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So by the time those were brought in for SF, it wasn’t a “betrayal” of CR/QOS, it was an inevitability that should have come much sooner. I probably would have brought in Moneypenny for the second film, then Q for the 3rd film. But because QOS didn’t bother, SF was tasked with bringing both at the same time.
An aspect I do like of Craig’s run is that we see evolution with his films. I like that by SPECTRE we finally get Craig with all the Bondian elements you expect from a Bond film in full. It could have been better, but it was nice to see Craig’s run at least try swinging for a traditional installment where Bond has it all together. That PTS with Bond casually walking on the rooftops for me is Craig really playing up that more traditional Bond. Like that we saw him build up to that after starting off as a diamond in the rough in CR. It’s part of what makes his run feel like a self contained run of films.
I remember reading in Some King of Hero that some early drafts of QoS included an introduction for Moneypenny; I suppose her character became Tanner in the final script. Quite a shame it didn't happened IMO. I wonder if Eon had, at that time, an actress in mind for the role.
Otherwise, I totally agree with you @thelivingroyale. I like Casino Royale, but it's far from being my favorite Craig installment and, while I don't have any problem with the Venice sequence even if I prefer Fleming's ending, I've never been fond of the first act in Madagascar/Miami. It belongs to another movie in my opinion, contrasts too much with Fleming's story and is far too long.
That said, I only prefer SF over CR. So it’s my second favorite Craig, but not at all a darling like most fans seem to make of it.
If they just kept making CR type films it would have gotten old. Bringing back Q, Moneypenny, the larger than life villains, etc was what I always figured would happen after CR. It just took til film #3 to get there.
Completely agree, and I also prefer Skyfall to CR. CR was a necessary reset and a well-executed one, but to me it is too pared down while Skyfall is the most quintessentially Bond film of the Craig era and a damn good one at that, fast, lavish, and with a near-perfect balance between action and emotions.
also, I am a fan of gadgets
Completely agree, I like how Craig’s films evolved, and I think QoS definitely dragged out the Bond begins stuff longer than they needed to. Forster put the gunbarrel at the end to symbolise the end of him becoming Bond, but... That’s just the end of CR. And wasn’t “I never left” meant to show that M had got it wrong, and that Bond had been doing his duty the whole time?
Yeah it might be trendy to hate SF now, but if the Craig era had carried on in the direction of QoS I don’t think it’d have been anywhere near as successful. That film was generally seen as a misstep, and by 2012 the gritty reboot trend was starting to die out. SF came along at just the right time.
Agreed it is controversial, but that’s how I always wanted to see James Bond. And Craig was the perfect actor to do it—lightning in a bottle. I’m not big on humor in action films, especially one about an alcoholic, womanizing, brutal and cold assassin. Let him use his wits to survive, and not build contrived and obvious scenes for an exploding pen or whatever. I’m sure I’m in the minority, and it doesn’t mean that I don’t like many of the Bond films, I’ve seen them all many times. Grew up watching Moore on ABC tv until I went to the theatre at age 10 to see AVTAK. But, Craig took my fandom to an entirely different level.
I thought QOS did a better origin story than CR. He actually learns things and changes over the course of the movie. The guy at the end of CR is pretty much the same guy that was in the PTS, but now he has a theme song...
If anything, CR raises more questions about origins than it answers. Like: what the hell is wrong with this guy? Why is this naval commander so undisciplined, and what's he so angry about?
Noooooo... surely this is the single lowest point of the whole franchise X_X
You make some interesting points. I have to agree with you about the ski jump in TSWLM I agree that it is overrated. I always found the sky diving scene in the PTS in MR much much more impressive.
A subject rarely touched on and I want to say something here is the racism in some of the earlier films. I thought DN, GF in particular were very racist. The scene where Bond orders Quarrel to "fetch my shoes" is cringe inducing. Sick.
LALD gets a lot of criticism but I never thought this film racist. Now TMWTGG is much more racist and harkens back to the days of DN. The treatment of some of the SE Asian extras especially and Pepper making that racial slur to those police officers. Sad.
After this movie the racial stuff is toned down and basically kept out of the movies.
Moonraker
1. The centrifugal machine. One of the very few times in the series Bond is visibly distressed and flustered.
2. Drax dismissing Corinne and being the cause of her demise. Yes, villains have killed people in the movies before and since. But the manner is particularly dark. The chasing of the dogs. The frantic and the panic is evidently clear.
3. The whole plot fuelled by eugenics is particularly dark, especially considering Drax is a former Nazi in the novels
For Your Eyes Only
1. The Havelocks murder and the manner is cold
2. Bond kicking Locque off the cliff in his car. Extremely cold and ruthless
Octopussy
1. The whole scene in Germany from start to finish is brilliantly tense. Played straight, frantic and fast paced. Bond confronting Orlov, he is angry. The desperation to stop the bomb is real. Nothing jokey about it. The clown costume argument from Moore detractors is weak and ill informed and tend to ignore Bond in Halloween costume like an overgrown trick or treater in Spectre. He dresses up as a clown to fit in at a circus to stop a bomb. It is tense.
A View To A Kill
1. Zorin machine gunning the miners is violent and brutally dark. Is it the film where the villain kills the most people.
2. Always found Tibbet's death dark - Mayday in the back of a car is ruthless murder.
No I think LALD is pretty questionable, really: there's certainly an atmosphere of 'all black people are working together against us'- Bond goes into two different bars and the entire clientele conspire to have him abducted both times; you can't trust a black cab driver etc. Even one of the two black CIA agents is actually a double agent. We get Strutter, sure, but he's not enough to dispel that element that the film presents.
It's of its time and not saying it should be removed from circulation or anything, but it does seem to present black people as all being part of some cult.
:))
I'd add in the killing of Countess Lisl in FYEO; the knifing of 009 and his crash into the ambassador's residence and Bond's revenge on one of the knife-throwing twins to be rather graphic in OP; and the gruesome death of the Russian diver in the spinning wheels of Zorin's pump in AVTAK.
This is one of my favourite moments in Moore's tenure. I get really pissed off, actually, about the way this scene gets talked about in bad faith in the public discourse ("Bond wears a clown suit, and that's bad", without the context of WHY he wears the clown suit or how damned tense that entire sequence is). If it doesn't work for someone, fair enough, but don't act like Bond just dresses like a clown for the hell of it. It's not like the Tarzan yell, which is JUST there for the sake of the gag.
+1. One of the tense-est and best third acts of the series. Moore is deadly serious here, and aside from a few moments that are too jarring for most people but not me, he plays the rest of the movie with a straight face. I seriously have fun with this movie