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We have soundtracks with disco music...
I can't wait for James Bond x Peppa Pig.
I'll use my own case as an example, when I was 5 or 6 there would be Summer Bondathons on the telly, and I would get to watch one film each weekend before bed. I didn't like them because older people liked them, they genuinely captured my imagination, I loved the fantasy of an army of ninjas invading a volcano lair, or Jaws biting through things with his metal teeth and being impervious to pain, the car that could go underwater, the escapism of Octopussys Island, or Scaramangas golden gun, or teehees metal arm, or Brosnan rampaging through russian streets in his tank etc, etc, etc. All those larger than life aspects that seemed uniquely Bond, that other series didn't quite pull off the same. I loved M, moneypenny and q turning up in random locations, walls that flipped back to hidden reveal rooms full of people working away at their desks etc. To put it simply, If my 7 year old self were to sit down and watch the last two films I don't know what I would come away with to get me invested in watching the rest of the series. Some of the chase sequences are functional, but that's about as much credit as I can give them, there's nothing as inventive and unique as the tuk tuk chase from OP, or the LALD boat/bus chase, or the GE tank rampage, say. Is Bond's showdown with Primo in the stairwell anything like as memorable as Bond versus tee hee, or Oddjob, or Jaws, Stamper even? Are the women as dynamic, engaging personalities as Honey Rider, Pussy, Tracy, Octopussy, Natalya, Wai Lin, even Christmas Jones (with the exception of Paloma, ofcourse)? I just don't see what young people, especially kids, are supposed to get out of watching the new films these days, whereas I feel 30 or 40 years ago they were much better catered for.
…and directed by David O. Russell (for that indie edginess, and volatile film-set feeling)…
I’ve said it before to both you and Denbigh: the patience of Saints. You deflect the pours of gas very well, lol.
Honestly, you nailed it and then it spirals out of control, because *some* people just *need* to be “right”… I’m just not sure how they measure the imaginary points they must be racking up.
Anyways, on a serious note: thanks for the posts. They were clear and pretty much spell it out on how to bring audiences in (old and brand-spanking new). There’s no equation. No real answer except: keep doing what they’ve always done, and the audiences will follow. And how’d they do that? Make the best damn film. And how’d they do that? Talent, talent and talent, with tremendous planning and lots of luck. After that, it’s up to the fates. Like every film.
These people know what they’re doing and that’s why we are fans of the grandaddy of all film series, but some still want to doubt EoN. They want to underestimate them, belittle them.
I honestly wonder why they’re fans.
Are these films perfect? No. They’ve never been. But the series is a survivor and most are top pinnacle pop-art films.
And there are no perfect films.
Well, except for Never Say Never Again. THAT’S a Bond picture!!
So it doesn’t matter if he’s young or older then. If he’s in his 20s you won’t notice.
Tell Ian Fleming that. All the impervious superspy stuff is pretty cliche now too.
Well to be fair, its not as if Craigs entries aren't playing fast and loose with Fleming as much as the other eras, just in its own way.
This is why I say the series should be concerned with freshness more than whether or not something is cliche. Actually approaching a film in a heightened manner and going all out with it in an unabashed way might be cliche but if that Paloma sequence proves anything it's that style seems a lot fresher right now than Bond going rogue again, running away to an exotic island and all the associated tropes ("the shadows" etc.)
At the end of the day, there's nothing new under the sun, and what it comes down to is what have people not experienced for a while, or what feels the most "fresh".
I appreciate you elaborating on this, @Mendes4Lyfe. One thing I'd say is that while the newer films might be missing those aspects for you (I don't agree with many of your points, though you're right that the larger than life elements were stripped back until NTTD came along), the Craig era brought in a lot of new fans for other reasons. A lot of that is to do with the direction, and a lot of that is to do with Craig himself. Irrespective of anyone's personal preferences (and I do have certain issues with it myself), the Craig run was incredibly successful.
And I hope that's the same for the next guy, even if he's different to his predecessor.
I don't know what the difference is between us in age, but I saw my first Bond in the early 90s and it was a Connery film. So the experiences I had and the feelings I felt while watching them were similar to yours. And going back to the idea of tradition, I'll be showing Connery films to my kids. So that experience will still be there for them too. The older films are still as popular as the new ones, for my money. It still feels like all Bond is good Bond for most people. You'll see it here over the holidays.
However, I digress; the question I asked was how do they appeal to a young audience again? And it feels to me that your stance is that the larger than life elements need to return because those were the things that got you hooked as a kid. That's completely fair, and understandable. Those elements may very well indeed return to stronger prominence than they have been in the last couple of decades.
What that leads me to is the reiteration of my hypothesis: they just need to make good films with a popular, strong name leading them.
The "Bourne" effect has been surplanted by the "Fast & Furious" effect (once F&F became less car and more "spy / heist" oriented). Thankfully the Bond frachise has resisted the temptation to go down that path so far. Lets hope there is no equivalent of "Quantum of Solace" on the drawing board (by that I mean that Quantum was something of a "Bourne clone" style wise, and I wouldn't want to see James Bond appearing in an F&F clone, but I can only imagine it happening if the next film were to be unsuccessful)
Top "Traditional" Action Movies by year (i.e. not Sci-Fi or Superhero)
(World Box Office, according to Box Office Mojo)
1998 Lethal Weapon 4 9th
1999 Payback 25th, The World Is Not Enough 32nd
2000 Mission Impossible 2 1st
2001 Rush Hour 2 11th, Swordfish 30th
2002 Die Another Day 6th, xXx 14th, The Bourne Identity 19th The Transporter 93rd
2003 Bad Boys 2 10th, The Rundown 67th
2004 The Bourne Supremacy 14th, Walking Tall 92nd
2005 Mr & Mrs Smith 7th, The Transporter 2 64th
2006 Casino Royale 4th, MI 3 8th, 16 Blocks 91st, Crank 116th
2007 The Bourne Ultimatum 11th, Live Free Or Die Hard 12th
2008 Quantum Of Solace 7th, Gran Torino 19th, Taken 28th, Transporter 3 60th
2009 Fast & Furious 17th
2010 The Expendables 26th, Salt 23rd, Faster 142nd
2011 MI Ghost Protocol 5th, Fast 5 7th, The Mechanic 90th, Killer Elite 106th
2012 Skyfall 2nd, Taken 2 19th, Expendables 2 24th[\i], Bourne Legacy 29th
2013 Fast & Furious 6th, A Good Day To Die Hard 24th, Snitch 113th, Homefront 123rd
2014 Non Stop 37th, Expendables 3 39th, The Equalizer 44th, John Wick 89th
2015 Furious 7 3rd, Spectre 6th, MI Rogue Nation 8th
2016 Jason Bourne 19th
2017 Fate of the Furious 3rd, xXx 2 27th, The Hitman's Bg 51st, John Wick 2 55th
2018 MI Fallout 8th, Shyscraper 34th
2019 F&F Hobbs & Shaw 11th, John Wick 3 27th
2020 Bad Boys For Life 3rd
2021 No Time To Die 4th, F9 The Fast Saga 5th Wrath Of Man 43rd
2022 Top Gun Maverick 2nd, Bullet Train 18th
2023 Fast 10 5th, MI Dead Reckoning Pt1 8th, John Wick 4 14th
2024 Bad Boys Ride Or Die 8th, The Beekeeper 22nd
David O'Russell: who would hurt on the Bond set? Him and Jennifer Lawrence: to quote David Spade on SNL about Eddie Murphy: "Look kids, a falling star! Make a wish!" I think our regular patient, filmmaking experts on this site should do this with Bond news.
I doubt I'll get a response.
There are also superhero movies.
Probably the best indication of what Bond 26 could look like in many ways is NTTD. Not to say they’ll be similar films story-wise, but visually and in terms of tone we could potentially get something like that film’s impressionistic visuals/locations, and perhaps the jumps from dark, horrifying moments to much more outlandish ones. Even that’s very broad however.
Personally, I wouldn’t want them to fully turn their backs on some of the stuff that really defined the early Craig films. Stuff we’d refer to as ‘gritty’. I remember people talking about CR in the years after it came out. For a lot of viewers (me certainly) it was quite impactful actually seeing cinematic Bond get injured, doing stuff like patching up his wounds after a fight or chugging whiskey to calm himself. Or indeed seeing him end up in hospital having to recover after torture. I’m sure us Bond aficionados will point out minor instances where it’d been done before, but for most viewers the films really hadn’t leaned into that stuff to quite that extent. It felt real and Bond felt more human. Fight scenes like the one on the staircase actually felt dangerous and events that could lead to Bond’s death. For me that’s something missing from SP and NTTD’s action sequences. I hope in the next era we get back some of that sense of danger and grittiness without necessarily having ‘grounded’ stories (if Bond can ever be).
I think you’re really right about CR’s impact though, and also B26 potentially not being that far off NTTD tonally. I think you could change a lot of the window dressing (the cast most obviously) and yet still be in the ballpark of NTTD’s tone and for it to still feel quite fresh.
I’m not sure why you feel you need one. If you won’t care then it’s fine, we agree.
That said I think NTTD sometimes lacks that edge that CR and SF have. While Paloma doing her thing in the Cuba section is cool and a nice subversive but lighthearted moment, I find Bond running around and making comedic faces as he jumps up from the bar after falling a great height a bit too lightweight. It doesn’t feel like he’s in danger. To a lesser extent the long take and slick choreography during the stair shootout gives me that impression too. I think Bond fights need a bit of grit - ie. The Travelyan fight at the end of GE, the Grant one in FRWL, the stair fight in CR etc. Again, I wouldn’t want them to sacrifice that in favour of superficial style. A part of what makes Bond gripping is believing in the situations he’s in, even if they’re outlandish. If they get that balance right and take broadly those ideas from NTTD (including honestly the fatalism and darkness of that film along with the lighter stuff) while maybe grounding some of the action sequences it could be interesting.
But then again, I guess the CR Bond didn’t actually die! :D
True! I think there’s at least a semblance of outlandishness in the feats Bond acomplishes in CR (running into an embassy and defeating a small army and all that, but that’s typical Bond film fare). In QOS I noticed Bond being ruffled a lot less and becoming a bit superhuman at points during action sequences. In SF he’s understandably not at his best and struggles at points, which again is very refreshing.
I like that the world around Bond slowly becomes more elaborate (or in the context of the film’s story ‘modern’) with us getting nanobots by NTTD, but it’s just those action sequences that don’t quite work all the time for me.
I think in terms of where they go next the closest film comparison is actually Barbie. That is a film which is loud and colourful and heightened and yet has characters with personal motivations and deals with real world themes. I think the next films will carry forth a sense of Bond being a living breathing person, just not in the context of him constantly running away to islands, mourning deaths of loved ones, overcoming trauma etc. It will be a much more a Bond with his armour back on, the icon. Just like how Barbie and Ken are both forst and foremost their iconic selves and behave how you would stereotypically them to based on their place in pop culture, but it doesn't get in the way of them having arcs and a progression.
Anyway, rant aside, it's also a very cartoonish film, which Bond films don't necessarily tend to be even if they're heightened or have individual gags. As I said it's also a very deconstructive film about Barbie and Ken, and I'm not sure how that chimes with a Bond who 'has his armour back on'. I understand it might have broad similarities in terms of perhaps Bond 26 being more stylised (but even then it really depends on how the film approaches things) but I'm not sure what Barbie will have to do with Bond.
You nailed it. Characters can have a progression without necessarily having to be realistic or grounded.
Bond doesn't have to go awol and run away, or fall out with his superiors or be immersed in trauama in every film in order for us to feel something for him. Once you realise and internalise that, you wonder why they keep putting him in the same situation each time, of being knocked back to zero and dusting himself off and getting back on the horse. There's no reason why a Bond with his armour back on can't work, and if that means the story happens to be a bit more deconstructionist (though not to the same degree as Barbie obviously, that is extreme) then I don't necessarily see the problem with that either. Perhaps it's just the next trend, like multiverses were, who knows? It's never been a problem that Bond films have a story with some complexity to it, as long as that doesn't mean going down the same avenue of becoming jaded, running off to an island and then needing to be gently coaxed back and rising like a pheonix. That's the part that has gotten really old, a big part of which is because it's completely unnecessary. A perfectly good, smart modern Bond film can be told in the vocabulary of a heightened world and quipy, enigmatic characters without the need for anyone to be haunted by their tragic pasts whatsoever.
True, but the progression of their character needs to feel real.
Ok... I suppose I don't ultimately know what any of that looks like one way or the other. If we're talking about a Bond with his 'armour on' that's pretty much Bond throughout the Craig era and every other interpretation. In CR he's quite stoic to Vesper about the fact his profession involves killing, in QOS he remains pretty stone faced at Mathis and his musings about Vesper, in SF even with his injuries he refuses to engage with the word association test and uses wry humour or blunt words around Moneypenny, M or Mallory about the topic etc.
If you're talking about moments of vulnerability (so in the case of Craig's films him talking with Vesper on the beach, or his moment alone on the plane in QOS, or his reaction to M's death) I would say Bond's armour coming down on occasion is what makes the character. You need those little cracks to show to make him feel like a tangible character, even if he's not strictly speaking a truly realistic one. That contrast can be impactful. It's why we get moments like the beach scene in GE or the hotel scene in TND.
Fair enough if you don't like how it's done in the Craig era (I don't want those same stories repeated in the exact same way either) but I'd like specific beats in the next film of Bond being human. Would you agree with that and if so what perhaps would you like to see in a future Bond film? :)
As for the deconstructist thing, I don't know what that would look like either. I guess it's there in the Craig era in various ways, but it's not quite like Barbie... I really don't know. Maybe the topic's a bit beyond me.
It really depends on how it's done I'd say and what specifically they'll do.
Complete tangent, but I watched SF on a very long flight I was on yesterday or the day before (it’s hard to tell!) and the bit which still tickles me is Bond’s reaction of sheer shock and disbelief when he sees the Komodo dragon: I love how silly and unlike him it is! Others might complain it’s out of character, but I think that’s why it’s funny.
I turned it off when I tried to watch it. Like you say, it’s a rubbish Lego movie ripoff, and just has no funny jokes in it. I was willing to laugh, but everything was just so laboured and clunky. Gosling running into a solid plastic wave is one of the first gags in it, and you see it coming a mile off- I just thought of something like Lego Batman where the gags are unexpected and quirky and actually funny. And then Kate McKinnon turns up doing the oddball schtick we’ve seen a dozen times before from her. Even before you get to the mangled message of the thing it’s just not very good at being a fun, cartoonish comedy.
I agree, but being human doesn't have to strictly mean trauma and, depression. Each of the films post-CR put Bond in a dark place emotionally and he has to find a new lease on life by the end. I still don't know why he is seemingly depressed at the start of SP. Okay, he got a message from M from beyond the grave he can just investigate it quietly, but why is he so emotional? spatting with M and Denbigh? lounging around in a robe gazing wistfully at a photo? what got him in such a state of malaise? There's a massive difference between Bond feeling things, getting frustrated, letting things get personal in the heat of the moment etc. And him being psychologically and emotionally shook with trauma to the point that he frequently either quits the service or goes rogue on missions on his own making. Again, bond being pushed to his limits on occasion is par for the course, he even loses his cool at Dr Nos dinner table, but he's not rising like a pheonix out of some deep personal malaise in that instance. It just isn't necessary to go that far with the character most of the time. There's a lot of other ways you can inject a feeling of weight and consequence into a story without it meaning Bond has to be an emotional wreck each time.
The idea he can’t look at some old paperwork without being accused of being in a malaise (he literally just looks at it: it’s not like Brosnan bursting into tears watching Electra’s kidnap vid) is very odd.
I like his reaction to the Komodo dragon. You can almost hear him saying 'what the hell is that?' through his body language and pointing at it. I also like how the goon is having none of it and continues the fight.
Yeah, Barbie just wasn't my thing on a basic comedy level either. The 2001 opening annoyed me when I first saw it in the cinema. It's just such an overused gag.
I'm just not seeing much of that if I'm honest.
In SF he has to get over his injuries and has his issues with M. That's trauma I suppose (although very broadly, and Bond isn't exactly wallowing in it), and his drinking and self isolation I guess are signs of his profession taking its toll on him as well as a way of him self medicating, but I'm not quite sure if it's as weighty as you're making it out to be. I think it's handled well and is very much in keeping with the character. That's the important thing, surely?
In SP he's actually got a bit of a new lease on life at the beginning, which comes from SF's ending. From the moment we see him strut across the roof the film makes it clear Bond is back and confident. I'm just not really seeing any of that angsty depression. Even his sparring with C is humorous, wry, and very much in keeping with how Bond would act in front of someone he doesn't like. His scenes with Q and Moneypenny are pretty relaxed and humorous. Perhaps you need to rewatch the film? I don't know if you've just not seen it in a while, but I'm actually quite surprised as I just don't see any of that at all. He doesn't really overcome anything emotionally in the film despite his association with Blofeld.
Like I said, I think much of it comes down to how they do certain things. I don't want a repeat of the Craig era either, but I'm sure there'll be some overlap in some of these areas at some point, even if just very generally.
It's quite funny considering Brosnan obviously can't cry on cue either.
Buuuuut, to play devils advocate; my personal problem with Craig in SP is that I personally don’t find him to be as engaging as he was in his first 3 films (and NTTD as well.) I find that the vigorous energy behind his first 3 performances as Bond is somewhat lost here in SP, and while I don’t think he was phoning in his performance in the way that another Bond did when he was bored; I still come away feeling something was lacking. Perhaps that could be due to SP not really being as “deep” or “thought provoking” as Craig’s other Bond films. Maybe it was because of fatigue? I don’t know but those are just my thoughts; I do like the scene where he’s drunk and pointing a gun at a rat that leads him to the evidence he needed.
Don't forget the hand to the mouth. That's how you know he's sad.
Even SF and QOS have limits to Bond's depressive state I'd say (and I definitely think 'depressive state' is a bit of a wide term in these contexts, and perhaps even a bit simplified). He's obviously going through it in both, but his mask is very much up. He still goes around seducing women to get the job done, cracks jokes etc. It's still dramatically interesting, but I don't think you can have Bond moping around for half a film. He's not a character who wears his heart on his sleeve, and as you said his issues in the context of a film will be more introspection.
I kinda get what you mean about Craig in SP. I do like his more relaxed performance though, and it's actually quite refreshing seeing his Bond that at ease.
I agree, the mouse scene is cool! It's not exactly Bond putting down his armour but it's a humorous moment which plays around with the idea of how dangerous his profession can be (obviously he's staying up for people who could potentially kill him and all that) and Bond's wry attitude towards it. It's interesting seeing Bond drinking heavily and getting a bit intoxicated (similar to the TND hotel scene which is another of my favourites), and again puts a nice emphasis on how the character's alcohol consumption/habit intersects with his job. If they can come up with another semi humorous but dramatically interesting moment like that in the new era I'd be up for it. Or even just another scene of Bond staying up with a gun and a bottle of vodka, plotting for waiting for someone. They're the sort of nice, texture filled, and Fleming-esque moments that are really interesting in the modern Bond films.
Not even remotely.
It's not big enough. Not for Bond, and not for the audience.
What his death is, is a perfectly executed MID POINT TWIST. It flips Bond in a new direction.
Right up until, Felix's death, Bond had absolutely no intention of returning to M, nor the service. But with the information he found, combined with Leiter's death (obviously meaning that Leiter could no longer help on the quest), Bond is forced to return to the bosom of MI6 to continue his journey.
The end of ACT II should see our protagonist at his lowest, when it appears as if everything has been taken away from him-- in this case it's when his lover and his child have been kidnapped by the Big Bad Wolf. That leads us to ACT III and a proper climax.
You may hate the film, but the writers, and I'd emphasize Fukunaga, in particular, knows the anatomy of a screenplay, and hit his marks with smoothness and aplomb...
That's interesting considering the death of felixs wife was considered big enough to be the motivation for an entire film earlier in this series, but I'll bear that in mind. ;)