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
Last week you complained how folks who enjoy SF didn't give you a breath of air to ventilate your criticism. We calmed things down and agreed to this thread, provided that you would keep it friendly. Now once again you throw around words like 'slaves' and 'trolls', despite certain warnings being handed out. Well done, gentlemen. More warnings shall follow and this thread is only an inch away from being closed down. Too bad for @Getafix, who unlike you two has indeed remained respectful, not towards the film (which is his good right) but at least towards other members, and who had originally asked for this thread. But since the two of you find it imperative not only to constantly describe SF as a bad film by chewing up the same (often questionable) arguments over and over again - which is a form of spamming - but to also force-feed members who do appreciate the film (in case you hadn't noticed: a majority of fans) some powerful bits of name-calling, trolls is what I'd say you are. Please understand that most members here couldn't care less whether you like the film or not but they don't like to be called 'slaves' or given an aura of brainlessness because they do enjoy SF. More and more threads are rendered all but dead by this constant bickering, by the verbal filth you introduce, which many members righteously find repulsive enough to stay away. Yet many of them have let us know over the past days that they've had enough of your party crashing nonsense and would like to return to an open and respectful air for debate, where it's okay to say either yes or no, but without the annoying repetitiveness of your nay-saying and most of all, without the insults, the personal attacks, which you yourselves have been complaining about last week. Enough is enough.
9 out of 10 in it's own right as an intelligent film with believable acting. To me, it is very different to even CR which is more traditional despite the changes.
Even the PTS was so different to past Bonds. When you see the dying MI6 agents and the blood, you damn well know this is not TND.
SF as a story is very deep and tense throughout. SF is no nonsense Bond. It has style and sophistication mixed in with the heavy dose of grit.
SF to me is not comfort Bond as in adhering to formula predictably. Sam Mendes has put his own stamp on the series. The humour in the film was played out in character similar to how it would be in real life in situations.
That's a dramatic but effective change. When I saw that I instantly recalled an on-set interview with Robert Carlyle in 1999 when he said "when a character gets shot you don't see blood".
I know you love LTK but I think, while I do like the film, one of the reasons why SF is easily superior is that - despite the harder approach - it still has style and isn't consumed by a nastiness/grubbiness/desire to be "as tough as it can". It gets the mix right.
Actually SF to me did not play or look like a traditional Bond film in terms of style. The most stylish scene in terms of Bond for me was when Bond is talking with Severine at the bar.
I think SF in some ways is like an art house Bond film. LTK is far more traditional in terms of structure than SF is. LTK still has elements that are very familiar.
In truth, SF is in a league of it's own. I don't think you are going to gain anything by comparing. LTK is Psycho as an analogy and SF is Silence Of The Lambs. They could not be more different. They are of there time.
In fact SF according to my sister's husband made him realise how dumb the old Bond films were. He said he preferred the heightened realism and it is his opinion. He felt Bond was no longer a one dimensional character and has regained interest in the series.
He is a big fan of Layer Cake and thinks Craig is unlike any other Bond.
On the other hand another friend who I saw the film with and who knew Fleming and earlier wartime literature really enjoyed it - and he'd been cynical about Craig who he'd described as too much like Harry Palmer.
I just felt the character development and plot fizzles half way through. Roughly after Silva's island. Plus I have always been bored rigid by anything to do with computer hacking. It always seems like a really lazy way of getting from plot point A to B because you don't have to intelligently explain anything - it's just those boffins doing their stuff. Yawn. I genuinely think it's a lazy, generic plot. It is self evidently 'trying hard' but like TWINE, effort does not always equal quality.
Hi @Getafix I did like the film for it's bravery to be different compared to past Bond. There is no question this is serious film making. I would say SF is closer to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy than Goldfinger for instance.
I certainly did not walk out of the cinema wanting to go home and watch LALD or TSWLM. I left the cinema in a highly intellectualised mood and went to a nice pub where we all discussed.
Everyone thought it was excellent and so different in tone. In fact when past Bond films were brought up in the discussion, it was more to point out their unrealism and fantasticalness.
But to call the film classic Bond is a stretch. Apart from the DB5, I felt I was on unfamiliar territory. If it used the formula of past Bonds then I would call it classic Bond. This was no formula film which classic Bond was.
Was the scene with Kinkade classic Bond? Or the scene of Severine bleeding from the mouth before she dies.
And I talked to some people outside the cinema who went to see it because they were huge fans of Mendes work rather than Bond. I noticed an older audience in my local cinema.
But it is an excellent film in it's own right. SF is the Bond film which now does not compete with just the Bond films of the past. This a Bond film to show the world that Bond films can equal the most intelligent of modern films.
Mark Kermode normally is no fan of Bond and loves this. That speaks volumes to me.
Oh don't worry. You don't need to apologise to me. To be honest I think we get a lot of bad press and provocation on this thread. People come in just looking for a fight and then we're the ones that get a ticking off for reacting.
Any way, it's good to have some of the positive crew in here, like @acoppola, who want a proper discussion.
Cheers mate
Thanks @Getafix Watching the film I was fully aware that it was not aimed at fans of TSWLM style. The bigger box office than any Bond film of the past 30 years is proof that they have to reach out to those who are not necessarily Bond fans but want to see a high quality film.
My sister's husband for instance went to the cinema to see the reboot Bond because he loved Craig in Layer Cake. He loved his acting style and the last cinema Bond he paid to see at the movies was Octopussy before that.
Many Youtube reviewers are admitting they have only seen a few Bond films and they are comparing SF to CR a lot.
I cannot see them going back to the Bond of old after the resounding critical success of SF. Why would they when the audience loves this style and approach so much?
Both Craig and Marlohe are superb in that sequence and you really feel the tension when Bond is contemplating what his next move is. When she is killed it's a shocking moment and she turns into the films "sacrificial lamb".
I think CR is closer to classic Bond than SF by a wide margin.
I agree the scene where Severine dies is shocking. But the way the scene was set up was very disturbing and she looks beaten up as well. I certainly was not thinking back to scenes in a film like Thunderball. You really feel bad for her as she is fully aware by her face expression that there is no way out despite Bond being right there in front of her and helpless to save her.
The Severine dying scene was so different to how Bond girls would die in the past. QOS where Strawberry Fields is covered in oil is more in line with the past Bond girl deaths than SF.
I actually thought Bond's one liner about wasting a perfectly fine whisky or something like that was out of place considering she just got shot in the head with the whisky glass on top. That was bad timing and bad taste. I did not think it was cool or funny.
We have to face the fact that the old Bond style is not really what the aims of SF are.
I actually liked the way Craig delivered his lines in the film. He did it in character and did not step out of the film to do it. I thought he has put his own stamp on Bond which is very exclusive.
Craig made the character look believable and highly capable. In fact I see no point in comparing him to Connery when their personalities are so different. I love it when an actor has the guts to be his own man and makes no apologies for it.
If I want to see Connery, then I watch his films. I didn't go to see this film to see Connery. And I liked Craig even more for not being goofy.
In fact I preferred the Aston DB5 scenes in this film to CR or Goldeneye. It was subtle because they introduced the car when the going was not good for M or MI6. It did not take me out of the film and did not look tacky.
Seeing Bond and M driving to Scotland in the DB5 did not come across as triumphalism or a cheap nod to the past. It was a reflective moment in the context of the story. The past had caught up with her and the car was a beautiful symbol of the past history. A metaphor in a way.
In fact once I saw the DB5 in it's proper context, I can safely say I think it was a beautiful touch without a bells and whistles approach.
The Severine dying scene was so different to how Bond girls would die in the past. QOS where Strawberry Fields is covered in oil is more in line with the past Bond girl deaths than SF.
I took that scene as the film makers taking an old cliche (the sacrificial lamb) and putting a more "real" spin on it. The same is true in the case of Solage's death in CR. In both cases they were women who did something for Bond (other than sleeping with him) before they met their maker.
However in each case their deaths had a more dramatic tone. In Solage's case it was the shot of her being taken away in a body bag - that had never been done before in the films.
Yes, but in Solage's case it happens when Bond is not with her. And in past films when Bond is with the girl, she does not die in his company. I know that in Thunderball where the woman Bond is dancing with, but it is a different style of death scene.
Past Bond girls like in Moonraker where they set the dogs on her are deaths where the girl is alone and has no Bond to save her. In SF, he is right there looking at her and impotent to do a thing about it.
So SF was a twist on the formula. And Severine was a highly classy woman too. I loved her dialogue and the fact she smokes.
Any way, I always take Kermode, or any review for that matter, with a pinch of salt. He totally slated QoS as incomprehensible. However, I found QoS perfectly entertaining at the cinema. It wasn't until years later I found out the fans were slating it so much. I find the QoS plot pretty straightforward and easily understood - it doesn't try too hard to be clever. The SF plot gets both more complex and less believable the more you think about it.
The idea that Silva is obessed by M is not supported by the fact that he spends his time accumulating millions of pounds, rigging elections in Africa and having art lovers assassinated in complex staged kills. How does any of this fit with the supposed backstory that he's spent years plotting to take out M?
Is Bond supposed to have tracked Silva down or is Silva supposed to have deliberately drawn him in? If it was deliberate, it is utterly unbelieveable as it required such a series of coincidences - i.e. that Bond would survive the shot and fall, and find the casino chip and that Severine would actually not be all that scared after all and lead Bond to Silva's island. The same goes for the convoluted chase and conveniently placed bomb on the underground - is this all supposed to have been planned. And then when Silva has his chance to kill M he is put off by the old double fire extinguisher trick.
It's just riddled with this stuff.
I mean we are supposed to believe there is a special bond between Bond and M. Yet at the start she (still) doesn't trust him to take out Patrice. She orders a shot when they are locked in combat on the train. For the sake of the story, they could at least have made it look like Bond was losing at that point, so there was a rational reason for her calculating that that shot was her best option. But the fight looks evenly matched. And yet she still doesn't trust her best agent to do his job and see that as a better option than a pot shot by a clearly rattled rooky Eve.
I know it's nitpicky but If this was any other film I'd be saying exactly the same thing. The ropey plot just kept on taking me out of the film and questioning why people were doing what they did.
I think that, and the fact that I felt it completely lacked dramatic tension and pace are my main objections.
I think, actually I know that Barbara Brocolli and Michael Wilson are way too controlling and overprotective , and do not let the directors have much input into the films, which is why they wouldn't let Quentin Tarantino make a Bond film.
It amazes me how Barbara and Michael felt comfortable enough to release garbage such as DAD and SKYFAIL, yet they wouldn't let Tarantino do a bond. quite amazing really when u think about it.
The more I think about how sloppy and lazy the writing in skyfail was, the more dumbfounded I get.
I agree with a lot of this, I said before that I think the plot was the films Achilles' heel, there were too many coincidences, too much that fell into place so conveniently.
The problem between those who liked it & those who were disappointed was the plot, it was humorous, fantastical & action with little logic. And for those who were expecting a more seriously well thought out, tightly scripted movie, they were disappointed, while those who wanted a bit of popcorn fun were happy, myself I'd say on the last level it works so I've accepted that, so on a second viewing I thought it a better job. Deep down I wanted the former so I'd say I'm not upset just a bit ambiguous. However I'd still give it 8.5/10 as a piece of undemanding entertainment.
BUT IT COULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH MORE WITH THE TALENT AVAILABLE.
As groanworthy as the Moonraker PTS is the minute Jaws shoves Bond out of the plane, the GE revisit is even less believable. We've got people complaining about a few bullets in the SF PTS, but here we actually have Bond hit with one. Not realistic? REALLY? How many craploads of flying bullets 1995-2002 and Brosnan Bond doesn't take a single one. Craig is the first Bond to take a bullet since Connery in Thunderball.
In this case I could not care less what Ian Fleming would have thought. Naomi did a great job in the part. They can make M black in the future if they want (Colin Salmon??) As long as they keep Bond himself white I don't mind.
Good!!
Knowing that Dalton once dated Whoopi Goldberg, I have no doubts he loves the EON move. Good enough for Dalton means good enough for me.
It's not PC, it's just a casting choice, I have no problem with Naomi as Moneypenny, I'm the biggest fan of the original novels, but this is 2012, ability is nothing to do with ethnicity.