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Only 2 episodes have been released over here in the UK. Did you make a typo and mean 2 episodes in, or are you somewhere which is an episode ahead?
It does look very expensive, and starts off with the glamorous train setting which is very Bond rather than Bourne. I don’t love Madden, but on the strength of this he wouldn’t be bad as 007. I think he’s more charismatic with his natural Scottish accent rather than the American one he’s sporting.
Edit: I see TV reviewers have seen 3 episodes already, so I guess ep3 is out there in some people’s hands.
There was a lot left on the table, there. I really thought that the big reveal should have been this: that Madeliene and Safin had been in constant contact, here and there, ever since that initial encounter. Safin always knew where she was, how to find her. But he also was a secret protector. How else could she have safely set up the clinic? In return, he got intel.
Then two things happened that spun things around: White's death and Madeleine's love for Bond.
Slightly annoying they have a British guy pretending not to be as the lead, but surround Manville with Americans doing bad British accents, and; even worse, have them commit the crime of thinking our country is called ‘Great Britain’. Bit disappointed Manville didn’t correct that.
Madden is okay but, like you, I’m not seeing Bond. The memory loss thing would have been a good excuse to have him change accent, no? I don’t really see why everyone has to change all the time.
The show looks expensive and yet all the CG stuff kind of makes it look less so. The colour grading is obnoxiously green for some reason. The concept is even a Kingsman ripoff but without the hook.
EDIT: I finished the second episode: it’s so green!
I get more Bond vibes from James Norton, given his style, but is he what I liked for Bond #7? No, still not, he still didn't have what it takes to be Bond, he also failed in his voice.
As of this time, I have no particularly actor in mind as to who will play the role, that's why I'm fine with them getting unknown, as long as he fits the criteria needed for the role, than those hollywood famous celebrities that's been campaigning in the Bond list, but didn't have what it takes, or missed one or two parts of criteria, if they get something along the lines of Craig again (in terms of popularity or career status), then great, yes, either they came from low ranked or not so popular films, or maybe Indie Films, that's alright for me, as long as they have what it takes to be Bond.
(Although this first link is about algorithms/streaming, it can be applied to producers demands for changes on theatrical scripts as well)
https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2023/4/qznbvs3rjrrlr9stlc3lp5z36dscc7
https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2023/4/shkf6dpyd8qq9h9qrhz427c9ztmq4n
https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2023/4/1smrju05omjpdmustowu22o9a8j34m
EDIT: I was in a rush posting those links (having to answer a call-- about changes to my script, 😂), but for those interested, these different links reveal the rollercoaster of the first step of making a film: the screenplay.
It's really not as simple as having an idea, or being hired to write a producers idea, and handing it in. What one hands in at the beginning of the process, and what one submits as the shooting draft, are, sometimes, unrecognizable... And, as the Scorsese picture indicates, the shooting draft, and what we end up seeing on screen, may also be vastly different.
It's a delicate balance of creative art, cold hard commercialism, and intellectual grunt work (when given orders to make a radical change and massaging it into the existing story!)!
If anything, writing linearly from beginning to the end as if you’re just improvising throughout the process is even more esoteric.
Yes @MakeshiftPython , I remember those complaints, and I chimed in saying that most screenwriters (I’d make a guesstimate of 75% or higher), know what the ending to their scripts will be. It’s the path that while they develop their story, they always know what they’re writing towards.
I always think of an idea.
Write it out.
Write the logline to see if the idea is a “movie idea” that can be described in one line.
Then I write a rough ending.
Then I go back to my beginning, Inciting Incident, Plot Point I, MidPoint Twist, Plot Point II, Climax and Resolution.
Then I write character bios.
Then I write three full outlines.
Then I do my first draft.
The producer I’m working with right now told me her last film the script went through 100 DIFFERENT DRAFTS!
😅
@slide_99 … there have been entire scripts based on an idea a writer had for climactic sequences!
Have you seen NTTD yet?
Citadel's concept is based on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Kingsman ripped them off, right down to the secret tailor shop entrance. U.N.C.L.E. was an international organization that fought against Thrush, which was a shadow organization, of elites, trying to take over the world. In a draft of a proposed movie version of UNCLE in the early '80s, Thrush destroys UNCLE leaving it's two top agents to foil Thrush's conquest of the world and return political stability. Also when UNCLE agents leave the organization sometimes they are wiped clean of their memories so as to not endanger the organization. Old stuff in a brand new package.
So… basically most movies ever written.
Especially Bond films not directly based off of a Fleming novel. I guess we should start dogging on GE because they obviously wrote a story to justify the ending with Bond winning.
See how ridiculous that sounds?
It makes me think of a funny scenario where writers keep winging it on Bond films.
“And so the natural conclusion to this story is… oh wait, I didn’t mean to have Bond join Greenpeace! Darn! Now I have to start all over again with another script and hope my story leads to a more typical Bond ending!”
They don’t call it a Bond formula for nothing.
That guy sparked up some interesting and good arguments.
“Hey guys! Sounds like BAD NEWS! Do you feel as indignant about Eon’s management as I do? Let’s gripe about it some more!”
Yes good point.
To be fair I sort of understand that criticism. I don't think it's necessarily about the writers knowing the ending of the story beforehand. As you rightly point out it's naive to think this isn't common practice.
I think some people's issue with NTTD is that much leading to the ending feels contrived. The most common complaint I've heard even outside these forums is Safin's motives for selling off the nanobots (his motives do seem to shift from revenge to some sort of cerebral nihilism which no one understands, and again feels like it's been written to artificially add more stakes to the third act). Personally, I never found it plausible that Bond would believe that Madeline was ever a SPECTRE agent, and even more so unlikely that Blofeld would go to the effort of staging this ruse considering his goal was to assassinate Bond in the PTS. Again, it feels like an implausible way of moving the story forward. Hell, the conversation leading to Bond strangling Blofeld, inadvertently killing him, also feels a bit awkward to me.
When you put all this in the context of 'the writers are trying to get to an end goal' it makes sense, especially on subsequent viewings. It's more a criticism of ineffective writing (insofar as these things are subjective) than the method. But I do understand it.
In my opinion Waltz's Blofeld is just full of himself. He comes up with a plan, then it fails and he covers up his failure by saying it was all staged by him.
He certainly didn't mean for Bond and Vesper to fall in love and the latter die and give Bond Mr White's name; he just wanted the money from the Casino Royale game but collateral damage happened. So rather than admitting to Bond that some of it failed, Blofeld claimed that he had set up this big plan to "destroy Bond's world" and be "the author of all his pain".
Same with the NTTD PTS; Blofeld tried to kill Bond and Madeleine while also taunting them in their final moments: he made Bond believe Madeleine was a SPECTRE agent (just like he kept taunting Bond during the Colonel Sun torture in Spectre by torturing him before finally killing him) so they would suffer before their demise. Then everything went wrong and he claimed it was "all part of his plan", that he didn't intend to kill Bond and only wanted to give him "an empty world".
He sort of does the same about his Cuba party, when Bond makes him admit that the party was a failure; Blofeld does admit it was a "disappointment", but he shrugs it off as no big deal.
It feels like the sort of thing that could have been rewritten to an effective degree. Simply have Bond thwart the SPECTRE assassination attempt at the beginning but decide to break things off with Madeline for her protection. The whole trust issue thing I suppose is relevant thematically to the other Craig films, but not so much in this one I'd argue. They just needed to effectively convey the tragedy of Bond and Madeline separating.
I wouldn't necessarily agree that there's little room for subtlety in terms of character in Bond. Some of the original novels and films have some quite interesting nuances of behaviour. It's just that the stories themselves are quite fantastical and escapist, which is unlike the tone of Le Carre.
Admittedly, the Blofeld "reveal" of Madeleine in the car is a bit ham-fisted. And that's pretty much true of all of the Blofeld in this film.
It's a lot less dramatically interesting if he's just nobly protecting her at the train station.
These are stand out moments in Bond movies - the early Connery's, OHMSS, LALD, TMWTGG, etc. and really gives me the Fleming vibe, and also a holiday vibe too.
Bond getting down on the floor and doing push-ups, then having his breakfast on the balcony would be a bonus, but I may be asking for too much here.
That, and a casino scene, and I'm in Bond heaven. I totally agree, @jetsetwilly, it's a Fleming thing. He took his time in almost every novel to describe Bond's hotel room(s), Bond taking a shower, going for a shave, and whatnot. Whenever I'm in a hotel room, I love to imagine myself in that role, taking my sweet time to relax, calm down and take an afternoon nap followed by a hot and then a cold shower, all by Fleming's "rules".
Yeah I love those small Fleming moments. I wish we got some more in Jamaica in NTTD.
Those scenes of Bond on his own, in thought or doing spy craft translate Fleming better than some of the actual adaptations do
He didn’t believe she was an agent.
He just believed she would never be safe, and they could never have the life they wanted, with a big target painted on him.
That’s what the nod is all about, and why he has a drawer full of stuff in Jamaica relating to Spectre. The only way he gets his life back, truly, is by ending Spectre. All of it. Not just putting Blofeld behind bars — he *knows* from the PTS (set *after* Spectre, the film, so that call is coming from a British Prison) that it’s not over. But he doesn’t want to go back to Six, and is literally a rogue agent following his own agenda. It’s all right there on the screen in the opening of the film.
It’s echoed in the end, because he finally got the target off his back, now there’s one on Madeline and Mathilde, and he can’t get rid of it. It’s literally in his blood. (Or more accurately, the blood of Mr.White, whose family they both are too)
The only way anyone gets a life, is if Bond gives his — he is essentially breaking a curse that started back in Casino Royale to an extent. It’s sad, because in a way, Blofeld actually wins. But doesn’t get to enjoy the victory (being dead himself) and Bond buys the freedom of the innocents touched by the bloody business of which he himself is a part. A business he keeps trying to escape, but never does out of sheer loyalty.
Eventually, he does. But in a tragic fashion.