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which would be an impractical vehicle to participate in traffic.
But the DB5 was a strange addition to SF but it was not the only odd aspect to a very unbalanced movie imho.
:))
It's a car in 5 almost consecutive movies.
:D You're not wrong there @chrisisall
And some just walked out disappointing, I really want to see Craig in a decent flic after CR but that has yet to happen for me.
I get tired from people that cannot accept a different opinion and will do their best to find a fault at any criticism because it does not fit in their little mind. You may like it as much as you want so can I dislike it for different reasons.
Aston Martin has settled the discussion as to whether the SF car and the CR car could be the same car. The answer is a resounding NOOOOOO!
I think this was always obvious anyway, as who in their right mind, would change over the steering column.
Aston Martin says yes, it could have been done, but given the exhorbitant cost, there would be no sane rational reason for doing such a thing, therefore not the same car.
Bond and Q Branch are not insane.
Thus, Mendes leaves it to our imagination to figure how Bond came to have such a car.
There really are plenty of scenarios. Use your imagination.
At the very least, they all involve Q Branch having hung on to the kitted-out 1964 car, for their own archival reasons. Perfectly understandable.
Even though the series has been re-booted, and James Bond has no 00 history prior to CR, the 00 section presumably did exist circa 1964, and agents of the day used the DB5 as an operational vehicle
Q Branch has managed to hang on to a few.
Contemporary Bond has taken a liking to the car. Q Branch has loaned him one, which Bond kept stored in a garage in London.
He dug it out when he needed it for the drive to Skyfall Manor.
There is precedent for Craig Bond's liking of the vintage spy car, in the Broz era.
Via the magic of cinema, movie Bond is a timeless character, who is of permanent indeterminate operational 00-agent age.
GE Bond ( who has continuity with DN Bond, via cinematic license, which allows the timeline to be fudged) sports around in a vintage 64 DB5, although despite the continuity, we are not being asked to believe this 1995 Bond, has operational history with this car, as the car is clearly 31 years old. There is no denying it's model year.
Rather, the car is presented as Bond's personal car, but we the audience do know of its operational significance vis-a-vis the Bond of yore.
It's a cinema nudge nudge moment. So for 3 movies, we get Broz tooling around in his personal vintage car.
But, even though 1995 Bond couldn't realistically have any operational history with the car, he would no doubt be aware of the operational history that the car had with the 00 section, which was probably part of car's appeal to him in the first place.
Same thing for Craig Bond, and any Bond going forward.
The car does have 00 Section, operational history circa 1964.
As we know from the early films, the car was operational in the 00 section in 64 and 65, but by 1969 and forward, the 00 section was understandably using new models.
Craig Bond, as we saw in 2006, is using the latest Aston, but also stumbled across the 64 car, albeit a NA model, with left side steering. We don't know what became of that car, but it established Craig-Bond's relationship with the vehicle.
And in SP, we do know the car returns yet again. Craig Bond likes this car!!!
Bond again pilots a new Aston in SP, but still has a thing for this old vintage model.
I don't think its a bad thing. It can all be made to fit.
===Now mind you, I am not getting into the why of it all. ie why Mendes brought back the tricked out version circa 1964. That was a new wrinkle, introduced by Mendes.
The thematic, nostalgic reasons etc have been kicked around very well in this thread.
I am just attempting to address, the actual movie logic at play here, and I think it works just fine, and I actually kind of like it.
That said, my initial objection to the SF scenario was more along the line of how and why the car was used.
It seemd to me the movie was making a token, hamfisted nod to nostalgia
and used the DB5 interlude as a compartmentalized scene, to isolate the pesky James Bond Theme from the broader picture. It seemed maybe, that someone here was saying, we'll shutup those screaming for the Bond theme by associating it with the old car, and thus the theme doesn't contaminate our, oh so superior modern approach to Bond filmmaking.
That's a cynical POV, but at the time I wasn't sure, and I'm still not, but I no longer care.
There is no point in living in the past. But at the time, if that was a prevailing attitude of Bond filmmaking, I was happy to call foul.
However, SP is in full production. SF is done and part of the canon.
The only attitudes I care about now, are what's on display in SP, and from what I know, I do like what's going on.
Any perceived sins of the past, real or imagined on my part,IMO, have been addressed.
I do like what Mendes and Craig are doing in SP, to merge both familiar and loved Bond elements, with their own contemporay take on the iconic character's adventures.
:)
I came out of SF really down and disappointed with Bond and the supporting character's actions in the last act with an immense feeling of bewilderment and even anger at them for being so totally amateur verging on the inept and farcical. I found I was raking through what I'd just watched trying to offset the positives against the big flaws I felt it showed. There has to be some substance to the gloss/style.
Yes, I've read it all before repeatedly that this is just an adventure and a bit of escapism for a few hours etc etc and whilst it IS all larger than life I'm afraid for any film to be truly outstanding, as many here genuinely do feel SF is, for me it still comes down to how well the main protagonists behave even allowing for artistic license and how the plot pans out. This was all boyscout stuff and totally irrational. Certainly not how I would expect the best 'secret' agent in the world and the cream of the British Secret Service to behave. This was crossing my mind all the time as I continued watching and at the end with the new M I felt never mind the next assignment, they should all just be let go!
I don't need to see Bond saving the whole world from armageddon single handedly as Rog did in TSWLM or MR and PB did to a degree in GE and DAD but actually do want to see him operating with invention on his guile and wits not just reflexes and muscle. I really like DC but the SF Bond is all brawn not brain and it just portrayed him as out of his depth. This SF Bond isn't the guy you could see bringing a large sinister worldwide operation like SPECTRE down unless he somehow bumps into Blofeld by accident and head butts him off the veranda.
I really don't care about the pro's and cons and justification for the tricked out DB5, quite liked the new take on Q and really liked Mallory being handy and still in touch with working in the field but Bon's boss. I do have a really big issue with where they think post SF, Bond is at in how he thinks and behaves and again I repeat this is not just another whine about plot holes. I am really buzzing for SP and want some of the feeling I had for DC's portrayal of Bond that I had in the main throughout CR (without the mushy heart bleeding stuff with Vesper at the end) and for that matter in QOS.
For me it lost it's gloss and appeal half way through my first showing of it - there's nothing sudden about it and in fact on numerous revisits I'm trying to like it more not less.
By the way still love Skyfall my passion for it has not diminished coming back to this thread.
I didn't name names. And difference of opinion is fine... but it does need to be pointed out that no Bond film would stand up to the criteria upon which some criticize SF.
:))
Uhura said it best. This isn't reality. This is fantasy.
Point is, as you are saying, it makes no sense to harp on SF's lack of realism in a film franchise that truly lacks it. I can understand criticisms regarding blandness, lack of action, lack of suspense, and maybe a score that lacks umph. But much of the criticism on these boards seems forced.
keep up the good work! 3:-O
The discussion for me isn't really about reality or fantasy as I wouldn't say the DB5 is silly, I would suggest lazy and slightly ignorant.
As has been pointed out several times on this thread, the car featured in two films in the first thirty years, the second incredibly briefly and that was that. They moved on. They dabbled with vehicles, sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully, but they didn't bother looking back.
Then we get to the nineties, when this creeping need for nostalgia in popular culture starts to rear it's ugly head and it's back. Now, what I don't understand is that quite a number of fans decry this so called 'box-ticking' era, yet with DC, 'It's fine now. It's symbolic, yadda, yadda'.
In CR I was disappointed they'd resurrected it yet again, it seemed a tired idea, but then on seeing the film, it's neatly reworked to be Demetrios' car and features sparingly. I can handle it. Then QoS makes no reference, it's probably back in Bond's garage in Chelsea. Fine. Then we get to SF and all of a sudden, not only is it back, but it's front and centre in the promotion of the film, there's literature and merchandising galore that carries the image and it's at the premiere as the focal point of the red carpet. So in essence criticism of SF is a bi-product for me. It's the wider intentions of the director and producers that irks me.
To rub salt in the wounds we have
I think @Bondjames probably offers the best insight into how Mendes will retcon (I think there will be a lot of retconning in SP) the idea when he says that the SF DB5 is an old MI6 model, that perhaps Bond is really attached to (The DB10 being the latest) All well and good, but totally ignorant of the CR reinvention and reverting to type. It'll be rather cliched if that's how it does pan out.
When all said and done I hope they just kill it it. 'Kill it in the face!'.
This is exactly how I feel about it as well. Unfortunately every time I've watched, it has kept disappointing me. And that's quite the let-down for a Bond movie advertised as "The best Bond ever" or as DC stated "Bond with a capital B".
Bond chooses the DB5 in Skyfall because this is an invisible car... It's supposed to be from a time before all the trackers and so on, which means it's also not a recent Q Branch modification. It's literally the car from GF IMO. This is meta, about the "old times" hammered once again.
keep up the good work! 3:-O
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Bog off @timer, my favourite film is actually OHMSS.
The same subject over and over again. I think this has been analysed more than any other entry in the series and it's getting tiring, you don't like it move on.
You are o
You are such a nice chap and my favourite film is OHMSS.
I made a general comment, this DB5 argument is as stale as last weeks loaf of bread. I would surmise those who actually dislike this film spend more time spewing negativity then actually saying something positive about another aspect of the series.
I'm sure it gives you great comfort to talk to people like you do but then the internet offers anonymity, you don't have to talk to my face you can be as insulting as you like.
Anyway, about the DB5.............(with mod wannbe shardy's permssion of course)...........a lovely vehicle......hope its patched up nice and new for Spectre.....left steering...right steering....hmm....
I'd like to see it at his apartment.