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The hamfisted 'DB-5 debacle' represents the central issue that has stripped SF from it's initially perceived 'gloss and appeal'. So I think the thread is very much on track.
In your opinion. You know what lets judge Skyfall in 2062 when its 50 and see how it stands up then. I think time is the true test of what is a good Bond and what makes a great Bond.
But for the sake of debate...here's another debacle:
Man throws compressed air tank into mouth of shark. Man climbs to top of sinking boat. Man shoots shark in the mouth before getting attacked. Shark blows up.
Pure idiocy. And this was not in the script. The director wanted to do this because he wanted to illicit a response out of the audience. He wanted a release, no matter how much the producers and screenwriter (and the writer of the novel) said it was an absurd concept and told hi he was nuts.
But the director was right. And audiences across the country cheered upon seeing this ending.
Was that artistic expression? Or entertainment? I think it was the latter. Sure, there may have been some who hated that ending and, thus, hated the film. But at last check, the film ranked #56 on the AFI's list of all-time greatest films.
Point is, audiences loved the DB5. And its inclusion in the film was to entertain the masses. I can understand that this may rile up die-hard Bond fans. But this doesn't diminish the quality of the film any more than the appearance of an oxygen tank diminished the quality of Jaws.
The DB5 thing was lazy and pandered to the lowest common denominator, whichever way you put it.
The Jaws analogy doesn't work, though. No one said to Mendes that the DB5 was a stupid idea and wouldn't work, everybody knew it would work. The same way everyone involved in SW7 knew the return of the Falcon would/will go down a storm. You're making it out like this is a genius idea, it's not. It's an obvious idea that will always work for the masses. I guess my angle is that I'd happily take something ridiculous, but original (or at least different), over reheating old school tropes or icons.
This.
I see the point you are trying to make @TripAces, but the comparison is not ideal.
The DB5 was an obvious & lazy inclusion purely to pander to the masses. It wasn't a wacky off-the-cuff piece of improv.
Mendes' 'move' was unsubtle to the point of being insulting to the intelligence of discerning viewers.
But was it a crowd pleaser? Based on anecdotal evidence stated on this board, it was. And that's all it was supposed to be.
Now, as for ...
I'd agree 100% on that being a stupid thing to do. Total overkill. I hope to God it ends up on the cutting room floor.
Knowing where it is supposed to fit into the film, I highly doubt it.
Bloody hell.
Just like CR then...
I think that between 2013 and 2015, we've already seen Skyfall going from "Best bond ever" to "it looks better than most Brosnan movies" :) And IMO Casino Royale is back on the top of Craig movies, a standing that it lose for a few months only of box-office driven opinions.
:))
It's strange but hardly a surprise. Many Bond fans are fickle with their evaluations of Bond films. The real shock for me is that SF was rated quite aggressively as the best in the series from the offset; seriously, wtf?
And yet you still persist in altering QoS's title into something acutely juvenile.
Well, can't say I'm too surprised. As always it's about context and how something is written. It may be fine.
Im with you, best comment yet "Craigs worst outing" to rate Skyfall worse than QOS is just someone being over the top to make their point. Skyfall is better than anything Brosnan or Sir RM did. I think a lot of people have a the same problem people had with the Dark Knight Rises, they went in wanting a Batman movie and Christian Bale is a crippled wreck uncapable of being Batman. The basis of Skyfall is Bond is not his usual self due to being shot twice one of which from a uranium shell which should have killed him within the first 5 minutes of the film. People wanted the typical Bond movie but thats not what Skyfall was about it was about resurrection Bond is now the experienced one having learned from his errors in CR, QOS and Skyfall. It was a welcome change to the franchise to do something with more of a story base and charachter building and its set up Spectre beautifully as we now want to see what Bond is now, I reckon Spectre and Bond 25 will be the best Dan does but I don't think they could be without the way his first 3 films have set it up to be.
=D> I agree, Mendes is best.
I don't even think they're comparable, objectively. They're all made in their own time-specific bubble. Different creative teams, different cultural and artistic circumstances and with different goals. If I were to go to a desert island, I'd take GE and TND and all of RM's over SF, but that's just me. On the flip, I'd probably take CR over any of them, although I'd be hard pushed to leave TSWLM behind.
I don't want a typical Bond movie, I want something unique. I'm absolutely fine with the idea of Bond being down and out, in fact I've said many times, I think he's return to action could have been delayed even longer. What I don't understand is people fawning over this movie for its ability to change things up, yet in the same breath they're absolutely fine for them to parachute in the GF DB5, front and centre. If you're going to shake it up, shake it up.
Then CR is guilty of the same crime and didn't 'change it up' enough by your own standard.
CR changed it up massively. No Q, no MP, no cheesy one-liners, no misplaced irony, no style over substance, no comedic stunts, no GF DB5 (They at least reworked it in an interesting way, I can still take it or leave it, but it's certainly not there to promote the film and more importantly isn't intrinsic to the plot). SF attempts to 'change it up', but falls into the trap of going the classic route of, 'let's look back to his childhood', his past demons. The genius of Bond was having him come into the world a fully formed character, across CR and QoS we see his progression, but it's based around the hear and now, in the moment. As it should be with Bond. This isn't and shouldn't be Batman or SW. Family drama should not be a concern of Bond.
Absolutely.
It's taken as read that in a discussion such as this everything is clearly opinion. If I were to say 'and that's a fact', then you'd have a point, but otherwise it's quite clear that everything here is opinion.
I agree about the family drama, but that is quite a separate point to the one you made about the DB5. You said that all the work done to 'shake it up' in SF was underdone by the inclusion of the DB5. I'm saying that (if that is the case) then the same logic must apply to CR. I don't understand how it can apply in one case and not the other, other than you like CR and so chose to ignore it.
Also there seems to be some serious rose-tinted spec's here with regards to CR. Let's take for granted for a moment your assertion that removing Q and MP from the story is a positive move. Could you not then argue that keeping M in is a negative one?
And no cheesy dialogue? No winking at the audience? What about Goldfinger and his Golden Land Rover, 'I'm the Money' 'every penny of it' (wink, wink), the woman emerging from the water onto Le Chiffre's boat, the weeping blood, 'that's because you know what I can do with my little finger', the bald henchman, the beefcake shot on the beach (ala DR No) etc.
well said.
That may be a straw man's argument. I'm not sure the "change things up" aspect of SF is what is appealing. What is appealing is that Mendes danced a high wire act: presenting a deeper look at Bond's psyche, presenting an "aging" Bond, continuing EON's desire to have a Bond more suitable for the 21st century, presenting a visually stunning film, presenting themes (old vs new, age vs young, uselessness vs usefulness, technology vs traditional ways) that are relative to older moviegoers, rather than F&F types...and then doing all of that while also keeping to the Bond brand: "Bond, James Bond." "Shaken, not stirred." Bond girls. The gun barrel sequence. A title sequence and classic-sounding Bond title song. An homage to past films.
I think he pulled all of that off and did so with all of the expertise of the best director to ever put his hands on a Bond film.
No, SF was not completely, wholly original. It wasn't supposed to be.