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Yes ,make referrals to your past ...Lazenby lost Tracy..Moore referred to her,Dalton referred to her ...but a referral is enough....i want individual missions,individual villains,and Blofeld popping up ocasionally...a film every 2 years etc...but i know i've no chance.
You see, we have a great James Bond with an amazing physical dominance over many of his foes, a superbly staged card game, an exceptionally clever plot, an inspiring sense of naturalism, an immensely well developed and attractive Bond girl... Each one of these elements can be found in other Bond films too. But what I have always considered to be the major strength of CR is that this film has all those great things packed in one single movie! In the Connery classics for example, I go to DN for starters, to FRWL for the main dish, to GF for desert and to TB and YOLT for some late-night snacks. With CR, however, I get the complete meal all at once.
The film opens in a stunningly addictive way, never failing to pin me down in my seat, leaving me almost breathless with admiration for how much 007 power was conveyed in those first 3 or so minutes. The rest of the film offers one stroke of genius after the other, be it in terms of plot, acting, cinematography, or something else. And even after 2 hours and 20-something minutes of near-exhaustive worshipping, the final shots of Bond walking towards Mr White make me salivate with excitement and anticipation for what comes next. Then still, though I have known what comes next since 2008, I'm never not in the same state of exhilaration as I was in 2006 when I left the theatre with the promise that this James Bond - not just any James Bond but this James Bond - would return. Though GE is still my favourite Bond film, mostly due to my being at the proper age when that film was released - you might say it's my generation's Bond film or something like that, I don't know - CR is the only Bond film that doesn't let me down in any department whatsoever. Like magic, its call is irresistible and I, as one of its most fervid fans, cannot fully explain why.
So while I agree with Getafix and Mendes that I may give the film perhaps too much credit, the problem is I cannot seem to cease revering CR with an almost religious fervour. I never completely joined the club of SF devotees, as that film has always existed in the shadows of the much better CR for me, no matter how good SF may or may not be. Many of the things people called "great" about SF slightly failed in my book when compared to CR. Silva a superb villain? Nah, surely not as great as Le Chiffre. Great action? Come on, the "parkour chase" and Miami International sequence top all of what SF has to offer. Yes, Naomi Harris. But she's no Eva Greene. And so on. I'm just saying that the 2012 hype surrounding SF felt a bit unfair to me, though I was pleased and proud as a Bond fan, because I was of the honest opinion that most if not all of that praise should have gone to CR. It's comparable I think to how I felt about the smashing success of The Dark Knight compared to the lukewarm reception Batman Begins had received box office wise. I was excited about The Dark Knight but I had hoped that Batman Begins would be able to retrospectively get some reappraisal too. And in this case I'm not even sure which Batman film I prefer over the other. In the case of the Craig Bonds, I do know for sure which film I consider the best. It's CR, leaps and bounds over the other three.
This. It's all well and good nitpicking from film to film and people have valid criticisms of CR, but sometimes you just have to stand back accept that certain things are just a cut above. It's cool and 'ironic' these days to suggest that QoS is better. It's just not. CR is a bona fide classic and everyone knows it, even if they can't admit it to themselves.
@RC7 I like QoS far less. And I don't have issues with CR to be 'ironic' like some kind of millennial hipster. It's been discussed on multiple threads here how the plot is messy and overstuffed with "Bond begins" garbage that wasn't in the novel (although I agree the aesthetics are top notch). But feel free to carry on believing it's a masterpiece. I'd never try to make out like your opinion wasn't valid, or null and void...
Agreed.
I will say this about QOS: I've come to enjoy it a lot more than I used to. I even dare say I enjoy it more than SF. But QOS is no CR. How could it possibly be? With a weaker villain, Bond girl, plot, cinematography, direction, ...?
Funnily enough, films like Kingsman seem to have done well off the back of Bond going down the emotionally rich, less humorous route. I don't know if a movie like Kingsman could have done as well as it did at any previous time. It's a niche in the market seeing as we don't have Mike Myers doing his thing anymore.
I know that was the point of the comic but since it was already strafing from the source material anyway I'd have been much happier if Eggsy was axed altogether.
I guess it strafed away from the source material because the comic was too much like James Bond, so they had to alter some stuff to avoid getting threatened lawsuit by Eon/MGM/Danjaq. I personally think that the Kick-Ass elements should have been axed first hand, and someone better should've been cast as Eggsy... or Gary (as in the comic) as I call him. Taron Egerton was wrong for the choice. And even though I liked Colin Firth in the role, Jason Isaacs should've taken the part instead. The elder spy in the comic was drawn to resemble him. But, I guess Hollywood avoids "the obvious choices" as always.
Is Spectre a bad movie? No. Is Spectre any more deserving of two directly linked sequels than Live and Let Die or World Is Not Enough? No.
But as it stands now, I can't see SP becoming more appreciated in the future.
I never used the word masterpiece, but along with FRWL and OHMSS it's as close to a modern genre masterpiece as we've got. It's next level. Despite having some excellent moments, as an overall package QoS isn't close to the level achieved by that movie.
QOS had its shortcomings, but it had a purpose, was thematically consistent and it was confidently taking the series into a new direction.
SP regressed back to old Bond tropes, botched up the entire story arc, left little room for the series to move forward and is a symptom of EON spinning its wheels.
I think will be remembered as a good fun entertainment product with a bad legacy for the franchise (like Mass Effect 3)
But out in the rest of the World, on a Sunday afternoon TV showing in, five years time, which will have the higher viewing figures? SF or SP? I think we all know the answer?
For all it's enjoyment value the film seems soulless and written by a committee. No bad thing for a Bond film but I would have liked more from a Craig Bond film.
Fair enough assessment. I didn't love Kingsman although there are a few sequences in it that are really good and the ending didn't do a lot for me. I didn't read the comic book, either.
QoS barely edges CR in my ranking, but in terms of the finished film itself, CR wins every time. Love it or hate it, as you say, it is most certainly a classic.
In a not unrelated point, could someone possibly post a discussion link or describe the earlier drafts of SP? I avoid spoilers with Bond and don't seek out script leaks before the film is released. Some of the differences are telling and other omissions speaks volumes to how much of a scattershot production it must of been. I've said from the start the third act needed massive work and Mendes was clearly not the director to be able to deliver a coherent product at that stage.
Really enjoyed this discussion so far. It's interesting how people are much more aware of the film's problems now than when it came out. I remember discussions going on about how mature, complex, and well put together the film was and that seems totally incongruous with the mixed to negative reaction now. Or maybe it's just that the problems are just more obvious? The film has had time to settle and seems more flawed and patched together than ever before. Having watch both this and QoS this year, I gained a new appreciation for QoS (even though I always liked that movie. It gets better every time I see it whereas SP just seems to be stagnant, not getting better and almost certainly ready to nosedive in my rankings after I do a rewatch of the Craig movies or maybe the whole series sometime soon. It's already dropped a point).
So basically in summary this one's reputation might be on the downturn in the years to come, especially considering what comes after.
Oh, and TB is so much better than SP it's not even funny.
Funny, I see them as fairly equal....
:))
At the moment I am reconsidering if it will stay there. It's still too new to do the final judgement. Of course it's clear it will stay in the Top 5 at least.