It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
It's a fair point. Craig-Bond is clearly a reaction to the critical success of Bourne and I think anyone denying this is living in Cloud cuckoo land. While I don't hate the recent films at all, I can see where you're coming from, and I would agree to some extent that there were elements lost during the transition.
Was it a good move though? Sure. I don't think they could have continued along their trajectory post 2002. However, I think recently they've managed to shake off the Bourne comparison and look to be heading towards a more Bondian future, while the Bourne films seem to be fading fast. Sometimes to beat them, you first have to join them.
There are two key rules to making a great Bond picture. The first is 'when in doubt, go back to Fleming' and the other is 'make sure you put the money up on screen'. The second needs addressing in B24. If Chris Nolan can location hop around the world, so can James Bond. Let's get a sense of grandiosity and awe back into the franchise.
That's one of my main complaints about the rebooted series. other than CR, we haven't had a great lineup of well-used locations since TND.
It is a Bond movie to the bone. First, it's got this character called James Bond in it, and the character is played as a fellow named Ian Fleming would have liked. Second, the film has a larger-than-life, iguana-petting villain, who has a nefarious plan of hemispheric if not global scope. Third, there are two lovelies and a cracking good casino sequence that vibrates with cool and menace. Fourth, there is a guy named Dario who is a classic Bondian henchman. Fifth, the action in this film is fully up to Bond standards and puts the vast majority of actioner action in the dirt. Fifth, the Benign Bizarre, perhaps THE Bondian trait, is fully present. And sixth, classically sly Bondian humor pops up with nice regularity. The notion that LTK is a déclassé, generic actioner is shopworn tosh.
Couldn't agree more with your first paragraph. As to SF changing the structure of Bond films, I'd need to see your evidence.
My only gripe is that I'd have liked the contrast of a European/Asian location to give some variety. As there is no call for it in the narrative it stands as a minor niggle and one that, in all honesty, doesn't harm my enjoyment of the movie. I think the finale is one of the best in the entire canon and makes most 80's action flicks look laughable by comparison.
Kind of ironic considering Brosnan actually DOES this in Mamma Mia and Love is all You Need.
Surely Bourne was influenced by Bond. Both are "tools" operating fo the government, both are somewhat anonymous, both have the same initials and both have suffered memory loss after being pulled from the water.
True Bond does go into Bourne territory but is it really any worse than when it imitated Star Wars?
Now that's the controversy I think we're all looking to discuss.
Controversial, but not true. Mediocrity cannot endure. Styles of music go out of fashion because supply cannot meet demand and the quality of the product is inevitably diminished, leading to a base line of mediocrity. Same goes for film genres, everything ends up reaching critical mass. Bond stands out as being able to transcend these pitfalls. It's had its ups and downs but as a whole, the product is one that draws people back time after time. People will find solace in familiarity, but not mediocrity.
Quite right. Quite right indeed. I would only add that cinematic Bond is imbued by Ian Fleming's genius. Fleming created a thoughtworld, much like Tolkien and Doyle's, and that thoughtworld is timeless because it plays upon many innate human longings like the strings of a harp. That timelessness has been more or less successfully transposed to the silver screen.
Really well put.
Perhaps, but nevertheless wrong. The cinematic Bond is so much more in just about any quality you care to name (especially when it comes to humor and cleverness/education) and while I also would be intrigued by a periodical Bond movie sticking close to the books, I am absolutely certain that the series wouldn't have survived the 60ies if they had just filmed the novels faithfully without "enlarging" Bonds character.
I didn't say it, but it's still true: 50 years on, SF was the most successful Bond film, and it wouldn't have made such achievements if the entirety of it was mediocre.
Perhaps you're better off saying "a lot of the series is quite mediocre".
I see your point though. Even as a Bond fan I admit that many of the films are fairly average and only well regarded because they are part of a larger, iconic series.
I think using the word "genius" in relation to Bond is pushing it though. Even Fleming knew that his books were, essentially, throw-away nonsence. Remember he himself described them as "high-flown, romanticised charicatures" not to be taken TOO seriously.
I think you absolutely miss the point of Khan's post.
Where to begin. Well, to start, and duly noting my deep admiration for cinematic Bond, to say the films are more clever than Fleming's novels is laughable. But perhaps the word "more" is the key to your conception, because, indeed, the films do provide more humor. But quantity is not the same as quality. And on the latter score, the novels generally make a meal of the films. As to your second point, I would argue the very opposite. To wit, had Cubby and Saltzman not hewed closely and accurately to Fleming's conception, the Bond films never would have made it out of the sixties.
For me the movie is a reaction on Miami Vice the tv series that did change how television was made, the episodes often looked like movies.
The baddie from LTK nothing that special, the whole club was kind of generic and the women were allright. The leading actor was the one factor that did weaken the formula, a great guy playing a baddie poor leading man material. And time has proven me right there.
The reason LTK did so poor was that it did not improve on anything Miami Vice had done before. It kind of did a poor mans copy on a very popular series that was better looking and more stylish than anything this latest 007 outing had to offer. It had some nice actionscenes but they added little to the grand total result of an otherwise mediocre movie that proved that perhaps 007's time was up.
You consider 'nine' of the Bond films amongst the worst films ever made? There's controversial and there's bat-shit insane.
You know, not so very long ago I would have agreed with this. There was a period of several years where practically the only films I watched were Bond films, and I began to suspect that I was idiosyncratically indulging in a nostalgic guilty pleasure that was probably inferior to the general run of cinema outside of Bond. But over the past year or so I've been watching numerous non-Bond films and the experience has actually left me deeply impressed with the overall quality of the Bond films. I would argue that even most of the sillier Bond entries are better made and more entertaining than most movies made down through the decades.
Sorry, I meant @RC7. I must still be thinking about pants parties @Creasy ;-)
If I might ask, why are you here with 3,561 posts primarily discussing the Bond series? While logic tells us that half the films are below average, a series can't survive for over 0 years and 23 (soon to be 24), by being quite mediocre, as @RC7 said. The '60's movies were some of the biggest hits the cinema had ever seen and helped change the culture and cinema. I admit that you'd have a stronger case if you had just meant the 70's, 80's, and 90's, when the series was more reactive, but even then there were some quite excellent movies. The Spy Who Loved Me, the Daltons, and GoldenEye stand out for their ability to capture the spirit of the series and at the same time play with the audience's expectations.
The Craig years, while undoubtedly influenced by Bourne and the weaknesses of Brosnan's tenure, have still forged ahead to a degree not seen since Connery, and been for the most part very successful. Quantum of Solace was very mixed bag, but it was hurt by the writer's strike (and at times its director), and is not as good an example as Casino Royale and Skyfall, both of which had more time and attention and turned out to be top-flight entries into the series.
I get the whole greater than the sum of the parts thing argument. Like, what's The Empire Strikes Back on its own without the other films? Bond's cinematic mystique lies in no single entry.
Excellent summation, @RC7. A franchise that has lasted half a century and is now as strong as ever is hardly a mediocre property by any stretch of the imagination.
Or read my post properly? I said nine RANGE from "kinda bad" (e.g. Goldfinger) to "among the worst films ever made" (e.g. AVTAK, DAD).
You're still talking out of your arse though. GF is nowhere near being a 'kinda bad' movie, and AVTAK and DAD are certainly nowhere near being the worst films ever made. Have you ever seen 'Freddie Got Fingered', 'Catwoman', 'Gigli', 'Howard The Duck'? That's just for starters, there are hundreds of movies that rank lower than any Bond movie in terms of cinematic aptitude. I can understand one disliking specific entries in the context of the series, but if you genuinely think the above are amongst the worst films ever made, you've clearly not seen a lot of films, or you're, as I say, insane.
This! Have you seen Battleship? That makes Die Another Day seem like Hitchcock!