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But really, though, when you compare Casino Royale's action sequences to Quantum of Solace's action sequences, CR's is the clear winner. Not only are CR's sequences better in concept, but they are far easier to follow. During Quantum of Solace I constantly found myself giving up following the action and chose to wait and see who was on top/ahead by the time the crazy cuts had ended. I really don't want to have to do that again.
My argument:
QoS is edited very quickly, but its not the edits that ruin it. Its all the shots they edited together. In the opening car chase, they cut when bond simply looks a different way, or to show the tail light of the car; very unnecessary shot in the first place. They took the Michael Bay way of shooting, point 6 cameras at it and hope one of them works. They just used footage from all their cameras. Its not the cuts, but the overall editing. The HORRIBLY shaky camera, and the fact that most of the cuts are zoomed too close in all of the cuts also adds to the trauma.
Quick cutting in film wouldn't be bad if it were based on solid cinematography. Limited to (preferably) no camera shake, only a few separate angles within the shots, and shots medium to long range, not close and microscopic, would produce a very effective quickly cut sequence.
For my scene, the roller coaster action sequence (PTS) above ^^, I would use mounted cameras on the coaster for the majority of the scene. It would give the sequence a very cool look, considering Bond and the villain would appear to be moving with the environment, and the ride appearing stationary. I would also probably do some cuts from the ground to give a bystander's perspective of what the stunts look like on the coaster, and most of these would not be shaky, and be stationary shots.
I'll try and find some examples on the YouTubes:
Something like this that would let you see the two rolling around on the coaster and hanging on (for a camera angle):
And here:
@ 0:15 a cool fly around shot I would use
@ 0:50 the mounted shot
and the misc. shots that keep the moving coaster in center frame.
The thing is I actually like QOS, it is in my top 10 Bond films, and I hold it in high regards. But for some reason I can always make fun of it and point out its flaws easier than I can with the rest of my top 10 films. But when I sit down and watch it I'm always like, 'Yeah, that was pretty good!'
If they can only do half of this they would be doing something special in B23 - check out the horse slide awesome.
As @JWESTBROOK pointed out, mounted cameras are one big way to go. I don´t understand why they haven´t been used to death since Mad Max came out. There´s much to exploit here, and I loved the cameras on Bond´s car that moved like 50s robots.
Another camera style beside mounted ones I would love to see is the old-fashioned but never out-dated total shot that lets the action do the mayhem, not the camera or cutting. I don´t mind cutting, but there´s nothing as powerful as a fight or chase that is choreographed and executed well and just filmed like that.
OK.
Bond investigated the office of a bad guy which is on the top floor of a department store building. He goes down in the elevator, first undetected, but then the elevator stops, and a mean-looking guy enters. The elevator stops again, another mean-looking guy enters, we now know that those guys are bad. But they don´t yet attack Bond. Bond stays cool while te tension goes up. The elevator stops again, none of the three occupants show any reaction. But the moment the doors open, Bond explodes into a run out of the elvator, running over a third bad guy. All three of them of course chase Bond. Now, we´re in a big interior design floor, to be specific, a practical kitchen department. Not just furniture, also kitchen tools of all variety. Lots of shiny furniture and kitchen tools shining with chrome. Bond throws a big kitchen knife at the closest baddie and hits him with such force that the guy is lifted off his feet and drops on his back. The second bad guy is stopped by a bar stool made of massive oak, very beautiful design, thrown by Bond into him.
The chase is out of the kitchen department, into a living room department full of furniture only the richest people would buy. A lot of furniture is cut up during the fight, especially as more bad guys arrive at the scene, some have knives, some little submachine guns with silencers. Which means the whole fighting so far wasn´t very loud, there are people nearby in other corners of the store who don´t notice it at all.
Meanwhile Bond has kicked off the socket and lamp off a big halogen lamp, and uses the remaining 6 ft pole as weapon.
Now Bond has a Q gimmick that is like an airbag. He places the little thing, not bigger than a lighter, underneath a big sofa and activates it. The airbag goes off and katapults the sofa onto a bunch of bad guys, knocking them out of rhythm. Bond uses the short moment until the bad guys got their bearings together again and vanishes like a ninja.
What about Bond being in a fight or chase situation, and he somehow ends up on the catapult end of such a cushion. He shoots an opponent, who then falls onto the other end of the cushion and catapults Bond up into the air. Bond has timed the shot so that right now a helicopter flys over the scene, so Bond has himself catapulted towards the helicopter and holds on to it.
I have to make up my mind wether the helicopter is friend or foe.
Live and Let Die had a lengthy speedboat chase- but yes, I'd like to see more action on the water.
Bond hangs on the outside of the helicopter and wrestles with one or two dab guys inside it, which leads to the chopper sverving a bit here and there, getting on top of another bad guy who jumped down on the inflateble thing and tries to shoot Bond from below. Bond jumps away from the chopper, onto the end of the big cushion opposite the shooter, catapulting the guy straight into the air. The guy flys into the rotor blades. DOn´t know how this could be filmed without being too gory, but the result is something like in OHMSS, when one of the skiers gets into that snow plowing machine. The helicopter loses control and crashes sideways into the scaffolding from which one is normally supposed to jump onto the cushion. The helicopter explodes, the remains fall into the water. Bond has jumped into the water on the opposite side from the chopper, so the cushion somewhat protects him.
If the pool is not just a swimming pool but part of some bigger park, we could without further delay get on with a boat chase ;-) .
But I just recently watched You Only Live Twice, and man, I love the climatic ending of the later Connery Bonds.
To me, that is the perfect bond movie. But I'm sure even that view will change here soon enough :P
I think the most overdone action in the Bond films are speedboat chases, ski chases, and skydiving scenes. Those used to be my favorite chase scenes - I'm guessing the favorites of the Bond producers, too, from how often they're used. But they should be avoided in Bond 23.
How about a dunebuggy chase? The last action scene involving dunebuggies was in FYEO.
An action scene involving minisubs. I haven't seen any minisubs since LTK.
An action scene involving an elevator. That hasn't been done much, though the end of CR had a little bit. Maybe a more involved scene around an elevator - like at the beginning of Speed.
Though i only had time to skim through it, an earlier post had an idea for a cable car scene - also a good idea. Not done since MR.
I hear they're planning to film an action scene on a train - good too. Though I would have it in a subway. No Bond action scene has ever been done on a subway. Subways scenes managed to add excitement to Speed and Die Hard 3.
The next time they want to show an aerial chase (not in 23, since one was just done in QOS), maybe they should go with a helicopter chase.
I once watched a tv special on the making of TWINE (a lot of people didn't like that one, but if I judged by action alone, I'd say it was top-notch). Though I forget his exact words, director Michael Apted said something along the lines of `every type of action scene has already been done, but I'm trying to add new variations, like the sawblades hanging from the helicopters, and the parahawks.' I think he had the right idea.
The producers could use their imagination more. Instead of cars chasing cars, speedboats chasing speedboats, etc., they could mix the vehicles. Ex: hovercrafts can go over water or land. How about a hovercraft chasing a car? Or a speedboat chasing a hovercraft? Or vice-versa? Yeah, I know my imagination going a little crazy, but I think that's how memorable action scenes are created.
Have the vehicle switch terrains: a car - or motorcycle - driving inside of a building or lair (DAD) or used in the subway idea, like driving through a subway tunnel, chasing or being chased by a train - i think the only scenes similar to those were in OP and GE.
Similarly, the skydiving scene in Moonraker works (until the circus tent) because the stakes are there--even a small character like the pilot, you really feel the impact of his death. Compare that to QoS, where the skydiving scene was too slick, too edited, and over too fast to make much of an impact.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if Skyfall includes a skydiving sequence. The title could suggest one.