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Comments
I remember enjoying DAD at the time when I was 17. But even then I remember the special effects being crap.
The thing with the Brosnan era is that you get the sense the films were targeted mainly towards people in the impressionable teenage market like myself. Money quickly became the driving factor rather than quality.
However, yes, Bourne 1 and 2 embarrassed and I dare say immasculated what Bond had become at the time, forcing EoN to be influenced by and take cues from Bourne (there's no shame in that) and regain credibility haemorrhage from the Brosnan era. By the 3rd film, Bourne had unquestionably cemented itself as an authentic and legitimate spy thriller that maintained a level of excellent consistency which Bond unfortunately wasn't able to sustainable after CR; but in any case Bond never should have degraded itself to be competing with xXx in the first place.
I've developed a fondness for DAD. At the time it did seem fairly modern in the sense that it was definitely a dumb early 00s action film. Bond always follows trends, this was nothing new. The problem was that this trend died on its arse relatively quickly with Bourne, Batman Begins, etc.
Anyway I used to despise it but over time I've started to enjoy it. It's definitely Roger Moore by way of The Fast and The Furious, but I do think it's important to take each Bond film for what it is rather than what it could have been. And once you get past the missed potential and dodgy CGI, what you're left with is a big, stupid but fun action film with some laugh out loud bad lines/scenes and a couple of genuinely great moments. It's colourful, well paced, Brosnan is on top form, and the action scenes that don't use an excessive amount of CGI are energetic and well directed. And the crap bits give it a certain charm. You can enjoy groaning at the cringey one liners and laughing at the tsunami surfing bit. It's one of the most fun, easily watchable Bond films imo, and I'd rather watch something stupid but highly enjoyable like this than something dull and forgettable.
+1, bang on.
Bourne certainly gave Bond a kick up the arse but as the last Damon film proved, no franchise has legs like Bond does. Same goes for xXx, obviously!
The problem with a long series like this is that most of what we don't want in the modern era is probably present in the original era as well.
LTK is the dourest of them all with M positively turning purple with indignation at Bond's actions.
Everyone knew who Bond was in the old days. Even two bit smugglers like Tiffany Case knew who Bond was.
And this guy gets hired by MI6?!
I like a bit a humour or suave one liners. But i agree the films in the spirit of Fleming are indeed the best ones.
Work with these templates and you can't go wrong
Bingo.
That becomes increasingly difficult as the series goes on because we've pretty much seen it all. What worked during Moore's turn for example, which borrowed from Connery but modified for his different temperament and style, likely won't work now unless it's tweaked sufficiently to differ from both Moore and Connery.
Having said that, CR proved that it can be done. That film captured the essence of 60's Bond in many areas although it was a bit heavy in places. If they could fit the kind of quality characterizations that were in CR into a more traditional template, I think they'll have a sure fire winner. It just needs some enthused creative minds behind the wheel.
I'm not a fan of the last act (a bit of a downer - and I realize it's modified canon and all) but until then, it definitely has a vintage flavour to me.
As I said, they'd have to fit that kind of rich characterization into a traditional template for it to work. It can be done. I just don't think they did it with SP (it felt overly predictable to me), whereas others do.
I also think they have slightly lost the knack of writing that is suitably over the top, but still believable enough that it could feasible occur in some heightened reality. That's the sweet spot that I think Fleming and many of the older films resided in. And that is what I think is missing at the moment. It's maintaining that tightrope act for a full 2hrs plus. Scaramangas island, the golden gun, NicNac are all fine. The flying car and the ninja schoolgirl twins aren't.
I hate it when people start proclaiming that they want the old style back for any form of entertainment. I find this attitude archaic and crippling to any form of culture overall. Yes, I can admire certain forms of culture and entertainment from the past. But not all of it was perfect. And not all current forms of culture and entertainment are terrible. To me, it's a mixed bag overall
I think I understand what you mean, even though I'm not a huge fan of CR (it's good but it feels too bloated for me to really enjoy, the whole Venice section just feels like a melodramatic slog and I'm not a fan of the reboot/origin story angle either).
I think this is just comes down to originality. The 60s Bond films followed the books quite faithfully, and the only one that didn't (YOLT) was original in its own right because it was the first big epic blockbuster Bond film.
Not long after that, they started to ignore, and run out of, the source material. As a result, the films basically became different writers trying to capture the spirit of either Fleming's stories or YOLT (or both). And they succeeded but it was never going to feel quite the same as the groundbreaking originals.
With CR they had a Fleming story to work off again. Which could be why it feels like the 60s films, maybe to you it feels more authentic in that way? They could actually do this for the next one to be fair. Moonraker could easily be modernised in the same way that CR was (I'd change the title and Drax's name though though, to avoid any confusion).
While I'm certainly open to faithful adaptations of some of the novels (perhaps with different titles so as not confuse the filmgoers), I don't think that's necessarily required in order to imbue the 60's flavour. As you said, it's more a question of being 'original' with the plot and also faithful to the essence of the character in my view. When I saw CR for the first time I didn't feel that it was a throwback to earlier times necessarily because it was faithful to Fleming in terms of plot - but more in terms of character and style. They brought back the old school glamour and class and let the plot breathe. They trimmed down the action, but what little they gave us on that front was very memorable and of high quality. They also upped the standards on dialogue. It was sharp and witty in a retro way and also paced in a manner that recalled earlier times.
I felt a lot of this was in SF too, but it was a very different film.
In SP they really tried to make a "classic" Bond film. Therefore they brought back the gadgets, the glamour, the henchman, the globe trotting and a certain 60s style. They even copied much from older Bond films. This ist most obvious in the train sequence. I actually don't like all the train sequneces in the Bond franchise which only tried to recycle the great train sequnece from FRWL. Why should Bond today go to some place in the desert in Marocco by train? It makes absolutely zero sense. It's just for the sake of tradition but completely takes me out of the story. I wish the producers would care more about good plots, interesting characters and great dialouges. All of this was hardly found in many of the last eight Bond films.
I know that there is some kind of train for tourists (oriental desert express). However, it feels completely strange that a super spy should go to the crater by a train and everything there seems as glamorous as on the real orient express in the 30s. I mean what does Bond expect? That the crater has an own station? He could go there by car, helicopter or whatever. This however would not have fit to the more glamorous 60s style.
It certainly does. The Moroccans don t eat there. They eat in the regular carriages.