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
Personally, I think the writer's strike did QOS a favour in that it made life difficult for Forster & Craig forcing them to rise to the occasion and ultimately turn out a fairly flawed but fascinating atypical Bond movie.
"Is that your Mother?"
"She likes to think so."
That's what I call coming up with stuff on the fly! :)>-
Maybe what you're saying is that you'd like to have seen "more" concentrating on the sequel aspects? That I could understand regarding what I've already mentioned in the "missing" category. At this point in time, if there is blame to go around I think it belongs to Forster first and foremost, followed by the failure of EON in allowing him to go too far. I know they like to give the director a lot of freedom to make the film they want, but there should be a line that shouldn't be crossed and Bond copying ANY other spy franchise is one that shouldn't have been.
My best hope for QoS was that it would continue the quality of CR; my worst fear was that we would go back to the pre-CR level of quality. When I first read the initial reviews my heart sank, however I still went in feeling optimistic - I mean, CR was not just great but exceptional so perhaps QoS being great seemed like a let down!
Despite buying our tickets in advance and getting to the theatre exceptionally early we still had to sit very close to the front - and with QoS's editing that really affected our enjoyment of it. I found it very difficult to follow the opening car chase, and then once the lacklustre credit sequence followed I thought "Oh, sh!t, they were right..." As the film went on there were some really good elements to it but the Cuisinart editing and it feeling less like a sequel than I expected made me think it was just okay.
So a month or two later I saw it in the theatre again. Two things were different - I didn't go in with the impossible expectations of it being as good or even better than CR, and I sat halfway back from the screen. These two things allowed me to see the film better - both subjectively and visually! - and after the second time I had a good appreciation for the film. It was still a bit of a slide after CR but it wasn't the disaster that some people were saying.
I'm sure that others will give lots of detail, but I really appreciated the performances and some of the action scenes were quite good. The film had a quick pace and I found that in the grand scheme of things it was interesting to have a Bond film that was such a different "flavour" from the last few films. I've seen it twice more again (on DVD) and every time that I see it I have more of an appreciation for it. It's no CR or SF but it's still quite good.
The one thing I would love is that if they came out with a "non-director's cut" one day - with someone re-editing the film so that Forster's style didn't overwhelm it. I appreciate that it had such an interesting style, I just think that EON could have sat on Forster a bit more to tone it down a bit...
And as for whether or not it was enough of a sequel, Bond drinking the Vespers on the plane was one of the most touching moments in the series, and wonderfully acted by Craig and Giannini. Safely ensconced on the plane for several hours, Bond allows himself the luxury of getting drunk - how rare must that be for him who must always be on guard in "the field"? And the fact that he can't bring himself to name what he's drinking when Mathis asks...just fantastic. I could very much imagine Fleming having written that very scene (even without the dialogue they lifted from CR the novel).
Shakey-cam
Punks
Exporting
Cinematic
Trauma
Regarding
Equilibrium
I felt the Bond/Vesper/Camile revenge plot was more interesting than the Quantum water plot which, to me, felt somewhat second fiddle. Perhaps that was the point I don't know but the scheme felt under-cooked and didn't really have a "hook" to it.
That's funny! And yes, I agree wholeheartedly that there was plenty of momentum coming from CR and ferocity in the Bond character following the trail of QUANTUM. I totally fail to understand why they felt the need to copy a trend rather than maintain their philosophy of setting the trends, it didn't work in 1979 or 2002 and those lessons should have been learned.
It's not a great story but it's neither so ridiculous nor so incoherent that it distracts from my enjoymemt of the film.
The reason I was glad that it wasn't entirely focused on Bond finding out about Vesper is that a) I am sick of the 'this time it's personal stories' and b) had they done this, it would have made it feel even more like a Bourne rip off.
True, but I think most of the memorable stuff come when the film focuses on the Vesper/revenge theme.
-The scene with Bond and Camile in a cave
-Mr White being interrogated at the start
-Daniel Craig confronting Jusef
-Bond talking to Mathis in the plane.
But could the film have susitained 2 hours of Bond pouring his heart out about Vesper? The fact you've picked out four Vesper related scenes shows the film hardly ignores this aspect of the story.
Again true, maybe it could have just made Quantum's plot/the members of the organisation a bit more engaging. I think the film is best when it focuses on the Vesper stuff. The ultimate reason Bond is asked to go after Green though is rather...meh to me.
To paraphrase Judi Dench it just feels "pretty thin" and...to be honest... a little boring.
Quantum is ultimately a film that is "some of its parts"
Could it have been better? Yes - definitely. But for me, it's definitely one of the better Bond films from the last quarter of a century. I'd definitely say the story in CR is better. The story in CR is better than any other Bond film for years, courtesy of Mr. Fleming, but I actually enjoyed QoS more.
Excellent thoughts Bain. And I'd add that nearly every scene with Mathis hardly veered from the topic. Like YKMN playing when Bond motors up to Mathis' villa. Vesper is mentioned there, on the plane, and in his death scene. The Fields scenes get away from it, but then in it's place you get their same camaraderie and humor we saw in CR.
I'd add the Bregenz opera house as a terrific and very original type of scene, one of the best action pieces in the series. Arnold's music is yet another element that ties the two films together and should be mentioned. QOS is sort of hit or miss for me depending on the scene, but once they land in the cave going forward I find the film to be captivating and as well done as I would have expected. It finishes strong and gets the job done as far as wrapping the story of Vesper and introducing QUANTUM, and ultimately that's what I wanted to see and what the sequel was supposed to have accomplished. Like CR, we have a reference point to when they decide to reintroduce QUANTUM, much the same as we did when SPECTRE returned after GF. This is why I cannot dismiss the actual film content as a failure, perhaps the P&W script idea would have been better, but it's the other things to me that hurt it far worse.
IF it is. I can hope.
Exactly. You've outlined in previous posts why I feel QoS is too lightweight to be considered great.
They had the opportunity to go head first into QoS using the specifics of CR as the catalyst, yet within five minutes of it opening we have some peripheral MI6 agent 'Mitchell' as the catalyst. Poor storytelling in my book. Yusef should have been the link in the chain leading to Quantum. The only angle on Mitchell is to set up the idea that Quantum have people 'everywhere', yet when does that feed into the story? Does MI6 ever come under threat because of this? Do we ever see them amending their protocols? No, they just seem to carry on as usual. The only explicit link is Haines, yet even he is so peripheral that he feels like his inclusion is irrelevant (he was supposed to be in the final scene, but wasn't, I know). No meat on the bone.
I've discussed this before, I don't know if it was with you, but why couldn't this have been the case in QoS? It's infinitely more suitable as sequel material. The thrust of the plot would have been fantastic, instead we got a very linear A-B story, with completely redundant action scenes linking it together. I don't dislike QoS, but I maintain that it could have been epic, instead it's a bit of a damp squib.
^ It's too late to do this now. That ship has sailed.
DAF with Lazenby in a revenge tale trumps that big time, in my opinion. It could have been a top 5 Bond film.
Huge, but as it was never going to happen and QoS did, I feel worse about QoS.
I am quite happy with what we got, especially considering the circumstances that it was made under. It is in the top 5 for best Bond character studies in the franchise right up there with the likes of OHMSS, LTK, CR, and Skyfall to name a few.
First of all, I appreciate everyone keeping their comments mostly positive and on topic. At the end of the day, we're all fans and not trolls. Even with DAD and MR we all acknowledged the things that were good about those films. I think Nic and the other originals would agree with me that we're not going to have super negative trolls here, nor are we going to allow this to turn into an ad nauseum discussion of Skyfall pros and cons like we've had elsewhere. Because as much as we welcome other commentary, this thread was created for specific fans and I want that to remain our primary focus. Back to the subject-
QOS wasn't the greatest sequel we could have had, but I'll take it even as is. I've always felt like many others that we the fans got robbed by the decision not to tie DAF to OHMSS, so I was glad that Mike and Barb recognized that and gave the fans what they wanted to see.
With Yusef Kabira, it's interesting for two reasons that they did not have Bond kill him off. The first one is obvious, they wanted us to see that Bond was no longer just an inexperienced killing machine. All the lessons that M, Mathis, and Leiter were trying to get him to understand were realized when this happened. It opened the door for Craig to bring us a Bond that we more readily recognized going forward, which we will no doubt touch on during Skyfall reviews. The second reason could be regarding what Brady has written, that maybe there is a future role for Kabira to play and he wasn't killed for that reason. And personally, as much as I am intrigued by what they could do with Kabira I have to ask myself this- with P&W and Haggis not involved with the new screenplay Logan is writing, and this is assuming QUANTUM will be revisited, it's possible this will be an entirely new mission introducing other, more powerful members of QUANTUM and none of the characters such as White, Kabira, or Haines will be returning. As RC7 says, perhaps that ship with these guys aboard has sailed and time will tell. Because after we originals here finish with Skyfall and discuss our eventual group ratings against our personal lists, the subject of the "humanization of Bond" and other topics leading up to BOND24 will get discussed and that would be a great time to resume this discussion. We're going to have more original reviews coming and there is lots more about QOS the movie to discuss, such as the below.
I wish they would finally give us an updated release of QOS with deleted scenes and some other material. It's unusual not to have something by now. It makes me wonder because if I remember the one time I saw the alternate ending correctly, White killed Haines and Bond killed White. I wonder if that will be used in a flashback type of sequence in the next film?
I again apologize (hoping this is the last time), for my delays in reviews. Much overwork and stress and some illness (minor). I'm on holiday now and will get caught up. This is by far my most favorite thread. I appreciate everyone's contributions, especially the other Originals of course, but also the thoughtful comments by others. Quality (and not trolls) continue to reign here.
How about bringing Stana Katic back as Corrine? Bond 24 will be set years after QoS and it would be interesting if she was now a much more seasoned intelligence officer - possibly even field agent. I can see her experience with Yusef being a big learning experience for her, perhaps even mirroring what Bond went through with the revelation about Vesper.