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
Yes, there were low points under both reigns, that's for sure. Cubby gets a free pass from me because of Connery's first 3 films, OHMSS, and Tim's 2 films.
Babs and Mickey's reign only produced 1 movie that I really love, that can stand shoulder to shoulder alongside the likes of GF or FRWL, and that film is CR.
So Cubby's reign - 6 out of 16
B & M's reign - 1 out of 9
The `quite like' category -
Cubby's reign - TB, DAF, LALD, TMWTGG, FYEO, OP - 6 out of 16
Babs reign - TND, QoS, SF - 3 out of 9
Not sure what the ratio works out there. but I think Cubby's reign edges it. Also, the films I dislike the most are AVTAK, DAD, TWINE and NTTD, and we all know whose reign the majority of these films fall under.
9 is generous. FYEO is not even close. But how do we define classic? By how it impacted the franchise, or cinema in general.
To an extent, I feel like any decent (but not necessarily great) Bond movie that came out in the 60's would've been seen as a classic.
YOLT benefited from being early in the franchise. The story, characters and acting weren't really up to the heights of the previous movies, but it was still a part of that era, and evokes nostalgia. But as a standalone movie, a classic?
LALD is 50-50. It's a classic by Bond standards and it significantly shaped the franchise. But critics and serious movie buffs would probably consider it a decent but not extraordinary.
Excellent and sobering post.
I think you're being overly generous to Cubby. I count DN-GF, half a point each for the iconic-but-seriously-flawed TB and YOLT, OHMSS, TSWLM, and maybe TLD. That's 6 or 7 out of 16.
I'd give BB and MGW GE, CR, .5 for QoS, SF, and .5 for NTTD. That's 4 out of 9.
Pretty close.
Agreed. We're already seeing the strip mining of the Star Wars, Star Trek, Superman, and Batman legacies.
I hope the Broccolis stay in control.
I would add as well that every decision is made with optimism for the series in the long term (whether people feel it is right or wrong) and not the cynical need for short term gain.
I already know what the responses to that statement will be "but the killed Bond! It doesn't get any more cynical than that!". However, on the flipside....
They can literally go anywhere they want now. The slate is clean. They can do anything they want.
I really don't understand this sentiment. If Bond 26 was always going to be a reboot it wouldn't have mattered how NTTD ended. They could have had Bond living out the rest of his days with his family and B26 would still have been a "let's reintroduce Bond again" deal.
After all they didn't need to kill off Brosnan's Bond in DAD to make CR happen.
The difference with DAD is that it was a self-contained story, and not the end of a narrative arc. So your feelings towards a narrative arc as opposed to standalone stories will play into how you feel about that ending.
(I wasn't keen - as I said, I consider the era an admirable creative failure overall.)
Craig's price tag for returning for Bond 25 was that they kill off his character, so anything the producers say about the ending apart from that is just post-hoc rationalization.
MGM and Universal, as distributors, HAD TO AGREE. If they didn’t think this was a fitting end, and if they couldn’t market this film, they’d have asked for changes to the script, or they would have walked (after all, these are the guys in the hook for P&A).
For the producers, distributors and creatives, they agreed this was a fitting end to Craig’s arc— so whether it came from the actor, or no, all the Big Guns had to be on board!!
Sigh…
No it's not, unless they had no other choice but to agree to this so-called "price tag". Which, of course, they didn't have to.
This is it. You don't have to like the ending, but there's some pretty cynical justifications for the dislike floating around.
I don't think such a confirmation exists, and like you say probably wasn't the case. The decision to end NTTD that way, as with probably all things, is a big mix of reasons.
I feel like they just would have rebooted Bond for B25 and not done NTTD, if they didn't get Craig. I'm sure the revenue generated from a Bond film with a new actor wouldn't be significantly worse than a fifth Craig Bond film.
Everyone seems to think MGM and all were just at the mercy of Daniel Craig, and I really don't think that was the likely case.
Getting back on topic here. I have one more on the fence idea:
Letting the man playing James Bond have how much power. Daniel Craig seemed to get WAY too much of final say on things, it seems. Sean Connery didn’t get much power and that why Cubby and Harry lost him. Another flaw of Cubby’s part. George Lazenby pretty much screwed himself, with the acceptance of doing his own stunts. Roger Moore did Bond mostly for fun. Timothy Dalton got his main request in thankfully: more human approach to the movies. Pierce Brosnan kind of got what Connery got and EON was arguably worse to PB. He had a few ideas that they used, like Paris being a past lover. But they should have been more fair to PB, as he doesn’t seem to look at his Bond time that positively. My point: EON, should give a fair amount of creative control to the person playing Bond. Keep it within fairness, though. Don’t bow down to the actor the way EON did for Craig. Long waits for average movies can drive the biggest supporters away.
When it comes to the discussions about making NTTD, I was never sure if Dan had brought up the 'long forgotten' idea of Bond's death as his deal-breaker for coming back or if BB raised it first as the lure to get him interested in doing one more. But in Variety, Craig said 'I didn’t bring it back up again until this one', which suggests that Craig raised it first.
https://variety.com/2021/film/news/no-time-to-die-ending-james-bond-death-daniel-craig-1235144941/
This feels right. I think Craig would have walked after SP if it had been better received.
That's 3 out of 9. QoS and NTTD are not deemed classics, if anything they are very polarising to the fan base (particularly NTTD).
It appears as though this was the deal breaker to get Craig back for NTTD, even though it was apparently casually suggested at the start of Craig's tenure that he once said to Babs he would like Bond to be killed off during his tenure.
I doubt that early casual conversation stuck around for each movie (including SP), but it appears as though this was the deal to get him back one final time.
I get the impression Babs (more than anyone else) fought for him to come back at any cost for this last film, so ultimately it was her decision.
KEEP
1. Most of the tone of the last two movies (well, save the last section of NTTD). Spectre is where EON finally stopped being afraid to make a James Bond movie. Ejector seats, crater bases, bionic eyes, all wonderfully whimsically stuff mixed into slightly serious films. Just what I love.
2. The A-list directors and cinematography. The last four Bond movies are easily among the best-looking blockbusters I've ever seen, and I would not want to return to the bland, generic look of Martin Campbell or Roger Spottiswoode-type stuff.
3. Disregarding fan opinion. The Bond fan community is full of lovely folks who have some terrible ideas about what James Bond films should be like, and many only really like 10-30% of the incredibly successful films released in the last 30 years. It seems clear to me that the producers have not been listening to these people, and they should continue in that fashion.
GET RID OF
1. Multi-film arcs. I liked the one they did with Craig, but they don't need to do another one. Let this be an anthology they did once.
2. Ballads as theme songs. Again, the last three movies all had pretty decent songs, but it's enough of that flavor now. Don't need rock either. Duran Duran are as great as ever, why not go pop?
3. Bad guys being connected to MI6. This has happened to some degree in every movie since Goldeneye. It was lame in the Brosnan era, and more organic in the Craig era, and not really bad at all, but it's enough for now.
I don't know that Goldeneye was any kind of critical darling, and I think it's generous to assume that the early classics were considered incredible films upon release, or that their current status is somehow related to the writing/direction/producers/etc.
Goldeneye was met with large enthusiasm from most quarters. There was real hype for the film because it was the first Bond film for 6 years (the longest gap at that time), and it was a "perceived" return to form (or formula). Lighter tone, sexier, quippier, great action set pieces. It was also timely as it was released at the time of "Cool Britannia".
As for what I'd keep from the Craig era...hard to say. Not much to be honest.
I would much prefer EON film the 3 Anthony Horowitz. Those 3 books are the best stories since Ian Fleming.
I prefer my Bond in the 1950's and 60's.
I would hire Quentin Tarantino (watching Once Upon A Time In Hollywood was like stepping in a time machine to a different - and cooler - age), get Henry Cavill on a 3 picture deal and shoot these 3 books back-to-back.
That would make me happier than happy hour in Bangkok!
I would add: A Bond Girl actress with different nationality, don't know, I'm just tired of French actresses being cast as Bond Girls, and it happened consistently in the Craig Era:
1. Eva Green - Pure French
2. Olga Kurylenko - Half French
3. Berenice Marlohe - Half French
4. Lea Seydoux - Pure French
I would liked to see maybe an Irish one? Australian? Brazilian? Croatian? German (Maria Freudenstein, anyone?), Quebecois (Vivienne Michel?)
Many here shouting for Marion Cotillard, another French Actress again?
Let's give some French actresses a rest for a while.
Same for the locations as well, have Bond travel outside of Europe.
I agree with this.
I was trying to show willing and unbiasedness on Babs reign by sticking GE in there too, but no, you are probably right. Just 2 classic movies in the Babs/Mickey era.
Not sure what the early classics were thought of on initial release (I wasn't born then), but judging by Bondmania of 1964, I'm guessing Bond was quite popular.
And who else would you acknowledge as being responsible for the success of those early pictures, if not for the writers/producers/direction? Sean Connery alone?
Yeah, and always will be.
Dalton also voiced that he thought LTK may be the last Bond film.
James Bond was becoming irrelevant and the producers seemingly didn’t know how to recreate themselves.
James Bond almost became no more under Cubby’s watch and he considered selling at this point.
Since Barbara and Michael took over, they’ve not only made this character a competitor in a more crowded film market, they’ve reinvented the character making him relevant again (and how many franchises are they competing against today? Whereas in ‘89 Cubby failed to even register against BM, LW and Indiana Jones. And I say all of this as someone who loves the Glen Era).
Say what you want about your displeasure with the films since they took over (and I’m not especially a fan of the Brosnan years), but they have not only saved the series, but they’ve brought in new fans in the international market. Sixty years later, this character is still as appealing as ever with everyone curious about who the new Bond will be and when the next film will be released; the directions in which Cubby was taking the franchise in the 80s was skating very close to the fringes of pop culture. He seemed creatively tapped-out after 17 years in the James Bond biz.
MGW and BB have been at this since ‘95 and they actually continued to improved artistically and creatively in making these blockbuster films (although they’re not to your tastes, there’s no escaping that the last era is critically and financially the Silver Era behind Connery’s Golden Era— and they didn’t have the benefit of untouched Fleming novels to help create the next film, and they have a far more crowded market to compete in).
Yes fair enough. I accept that, even though CR is the only film I really love from their era.
I just wished they had followed down the CR path for the rest of Craig's tenure.
Heck, even TND and QOS now have more fans than they did previously. I'm very much a fan of TND nowadays personally. I dislike almost everything about TWINE (although I can acknowledge that many of the ideas within it were adapted far better in later instalments). I can even acknowledge that while I don't like SP, DAD, and to a lesser extent NTTD there are moments of brilliance within them.