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https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/aug/20/aidan-turner-interview-poldark-top-off
Thanks for that, a great interview. Can't wait for Poldark series 2!
When has Craig "dictated" the Bond schedule in any way? It's questionable Mendes did, either - especially since it was not like they had to hire that specific director.
I wondered about that, too.
True if we are looking back at casting the traditional Bond. I don't think being a great actor is neccesary just great Charisma, sex appeal and good looks to portray him.
As much as many hate him id say yes we need another Brosnan and asaide of Fassbender great talent he does have the Charisma and more shallow requirements to play Bond.
Agreed. I thought he delivered in GE but actually got worse and more self conscious with each next film. Some of his emoting in TWINE is painful to watch. Brosnan is actually my least favourite Bond, yes, even after Lazenby.
And re: Lazenby. I love OHMSS and think he serves the film extremely well. I find it best to watch the film in isolation. I did a FRWL and OHMSS double bill once, and back to back with Connery, Lazenby does suffer, but watched on its own, for me, he does a fine job at showing a more human and vulnerable Bond - and he never emotes.
Maybe it was more BB & MGW wanting Mendes back with Craig but I feel those 2 did indeed have alot to do with why SPECTRE didn't arrive a year earlier.
Lets face the extra year did nothing for the script at all, some might think that Logan's version was much worse but I'm sorry I can't think of much worse than that foster brother nonsense, Logan's warlord take sounds a damn sight more interesting.
I'm not keen on M being the outright traitor but making Tanner the traitor could have been a stroke of genius and explained why has some have said why he's such a boring non entity, perfect cover for a double agent, the complete opposite of 007.
You think the stepbrother angle is nonsense, yet you fully accept that idea. Nothing more needs to be said, really.
"Complainers and whiners. Complainers and whiners everywhere..."
The difference is that wouldn't have taken one of the elements of the series that so many fans were waiting to return, it would have just taken a minor character and changed the postion he was recognised as, not Bond's most famous nemesis turned into a childhood spat.
The two are leagues apart and wouldn't have painted this era into a corner like it is now.
It comes down to whether you accept that element and find it OK I personally think it's biggest F Up of the series, double taking pigeons, invisible cars all pale in significance in what was done here and Tanner being a traitor might have had some grumblings of another traitor etc but wouldn't have the effect this decision has had.
Maybe when you lived with series as long as some of us have you might understand, it's EON's answer to what Lucas did with the prequels in my view.
We are whiners and complainers because we don't accept things we don't like, some of you can say I like all the films and accept all aspects and be happy but I'm not going to say the Bond series is free of problems because I'm a fan.
The thing is before this film I was one of Craig's biggest advocate and loved SF while CR is my favourite of the era and even appreciate QOS but for someone like me who championed him from the get go back in the days of the old MI6 when I first discovered this Bond forum. To now think I'd be happy if Craig just made this his last to me says something, something took place here that made me feel this way.
If that makes me a whiner then so be it, some will just accept any old BS and call it gold because it's Bond well a nearly 40 year old fan that I am doesn't, maybe I'm a miserable old git but we'll see how you feel about the series when you are 44 years old, that being said god knows what it will resemble in 20 years or so time.
I'm amused that you think the stepbrother angle is the greatest slip up of the franchise, for sure. These complaints are getting just as bad yet hilarious as those who pined for the damn gun barrel to return at the start of the films, the same people who, when they finally got it back proper in SP, still whined. I will say, though, at least you and others are arguing against an aspect of SP's narrative and a relation between major characters (stuff that matters), instead of fussing over a short sequence whose existence is really only predicated on nostalgia and tradition at this point, and certainly not function or innovation.
The whiners and complainers line was actually me aping the line Madeleine says in the film while drunk ("To liars and killers. To liars and killers everywhere.”) to have a laugh, nothing more, though it is inarguable that moments of whining have run rampant like an epidemic here before. There was a whole point on this forum where I and others had to listen to a select group run EON through the mud like they were Satan incarnate, for example, which I don't think has entirely passed yet. Again, dramatics and theater.
I'm not saying people have to be okay with everything a Bond film does, or where an era goes; I look at things as objectively as possible, though it's impossible to purely engage in that reasoning when so much of what we think and feel is fed by subjectivity. I look at Bond films as they come, and analyze them on pacing, narrative, theme, characterization, and more. I'm not making excuses for EON, nor are most who approve of where the films have gone; we just don't think it's quite our place to moan and groan about the state of things ad nauseam, and I think we're in Bond heaven in comparison to where the series could be without Barbara and Michael.
As for the Lucas/prequels comparison, again, you amuse me. To say that someone can't wrap their head around certain approaches EON have made to the series because they haven't been a fan long enough is ludicrous. There's no difference between an ardent fan who has read Fleming and seen all the films voraciously and in mass over a five year period and another who was born during the Connery era and experienced the films as they came. Sure, the latter individual has a greater sense of historical context with the series, but the former person doesn't lose an investigative or critical eye simply because they weren't born when they needed to be. I can and have studied the series to give myself a greater context for the world in which each of the films were made, and I know the changes that came about during each era since it all started in '62. We all do, otherwise we wouldn't be here, so that argument just doesn't hold up.
I agree completely and I know there are many who feel the same way. I have seen many people defending SP and playing down the significance of the step brother angle, but I have yet to see anyone explain why it was a good idea.
It could have been worse. In the Dec. 1, 2014 draft, Oberhauser/Blofeld says he grew to hate Bond after losing to Bond in a game of poker when they were kids. Oberhauser/Blofeld had the better hand but Bond bluffed him.
So well loved? He only appears about 3 or 4 times and in every instance it's basically to say 'M's in a bad mood James but I'll meet you for lunch afterwards and we can have a chat'. I never miss him when he's not there. Frankly Loeila Ponsonby is a more important character in the series.
Nonetheless to have 'Bond's best friend in the service' turn traitor would have been another shit idea but not one with the same resonance as Blofeld as stepbrother.
The stepbrother thing is only one of the reasons how they totally dropped the ball with the character though. The guy is supposed to be an all powerful criminal mastermind constantly one step ahead. In the 60s films they built up his menace steadily and in FRWL and TB there is an ominous malevolence about him that is very scary. OK Donald Pleasance didn't exactly deliver on that promise but that's a separate debate.
But here EON were like a 17 year old on his first visit to Amsterdam red light district. A quick, tentative scene of him in shadow and then let's go straight in and reveal everything and have Bond vanquish him in the space of an hour. Even if you ignore stepbrothergate and just call him Blofeld from the start with no links to Bond's past it was still a shit version of the character.
And now where do we go? The guy is stuck in clink so you would assume someone else more competent would take over SPECTRE and arrange for him to be executed in prison. Unless of course he escapes which would be more hackneyed than having the Bond girl die.
The only way out I can think of is that actually he's not Blofeld and is just whining brat Franz Oberhauser putting it on while the boss was somewhere else and the real Blofeld is still in the shadows somewhere. Another awful idea but at this stage we're struggling for viable options.
Well once I pay EON my money I get the right to moan and groan about the product I have purchased from them. That's called consumer rights.
These boards are like Tripadvisor for Bond films. If someone stays in a hotel where the toilet is blocked and ejects sewage all over the room you would expect them to slate their stay so don't be surprised when people come on here to voice their displeasure at EON when they drop the ball. Fair enough you had a good night's sleep and a happy ending massage in the spa but there are quite a few of us who spent all night wading through sewage and didn't have a Corby trouser press in our room.
Good point. The best I have heard anyone say about it is 'It didn't bother me that much'.
You are on a James Bond forum during a dry spell.
I'll acknowledge the plot holes and that personal Bond was taken to it's limit but it had a compelling feel to it and I thought Bardem's camp Silva was a nice change from the more real and subdued Le Chiffre & Greene. Mads villain is still my favourite of DC's time.
There was the nostalgia element, bringing Q & MP back and also the DB5 but I left the cinema exhilerated.
I think someone said it here or maybe on another forum and this sentence for me perfectly sums up SPECTRE. They replaced storytelling with nostalgia.
Whereas the DC era hadn't gone big on CGI maybe bits and pieces but the exlplosion and the demolishing of that building in the PTS was unescessary and the last said about that explosion near the end that cost millions the better, so with out going into the ESB debacle we've got problems.
Also probably the most uncharacteristic moment of Craig's time "OOh Mr White". I almost cringed when I heard that in the cinema.
Also we cast the double oscar winning Christoph Waltz in a role it's assumed he'll ace and despite his back story give us one of the most memorable villains of the series, at last a chance to do ESB justice at least compete with Telly's version in OHMSS.
Instead we get a vanilla villain, Dominic Greene was more threatening than ESB, that line to Mendrano after he's signed his contract regarding his balls has more menace than all of Waltz's telephoned almost catatonic Franz Oberhauser.
Also DC's Bond had his moments but it was like a completely different interpretation at the times, it's like we had to rush into fully fledged Bond complete with corny lines and almost not feeling threatened by anything. I didn't even feel Craig was that bothered when he was about to have his head drilled.
Compare this with the ball bashing CR moment and there is no comparrison, Craig and Mads are utterly electric here and both of them bring their A game, Bond about to be drilled by Waltz neither sound like they are bothered at all and that "doesn't time fly" line is like something out of the Brosnan era.
One element that cause most derision for the films detractors was the retconning to make it so ESB was behind everything from CR onwards. Now in the hands of the capable writers this could have worked, they could have bought White into it more. Not increased his appearances, maybe extended his moment with Bond but had his shadow linger over things more.
I'll show you soon how White could have been a factor as early as the PTS but it wouldn't be made clear till his meeting with Bond. This also brings me to that scanning a ring nonsense and Q's lap top having the software to create some natty SPECTRE family tree.
To think the fuss that was made over Silva's scheme, yes a stretch and Q saying he was planning this for years doesn't help but linking everything together in that scene was plain awful.
Bond should have been a detective and worked out the link for himself, there was also a opportuntity to use Belluci's character more to drive the plot along.
Look I'm no screen writer but it makes me mad that I could have fixed this like so many of us here have offered possibilities how this could have been so much better.
To think P&W got paid to so call rescue this, instead of throw the script a life line they dropped a brick on it, BB & MGW have to held accountable for signing off on the tenuously linked nonsense that appeared in this film.
I do appreciate the Craig era, but since SP was released on blu-ray/DVD, I think I've only watched it once all the way through. I tried to watch TWINE yesterday but as soon as Renard appeared I was in the mood for something else and turned it off. Perhaps it IS time for P&W to turn in their timecards? Heck, I can pop in OP anytime just because I want to see Roger's facial expression in the truck during the PTS....and end up watching the whole film!
Excellent post.
SP's script seems like a first draft. Fair enough Logan dropped them in it by turning in a shambles but is this really the best P&W could do with it? There are so many things that could either be fixed in 5 minutes or shouldn't have been there at all.
How do these guys make a living at this?
Let's roll this a step or two back. Where were BB and MGW while Logan (supposedly consulting closely with Mendes) was working his magic? Were they in communication at all? Or where they so busy with their non-Bond endeavors they weren't tracking things?
I'm not talking about looking over Logan's shoulders as he wrote. But an occasional phone call ("Hi John, how's the script going?") would seem to be called for. Yet, according to the Sony hack material, BB was shocked when Logan turned in the first draft. It seems as if it shouldn't have been *that* much of a surprise.
It could be that BB and MGW have to be accountable for more than just signing off on the final script. They're ultimately responsible for the entire pre-production process.
That way I could stop any unnecessary tangents early on. That's just me of course.
The issue is we really don't get a clear picture of Blofeld's hand in some of the earlier schemes in SP, and when we do the script is lax on information and almost expects us just to fill it all in, which is lazy and only leads us to quite correctly poke holes in parts of the past story as we know it now that such a massive retcon has occurred.
On one hand, it's easy to believe that Quantum was acting as a tentacle of SPECTRE under Blofeld's orders. That's all fine and dandy, no issues from me. But then in the scene inside Blofeld's compound, Ernst makes it seem like he purposely sought out operations just to get at Bond, naming Vesper and M for example, and that really pisses me off. I don't know if his "author of all your pain" comment was intended to be hyperbolic or a factual actuality, and that bugs me. I like the idea of Blofeld and Bond unknowingly crossing paths over a set of years, but only if the former was simply engaging in operations that the latter just so happened to be assigned on to. I begin to take issue when it appears that Blofeld purposefully acted on things with Bond often in mind, as part of a long-running and crazy over-the-top revenge scheme.