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https://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/bond_23_report_apr10.php3?id=2526
First I've heard of it.
I could say the same of QOS.
@dramaticscenesofQOS, I don't think what made QoS special went away. I think it continued to live on through the rest of the Craig era, in many shapes and forms. NTTD is really the pinnacle of this, where we got perhaps the most raw and human look at Bond and who he is, what makes him who he is, and why he is the way he is, that was very much set up in CR and QoS. One of the joys I have in watching QoS is in how it gives us a window into Bond's mind, and how he processes things. We get beautiful moments of this in SF, where he's dealing with M's possible distrust in him and later in the film as he's faced with his old home and all the memories he has there, continuing in SP as more of his past comes back to haunt him and he's reminded of his childhood and what he's lost. But NTTD is where it comes full circle, and gives us a very raw and powerful portrait of him as a man.
I think that air of melancholy has been there throughout the era, as Craig's Bond much like Fleming's original, is a very tragic character. Things just don't seem to ever go right for him, or go right for long. What he gains, he swiftly loses, and he can often be lost in a sort of stasis, where he's locked in place. I think SF nailed this, where his sense of purpose is tested, SP where he's given a chance at another life and struggles to accept it, then he gains a new life in NTTD but is deceived into thinking it's just another betrayal. Most melancholy of all, he goes to his death after having a taste of the life he'd always needed, but didn't know he wanted until his later life. It's these kinds of moments throughout the era that will make it unforgettable to me. Dan was able to take Bond to such a different level, and made him feel so real that it was easy to cry a river at his death. He felt like an old friend, like family. That's magic.
What do you mean by fairytale, @CharmianBond? From my side, the less that we see of camp the better. I don't mind frivolity and humor when it's right, but I don't ever want the series to go back to the Moore tone or what Brosnan's era did, where the one-liners were unending and the delivery left so much to be desired. I guess I've just been hopelessly spoiled by the Craig era, because the tone those films had is exactly what I'd want to see going forward. The humor is drier, not as put on, and the one-liners far more carefully doled out. The less winks to the camera, fourth wall breaking humor and all the rest, the better. It not just suits the franchise to stay away from that, but I think it also allows the films to cut deeper towards who the Bond character is. Even in the 60s, there was a restraint in making sure the humor never became the pervading force and through that restraint Bond was still able to feel in danger, and to feel human. It's that balancing act that some eras succeed in, and others just don't, or don't even strive to try and achieve.
@slide_99 I guess it's just a matter of adapting what you can, and leaving out what you can't. There was no way the SPECTRE of the Craig era was going to be as far flung and ambitious as the one from the 60s, as the 60s SPECTRE got increasingly silly and the plots were just nutty by the end of it. As amazing as OHMSS is, Blofeld's plot is a real hard pill to swallow for me, as it just feels too out there and bizarre, and from there we get the diamond fueled laser and up, up, up. I think the Craig era couldn't have the cake of a more grounded world and tone and eat it too by having a SPECTRE that was involved in schemes as silly as the Bond films of old.
So yes, while the modern plots can come off as mundane in comparison to the 60s stuff, I think the era was far better for it because it just wouldn't have felt in line with the Craig era's tone. You have to ride a very thin line, and I think that would've just overstepped it by a mile. I mean, we've had people complaining that Bond falling from a train into water was too ridiculous for a Craig film, so imagine if one of his films had SPECTRE using a giant space laser as a ransom generating tool? Just doesn't strike the right balance, for me.
That you still don't seem to grasp the idea of people having opinions and thinking about the movies they love beyond the surface is quite beyond me. We're fans of the era, it's what we do and it's fun. You seem to be far more bothered by what others think than you should. There's nothing being justified, it's called having a debate.
Wow....why didn't this happen?
Seems like some sort of intervention.
https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/1416786/daniel-craig-wife-rachel-weisz-married/
That's why I think the Spectre meeting is one of the best scenes in the film on a purely visual level because the almost monochromatic colour grading actually works to elevate the hyperreality.
I agree with though that I prefer the sardonic wit of CR and Quantum over the more comic Spectre which I surprised to find I actually didn't hate, but certainly for Craig's Bond is just didn't work.
Thank you, @0BradyM0Bondfanatic7 ....Cancel culture has NO place here....just ask @Germanlady
Good summation of how we need to appreciate DC's film arc....I'll miss him and sure hope he can stay involved behind the scenes by directing or executive producing. He's definitely my favorite as he focused on quality above everything else. He gave it his all.
That's clear with Skyfall, most reviewers complaints of QOS were, the choppy editing, the weak villain and the plot being complicated
So on Skyfall, you get a lot more long takes and establishing shots, a much better villain portrayed by Oscar winner Javier Bardem and a more straightforward revenge plot, with no hangover from previous films.
The problem with Spectre is they tried to repeat that without adding anything new
I remember Baraba Broccoli responding to questions at a Q&A event. Someone asked what Bond meant when he said M was right about Vesper....she was shocked and disappointed that the person didn't know it meant that Vesper loved Bond all along....the producers really dumbed things down too much on their end for the subsequent films. QoS could easily have become the best if Marc Forster hadn't trimmed too much, the production hadn't been rushed and if there wasn't a writer's strike.
No matter what people think of Craig's later outings, Madeleine was Mr. White's daughter.....yes that Mr. White! That's was HIS DAUGHTER! Talk about an unexpected twist.
How is that a twist? We know she’s his daughter the moment White tells Bond “my daughter will lead you to my secret room”.
You might be in the wrong place if you're surprised that forum members are highly dedicated to discussing Bond. We've had plenty of inane and ridiculous, pages-long debates on here, excitingly so, in the past, so get used to it.
LOL!
Then when she's older, she finds out how her grandfather died in front of Bond on camera and she starts to rebrand and reestablish Quantum....
Sounds like the plot to a John Gardner novel
It doesn't seem to bother too many people that Safin and Blofeld were underutilized as much as it does bother most folks that their scars were just too cliche.....Dominic Greene was a scary villain because he demonstrated that you don't judge people based on looks. In fact, Green Planet was a philanthropic event full of damaged goods.
Blofeld is just because ‘tradition’ and didn’t need them, Silva’s were hidden and therefore thematic to the story. (Bonds scars are beneath his shirt of course) Primo is a bit lazier/weirder, and Le Chiffre also falls into the ‘disfigured person is evil’ trope, and Bond mocking him maybe isn’t the win he thinks it is. (Which is somewhat undercut but Le Chiffre deceiving him using it thankfully) But then, modern bond in particular does *try* to do something thematic and different in terms of using the characters bodies as part of the story being told.
I remember disabled characters being generally better served in the books… one of the MI6 staff was in a wheelchair in one of the books for instance, and as I mentioned, Bond himself has a visible scar on his face.
Anyway, some additions. First off, Blofeld's 'data gathering' is sadly underused in the films. SP doesn't make it clear why he does it and what his intentions are with it. That's a pity as it is an original Fleming backstory that made far more sense in the books (thanks to his intel he was making money, but also knew what was going to happen internationally and gave him time to prepare for the oncoming war).
Then the tie-in of SF. Personally I agree with @0BradyM0Bondfanatic7 that it makes sense for Quantum/SP to use Silva as a loose cannon to interfere with MI6 and get C there where they need him to be. It would have been helpfull if they'd referenced that in SP. Silva had a few too many goons at his disposal and everything was just that much too well planned for him to have done it all alone. But now we have nothing other than SP suddenly connecting everything without explanation. And there comes forth my second point: the change/connection with Quantum. When Bond asks the name of the organisation (or was that Q?) he could have said 'is it Quantum again'? TO which Madeleine could have said something to the extend of 'It's Spectre, Quantum collapsed/Quantum was only a part of it'. After all, she could know as she was the one who's father worked for both. Or perhaps only for Spectre, which was just providing the tools for Quantum, in the same way it was setting Silva loose? In any way, we'd have gotten a far better story, with just a bit more attention to detail. In that I agree with @ByRoyalDecree that the latter films (especially SP) suffer from poor/lazy writing.
I just listened to Holding On by Conjure One and from the very start of the song, you can hear Craig's style of Bond starting from an image that strikes curiosity into a mysterious organization or event across SF to SP.
Yes, Strangways from LALD and DN even has an eyepatch. Not to mention Leiter with his fake leg and hook. Most of the villains are just odd looking in the books, sometimes overweight and/or ugly. Even Drax has more distinctive aspects of his character than just his scars (his hair, teeth, personality etc.) I think a big part of it is due to the fact that the books are set in a post WW2 era where young men returned home sometimes with visible wounds. If anything these sorts of scars were more associated with heroism in Fleming's mind than evil (arguably this is sort of the case even with Drax, as he's posing as a British industrialist/war hero).
It's certainly more noticeable in the Craig era to have villains with disfigurements/scars. I do find it a bit lazy sometimes, but perhaps I come at that from a specific point of view. I'm a fan of Green and I feel he's actually one of the more Fleming-esque villains of the Craig era. I'm still holding out for a good looking but ultimately evil b*stard of a villain such as Largo from TB. Would also like to see a future film where Bond's scars on his body are on display, but are depicted as more a consequence of his profession rather than a more debilitating single injury as in SF and TWINE.