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And thats just the Nine Eyes stuff.
What about the whole 'follow the photos I got from press kits for last 3 Bond films' schlock inside MI6?
If Bond doesnt just shrug off the two goons and the cable ties on his wrists what exactly are their instructions? To untie him and push him inside so Ernst can have his fun? Surely they arent supposed to take him him to Blofeld or the Googling and printing out the Mads Mikkleson, Eva Green and Judi Dench mugshots was all in vein?
I get the sense that this is all supposed to try and show us just how omnipotent Blofeld is when its just utterly lame. Its like they literally wrote it in an afternoon and then at around 6 o'clock thought 'Bugger it its time for Pointless.'
The final insult is to have Madeline trussed up like Penelope f**king Pitstop. Is this supposed to be some hilarious Mendes homage to silent movies? Is this really where we are at with Bond script writing in the 21st century?
Even in the cinema I rolled my eyes at that! :))
Agreed with everything.
Everything about the final act (or, perhaps more accurately, everything post-L’Americain) is done poorly. It's all about as aimless as the train ride through and to the middle of nowhere.
They actually missed a chance at a decent TMWTGG funhouse homage with the shooting range stuff, though, seeing as how homages are Mendes' thing. Instead of pictures, maybe mannequins or wax figures made to look just like Vesper, Le Chiffre, M, etc. placed strategically along the path that Blofeld wants Bond to take on his way to both him and Madeleine? It's still tied to the bad idea of the pictures, but at least would, if done correctly, give Bond something of the jolt I think the pictures were meant to elicit.
Except for QOS - that movie makes no sense if you haven't seen CR. QOS starts with Bond driving around Tuscany with Mr White in his booth. If you haven't seen CR, you're not at all clear as to why this story starts as it does. Even the ending of QOS refers to CR through Vesper's necklace and the confrontation with her Algerian "boyfriend".
The strength of Bond movies has always been that you can join the franchise at any time. As a kid I discovered them non-sequentially, but that was no problem because each movie stood on its own. Only the beginning of DAF or FYEO might leave you somewhat puzzled. The Craig-era leaves us with two movies out of four that require viewing of the other two to make sense.
That being said, I still think Waltz didn't step up to the mark in this movie. I found him lacking in menace. In the Rome-scene, I found him addressing Bond a chilling moment, but because of the reaction of Bond, not because of the threat Blofeld should pose. He acted too much the Bond-villain, just like Jonathan Pryce in TND ("Delicious") - a fine actor, but trying too hard to be a Bond-villain. The same with Christopher Walken. I found Robert Davi far more effective in his unpredictability. Or the ones that really underplayed it: Robert Wiseman, Gert Frobe, Christopher Lee, Curd Jurgens ...
The Blofeld character is problematic scriptwise as well - it makes the motivations of this global terrorist leader childish. OK, so maybe he didn't put up this entire terrorist organisation as compensation for the fatherly love he supposedly lacked. He is however willing to risk a large part of that organisation to get his vengeance on the man he believes stole his father's affection. Please!
This comment nails it. The Craig era took one of the best things about the franchise and through it in the bin.
And there lies the final indignity for SP's third act.
When even @Mendes4lyfe is laughing at you you really need to consider a rewrite.
They also do a decent job of filling in everything in the post-title scene before the interrogation of White begins.
If QoS being a sequel is the biggest complaint that can be dug up regarding Craig's first three films, then I'd say that they did everything just about right. It was only with Spectre that they really began messing things up. Any errors made prior to that were very much minor compared to what transpired on screen with Spectre.
If any Craig film has "ruined everything", it's Spectre.
But there is a happy balance that I think they should have gotten to sooner. He's basically vacant throughout QoS, there's only so long the character can be suspended in the same tortured state without any kind of relief.
CR presents them with the next opportunity for Bond to avenge the death of a loved one, so they go about making the harder-edge follow-up that everyone said they wanted then, and there's still complaints about it. What they pulled off with QoS was pretty darn close to perfect as far as I'm concerned, at least in terms of it being what it needs and wants to be. There's elements of a revenge film in there, but it's not really a revenge film. It has moments of humor, but it's as bleak a Bond film as there could be.
And I don't buy for one instant that Bond is vacant throughout the film. Is he pissed? Yeah, rightfully so I'd say. Still, at each and every turn, characters in the film level that same complaint against him, that he's vacant, that he's gone out for revenge and can't be trusted (in other words, he's not the Bond they all knew and loved), yet he proves at every step of the film that they're dead wrong, that his focus has been on the mission every step of the way. It's not until he finally gets his hands on Greene in the middle of the desert that he makes sure that he gets what he's been looking for on a personal level throughout the film. To that point, it's been all about uncovering the organization behind Le Chiffre and stopping Dominic Greene.
@dalton My problem with QOS isn't that they were tricking anyone. But your point of view departs from someone viewing QOS at its initial release. However, quite some members on this community discovered the Bond-movies many years after their original release.
In which case QOS can only be fully appreciated and understood if you first saw CR. And that's a first in the franchise. The scene in QOS after the PTS only brings the audience which saw CR up to speed again after a 2 year hiatus - it does nothing for someone who didn't see CR before.
Also, I don't get why a reboot should automatically include sequelising the franchise? Surely, a reboot means that the character is reintroduced - but why would that mean that all other movies should be linked to the first one in the reboot?
For all of the problems, though, with QoS being a sequel, SP goes even further and does far more damage in that area than QoS could have ever hoped to have achieved. I think you can watch QoS without having seen CR, and at least be able to get caught up in Bond going after Dominic Greene and the Quantum organization, even if the Vesper stuff doesn't make any sense to you. Still, I don't think that it's necessary to watch CR to get that either, all you need to know is that he had a woman taken from him by the bad guys. They explain that to you in the first scene post-titles. But, back to SP, you can't watch that film without knowledge of every one of the three films that precedes it. This is because Bond's arc in the film is divorced from the film's main plot. While M and Moneypenny are going after the film's true villain, C, and his desire to get nine countries to vote "yes", Bond is galavanting around the globe trying to kill the man who is responsible for all the bad things that happened to him in the previous three films. As flimsy as the connections are, they're there, and not knowing who Silva, Greene, Le Chiffre, M, and Vesper are make a good chunk of SP make little sense at all.
The damage was done by the time of SP, that's why the retconning doesn't bother me. I mean, CR and QoS are twin films (OK), then in the next film Bond is past it, too old for a field agent? In CR, Bond says that 00's have a short life expectancy, so you'd think theI6 would want to hold onto the ones that survive for a couple of years.
By the time SP came, I didn't really care about trying to make things make sense on a timeline anymore. All that had already gone out of the window, as far as I was concerned.
Had QOS been a completely independent story, "tying loose ends" in SP would have been more far fetched.
The tying up of loose ends is, even with QoS as it is, completely far-fetched. Everything was, more or less, tied up. There's no way that Quantum, in the 7 years between QoS and SP, would have gone ignored by MI6. It stands to reason that Bond, M, and whoever else confronted them and, at worst, drove them underground in the time between QoS. Bond had taken care of those that had wronged him in CR with his actions in QoS, and there's just no reason to think that anyone associated with Quantum managed to last those seven years while maintaining any of the power they had while in the organization's employ.
It was SP that brought all of that back into play after the series had its greatest commercial success with a standalone story in SF. The smart move would have been to continue in that direction and with the promise that the end of that film gives, which was everything in the Bond universe has been set back to the way it was, and now it's on to business as usual. Instead, we got a film that ties up loose ends that nobody really needed tied up and sought to put a villain in place that was retroactively in charge of everything bad that had happened, which is really an insult to the intelligence of the viewer.
While QoS might have changed the direction of the franchise a bit due to it being the first true sequel, it didn't do any damage to the franchise. SP, on the other hand, has lessened three other films thanks to its unnecessary retconning that has done nothing but cannibalize three solid Bond films in an effort to prop up its flimsy story that, quite literally, is simply about a government bureaucrat trying to get nine men to vote "yes".
A question though. Do we feel Bond 25 can't positively be an independent story with Craig as Bond? I mean, all of the pre-Craig movies ended with Bond sailing/flying/... into the sunset/sunrise with some beauty, usually after rescuing her from certain death.
Or has the Craig-era reprogrammed us to such an extent, that we now feel Madeleine surely has to return?
Bang on @dalton, I'd agree and despite the odd mistep this era has been fine.
Yes the plot holes in SF but it has a compelling edge that is severely lacking in SPECTRE.
I think you could have tied these films together but two monkeys at the typewriter couldn't even take their own existing ideas an come up with something coherent or plausible.
The scanning of the ring and the ESB backstory make the plot points that many groaning seem mild, this for me is the dumbest idea in the whole 53 year history of the series.
Though on a brighter note kudos to the SPECTRE admin dept that photocopying is mightly impressive. Lol!
I don't think we are now brainwashed that we want this linking of films to continue its just that we are now stuck with it. I dont see how they can just ignore it now without the audience giving a collective 'huh??'
EON had everything tied up in QOS re Vesper. OK so some people whinged about Mr White still being out there and not a proper resolution for Quantum but with SF it was like we had gone back to business as usual and lets just put Quantum behind us. It was only us fans who even remembered Quantum existed anyway and its not like they were so good that we needed them to return.
At the end of SF everything was finally fully rebooted for a business as usual Bond film. And then it all went horribly wrong.
You have to say it would have been better had the McClory estate kept the rights to SPECTRE and Blofeld for another 5 years. That way we might have got 2 more classic standalone Bond films from Dan in 2015 and 2018 to finish off his tenure and then they could have planned out the SPECTRE reboot with a new actor over the course of several films.
What happened instead is they got the rights and instead of thinking long term they decided to captialise on the fact they have a very popular actor in the role. The trouble was they couldnt be sure he'd do another one so they spunked their wad in just one film from the emergence of SPECTRE to Blofeld being defeated. I imagine part of this was a bargaining chip to persuade Mendes to return. By saying he could do the Blofeld reboot it was too good for him to turn down.
But by doing this they have just reduced SPECTRE and Blofeld to another Quantum and Greene. SPECTRE need building up over at least one or two films to be shown as this evil organisation with grandiose schemes.
Why couldnt they have had a Craig YOLT combining both the book and film versions which would have a classic larger than life SPECTRE plan that needed foiling but perhaps ends on a massive cliffhanger with an amnesiac Bond being captured by SPECTRE after he stops their scheme? The first half they could have had all the Aston chases and homages they wanted and gone for a classic Roger style romp. Then just as everyone is thinking it is just a standard Bond film and it looks like Bond has succeeded and stopped their plan:- 'wallop' Hinx hits him on the head and the rug is pulled out from under the audience's feet as they realise that this isnt quite going to be a classic Bond film.
Then we have some really dark disturbing scenes like in the Ipcress File but turned up to 11 showing Bond being brainwashed by a Blofeld WHOSE FACE WE NEVER SEE. The final scene would be Bond pulling his gun on M and then end credits on this epic cliffhanger.
Isnt there enough character development there to satisfy Mendes? And the good thing is its all from Fleming and not the deranged minds of P&W.
For a minute I suspected Swann could even turn out to be a villainess as P+W are so obsessed to copy from their TWINE script.
Even Vesper they made into a villain.
They didn't turn her into a villain; they put a more action-packed spin on the twist her character receives in Fleming's novel.
Yes, Vesper Lynd was never exactly heroic to start with considering she was a Russian double agent who betrayed Bond in the end. Still, "the bitch is dead now."
Cinematically she is the good girl turning bad as suddenly as Elektra in TWINE
She's not, though. There's a difference between the villain-in-disguise Elektra, who uses everyone, kills her own father, and is responsible for the deaths of plenty of innocent people, just to forward her family's legacy. Vesper gets blackmailed but then fluctuates, and does what she does in the end for Bond. She gets to go out on a bout of redemption, much like May Day.
And the award for 'Most Idiotic Comment 2016' seems sewn up.
Something of a surprise as I had a tenner on @Mendes4lyfe as nailed on favourite at 7/4.