at the end of it. So you have to take that into consideration for SP.
Otherwise, SP returns to the Quantum/Spectre of it all from CR and QoS and you could kind of fashion a trilogy out of those films centering around the women with the first ending with Vesper's death, the second being Camille and Bond taking revenge together but not being able (or interested) to form a romantic attachment and then the third finally ending with him disenganging from it all for Madeleine. Only then you miss all of the Dench M (also a really important woman!) stuff, who actually gives Bond his mission at the beginning of SP.
Also, the end of SP with Bond throwing away the gun is a nice little coda to the Q: "Every now and then a trigger has to be pulled." Bond: "Or not pulled. It's hard to know which in your pajamas." scene in SF!
Plus, NTTD is going to bowl all of this over and continue the Madeleine and Blofeld characters.
So will we then have two couplets at the beginning and end with the stand-alone SF in the middle?
And all of that is before really taking character development and any kind of filmic analyses into account, which is more you guys' strong suit.
Exactly and I really wish they'd left it as a standalone film just like Goldfinger was amongst all the SPECTRE entries back in the 1960s. The Spectre retcon was unnecessary and rather ham-fisted in trying to explain how literally everything fitted together after the fact. Another thing connecting both Skyfall and Goldfinger is that they were both their respective actor's third Bond film and both films are seen as being particularly representative of their actor's Bond eras.
Agreed. It would have been like revealing that Goldfinger was a part of Spectre in YOLT.
They really mucked up having the whole Craig era being controlled by Blofeld, however see below. It doesn't take away from the films for me, but it was not necessary. CR/QOS- great two-part story.
SF- great standalone story.
SP- should have just had Blofeld controlling the story arc OR just have a personal connection with the same surveillance plot, but not both.
I think it is pretty obvious that EON desperately wanted to have had the rights to SPECTRE and Blofeld back in 2007 when they created Quantum. Quantum is more or less the replacement organization and I think it is very understandable that when they finaly required the rights to SPECTRE they wanted to remedy that. And I like the idea to be honest. QoS left a lot in the air. Bond has just started out scratching into the surface of an incredibly powerfull and sinister organization with connections all around the world. I think it would be a huge shame if the story arch just ended there.
Could the reveal have been done better though? I am one of SPs defenders on this site, but I admit that with the incredible potential Quantum left behind and with a chance to reestablish SPECTRE and Blofeld in the modern era, the choices they made underwhelmed me slightly. However they do have a chance to expand upon the story in NTTD. I am very excited to see what they have cooked up!
I know what you mean, but the ending of SF is slightly different to me as it’s less about the character of Bond himself and more about the films overall. Kind of more like a ‘the Bond movies are back!’ than it is ‘he’s finally 007!’
Yeah, totally. Like most fans (I think), I kind of freaked out when I saw Ralph in the traditional office at the end. It's so perfect on that meta level, sort of rebooting from the perhaps overly-grim CR and QOS. It's only odd in the literal context when taking the three (or now 4-5) films together. But there's no need to be so literal! :)
Yeah, I think they were clearly in a rush to use Spectre and Blofeld, and certainly could have satisfied more fans had they taken their time a bit more. But that being said, over time I've come to really like the way the organization gels with the earlier films. Le Chiffre's terrorism funding and Greene's plans for Bolivia all sound exactly like topics that would be discussed at the table in Spectre's board meeting. It doesn't really require any imagination at all to accept them as being the top dogs in the world of those films.
Of course, Silva/Skyfall is the outlier, and they would probably have been better off leaving that out, as stated before. Silva's general MO fits perfectly with Spectre's aims, but his plot to kill M would clearly have to be extracurricular work, which is how I take it. Apparently the writers wanted to have Blofeld be able to claim a connection to M's death, and of course they wanted to please all the casual/new Bond fans who loved Skyfall.
But I think it was all done much more smoothly than some fans realize, and NTTD will likely go some way to making Spectre feel less jarring to its more open-minded detractors.
It certainly explains how Silva could have gotten a head start on his enterprise, funding-wise. Everyone has to start somewhere!