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Funnily enough, that was me!
The film has a nasty, sadistic edge to it. Sanchez rips hearts out and whips his girl. He explodes heads in machines. Sanchez doesn't have a bald head or silly scar - he looks normal, but feels like a scary villain. We see Bond bleed for the first time, we see his suit torn and ripped. Bond bleeding, ripped and torn is something we wouldn't see again until CR (which is why I also love that film too). Anything that shows this side is going back to Fleming.
Then there is Dalton's performance - the cautious glance when being friendly punched in the arm at the wedding, his nervous reaction when first entering the room and seeing Leiter covered on the sofa, the weary sigh at the end of the film after killing Sanchez, his sudden laugh when seeing the money in the plane and throwing it out the window.
Then the dialogue, which really nails it - `you'd better find yourself another lover'....`compliments of sharky'.....`I'm more a problem eliminator'.....`watch the birdie, you bastard!'.....`switch the bloody machine off!'.....`you earned it, you keep it, old buddy'....these lines feel exactly like the kind of things Fleming Bond would say.
Bond suddenly being rumbled while Sanchez is doing his tour, moving away from Dario, then headbutting and setting fire to the bunsen, then remaining silent while Sanchez starts questioning him before throwing him onto the stone crusher - this just feels like I am reading a Fleming novel.
Maibaum really understood the literary character, so when Dalton insisted on returning to the novels, there was no one better to deliver this in a script.
P&W don't understand the literary character like Maibaum did, which is why their attempts at original scripts don't feel anything like Fleming would write.
+1
Weirdly I read somewhere that Craig refused Samsung sponsorship for NTTD because he thought Bond would only go for the best and that meant Apple. I actually don't think Bond would care so much about mobile phones, which are just not very Bondian full stop.
Just feel like the characterisation is often all over the place sometimes. I don't associate this with Craig so much as the post Cubby era.
Well Fleming lived in Jamaica, so yeah: that’s exactly the sort of place he’d have Bond go.
But I have always wondered where that actually is, yeah! Where did they film it?
The place at the start of SF looks hideous. Some arse end of nowhere hell hole. Even the rough bits of Jamaica look nicer. I think like a lot of the location stuff, it was shot in Turkey, but it looks like it could be almost anywhere.
They seem to have got it right with NTTD. Bond goes off the radar in a beautiful, stylish little Jamaican beach house. This makes sense and feels in character. Also he's not dressed like a bum from what we've seen of NTTD so far.
I have an aversion to tech personally. One thing that SF got right IMO was the "old ways are the best" attitude. I'm not saying Bond wouldn't use tech - obviously he does. It's just a means to an end though. Cars are different. But I don't see him caring that much what phone he's using. Whereas I do see him caring about the hotel, the quality of the linen and food served.
The only difference between QOS & SF is he was on mission while checking into an hotel in la Paz but in SF he was off duty. Surely her Majesty's government doesn't pay off living in luxurious lifestyle while their agent is dead nor he was on mission in SF, so there's that.
Although i agree bond isn't the kind of guy who would go like that and he is facing the similar situation in NTTD which he faced in SF after PTS, he is hurt both physically and mentally and retired only this time reason is unknown yet. Still, Cary seems like a clever guy.
It’s “sometimes the old ways are the best”. A very important distinction. It’s about looking forward to the future while acknowledging the past.
And I’m sure one day Bond will drive an electric car, and Fleming wouldn’t have objected.
I was just contrasting Craig objecting to Bond using a Samsung but being fine with him hanging out in a backpacker hostel. The 2 attitudes don't seem to come from the same characterisation.
Doesn't Bond have an independent income? He'd always have enough for a decent hotel.
Typically Bond wouldn’t do that, but he wasn’t being typical during that section of the film. He was “enjoying death”. It’s not until he sees the report of MI6 being under attack that a spark comes back and he slowly works his way back physically and mentally.
I think they actually shot this on Bognor Regis beach (no kidding)!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2117094/James-Bond-Skyfall-boosts-Bognor-Regis-tourism-holidaymakers-head-film-location.html
https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/jan/19/skyfall-james-bond-bognor-regis
I think this was a half assed attempt at the end of YOLT - Bond AWOL, off the radar, living a simple life on the beach. Unfortunately this is where P&W (or whoever was responsible) are not capable of adapting Fleming properly, because this isn't what Fleming's Bond would do.
He wouldn't live like a beach bum backpacker, as you said. Yes, I can see him living the simple life as a local fisherman more than living and sulking around like a beach bum teenager. This is where these attempts at Fleming become a farce, because they don't understand the character.
Right, okay. I think you may need to watch that film again! :D
Ha! Nope.. Maybe the shots in side the shack with him and his woman you could do there, but that shot of him walking to the beachbar at dusk has got to be somewhere tropical, but I've never heard it mentioned where.
So he'd live the simple life, but he wouldn't live the simple life. Gotcha! ;)
I think Craig is right with this one. Fleming liked his gadgets, liked his brands (Gillette, Rolex, Aston Martin, etc.) and usually only the best brands for whatever it was. With his clothes he didn't like labels, but still insisted on luxury materials - sea island cotton shirts, etc.
If Fleming was alive today, I think he would have embraced mobile phones technology, but it would have to be the top-of-the-range models.
That is hilarious and might explain why it's such an underwhelming sequence.
I agree with you. For me there is a bit of a consistent failure to get some of these nuanced detail things right since 95, esp. in SF.
Fleming Bond had only ever known the life of luxury (due to his writers upbringing), so Fleming Bond would never slum it, unless it was by choice - living simple with tins of beans on a beach in Dr. No, because the mission required him to do so.
I think a lot of people would find living in a beach house on a perfect beach a stroll from a busy bar pretty luxurious...
You just described my big dream, @mtm! :-D
That last shot could have been in Turkey, or maybe even still Bognor, but CGI'd.
There's simple life if you've come from wealth, and a different kind of simple life if you don't know about wealth (beach bumming at a backpackers hostel with some bird while knocking back a beer).
I reckon P&W identify more with the latter, which is why it was nice and easy for them to write this kind of scene.... ;)
That sounds ideal. This doesn't sound like the picture depicted in SF.
Yeah Turkey would make sense- and you might well be right about the CG.
Seriously: watch the film. There's nothing about what I've described which isn't in the film. He's not in a backpackers hostel: stop trying to start an argument please, no one's in the mood.
I'm not trying to start an argument, and I'm definitely not in the mood. This is just a debate, unless you want to turn it into something else.
I'm just saying how I saw that scene. I'll watch it again though, just in case I did get the wrong impression last time I saw it.
There's too much nonsense said about what is or isn't Bondian. If he were frying up eggs in a tower block in Hackney: sure, not Bondian. But driving a tank through a city chasing a beautiful girl or shagging a beautiful girl in a beach hut overlooking a tropical scene... most people would look at those at not find them out of place in a Bond movie at all. But actual Bond fans complain about them..?!
Which was the point.