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Was that an idea the writers had at some point? I heard of Tanner being a traitor in an early draft of SP, but not that.
I remember seeing that first trailer for SF, and the way they edited the shot where Bond shoots the fire extinguisher next to Mallory during the court house scene, made it look like he was possibly fighting Mallory, so I had some expectations that he wasn't all he appeared to be in the finished film - well, until I had it all spoiled before the film's release, anyway.
Now that I got that thought out, I'll stop derailing the thread.
@QuantumOrganization, had to look up those names, are they the ones that have written the entire U.S. version of 'House of Cards'?
Wouldn't it be a good idea to add a page number in the topic title, once someone (the topic starter) adds an important news article? Then it's easy to search back. Especially for those who haven't been here for a while.
It's been stated many times that all news is constantly posted on Page 1. :)
This strikes me as something you'd experience in a college screenwriting seminar: You have a plane. Now write a story around it. Your finished assignment should include a spy, a girl (a pretty one, preferably) and at least one action set piece with said plane.
So I hope the gap between SP and the next film (which will probably be in 2018 or 2019) will give them time to produce something good, and hopefully EON realizes what made CR so good: the use of Fleming material.
Then again, if the next film is a direct sequel to SP, I will struggle to be interested. Even if it features things like the "garden of death" and Irma Bunt - the most obvious route for a sequel, IMO.
It might be worth noting that P&W have been working on a project with Nicolas Winding Refn, which has been described as inspired by Bond.
We could do A LOT worse than having Mendes return, with Craig.
On another note, the Bond Hinx fight is quite pedestrian to be honest.
If Mendes had wanted to do a traditional Bond film, purely focused on Bond's mission, with no special drama and no rogue Bond, he had the perfect opportunity with SP... and he didn't take it. I highly doubt he would be happy doing such a film, and I think fans have been wanting such a film for years now.
This team have been a lot more experimental than in the old days. In the old days it was the same rotating writers, the same people funneled with each director, best seen in the Moore era and Glen's whole approach. Why have new blood when you can just remake older, better films was the thought.
I would count a reboot based on the first Bond novel that completely flips the script on anything that came before in the series, a sequel that strived to focus on Bond's grief without the Bond formula and a real world scheme, and yet another film that studied Bond's origins and his rise from the ashes were all far more risky and out of the comfort zone of the franchise team than anything Cubby would ever allow.
With Cubby, you knew what you'd get. There'd be the same old office briefing, a car with gadgets, cringey quips, tons of near naked ladies, and on and on. This team, however, doesn't get that complacent. Things tie these movies together, but each one is a vastly different experience than the rest, and each stands as a unique package of four films because of it. CR, QoS, SF and SP all have unique visuals, unique moods and unique experiences with Bond at the center of them, where it's always a new adventure. I don't sense that variety in other eras outside of Connery's early work, and not to such a creative degree.
How they keep returning to scrawl out, presumably in crayon, the same hackneyed, tired old regurgitated Bond plotlines is beyond me.
The only decent Bond script in recent years was Casino Royale, and that was because of Paul Haggis - not these amateurs.
Desk
Just banter in this thread. However, Soderbergh wrote an essay about his appreciation of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, which demonstrates a good knowledge of 007.
...which turned out to be the case in the early SPECTRE drafts where M was a traitor. But Fiennes refused to come back if that would be the case. (Information via Sony hacks).
I just laugh when people say they want Bond to take risks again. We're currently in the most experimental phase of the series since OHMSS, it doesn't get riskier. There was no chance of this working before, and it came at just the right time. You still have people that call these films anti-Bond, while others are saying it's gotten complacent. I don't know what it is about these films that makes so many read them wrong, but there you have it.
I respect Cubby's work at stages, but with that approach you don't truly let new ideas seep in. After the 60s, it's all a blur. How many more times must we endure the same Moneypenny meeting, the same gadget talk with the same notes, the same redone versions of Grant and other characters that were way better in their original releases. So many rehashes, rip-offs, retools. It thankfully never got to the point of, "you've seen one Bond film, you've seen them all," but it was so stale and going through all the motions. The 60s films are amazing, but how much longer is that teat going to be sapped from? It ran dry in the Moore and Brosnan eras, and Dalton and Craig where in the mix to refresh where they could, the former obviously not as successfully as the later in that time and place. The series needs recharge periods from the same old, and I'm happy to be witnessing one now. With Barbara still in command, I don't think we have to be worried about a reversion from it either.
I respect the Craig era for finding new ways to tell stories, and not fitting everything into exposition at MI6, then something in the field, and on and on. You can't watch a Craig film and say, "Yep, here comes the office bit, then Q will be here." The stories are given time to actually breathe, and the franchise grew into having some of those elements return, but thankfully in a more restricted nature. Some seem to be quite dreary sorts, as I've had immense fun watching these films, especially throughout CR and SF, and the same with SP. There's fun moments, light moments, but you don't need to have Bond driving out of the ocean in a car, dropping a fish out his window to be entertaining, sacrificing dignity along with it. The Craig era has more natural humor, and humor that isn't tied to one-liners you can see coming a mile away. That is where the series needs to go farther towards, being more genuine and less artificial with everything as it once could be.
But I don't need to see endless attempts to capture the 60s films in humor and structure again. That approach worked for that time and era, but we're well past it and experimentation has to occur to keep viable.
But keep in mind: he mostly had Fleming's original material to work with.
As for P&W, they would have started with a pitch/brainstorm session...it must have gone well enough to move forward.
Haggis simply polished CR - he rewrote dialogue for a few scenes and added the sinking house. The rest was down to P&W. I would sooner credit Ian Fleming for the fact CR is the best film EON's produced in decades.
It's hard to tell who just wrote what with any scriptwriting team, especially on the Bond films where so much rewriting and reimagining is done by streams of people. It's not as simple as it was when Maibaum was the franchise's script writing crutch. There's more voices in the room now, and the directors have a say too in forcing the writers into shaping what they or the producers want. It's easy for people to blame P&W for things here and there, for the same reason they do it to Barbara and Michael: they're the big names in the credits, so it's easy. But some don't realize that a good script can be taken apart and become what it never was in the director and producer's hands through committee and production notes. The writer is at the mercy of their creative superiors, so they write what they're told. There can be a greater freedom and voice for the writer, yes, but it's not uncommon for the writers to be slaves to another person's vision where they're creating something they don't want to see, but that they are hired to realize nonetheless.
Or they're reliable and easy to work with and deliver scripts that reflect what the producers want. I will say though that that would be beyond impressive if they wrote their scripts in crayon because it is incredibly difficult to write in crayon. More power to them if that's how they roll.
Also, the Bond team has notoriously been a family unit. They like to keep on the same people to work with. They're sort of like the Franz Sanchez of the film industry, but without all the cutting out of hearts and shark-feeding and everything. The more unusual thing is when a longtime member of the Bond family whom they're on good terms with is dropped for a newcomer, as with David Arnold.
Yes, Soderbergh's admiration for On Her Majesty's Secret Service is encouraging. Good to have a genuine Bond fan at the helms and his fondness for OHMSS sounds like a step in a better direction than Mendes's childhood fascination with L&LD. (Not judging L&LD or anything, but it sounds like Soderbergh has appraised and evaluated OHMSS as an adult and doesn't just remember munching popcorn to the movie as a tike.) However, I'm not terribly crazy about the Soderbergh films I've seen. I think I've liked Che, Pt. 1 the best from him, but I'm just not sure his style is suited for Bond.
He also has an autographed picture of Lazenby as Bond in his house. Does he need any more credentials? ;)
No one's crowning Soderbergh king of anything, but this is an excerpt from the beginning of his discourse:
For me there’s no question that cinematically ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE is the best Bond film and the only one worth watching repeatedly for reasons other than pure entertainment (certainly it’s the only Bond film I look at and think: I’m stealing that shit).
I wouldn't mind seeing that mentality in a future Bond director. But again, I don't know that Soderbergh really is the man for the job.