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
That was already explained in CR by M on the phone. The only thing QoS did was putting the whole thing more into contest, showing that her boyfriend was a liar and a member of the organization.
Then Bond in CR did everything he could possibly do to save her. There's no way he feels responsible for her death, especially since she decided to commit suicide preventing him to save her. In fact, in CR he was so angry for being betrayed by Vesper that he would've been able to even kill her, at the beginning of the shootout.
The forgive me note is gonna be about Bond feeling guilty for not being able to forgive her for what she did. After her death he never really made peace with the fact that she cheated on him and that is the emotional foundation of QoS. Bond was never able to really understand what she did and forgive her because he felt she used him. He opened up, took out the armor for the first time in his life and then his feelings were used against him. He finally moves forward with Vesper at the end of QoS because he understands that she was used too, just like him, but throughout the film Bond not being able to forgive her is an important theme and that anger is what makes him consistently close to cross the line in his job. But that is not enough to heal such a wound. And this is where Dr. Swann steps up.
There's a pivotal line by Mathis in QoS that sums everything up and that is gonna be thematically relevant in NTTD: She gave everything for you. Forgive her. Forgive yourself.
So there's evidence in CR that Bond didn't even need to go on an anger-based mission in QoS. And that the Craig era has been needlessly emotionally complicated by the writers.
Bond wasn’t able to forgive her because she lied to him and she used his feelings against him. At the beginning of QoS he has all the reasons in the world to be angry. He makes totally peace with her betrayal once he finds out she was used too, just like him, even tho he starts to do that during the course of the film speaking with Mathis, that in this film represents the voice of reason.
Significantly, Bond does *not* know any of this this when he angrily shoots at Vesper in Venice.
QoS is about Bond verifying that information (and confronting her ex-boyfriend, catharsis for Bond), but he already knew everything in CR.
So in a way CR never needed a sequel. We could have jumped from the end of CR to a standalone (or at least non-Vesper) mission.
1. Sony wanting the movie out initially in May 2008, only 18 months after CR. Eventually they moved it to November 2008.
2. Purvis and Wade not starting a treatment until July 2006.
3. Forster joining July 2007, giving him five months of prep and script development. Not much.
4. Writers Strike beginning November 2007, so they only had four months script development.
5. It being a $220m mega budget film.
So for a film that was in effect “made” in five months, it turned out alright.
Not correct.
In CR M tells him Vesper’s boyfriend was kidnapped by the organization and she made a deal with them to save him. M also tells him Vesper and her French-Algerian boyfriend were very much in love. Bond finds out the truth about Yusuf seducing women only in QoS. Vesper never knew the truth about Yusuf and Bond definitely didn’t knew all the truth by the end of CR.
But QoS doesn't change anything about his relationship with Vesper...certainly not to merit two to three more films about it.
I think it should have been a sequel in the same sense LALD novel was. It still follows up on Bond hungry for a little payback against the organization. It’s just not set literally minutes after the preceding novel.
Also, I absolutely LOATHE the name “Quantum”. Imagine if they didn’t bother naming it, that would have allowed them to simply name them SPECTRE later on without any contrivances. They’re basically the same type of organization already anyway.
They just needed a short scene with someone (M? Mathis?) to explain the "quantum of solace"--perhaps in the "uncontrollable rage" scene.
Dench could have pulled off that phrase...title, check. And move on. Like Dalton in The Living Daylights.
About 30 seconds later when Bond beats up the other agents and escapes she says “ He’s my agent, and I trust him “.
???
Well, that may be for the controversial thread, but I don't mind they used Quantum as a name by default and I don't mind that it's revealed to be SPECTRE in the end, when they finally got the rights. But yes, a sequel a la LALD, set later in time, would have been what I'd preferred.
Actually Quantum is just part of the bigger SPECTRE organization, not actually SPECTRE.
I think the fact he comes up to her and asks that Fields gets posthumous compliments rather than just take off without a word is what convinces M that Bond IS dedicated to his duty. It’s flimsy, but it’s something. But that just gets into how this film really needed like an extra six months of pre-production to finesse the script. It’s barely holding together as it is, and the editing choices by Marc Forster doesn’t help.
That scene plays great for me. Bond passing his final test.
He's going to do his job regardless. In spite of MI6. In spite of M if needed. That's what warrants her approval.
It's also what Mallory M has to learn at the start SP and after. Bond's real usefulness is extinguished if M knows all he does. M simply has to trust his judgment based on history and his proven effectiveness.
I don‘t like but also don‘t mind the title song - the score however is excellent. Hell - and I even like the plot and am not ashamed for it. I find it believeable and this suits the Craig era and how the approached Bond and his world very good.
The only thing I would really like to see (and the only Bond film I would want it for) is a recut. Slowing down the action by a fee frames here and there … a bit more shots taking more time to appreciate all those great locations would make the movie even more enjoyable and remove the (in my book) only real flaw it has.
Should start campaign:
#ForsterCut2022
We all need to remind Forster how beloved QOS is…
Change the colors of the cars chasing Bond in the PTS: make them red and/or white, blue... anything but the same color as Bond's Aston.
Alfa rosso ;)
Yes but that was retconned and never made clear in the movies.
All Mr White had to say was “following your intervention in Bolivia, Quantum had a hostile takeover by Oberhauser and became Spectre”.
Wasnt that hard.
I wish they included a bit more of the short story specifically
The main villains name should of been Phillip Masters
Camillie or Fields should of been named Rhoda Llewellyn
and yes its just grabing character names without them being similar to the characters of the short story but one could write a thesis how Hugo Drax was used 3 times but interesting villains like the Spangs were largely ignored..
Again my issue with the Craig era is and this will seem controversial but if there was ever an actor worthy of facing off against Fleming Characters it was Craig and while at least his first 2 films were named after Fleming Novels/short stories its when we hit Skyfall that I feel things take a turn for the worst but this is about Quantum and again Apart from a few more nods to the short story I love the film
Let's face it, it was always going to be a clunky title, and it's nothing short of amazing that they actually used it.
Oh I agree, but like I said I'm not too fussed about it.
Interesting take.....You could well be right. However, if you want to further your theory, I think you have to take a lot of what Bond says to M as factual. Especially comments including, 'The bitch is dead' and 'He's not important...and neither was she.' However, we all know that he really doesn't mean what he's saying.
In front of M, he always plays the 'tough guy'. M is no different. She tends to play the cold matriarch. Neither really lets the other one in. It's very British in that sense. The only occasions where M reveals her feelings to Bond is that 'I knew you were you' line in CR (which Dench fought Campbell to remove as it felt out of character) and 'I need you back' in QOS. This is all prior to SF of course.
I think it's clear that Bond feels guilt for not saving Vesper. She was the enigma that he couldn't decipher. Though her suicide likely was a very spontaneous and rash decision made in the moment - albeit an understandable one. He should have known, he should have protected her. He missed the signs and blamed Mathis. Even if Bond wasn't directly responsible, I can only imagine that he blames himself immensely.