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
Like I said, it's a good job you're not the producer.
2) Every first draft is a disaster. Or, at least, an incomplete work. TWINE was written more than 15 years ago!! A lot of things have happened since then. We all have grown up and even the Bond series has. It is fair to assume that P&W have evolved, learned, wrote... a lot since that time!
Which first draft is also the final draft? I mean, has that ever happened? I'd like to read a first draft just out of interest. Heck, I'd like to read a middle draft, too, as well as a shooting script to see how things changed.
All screenplays are rewritten. I think that is fairly correct to say that. :)
I had just never met anyone who was so down on CR and who blame the writing team (in a negative way) for, apparently, every Bond film they made. StoneShi, is there a P&W Bond film that you like at all?
But you ought to know that a good pet peeve does not need any logic or even a solid footing in reality.
There is always a lot of bitching going on on any fan site.
There has been a lot of bitching about P&W around for ages, so the man does not offer anything new so far.
Bitching and moaning will continue. I'm hoping for some more news soon. That should start happening, surely by fall. I hope cinematographer is confirmed soon. I'm happy Witt is back.
Apart from "hard to know when you're in your pajamas" (a dialogue I really liked) I don't find anything that's genuinely funny in SF. Third class jokes served in a forced way. One of so many reasons why I think Mendez is far from being a great director.
Most certainly not ONCE during the DC reign, so that gets a bit stale too.
They should save it for Craig's last ;)
Although I would prefer last Craig/Bond film to end on a dramatic note. Like the YOLT novel did.
I think some people have rose tinted specs on when they look at the earlier films, some of the dialogue in the earlier period was cringe worthy.
Anything to knock this new era and then making out the older films screenplays were genius is just laughable.
I do not hate SF or QoB but honestly they did not have the best of scripts on which they shot the movie, even DC admits that with QoB (Oh my god, the man is a hater!)
And to be honest a lot of the earlier movies were overall pretty great and denying that is somewhat hatefull. Might I add denying the strength of 007's past heritage is a poor show for anybody calling himself a James Bond fan. All three movie you consider dreck are great movies and have a lot that could make this era a better one.
I do not need to knock out this new era, it is perfectly capable of doing it by itself. If the next Bond movie is as poor as QoB & SF I hope that the next performer is for Bond 25. And with any delays on production DC is getting older and might just pass the baton. He does no longer have to do it for the dosh.
Third class jokes is pretty well what we have always got from Bond. If you want great jokes watch Laurel & Hardy.
Sf humour was there alright, but most of it came out of the characters, rather than the old puns and double entendres that we came to know and hate.
I thought Silva, Mallory, Q and Kincade all provided humour, but in a subtle way, reacting to Bond's efforts to get himself back on track.
The only joke that jumped out as belonging in a different era was the old couple at the train station. I smiled at that, but it seemed at odds with everything else. Maybe it was there as a 50th anniversary nod to the past.
I have to say I sort of agree with you. I admire CR on many levels, but there are several elements that don't work for me. The truck tanker chase just seems totally out of place - ripped from a Die hard movie. And a lot of the dialogue is quite bad, only redeemed by some excellent actors. Craig and Green basically save the script from itself, but injecting emotional believability into some truly awful writing. The underlying strength of the story of course has nothing much to do with P+W or Haggis or any one else who was involved.
I've been saying it for years, but the real problem EON has is the quality of the writing. The fact that they've again gone back to P+W suggests to me that they really don't get it.
Really? I totally disagree. The script for CR is very well written in my opinion. The only thing I find lets it down is how Haggis and co. have written the action sequences; they are far too densely written and hard to follow but you undeniably get the gist. If you want to read a bad script then I recommend you read Bruce Feirstein's screenplay for TND or Michael France's GE draft.
The dialogue in CR is great, the train sequence is probably the best written scene in a Bond film period. I do agree there are some eye-roll inducing moments scattered in the latter part of the script but in the most part it's very well done.
Also I disagree with your comments about the tanker chase. In theory the sequence is very interesting: Bond is a character originating from the Cold War and the 2006 Casino Royale film was an attempt to re-contextualise the character in a post-9/11 world. By having Bond attempt to stop a terrorist attack on an airport (despite it being a financially motivated attack opposed to an ideological driven one), the rather dated Bond character was placed in an interesting modern context. I think it's a rather interesting attempt to take Ian Fleming's creation and attempt to put him in a new modern context and a successful one at that. Furthermore, Campbell's execution is impeccable in the finished film.
I recommend reading the CR script it flows very well.
Sorry to say so, but no sir! From the very first one "keep and eye on him" to Moores "what a helpful chap" the franchise has provided us with great dark -and most of all dry - humor (even DAF -about which very bad things can be said - is full of first class comedy lines). It might have gotten downhill from there,but never as much as in SF. The one liners Craig delivers are often said to be Mooresque, but that is simply not true. Moores lines never fails to amuse while Skyfalls one-liner ...,well you got the picture.
Agree. The quality of writing in general and the level of humour in particular went off a cliff after Maibaum. No one since then has really been able recreate or imaginateivrely reinvent the Bond stlye of writing of old. It would probably be difficult these days to find someone of Maibaum's talent who would be willing to commit to so many years to the series. P+W were happy to commit, but they are dreadful writers who should never have been hired in the first place. I love the idea that they'll inject some 'British humour' into the script. God help us! Maibaum was American, but wrote some of the best lines in Bond history - often cited as being supposedly quintessential 'British' humour. What nonsense!
The 'jokes' in SF felt like cack-handed and uninspired attempts to make the film more funny. But as many people have pointed out already, they're just not very amusing. They have that embarassing 'laugh here' air about them - Mendes might as well have added some canned laughter to underline the point.
Apparently Michael Apted says SF isn't a Bond film. He should know, having directed one of the worst in the series!
"Do you want to put that in English for those of us who don't speak Spy"
The idea that there is a set formula that EVERY Bond film has to adhere to is tedious and a creative dead end, as evidenced by Apted's own dysmal effort. I admire SF for trying to do something different. I just don't think it was done very well. But SF is undoudtedly better than the formulaic, soulless rubbish we saw between 95 and 2002.
I bet Apted thinks OHMSS isn't a Bond movie either. Total idiot.
I do believe that the majority of films should work within certain parameters, but there always has to be space to do something quite different. Not with every film perhaps, but every now and then it's essential to keep things fresh.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2379713/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_wr#writers
That's about as reliable as Wikipedia given all the changes they've made recently.
Thats what I was thinking. They even had Penelpe Cruz listed a few days ago. I don't trust the IMDB listings. I think they change credits based on tabloid gossip...