It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
It's been over 3 years since I've last seen DAD to be honest, but I do remember that EON was at least making some attempt to make Bond more violent, and give I guess give more character depth. I just can't imagine why they would try and angle in that approach in a film that's as out of this world as that one. But this series shift from 02-06 is definitely nothing compared to what happened post OHMSS.
I can't let any DAD-CR comparisons stand. I would be able to find very little pairings from the franchise that feel more different.
While DAD used action as entertainment fare, CR legitimized the violence and danger and actually made the punches and kicks mean something. Instead of cracking jokes through fights with no hairs out of place, afterward Craig Bond is covered in blood, sweat, or both. He gets scars that remain from scene to scene, and not just the physical ones either. Already CR quite maturely agrees to show audiences the very visible consequences of Bond's work, and when he makes mistakes it costs him.
When it comes to women, we go from a cardboard cut-out leading woman in DAD who talks like she's straight off the set of a porno ("I'm good, especially when I'm bad") to women in CR that have actual personalities and carry chemistry with their leading man. The talks Bond has with them also have consequences and meaning. Solange's mouth gets her hung up dead, and Vesper and Bond's interactions can gauge everywhere from playful and sassy to brutal and damaging. Even when Bond spats with M, he actually pays for it and the moment feels explosive despite DAD having the same exact woman in the part who isn't able to create the same magic. When Bond has a so-called serious talk in DAD we quickly move on from the exchange as if it didn't happen. In a sense, DAD gives the impression of executing or experimenting with something, without ever taking it past the starting line. It's the equivalent of showing up to a ceremony and expecting a trophy like the big winners just for being there, despite doing nothing to earn one.
If I can be afforded another figurative example, comparing DAD and CR is essentially like calling two dissertation papers the exact same when the former was no more than two pages of badly researched rubbish and the second was a long form write-up with visible effort and passion behind it, where ideas were explored to their furthest details. I think we can guess which paper DAD would be in this hypothetical scenario.
It's not just the bad CGI, it's about standing against the very limits of what a Bond film should be, and pissing all over said line. When a movie ends with Bond surfing glaciers and driving off an ice cliff to escape a giant beam from space, we've well and truly lost the sense of what a Bond film should strive to be. Add to that one of the all-time lamest villain concepts of the whole series, a titles song that resembles the sound of you jamming your hand into a blender at full blast and more groan-inducing script moments than an Akiva Goldsman screenplay, and we've got a big issue.
DAD can have all the fans it wants, but let's not entertain the notion that it's worthy of standing toe to toe with CR in any respects (or most of the other Bond films, for that matter). Not even its fans would think such an exercise was fruitful, as we discussed just in the past day.
If you'd care to reread the original post, not at one point in my post did I even compare DAD to CR. All I merely said was that EON was starting to at least attempt to show some human element of Bond in DAD, which would be better executed in CR. Nor did I defend DAD in any of my posts as well. Obviously CR is miles better than DAD, but to give the film some credit, just like Brosnan's other films, they attempt to create some layer of depth and add new elements too the films each and every film. It all just usually crashes and burns afterwards. The torture scene is a good example. While the actually scene is shitty itself, we see Bond with long hair, and a beard. He's looking all roughed up and brusied. But as soon as he checks into he becomes 'Superman' again. Another point would be the films premise, we start with Bond deserted by MI6, and wanting to go after the people who set him up. But that concept is just lost in a frustrating manner. I will be the first to critique the faults of the Brosnan era, but I'll defend the man himself.
CR is one of the classics. DAD is certainly not.
But it's hilarious how some here put CR and Craig on a pedestal that high that obviously their thinking gets clouded by the thin air.
CR continued what DAD did in many aspects. If you choose not to see that, then be it.
There is no "world" between DAD and CR. It's downright ridiculous to claim that the gap between DAD and CR is bigger than the gap between OHMSS and DAF.
But as it is Brosnan-Craig against Lazenby-Connery of course it must be forbidden to say so.
And the occasional quip by always the same members here just shows that they are out of arguments or unwilling to actually think something over before replying. Pathetic, as Elliot Carver would say.
+1
I was responding to Jason, you just got caught up in the quoting when I replied. But as you say, the problems of the Brosnan era start with good ideas never carried through.
In comparison to DAD, CR quite deserves that pedestal. Going from what could easily be argued as one of the worst films, if not the worst, in the series to what many consider is the best or at least a top three contender, is pretty giant. I've made my arguments, and I don't bother speaking about DAD more than I have to. It's the only Bond film I'm embarrassed to tears over, so I fail to see how it was carrying a torch for CR in any way, shape or form, considering that every element of the film is bettered three times over by every other Bond film, and ten times over by CR. This isn't even me being at all hyperbolic.
So I would say the change over is larger than OHMSS to DAF. Like CR OHMSS is the superior film, but it carried into a movie that was Hamilton-esque and very GF influenced. In short, it wasn't a good film going to a bad one like it is the very bad DAD going to CR. I think the change from DAD to CR is so crazy because you go from the bottom of the pit to a soaring high. OHMSS was a soaring high going back to what could be argued as a standard level or middling film, but that isn't one of the worst by any means. As a result, more of the style of OHMSS remains in DAF than DAD does in CR, largely because DAD threw a bunch of garbage on the wall to see what could stick, including the atrocious CGI and writing of a five year old dyslexic, whereas CR stripped all that back and did a very restrained but smart spy film.
The Amsterdam hotel meeting with Tiffany is more clever than the whole of DAD, just as the hotel meeting with Bond and Blofeld talking outclasses it in any moments of supposed tensions the 2002 effort has. DAF is the result of what happens when you have a vision, and DAD when you have no idea about what you're making. A sped up sword fight and average PTS do not a strong Bond film make.
@007ClassicBondFan
I realise (once more actually) that nothing after TND could compare to what came before overall.
I think it's P+W actually. TND remains their only good script.
There have been other enjoyable, even good Bond films of course after TND, but overall I see your point. I may as well, in the long run, stick to what was between 62-89, probably including 95-97 as well.
OMG really? My mistake. That makes the case against them even stronger then. Wow.
Although, Jeffrey Caine would've been interesting. Even though I haven't read his draft.
Craig should do the script. Agreed.
QOS has the best story by far in this era.
It's a quiet script, but Dan and the rest of the cast are so good they do amazing work with it. If I had to rate dialogues and script content, QoS would be very high in the franchise overall. Examining it as is, I would never have thought it was made during a writer's strike.
I'm not sure I'd like to see Butterworth back for Bond 25, by the way. It's hard to tell what he added to SP, but I really didn't like his comment where he stated Bond doesn't talk to men, he kills him. Clearly he's missed the entire first twenty years of Bond films, where Bond and the villains were chatty Charlies together. One of my favorite things about these movies is how Bond and the baddies play verbal chess, and that doesn't seem to be Butterworth's style unfortunately. My hope is that the large part of the script will be P&W, and only minor touch-ups will go to other writers, as is usual for them.
+1.
I like the dialogue in QOS as well. Only SP had better and I suspect that's due to Butterworth so I want him back to correct any possible mistakes that P+W may do.
The dramatic scenes are largely very well played. The only problem I have in terms of writing is with the odd line that sounds like it was written for a film trailer:
"You only have one shot...make it count"
"I don't think the dead care about vengeance"
Based on my last viewing of the film the other week I think the action is largely the films Achilles heel.