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Would be good to see Felix Leiter back yes. I thought both his roles where way too small. Almost like he was an instrument of the CIA. I'd like to see a more prominent Felix Leiter, who's promoted a couple of times and who welcomes Bond on US soil again.
Something like that for Bond 24 would be great. And let Q move with 007 to the USA too. You could do something hilarious with Q's fear of flying :-).
I do want the roles from M and Moneypenny to be smaller this time. Some sexy innuendo between Bond and Moneypenny again....in the office.
Give me something like this for B24
Car chase like these ones I always considered a benchmark. Car chases should last long and they should pretty much be perfect. Perhaps even without scoring, to make it more real. And also....no supercars please....just normal cars. Something like this I haven't ever seen in a Bond film:
Ronin (1998), Peugeot 406 against a BMW 5 series:
Le Coup, Le Casse (1971), Lada/Fiat against an Opel Kadett:
Bullitt (1968), Ford Mustang Fastback against a Dodge Charger:
Amsterdamned (1988), Volkswagen Golf against a Yamaha XT500:
Here's the use of exact same place (but in the other direction) :
I'm afraid some of you really want a Hollywood blockbuster Bond, not a Bondian Bond ! IMO, the former may earn more money in the short time, but in the long time, that's elements that could be ridiculous anywhere but in a Bond movie, that kept the franchise running so long.
No. US Producers with the backing of US Studios produced a movie directed by an US director with a US lead actor. Jean Reno and Paris don't make it an European production !
For instance, the fear to use gadgets because it would look too Bondian. You explictly want a car chase with a normal car, like in other movies. You sound like Matt Damon promoting the Bourne movies and explaining why the old Bond is ridiculous.
Now think of the car chase in GF : all the gadgets and yet he gets caught. That's 60s Bond without the parody... You get an iconic scene and yet no parodical escape thanks to some laser. Using the gadgets and still failing, only a cool Bond movie would be able to get with it. Other movies would dare to show the gadgets somehow useless in the end, but in the end he stills win with the wits (TLD's cello for instance). "The Secret Service" next year may have such scenes, it may dare to do movie-Bondian stuff more than the current Bond...
QOS did a chase with normal cars, no gadgets, like you want, Bond wins it, but who remembers it but some fans ? Even the normal car chase of AVTAK (Paris again !) tried to be OTT without gadgets nevertheless, but it didn't work well in the end.
Well I for one am heartily sick of gadget car chases. In the Brosnan era we had 3 in 3 films despite only having 3 in all the other films combined (I'm not counting the TB PTS here). The Brosnan era destroyed the concept of the gadget car for at least another 10 years for me by turning it into a cliche in the same way Austin Powers made the whole super villain/volcano lair/goons in boiler suits thing unusable by real Bond films.
I much prefer the 2CV, Paris taxi and tank chases over any of the gadget ones anyway - Bond relying on his wits and using what is to hand rather than just pressing buttons. The low point is TND which, although a great action sequence, can't resist running it with one stupid gadget too many. I refer of course to the BMW logo cutter. In what possible circumstances could this be of use except if someone happens to trail a cable across your path at the correct height? Why would Q consider this a likely enough contingency worth tailoring a specific gadget for? Ridiculous.
Why to get a bit of BMW product placement of course ;)
We've already had many car chases devoid of any gadgets in many Bond films, each with the same outcome as many car chases with gadgets. The only one that made it into legend is the Goldfinger one, IMO (and maybe TSWLM, as a kind of first video-game movie adaptation mood, with different levels during the chase - TND upped the ante with actually using a video game controller).
In Goldfinger, he uses many gadgets, but can't kill an old lady and then crashes into a wall because of a mirror. All the other ones are "well, this is the action sequence that Bond will win again". They tried to make changes by using weird cars with no gadgets (FYEO, OP for instance) etc, but well, the fact some want to see a "real car chase" after already having so many, proves that people actually forget them.
Remember the PTS of Skyfall : if you describe it, it looks like a "silly fan" PTS : a car chase, followed by a moto chase, followed by a digger chase, followed by a foot chase n a train... And yet it's part now of the "Best Bond ever" according to the same who would have laughed if told what the PTS would look like. It's the same with a gadget car chase I think : if you don't think a Bond movie can have one now, if you think it'll be necessarily silly, if you think you would prefer have a Bourne car chase instead, well I'm afraid you don't trust much what a Bond movie can be.
I am sick of them too, and for one reason: it reduces Bond to a middle aged man pushing buttons, the car doing stuff for him. In TND it reached absurd peaks: it's barely a chace, Bond plays a videogame happily while the villains are being humiliated by a toy car in a parking lot. And the least said about DAD's Vanquish the better.
Except that it is NOT Bond. Heavy gadgetry is a twisted road that took the franchise, it is in no way essential of the character. What the public reproached to the Bond movie is never the gadgets, it is the violence, the sex, the machismo, the sadism.
Some of them did at a time. And Bourne did not invent car chases. I would rather have the car chases in future Bond movies to look like something from The French Connection than TND. It is not playing safe to avoid the gadgets, it forces the writers to be inventive. Gadgets filled cars, especially heavy laden ones like in the Brosnan era, give a deus ex machina to Bond at the tip of his fingers.
That sums it up to me.
Sometimes I feel we are a very little minority here who wants to be surprised by a Bond movie, who wants to see something not seen elsewhere. I read many, many comments about people who want to see "the same thing as seen already in such and such movies".
I'm afraid the first person point-of-view of The French Connection (I don't know what words to use for the "car view") would made Bond look like a video game adaptation now.
In Goldfinger, they're not deux ex machina, he still gets caught. Gadgets that would not be deus ex machina in the end, here is something where the writers have to be inventive. Bond-steals-a-car-and-escape-against-all-odds-without-killing-any-passerbys-despite-taking-all-risks, yawn :) Stealing a tank or a digger was already a bit more inventive ! Having to stop the chase to avoid killing a passerby, well that would be like in some 70s French movie, but it would still surprise many. Etc, etc.
No, in GF the Aston Martin was not a deus ex machina. But the supercar became one quickly. It certainly was in the Brosnan era.
I am watching the entire Bond franchise again up to scratch. I started with DN, then FRWL and now I'm in the middle of GF.
GF really was a 'different' kind of Bond film compared to its two predecessors. Perhaps it's the director Guy Hamilton? He openly admitted that Bond is one big pile of 'nonsense', whereas Terence Young actually was an Ian Fleming-like character. He and Sean where very good friends. When the screenplay for GF was developed Sean frequently said: "Man, is this not becoming too cheesy if you add this and that??"
It's what I read in my big encyclopedia 'The 007 Archives'. Guy Hamilton deliberately added more 'cheese' into the film. 'Q', the Aston Martin, Sean's lines, the way the villain died, the car chase, the ejector seat.....it all added to the proverbial 'cheese' of the film.
Terence Young's FRWL and to a lesser extend his DN and TB were way more Fleming-esque if you ask me. He set the 'realistic standard' of the Bond films. That kind of realism was 'copied' later in films such as OHMSS, FYEO, OP, TLD, LTK, TWINE, CR, QOS and SF.
Guy Hamilton's GF however set a different kind of standard, the 'cheesy standard' so to say. His GF was only a start and was copied in his following Bond films DAF, LALD and TMWTG. But also YOLT, TSWLM, MR, AVTAK, GE, TND and DAD are fitting the column of 'cheesy Bond films'.
That's what makes the Bond films so fun I think. But having said that.....we had already too many Guy Hamilton-esque gadget-laden car chases. What Bond misses is indeed a French Connection-esque, Bullitt-esque, Ronin-esque car chase: A long, at least 5 minutes lasting car chase, in which Bond is solely dependent on his own driving capabilities and not on gadgets. And preferably, the chase should be set on a real highway, full of traffic, adding more suspense and realism to the film.
If Barbara and Michael can pull this off..........by jolly they could create another timeless Bond classic then :-).
I may have misinterpreted this, but are you suggesting a Ronin style car chase in Bond 24 will make it an instant, timeless classic?
When you take in mind my entire post with all its arguments and not putting that one sentence out of context? Yes :-). And I said "they could create"
Still lost I'm afraid. The rest of your post alludes to 'cheese' which went out with the Brosnan era. So I'm not taking your comment out of context.
I am so sorry that you feel lost then :-).
If you can explain what you mean then I can discuss it with you. I took your first post as suggesting a ronin-esque car chase in B24 could elevate it to classic status. If this isn't what you were inferring then please elaborate. If it is what you mean then naturally I'd disagree, as the saying goes 'A car chase does not make the movie' or words to that effect. However, the style you and others suggest, I too would like to see.
I think there's room to deliver something exceptional with a new Bond chase sequence but it needs to be meticulously thought through, with emphasis on shot selection rather than blanket steady-cam coverage. It also needs to deliver a set-piece that can in no way be viewed as contrived. In other words Mendes has to be all over it and treat it as meticulously as he would his character work. The best action is as hard to execute as the best drama, I think a lot of directors just see it as the fun bit of fluff.
This topic is about coming up with elements of the film to actually improve on the things that went wrong or did not happen at all in 'Skyfall'. It's a hard task though, because 'Skyfall' still is seen as one of the best and more unique films in the franchise.
When it comes down to action -a certain element we have been discussing now- that is enhancing the storyline and plot, I think -and with me some other fans- Bond 24 can do better.
A reinvigorated, reinvented car chase would be perfect for that. But I think certain standards should be applied for that car chase, to make sure it doesn't come across as silly or cheesy and just as a loose part of the film. Those standards should be:
A) Preferably no gadgets. I'd like this time to see Bond being dependent on his own driving skills. And also that these skills basically help him. So let Bond for a change be chasing the villain instead of being chased, what's happening most of the time.
B) Plentiful time. I said that I want the car chase to last at least 5 minutes. Not for the sole purpose of making it last long, but only because then the action can become part of the plot. You also need to catch the audience in the excitement, not like it was done in QOS.
C) A car chase at the end of the film. Usually the latter part of a Bond film is dragging a bit in a Bond film. In CR and SF this was already miles better, but I think it would be lovely if such car chase excitement would be left for the 2nd part of the film.
D) Preferably car chase set on a busy highway. A highway full of traffic could add more suspense and realism to the film.
E) And most importantly, camerawork that resembles the camerawork from car chases like the ones in 'Ronin' and 'Bullitt'. I want it to look real. So the camera must take long shots of the cars and the faces of the drivers. Perhaps even some aerial shots. Not like in QOS, with way too short shots edited way to fast...
F) And lastly,
For some my 007 in New York imagine i think about this. But then as 3th part of the film, the set up of Bond 25. Also there not be only 1 but 2 car chases. Also you can't realy speak from car chase, because 1 of them i be police who follow a chacter who is on the run but not go very fast and this will end in a litle boat chase in front of the lady and you can see her tourch in her right hand. A big changle, because partly is should be done for real and New York should be re-made in Pinewood and partly maquette partly CGI. Very expensive in money and time and you need a third united directer. If there can let sink a house in Italy with CGI in Casino Royale and use CGI with Macau in Skyfall then there also can do that.
B) Plentiful time. I said that I want the car chase to last at least 5 minutes. Not for the sole purpose of making it last long, but only because then the action can become part of the plot. You also need to catch the audience in the excitement, not like it was done in QOS.
Where i think about only that Car/boat chase already should be 15-25 minutes. But it is the set up who is much longer.
RE: D) Preferably car chase set on a busy highway. A highway full of traffic could add more suspense and realism to the film.
See my comments above.. I whant at to this is that i also like to see a litle bit of unrealism/difrent Camera angle.
2. Ski chase
3. Beardless Daniel Craig (BDC for short)
4. No Black Moneypenny (NBM)
5. Judi Dench Flashbacks (she is acclaimed and must remain within this series)
It is my hope that #BDC, #NBM, as well as #JDF enter the Twitter vernacular and begin to trend.
Would you care to elaborate on point number 4? I don't see what ethnicity has to do with it.
Same here. Moneypenny was played by an American....hence Moneypenny's American mother tongue (Lois Maxwell)....and no one was complaining then :-S.