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Without QoS, SF would not have had as much merit for Bond and M's relationship.
In Quantum the closest to this are scenes with Mathis, the one at his Villa and the one on the airplane.
Especially the one on the airplane...wow!
Yes, that was the Dramatic Scene of QoS! Nothing as dramatic until Vesper's picture shows up once again in NTTD....SP id it tkk but it didn't use the Vesper theme.
Yep. And none of those afirementioned scenes in SF and NTTD come close to matching the airplane scene.
Wanting a QoS in concert one day....
I wonder if attendees will hear a faint farting toot that doesn't sound as good as the score when Bond and M are driving through the rain from the Highlands to Skyfall manner.
You know the tune I'm taking about?
I agree. She begins to know what she has in Bond, which makes it mystifying why that seemed to change in SF. "Take the bloody shot!" will never makes sense. M put her faith in an inexperienced agent and not enough trust in her top agent to recover the list. There are so many flaws in that film that get overlooked amidst the praise.
Thank you.
I think this scene was more about M's desperation to cover her own arse more than not trysting Bond. She took a gamble and lost and, in her own words, "fucked up". By this stage she was more than willing to do anything by any means to not expose the fact she had information she wasn't supposed to have.
You're covering for the writers here, I think. At the end of QOS she was one M. "Take the shot" was a different M IMHO.
The film's many flaws including, but not limited to, all the plot-convenience to shortcut so much. They overcompensated from QoS over the whole "simple plot" thing.
Every down to earth Bond movie like FYEO or QoS was followed by another one that made more money. But often those more money sequels were watched because the last one kept people wanting more Bond. The money sequels get over-marketed and it seems like there is more comfort by the production.
Well she starts off on the wrong foot anyway. Panicking about the hard-drive and letting her man die, ordering Bond to continue the chase immediately. It is odd that right after QoS, when he wins her trust, she starts to distrust him again. Its a line I do have trouble with, as it's continued by the current M, who keeps programmes running that have strong ethical problems. How is he now different from the CIA-s 'blackstone' project in the Bourne films? There was no need for it either. It didn't need to be a MI6 facility. Hopefully the focus of the next Bond won't be on MI6 and its failures, but just on a thread from the outside. I guess with the current political situation, that is what the public wants anyway.
I'm not too certain about that. M was kind of wish-washy towards Bond and had trust inconsistencies throughout QoS. Seconds after she had him disarmed and taken into custody, Bond escapes, mutters something about Fields being brave and now all of a sudden M trusts Bond?? Personally, I feel like M I'm QoS and SF wasn't that different. She found herself in a bind at the start of SF and ifbit potentially meant Bond would end up dead, so be it.
Alternatively, there's a long time jump between QOS and SF, so who knows what Bond had done in that period? At the start of SF, something might've happened in the recent past to make M seriously narked with him, like BookM was with BookBond in YOLT, and have less patience with his methods/be less inclined to give him so much leeway.
Or M might actually be losing her touch and have started making too many mistakes. There was a scene in an early version of the SF script, where Felix met M in a park and told her that the CIA weren't going to share intel with her any more, because 'you're not trustwrthy, you can't keep secrets and you f--- up.' Bond's (apparent) death would've been the last straw for Leiter, but that line suggests that it wouldn't have been the first of M's errors to come to the CIA's attention.
Lots of possible readings - which is good, because it allows us to still be discussing it a decade on!
On a slightly related note, I know it's a different timeline and a different M but in GE Dench told Bond she's ballsy enough to send a man out to die albeit not on a whim. This kind of sums up what transpired in SF's PTS. Ronson ("leave him!") and Bond.
You nailed it.
Did you know that out of the 25 official Bond movies, 8 or 9 of them have been ridiculous/OTT and haven't aged well? Thankfully none of them are DC's.
Also like how the Action sequences in QoS and CR are very varied and suspenseful rather than copout over the top shootouts and explosions (e.g. crane/rooftop chase, car chase, boat chase, plane fight, torture scene, surprise knife fight, getting out of the hotel unarmed and unnoticed).
Also the dialogue was much more believable, and Bond was not an old bitter wanker.
The good old days...
Largely agreed, though I think Bond's elevator escape was lazy. I still can't reconcile CR and QOS with the movies that came after them. They seem like different two different Bonds in two different continuities. Imagine Connery doing DN-FRWL-GF-TB but also LALD, TMWTGG, TSWLM, and MR, that's how the two different eras of Craig feel.
These statements are each completely on the point!
In fact, Connery's own last threw Bond movies felt too different from the first 4. Notice when the incredible plots, and megalomaniacal action sets and sequences trumped credibility. It never was too difficult to make a more worthy and direct sequel to movies like QoS or FRWL. Instead the series kept making megalomaniac style films that were over the top. Even Daniel Craig said in an interview after SF that the franchise had "earned" its underground volcanic layer for its villains' hideouts. It's mainly because SF earned a lot of box office money back on its heavy marketing. They thought by forgetting Quantum they'd make more money and get more Oscar recognition.
The producers recently came out saying they are disappointed that DC or their recent movie NTTD didn't make much award recognition...well, let this be their learning moment that the credibility and realism of Quantum from CR-QoS had lots of wasted potential. Spectre rights were bought and needlessly used simply because of encouragement from that John Logan guy. Original plans for SP were to have Quantum back and for its main head villain revealed as a woman. It was tentatively titled Red Sky at Dawn. Forget that story though...the point is that the series has had so much potential but has always dropped the ball in favour of tropes and checklists of cliches that have grown stale. When CR and QoS didn't necessarily use phrases like "shaken, not stirred" or "Bond, James Bond", or have Bond sleep with surviving lady, they took risk. They never took the right kind of risk it takes to earn more awards when moving as far away from these cliches as possible.
Had they stuck with Paul Haggis and kept John Logan out (and Sam Mendes too)....you see, they need to keep the fanboys of the cliche stuff out and away from directing. No more crash and burn.
Hmm I'm not so sure Haggis' sentiments are limited to two films or forgotten.
From: http://www.patreon.com/posts/james-bond-craig-63026678
Having said that, QoS was the first Bond film I saw in the cinema, so I do have something of a sentimental attachment because of that. I think Craig gives an incredible performance, it's the best he's looked physically and sartorially (especially wrt the dinner jacket).
I think the cinematography is amazing, there's a wonderful sense of style which is hampered by the editing but to be slightly charitable when it works it really works, no matter how many times I watch it when in the PTS the lorry slams into Alfa Romeo it physically jolts me. The film is visceral, uniquely, which is a blessing and a curse. It's a film which assumes your participation rather than drawing you in but it's one that if you do engage with it it's all the more rewarding for it.
I think also this might be my be my favourite score, maybe even more than Casino Royale, "Time to Get Out" is half the reason the PTS is as good as it is, and the "No Good about Goodbye" leitmotif that Arnold sprinkles throughout it is gorgeous.
And I have to say "Another Way to Die" is a guilty pleasure, it isn't as technically competent as "You Know My Name" but I'm glad that they doubled down on the rock ballad.
I could go on but yeah it's a flawed film in a lot of ways but there's also a lot to admire about it and I'm glad it's getting some more love.
David Arnold deserves more Bond movies. Sam Mendes and John Logan stunted Craig's potential but not his paycheck.
I always saw that as, the mission was falling apart, the cold way M tells Bond to leave Ronson and get after the list was meant to foreshadow that she'll sacrifice anybody for the mission, including Bond himself.
I'm clutching at straws admittedly mate, but that didn't bother me too much. Not as much as how M was written in QOS, she doesn't trust him at all in that film. M's character was a definite victim of the writers strike
Craig’s last film had Nanobots.
True but it was a parallel coincidentally to the pandemic. Plus, the concept of the virus had to be visualized by the nanobots. The way the bots were used wasn't like an invisible car.