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I was referring to Dench. I like Craig as Bond but as I've stated before, I feel that since Casino Royale the writers have unfortunately let him down, IMO. While I agree that acting is more then pulling faces, I feel that his best performance was CR and he was a lot more animated in that film, playing a OO agent at the start of his career perfectly. I feel like his performances have gradually declined since, but this is partially due to the writing of the character.
They were unadulterated popcorn movies and they were fully aware of it for the most part.
This.
Of course I do: I’m not sure how what I said would make you ask that. I just think it’s ironic for folks to question others’ status as Bond fans whilst simultaneously listing all of the Bond films they themselves don’t like.
I was happy with Bond being rebooted to a modern spy in CR. No issues there at all.
I wasn't particularly comfortable with the whole SF house thing, seeing his parents graves, Kincaid, etc. and Bond muttering to M about her `knowing the whole story', as though Bond is some kind of damaged orphan.
None of this was ever even hinted at in the novels. We knew of Bond's parents names in a fleeting mention in YOLT, and Bond reminisces about fairly normal happy childhood seaside memories in OHMSS, but that's it. None of this broken, psychological damaged childhood, making him more like Bruce Wayne than Bond. This is the work of P&W, not Fleming, and were taking extreme liberties with what Fleming created.
Then they went even further in SP.
Certainly, and for many years I've even recognized that far too often with GOLDFINGER, another installment that was gleefully embraced by the greater public, with both film critics and regular movie goers much like SKYFALL. Yet on this forum, including the olde Keeping the British End Up forum, I've seen many folks not just trying to criticize it but do it in a manner as if they want to take it down a peg.
True enough. Goldfinger was embraced because it caught the sudden wave of Spy mania. It literally invented 60s flamboyant spy adventures. Now, through sober 21st century eyes we can pick fault with it, but back then audiences could not get enough of the Aston Martin, Odd Job and his hat, Fort Knox etc. They didn't dwell on the gangsters and their hilarious dialogue ('What's with the fake pool table') . This film absolutely knocked the ball out of the park and nothing would be the same again.
It was and remains a classic of the genre.
He's not exactly a normal guy in the books though: he's a killer! Plus there are lots of hints towards him suffering a lot from 'accidie', which would be seen as a mental health issue nowadays.
I would add TB to that list. It was the hight of the Bond mania, the biggest Box Office hit of the Connery era, and still beloved by many fans here as show recently by the 'controversial opinion' thread.
But don't let the haters hear it.
Fans hate the 'popular album' of a lot of things: feeling it's being taken away from them in some way. With something as hugely mainstream popular as Bond that is kind of odd because they're all popular.
The entire premise of your post is untrue. No one here has said Fleming's remaining material or the general spirit of his writing should be discarded. Quite the contrary. And certainly no one has even hinted that P&W are better writers than Fleming. You have created quite a strawman here...
You keep rambling about the foster brother idea on a thread that is about Skyfall and has nothing to do with Spectre. Please stay on topic! The fact that people like the symbolism and character exploration in Skyfall, does not mean they approve of "brothergate". Fleming himself established that Bond was raised as an orphan in Scottland after losing his parents to a tragic accident. I don't think exploring that idea should be considered disrespectful to Fleming's source material.
+1, as they say around here :)
(we need a like button!)
Thanks ;)
Exactly, there are tons of interesting motivs in the Bond world to explore based on modern psychology. You have a guy who was orphaned at a young age (no, you don't just grow up to be a happy camper if that happens to you) then he serves in world war II, and at the end works as a government killer... each one of those would be potentially traumatizing, but having all three is extreme. But that trajectory itself is fascinating, how do you end up in that position?
Fleming himself had issues of his own that informed his books, part subconsciously, growing up without a father, having a love/hate relationship with his mother (see any parallel to Bond lol?), which affected his relationships with women throughout his life...
All of that does not mean that you are some lunatic in a straight jacket. Both Fleming and Bond carried themselves with great composure, but that doesn't mean they didn't have a chip on their shoulder, or personal demons.
All of that is free to be explored in the movies, as long as it is done right and authentically, in my opinion. But i understand that people who take zero interest in character motivation and some basic psychology, and are looking for pure entertainment for two hours will find this boring or "pretentious". I don't.
I don't remember who said it (might have been Nolan) but someone said that audiences have grown up in the last couple decades and understand character motivation much better nowadays than say in the 90's. There is much more interest from the audience to understand "why" a character is the way he is. That's why we have a ton of origin stories now and character explorations and all that stuff. You may like it or not, but this element is not going away i'm afraid.
Exactly: perfectly valid I'd say. Add to that he's had his lover and his mother figure both die in his arms, and you're going to get some after effects from that, whether you like it or not.
Partly because TV has grown up. TV is better written now. Audiences have become more sophisticated because of this. As a result maybe they expect more from their cinema experience as well.
Great post!
Part of what makes Bond appealing and unique is his rich and layered character. Fleming made sure to make him much more than a generic action hero. That goes for his rich lifestyle but also his emotional life. Fleming was not afraid of taking risks with the character and he was certainly not against making him moody and depressed. The ammount of struggles he created for him on a personal level is quite incredible when you think of it.
The best action heroes are those with human character traits that make them relatable to the audience. With cinematic Bond there is an element of the supernatural with him regarding his absurdly iressistible charm and the luxurius, glamorous life he lives. But Bond wouldn't be what he is without his human qualities and weaknesses. Bond's struggles should be more than disposing of stuntman with killer hats or metal teeth. Personal and emotional struggles don't make him weaker or less of a hero, on the contrary they make him stronger. Real character strength is not saving the world because you are an indestructable hero and it's easy. Real strength is confronting your inner fears. Bond having a childhood trauma to confront does not make him weaker. It makes him a stronger character who demonstrates real courage.
I agree, Flemings writing is full of moody self reflection. He was a moody, and very observant guy. And so was Bond consequently.
Even when he wrote Thrilling cities it was full of personal reflection.
As a 36 year old i find that much more appealing than just straight action fantasy, that's what keeps me glued to the novels nowadays.
That mood was never really captured in the old days. But those were the 60's and movies did not portray an emotional reality like they do now. Thunderball might have come closest in my opinion. But Connery played him with zero introspectiveness... "you can't win them all" might have been one of the few exceptions. (Not beating on Connery here, he just did something entirely different and reinvented the Hollywood leading man in the process, making himself and Bond timeless).
Now in my opinion, Craig's films have come the closest to that Mood. Especially CR and SF. Those films really dive head first into mood. In the Books Bond does all the talking and commenting and you cannot translate that to the screen very well, but Craig knows how to play it, it's all in his eyes. It's in his reactions, and we get long shots of him just staring in the open, his eyes visualize the thought and heaviness that is going on in the back.
But he still carries himself with composure on the outside, which we know and love from all the Bond's, as well as the Book Bond. It's a balance, he's not getting depressed but he is self aware and knows what is happening around him and what this lifestyle of his is doing to him.
DAF the novel ends with the sentence "It reads better than it lives." Which could have easily been the taggline for the whole Craig era, or "It looks better than it lives."
Sometimes i feel a lot of people criticize SF or Mendes because of SP. If SP wouldn't have happened who knows how we would have reacted.
I'm happy with them introducing Spectre, but that "With Pleasure" scene promised us something exciting and new, so they should've been introduced as a new threat I think.
Wow, I thought she was magnificent in that film.
I understand what your feeling, but what bothers me about SP has bothered me about SF ever since 2012. Only to a lesser extent.
Though like some have said SPECTRE did it no favours, the last bit of SF teases something we didn't get, Bond and M mutual respect and James ready to do his duty for his new Boss.
Instead we got more personal nonsense and the worse plot idea of the series utilised, it doesn't do SF any favours but I try to consider it a separate entity and enjoy it that way.
SPECTRE though my thoughts on that are well documented.
Skyfall is bloody good Bond full stop.
My feelings exactly. The promise with which SF ended was never fulfilled. Alas, these personal shenanigans seem to be very much present in NTTD. But as @Denbigh said in another thread, maybe the new driving plot, villain or mcmuffin will be strong enough to overtake the personal angle. At least Bond's personal angle. If the Bond g...Woman has a personal angle, well that's not a problem at all, not for me anyway. A solid narrative could very well go into new territory for Bond. But making it personal every single time is getting tiresome. And we've been bad mouthing the "this time its personal" tagline for ages to no effect.
I still say that what we need are better writers.
It's interesting isn't it? That Spectre lead to people criticizing SF more, if that's the case.
People were not fond of QoS either, but no one started hating CR because of it, even if it was a direct sequel. The obvious reason for that is that it had a different director.
Though it still had the same writers and producers.
I think Sam gets way too much responsibility and blame. He said himself that the script for SP needed more work, as the movie had a complicated "spider web structure", contrary to SF which was a very straight forward film for the most part, but EoN didn't want to spend more time on it (which is understandable after a 5 year wait).
In hindsight, where everybody is always a genius, they should have not waited for Sam as long as they did. But they struck gold with SF and thought that this was the time to hire the same director twice in a row (a first for Babs lead EoN). And even though the box office was proof that it was not the worst mistake they could do, i think they've learned their lessons from that.
As much as I feel for him taking almost all of the flak, the script was badly structured from the off. No amount of extra time and rewrites would have made any of the dull and misguided concepts that were present in there any more interesting. And (correct if I'm wrong), a chunk of them certainly were his own.
But at the end of it, we still have Skyfall, and also since SP I think Mendes has more than made up for it with 1917. Fabulous film.
Agreed, the whole gang really. Mendes, Gassner, Deakins (though he skipped SP) and Newman. Exceptional work from all of them.
I will be cheering for them on Sunday like it's the Super Bowl lol.
And I don't have issues with Bond being a killer, being accidie, smoking, womanising, etc. This is the character of the books.
But by the same token he also lives life to the full, enjoys good food, fine wine, restaurants, gambling, loves travelling, fast cars, etc.
SF portrays Bond as a spoilt child in the beginning, then a broken man who isn't fit enough for normal duties, to a hen-pecked cuckold man with childhood issues, dominated by a surrogate mother hen M by the end of the film, haunted by a childhood and house that Fleming never even hinted at.
I couldn't disagree with you more.
In an era of high octane, formulaic action franchises (Fast/Furious, Bourne, MI), with little to no character development, the opportunity is there to move Bond in another direction. And I don't think the films are going too far into Bond's past. SP skirted things a bit. But SF did not. What Marvel and Star Wars have always had going for them are the characters, their stories. There wasn't a dry eye in the house at the end of Avengers: Infinity War, because fans have invested in those characters. There is something to be said for that.
Now, in no way am I suggesting that Bond's back story should become central to the films. I don't think anyone wants a Bond continuously brooding over his past. But EON made a smart, strategic move to bring Jungian psychology into SF, which is definitely in line with Fleming (see my earlier post).
Like I mentioned on another post earlier, the P&W invented Bond family house was something that i was uncomfortable with, but I just about stomached it at the time. With SP, everything was dialled up to 11. Mendes pushed the envelope too far, and now I find it hard to distinguish between the 2 films. All the problems with SP are firmly planted in SF. The seeds were sown, and then the ugly plant came to fruition by SP.
Right or wrong, I now see SF as part 1, and SP as part 2. They are inextricably linked.