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Hey @RC7? What.....what do you actually expect from "SPECTRE"? I mean...your wishes and so on? You want it to be the "Thunderball" of the Craig-era mixed with some "OHMSS"-drama?
Anything close to OHMSS and I'll be happy. There's a lot narrative meat on the bone with OHMSS and I'd love it if that was the case in SP. I'd quite like there to be a level of mystery to it, something that keeps you guessing until the very end. I don't think they should treat it as a traditional 4th entry where everything has to be 'bigger' for the sake of it.
That's why I am, at this stage, so excited by the plot synopsis (as released during the 4th December title announcement):
"Bond peels back the layers of deceit to reveal the terrible truth behind SPECTRE"
In "Skyfall" the only real mystery was, until his reveal midway through the movie, the villain named Raoul Silva. Wunderfully executed, but the actual villain's plot was a bit too damn straight in your face.
I truly think "SPECTRE" will have some Hitchcock-ian flair. With that I mean it'll take Bond much longer to actually discover the villain's plot. Hence "peeling back the layers of deceit.
As an example I'm always looking to the "Chasing the danger" plots in "Octopussy" (until Bond actually disarms the bomb...and its danger) and "Casino Royale" (similar Octopussy-esque plot at the start, where Bond is truly chasing/spying until he actually saves the fate of Skyfleet). They truly excited me. And I have a feeling we'll see this kind of spy-plot until the very end of the film.
And again, with SPECTRE back, I just don't think the villain's plot will be merely a personal revenge on something. Yes, perhaps there's some historical background between Bond and the main villain in "SPECTRE". But apart from that, with Mr White returning, with the (rather ugly looking) Brigitte Millar being cast as a "presumably one of the members of SPECTRE - or perhaps even someone more iconic from 007's filmic past (as written in the MI-6-article, with Mr Hinx being cast as a henchman, and Waltz as Franz Oberhauser....we have simply too many villainous characters for this film for just another personal revenge plot.
Mark my words. "SPECTRE" will indeed reveal a "terrible truth"...at the very end of the film. SPECTRE will truly be back.
Yes, I'd prefer Bond as detective to play a larger role in SP. Proper old school leg work, rather than any computer wizardry. It works great in the first half of SP, but is lacking in the second.
These are fantasy movies, so there's no reason EON cannot pretend that Bond still exists in a much more lo-tech world. That's where he belongs. The digital age is so boring when it comes to espionage.
Amen.
We can notice that for Skyfall promotion, they decided not to use the Kincade posters at all.
And well now, for Spectre they cast a 50 yo Bond girl, that I'm pretty sure they won't hide during the promotion :)
EON needs to show why drones and people sitting behind laptops in their pyjamas, aren't enough to keep a country safe.
You're right. And I do actually think Bourne covered some of this quite nicely, while still very much keeping the focus on human ingenuity and action. But the way it's been handled in Bond movies has been pretty abysmal. I'm sure though with good writers and something to really hook you into the 'tech' side of the plot it can be done well though. But please don't just bolt it on or use it as a lazy way to cover up the cracks in the plot - that's just really annoying.
Quite a lot of assumptions really. SF didn't really made a fuss about going back to basics IMO. It actually decided to do the opposite. Bringing back slightly more humour, slightly more insane unexplained villain's scheme. And it also decided to focus on more typical Bond-esque aspects (return of Q, return of the James Bond theme during the movie, more humour "Health and safety! Carry on!", return of a big PTS, return of a more larger-than-life villain).
Then, James Bond movies are not solely fantasy movies. In my opinion they are action thrillers, set in a political relevant environment, that is slightly more larger-than-life and unrealistic than our real world and that is hard, if not almost impossible, to live in for real. At times it borders sci-fi and fantasy, like in "MR" and "DAD". But like "Cubby" said (during production of "MR"), even those aspects are not completely sci-fi. They are actually more closer to "sci-fact that still needs to settle in the minds of people", thus appearing larger-than-life. And, in the case of "MR", the year 1979 happened a decade after the first humans landing on the Moon!
So in a way "SF" did exactly thát what you wanted this film to do. If you think the "digital age" is boring, then I respect your opinion. But then I say that's never boring. Yesterday, during the Dutch 8 o'clock news a lunatic computer wizkid managed to break in the studios. He managed to put all public broadcasting off the air for at least 30 min's. He said he was operating under instructions of a hacker's collective:
Call me "boring", but ever since 9/11, ever since the financial meltdown (2008), ever since Russia started to roar like the old Soviet bear, and ever since the Wikileaks, Sonyleaks and above lunatic started to threaten journalists.......the world has become very interesting for me. Especially for Bond films. And in my honest opinion I thought the digital age, the cybercrime in "SF" was portrayed more larger-than-life compared to reality....exquisitly captivating, and certainly not boring.
Simply seeing Silva pushing those buttons on his laptops, was a very Bond-esque experience for me: "If you wanted, you could pick your own secret missions. As I do. Name it, name it. Destabilize a multinational by manipulating stocks. Bip. Easy. Interrupt transmissions from a spy satellite over Kabul... done. Hmmmmmm. Rig an election in Uganda. All to the highest bidder!"
I called that a larger-than-life interpretation of our own world. Because we all know Julian Assange is not that kind of man.
Yes, this is great because it adds weight to the character. We immediately understand what kind of character Silva is. This works on a tangible level. As you say it evokes characters such as Assange and Anonymous. There's a touchstone for the audience.
Where it doesn't work is where computer wizardry is used to obscure narrative progression. Q downloading a virus, Q laying a trail of digital breadcrumbs etc. That isn't tangible.
I think its ridiculous to suggest that Bond does not appeal to 16-21 year olds.Kids love Bond films,teenagers love Bond films,adults love Bond films.Fast And Furious and Bond may be very different action franchises but i for one am a big fan of both ( Much bigger Fast and Furious fan at the moment as i thought the last two F&F films were much better than any Bond films made recently.
In general, it doesn't. This does not mean that aren't young people out there who enjoy Bond films--heck, there was some 8-year-old on Ellen who was a Bond know-it-all. But the 16-21-year-old crowd is NOT EON's target audience. No way.
I don't really understand why it wouldn't be; Bond appeals to the things 16-21 year old boys are thinking about all the time anyway; booze, babes and scrambled eggs (kidding on that last one ;) ) I think if one were to ask Barbara about the target audience of the Bond films, there is no way she'd exclude the 16-21 year old demographic. If we were talking about Le Carre, I'd agree with you.
EDIT: Could you shed some light on who you think the target demo for these movies is, then? And why?
Here's my reasoning:
1. The actors involved. None are young and appealing to the 16-21 demographic (though the MPAA puts it as 18-24). Again, this isn't meant to be a universal truth. Plus, we're talking American audiences, not worldwide.
2. Skyfall didn't use a huge social media blitz. Its advertising was more traditional, and word of mouth carried it more than advertising did, because Skyfall's BO numbers actually went UP in weeks 5 and 6 of release. Go figure.
3. Skyfall's tie-in was with Heineken...not Coke or Pepsi. Transformers had a tie-in with Chevrolet, I think.
4. No video game tie-in. There was with QoS. But in general, the Bond video games aren't big hits. They do all right, or else they wouldn't be made. But the themes of video games ae more closely aligned with Transformers and the Fast and Furious franchises.
5. No ComiCon.
The marketing of Bond is much more traditional and old school, which suggests they have an older demographic.
If I'm wrong I will eat crow.
Y'now, a pastry one...
:))
$1.2 Billion.
And I make you eat a REAL cow >:):
The 16-12-old-crowd is EVERY big budget movie's target audience. Because this crowd goes to the movies more often than older people.
They even need a PG-13 rating, because th 13-year olds are also the target audience of a Bond movie.
Bond has fans from all ages, but the teenagers are always the one, you get the money from.
Believe me: there are teenagers that believe in old-school-style like 007. It's not all about Hip-Hop and Hipsters.
But the teenies are not the only target audience with Bond. That's the big difference to some other franchises.
I believe the Coke Zero campaign was in Europe, wasn't? If not, that would be interesting. I don't remember it: it gained NO traction in the U.S.
What I found was this interesting info, which would further suggest that the millenials were not into it the Bond thing:
thesocialpartners.com/2012/10/22/coke_zero_james_bond_skyfall_fail/
I mentioned Heineken, because that is the TV campaign that ran in the U.S. a lot:
I wonder if that has to do with viewing preferences?
I saw Skyfall three times. This isn't scientific, of course, but I sure don't remember seeing a lot of youngsters in the theater. It was all late 20s to 50s. But that may be the demographics of where I live.
But one more point:
Facebook likes:
Transformers 34.2 million
James Bond: 3.8 million
This gives further credence to the demographics of those film franchises.
I suspect Bond in the US is quite different from Bond in the rest of the world. You know, a bit like football - or soccer as you call it there, because there you call football a game you play a lot with your hands :) Well, at least for football, I'm sure in the US it's very different !
http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/08/21/report-social-network-demographics-in-2012/
Sorry... you are wrong again.
This is the point. The film's BO numbers weren't driven by the 18-24 demographic.
Data on the age of Facebook users has always been highly debatable because it is unreliable. The actual point is not about age, it is about reaching movie audiences via social media, which I made above and then again with the Coke Zero campaign. Whereas Transformers has reached fans via social media, Skyfall didn't.
In another example, Twitter followers:
MI6 Confidential: 3800 (how many of us are on here?)
Transformers: 316,000
These numbers correlate with the Facebook numbers. And more reliable data suggests Twitter users are younger.
Back to the point, we can't use Transformers BO numbers as some sort of barometer for Skyfall.
Don't forget that Bond does far more in Europe than in the US, and this is not true at all for every blockbuster. I know many here who go and see Bond because it's not US. Not because of anti-US feeling, but because on France there's like 20 US blockbuster a year, 1 or 2 French one every year, and a UK one every three year (Bond). So you go and see Bond for a change from the 3 or 4 US blockbusters you go and see in the interval. So any considerations about the US audience of Bond is really US-specific I think.
About the demographics of the moviegoers in the US, I found the following :
Transformers 4 : 55% under 25 (and it seems it is the highest figure for blockbusters)
Skyfall: 25% under 25