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I have that similar experience ever since QoS with the mendes-Craig combo we lost everything that is great about the franchise. I cannot for the world say that I am excited for the next if it has Craig reprising.
The recent MI movies has taken over everything the 007 franchise used to be fun, action, disbelieve of suspense and overall using the decor/settings to the maximum and making it look like you want to go there on vacation.
I couldn't honestly tell you a thing about the last two MI films except in one the Kremlin blows up and Cruise hangs off the Burj Al Khalifa, in the other there's a dull PTS with him hanging off a plane (apparently for real but it looks like CGI) and quite a good motorbike chase and in both Simon Pegg is annoying.
They entertaining while you are watching them but utterly forgettable.
I'd like to think Bond has grown out of that these days.
I'm not a huge fan of Newman, but he did make a few great tracks for the movie (e.g. Los muertos vivos estan; End Titles).
I enjoy Spectre, but I have to agree with all of this. At times, SF and SP feel like they're trying to apologise for the reboot. We've got Q, Moneypenny, gadgets, the DB5, Blofeld, white cats, and comic relief extras. I wish EON had a little more conviction.
Exactly. I enjoy MI for what it is, but it's lightweight stuff and fills a spot in the market that Bond should avoid.
I think CR lured us into thinking we were in the midst of a new era of greatness.
That seems to have faltered somewhat since then with none of the rest of the Craig era able to reach the heights of CR.
Me, too.
More money than Casino in the US-Canada, just a bit less worldwide.
What's more, remember how they're were bragging about how much they were spending on the Rome car chase. They let the Daily Mail in for a "behind the scenes" look.
This was more than Mendes' ego (as large as that is). The whole crew seemed to be possessed by hubris.
The thing is, that explosion doesn't look any bigger than a big CGI explosion. In 1965 (Thunderball) and 1967 (You Only Live Twice), BIGGEST BOND OF ALL meant something. You couldn't get it anywhere else.
It's not 1965 anymore.
This.
I liked the movie overall, but its ending sequence had problems. And the whole business about doing big explosions to be world records and car chases to say you spent $24 million is a little wacky.
The movie always was going to be expensive. But there was some out-of-control, ego-driven spending. It's as if the underlying assumption was, "We did a billion last time, we're a cinch for a billion-and-a-half."
Even in this era of high movie ticket prices, a billion dollar box office isn't easy. It should *never* be an assumption that you're going to hit a billion. If there are ways to deliver the same story in a cheaper way that doesn't hurt the movie (and cutting the spending on the car chase and explosion certainly qualify), go for it.
It's not like either sequence was the heights of artistic integrity. Sam Mendes was not Michaelango painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. "NO! Only the biggest explosion in the history of movies will do!"
Are we?
The World Is Not Enough = considered indifferent
This.
And all the time while they were thinking ever more outlandish ways to burn through money the script was left to rot in a corner.
On the plus side as a Bond fan I am at least glad SP beat RN in the box office in NA.
@jake24, I like Mendes very much and have been one of his main supporters here, but it can't be denied by a clear-thinking mind that it was not at all wise to indulge in such cash burning sequences as he allowed in SP.
Between the explosion and the Rome chase, SP's budget was far too high for no great reason at all, and that impacted the profit it made at the box office, despite reaching near a billion. You just don't get the feeling that the film should be as expensive as it was to make, and you don't see that money on the screen being used for things that truly matter in the grand scheme of things.
I think that's why many, including myself, are calling for lower budget Bond films with more clever sequences than the old explosions and crashes that you see in everything now. Bond should, like the Mission Impossible films, feature sequences of action that are truly innovative and thrilling to watch with little money put into it, with real stunt men and women doing crazy work to bring us entertainment. I got more thrills watching Tom Cruise survive a simple underwater death trap in MI: Rogue Nation trying to get a drive than I did watching that explosion in SP, which I was praying was CGI when I watched it in theaters, knowing how costly it would be if it was real.
That kind of stuff isn't what EON should be allowing, especially when it's so obvious that creating miniature builds of the Blofeld HQ was the way to go, as a cost effective venture any sensible person would choose over doing it for real. The only conclusion that can be drawn from EON and Mendes doing the explosion for real then is that they wanted the Guinness Record and publicity garnered from it, and to do it they wasted untold millions on a blink and you miss it moment that doesn't even feel real because we see it in every blockbuster out there these days. That's why we're disappointed.
I still enjoy Spectre, and I still like Mendes very much as a director. The negativity about both seems to be way, way overblown.
Even so, I am all for a lower budget with the suggestions you made, @0BradyM0Bondfanatic7.
I think Oberhausers base explosion looked pretty good, we are all too quick to forget how bad miniatures look sometimes.
If there's one thing the series has mastered, it's the disappointing follow-up. DAF after OHMSS, MR after TSWLM, TND after GE, QoS after CR, and now SP after SF. It's inevitable. They rescue the series and then nearly choke it all away.
When done well, you shouldn't be able to tell. Look at the miniatures way back in 1995 for Goldeneye. Absolute genius, sets that were pieces of art.