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DaltonCraig007 - were you appalled that Bond's cell phone figured prominently in CR because it was blatant product placement, or just that you don't like the idea of cell phones in Bond's world? They're a pretty huge part of our lives now so I think we're no more likely to see them *not* be in Bond films or plots than we are computers...
The bottom line is - bring Q back, and make him give Bond cool, low key gadgets. Simple, yet terribly original and cool !! :-bd
Modern as they may seem, cell phones are the first to reveal a film as 'old'. Take TND for example, an otherwise perfectly 'modern day' Bond film. Perhaps true car connoisseurs can tell its age based on the BMW models presented in it, but to the average viewer I bet it's Bond's cell phone that gives it away.
As for the topic at hand. Let's not go overboard with wanting to bring all the convenient gadgets back. I'm all for toning down of all the book smacking and pen stabbing, but let's not ask for Bond to go too far in the other direction (SEE Bond .1995 - 2002). Connery and Dalton managed it...
There are two main problems with the use of gadgets in Bond films IMHO. The first is, if a gadget is useful, why doesn't Bond carry it on every mission? I can't recall gadgets being used in more than one film other than DAD (and that was done as callbacks for the fans). Lazenby *looks* at old gadgets in OHMSS but doesn't use them, there's a mention in GF that Bond's briefcase (I'm assuming the same one from FRWL) didn't "survive inspection". For some reason I had thought that Dalton's keyring finder in TLD would be a standard piece of equipment he would use in all his films. Lockpicks, stun gas, explosives - why *wouldn't* he always keep one on him?
The second problem is the gadget as the "magic wand" that works as a get out of jail free card for the writers. Q introduces some new, quite specific gadget which by pure coincidence will be exactly what Bond needs later in the film to escape a certain situation. That's just lazy and makes any situation Bond is in completely unsuspenseful for the audience. I'd rather have a no gadgets Bond use his wits, training, and resourcefulness than that type of scene.
(As a quick aside I loved the Slate fight from QOS - most brutal fight since the train fight in FRWL, and showed how quick thinking and resourceful Bond is. I think that's a great thing)
One thing that I wonder about with the gadgets - we have so many cool tech toys these days that I wonder what they would have to come up with to impress us? Even my iPhone has more tech than Bond had in a lot of his films!
To me a classy blackberry would perfectly fit 007.
As for the "crash-cutting" that's a technique that was first popularized in the original Bond films - there's a lot of talking about it in the first films's commentary tracks. I remember when I first saw OHMSS I couldn't follow the fight scenes because they were cut so quickly (especially the first fight on the beach and the one outside Draco's office). Now, they still look cool to me but not mind-numbingly fast. We always adapt and I think 10 years from now that a lot of what is considered overly-quickly cut will seem more reasonable. It's like when I was looking at new motorcycles in 2003 - a lot of them looked horribly "overdesigned" to me. Now I really like the look of them and find the 2011 models "overdesigned"! People (whether filmmakers or industrial designers) always want to make things cool and different so they're fresh and more interesting. It can be jarring at first but it eventually becomes part of the "new normal".
And, IMO, the move Bond makes by grabbing the book and slamming it into Slate's head, screams Bourne way too much, which makes things worse with that editing.
On a sidenote, my Quantum Of Solace Sony Ericsson C902 died on me a few months ago, I've had that phone since Quantum Of Solace was released..hahaha.. And becoz of its sudden death after all these years, I switched to the Xperia X10.. Very good phone.. Just as good as the iPhone which I totally despise..