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DR stands for Diana Rigg, not Richards, @CrabKey is not a Brosnan fan. 😅
Yes, that's my observation as well (I think it's now forming like a puzzle to me with those comments that I've observed), she's always distant even in NTTD, to be honest, I could buy Monica Bellucci's Lucia Sciarra more as the main love interest of Bond in both SP and NTTD than Madeleine, I don't know, it's just, I can't put my finger on, but it's a bit abstract to me, she's cold, always in doubt, looking a bit innocent in places like she have no idea what's happening, like it's hard to explain her aura, she's very shadowy, and there's no certain background as to why she's like that either, try to backread one of my posts in here, it's like she's being forced into being a Bond Girl or something like that, and to think she's a psychiatrist but what she had shown was the contrary.
She's not convincing in those intimate scenes with Bond, yes, she's still being cold even when she's trying to do some romantic scenes with Bond, I think Madeleine, (well, I may correct my earlier post in here regarding Camille), was more in line of having a platonic relationship with Bond to me, than lovers, for me, I can see Camille more as a partner for Bond than Madeleine ever was.
She's even worse than how Connery phoned in his performance in YOLT.
Do I find that a relationship between Bond and Madeleine could be plausable? Yes! Like you said Yes, that's it. She came along and he was available so yeah, why not! But I don't buy the "I love you so much angle" one tiny bit. The relationship between the two, and her character, is just poorly written, in my opinion. For starters, she's a psychiatrist, right? That's her trait. I don't remember any scenes in two movies where I went "oh, now there's a professional psychiatrist" - not even in her late scene with Safin. It's like she's just there as a filler or connection between the old villains and the new with Bond "falling in love" with her to justify her screen time and later forced dramatic add-on: that they have a child together! Oh please. Not to forget all the banter, the arguments and "betrayal" in the midst of all this "love" going on between the two, even during the many years where he sleeps with others.
Secondly, she's a dull character. She is mostly either being dead serious, is shouting at Bond, crying or somehow showing negative feelings. There is not a single piece of memorable dialogue between the two, and no sarcasm, like in many scenes he had with Vesper.
Furthermore, I don't think SP and NTTD invite an overall extroverted performance. Madeleine plays the withdrawn type. Some suggest that the CR Bond would never have settled for her. I think that's key here. All the things this Bond has gone through have left him somewhat more cynical than before, more mature, with different expectations out of life. That is not uncommon, by the way. At 50, you're likely not the man you were at 30. Even Fleming toyed with that idea. I'm not sure the Casino Royale Bond would have been satisfied spending the rest of his life with a kind secretary like Mary Goodnight, yet that very prospect suddenly seemed more than pleasant towards the end of The Man With The Golden Gun.
My point is that I'm more than willing to accept that the scars on Bond's soul result in different life goals and choices than when he had just been recruited to the 007 section. Him falling for a woman who in some ways is just like him, shouldn't be too big a surprise.
I think that there's a bit of YOLT in it but it's completely different in a lot of senses. Bond is motivated to take the Japanese job as it's a sign of M's trust in him. He thinks that it's a sign that he's back to full form and the difficulty forces professionalism. In NTTD it's a bit more of the "family" theme: Bond's "brother" Felix asks for a favour so Bond pays his debts.
Except Fleming doesn't imply older Bond would spend his life with Goodnight: he says he'll recover with her, but then leave her because the same view would always pall. Considering that Bond makes passes at Lil Ponsonby earlier in the series, there isn't much change there.
I definitely don't think Madeleine a great Bond girl, but it isn't due to a failure in Seydoux's performance. The material, with the rest of Spectre, was average at best. So NTTD has to salvage the mess left behind it for the relationship to be taken seriously. And ultimately you get the effect of the typical "one and done" women split over two very serious movies.
Completely.
M's death in Skyfall mattered. It really felt like part of the story rather than something embarrassingly shoehorned in for dramatic effect.
Indeed. Like I said, it's very broad, but you can tell with NTTD YOLT was on their mind in some form.
This is a surprise? :-/
You got me there. I had to laugh. Well done!
He knows. I appreciated the laugh.
Well, yeah. "Othello" is closer to getting made than Bond 26. It'd be silly if a producer prioritized a project in an earlier phase of development.
Credit to the filmmakers for going in such an unexpected direction so well. Quite a surprise and one for the ages.
Oh yes, I do agree with you.
For the clearer picture I'm seeing in here, the concept of Madeleine, hence being a psychiatrist was supposed to understand Bond in terms of his psyche, able to read him, and would help him release his inner demons, but the way I see in actual was Madeleine seemed to create more problems than to help, and she's the one who needed more understanding than the other way around.
And like what I've said in what about months ago, many times, the banters, were not original either, the scene in the train, for example, that reminded me of the talks between Bond and Vesper upon their first meeting (in the train), and the way she confronted Bond with his psyche (instead of understanding him because she's a psychiatrist) reminded me of Natalya Simonova in very much the same vein (think of the beach scene and how many times she confronted Bond of his nature in Goldeneye), then it didn't helped that they're trying to replicate Bond and Tracy's relationship, even using the same theme song, it lacked originality, Madeleine, for me, felt like an amalgamation of all the previous Bond girls, there's nothing new about her interactions with Bond for me, except her attitude that's the icy distant feel, which again, not justified and for whatever reason I don't know why she's acting like that, again, didn't went well in line with her being a psychiatrist, as it looked like it's she who needed psychiatric help more than she's the one who could resolve it, and if she failed to help herself, then how she could help Bond? This are where the two films failed for me, as I'm seeing the clearer picture.
And yes, regarding her character (crying, shouting, etc.), I don't even know the reason why she's acting like that either, I know she had a traumatic childhood, then so Camille, then so Severine, then even so Bond himself, and to think Madeleine's was milder compared to those characters I've mentioned, yet, she's acting that way worse than those characters who had suffered the worse than her, she's not the same as Bond, as she's not hardened by the experiences, and even those experiences or should I say just an experience, it's only few yet she's acting like the world had turned its back on her for shallow reasons, how could she 'understand' Bond if she didn't experienced the same thing as Bond himself, for me, it sounded like she's just being a spoiler brat rebel girl.
With NTTD it's elevated with the mother wolf instinct. In Matera she's acting on the knowledge of her unborn baby alongside the evidence Bond's enemies will never cease to find him out.
And that makes the romance between the two of them more of 'a sudden', and that also makes their romance a bit more convoluted for that matter.
She's aware of her father's world, and she have been working to avoid, and to fall in love Bond (who operates in the same line as her father's) was too sudden, and when she did, instead of having the better understanding, she's the one who was needed to be understood, like why she entered a relationship with Bond in the first place, if at the end, she couldn't handle? It's like the romance was only added to bring some dramatic effect into the narrative, it's almost forced and artificial (not organic or natural), like in case Craig quit, at least they gave his Bond a proper love life, and if Craig hadn't returned for NTTD, which felt for me more like an afterthought, it would stay that way, like it's just unrealistic for me, more like a fairy tale kind of thing.
Without question, Madeleine and Bond are a handsome couple with a cute kid, who manages to be more interesting on screen than mom. Their romance should have generated fireworks. Instead it's a bit of a fizzle in the drizzle.
Yes, and that train scene was replicated in SPECTRE, but without the natural banter that Bond and Vesper have.
For me, there's nothing groundbreaking in that relationship, more like an amalgamation of the previous relationships, nor originality, and is not that all interesting, like what I've also said earlier in here, they're a bit similar to those Hollywood couples in real life whose pairings were odd, it's a Bond relationship just didn't clicked and didn't worked and NTTD is a proof of it, that relationship will never work for me, and I could imagine had the Nanobots and Safin didn't happened and Bond lived, the relationship would not still work, because they see each other as shadows.
Bond falls for Madeleine for that, plus with the special background she has related to his work as a Double-O. Built into her character is she wants something (outside the assassins' world), but she must hold back. When she commits to Bond, that doesn't initially turn out so well. And she will choose her child over all.
If there aren't outright fireworks, that may go back to the Bond character and his plight as an agent. Once committed to a relationship, there are limits to his success on a personal level.
It's clear that NTTD wants to be that great love story Bond is willing to sacrifice his life for. The child part works. Who wouldn't sacrifice oneself for their child? But the great love that produced that child feels curiously absent from SP and NTTD. Tender moments to be sure. Romantic dialogue. Even throwback music to an earlier film to suggest this latest love is the equivalent of that. But it doesn't feel that way. Why? In Tracy and Vesper you got fully evolved, interesting, compelling, humorous women you wanted to be around. In Madeleine you got beauty and sexiness for sure, but not much in the way of compelling, interesting, humorous, and fully evolved. Maybe LS wasn't the best choice for the role, but the writing and directing didn't do her any favors.
I don't dislike LS. In fact, had she been around during the Moore years, she could have played any of those Bond women better than any of the actresses chosen, even though I am partial to Jayne Seymour as Solitaire.
I agree to it, mate!
Couldn't said it better myself.
Maybe the romance would have improve in ways like these, this is how I would fix it (to make it work):
1. Give originality to the romance, like what I've said, their romance was recycled from the previous Bond-Bond Girl pairings, even in every bits of their interactions that I couldn't help but be reminded of an old banter in the previous Bond films and the use of Satchmo's We Have All The Time In The World also didn't helped, an obvious lack of originality to completely buy their relationship as a romance and love story in their own right.
2. Tweak Madeleine's character a bit, it's really wrong to make her like that, it's hard to buy her falling in love, their relationship felt more like it could've gone down the Platonic route with Bond just protecting her instead of falling in love for real, typical like that of Melina Havelock and Bond's relationship (the closest where I could compare Madeleine and Bond's romance), it just doesn't feel natural and justifiable, have her not to be cold, icy and detached, as those type of characters were needed to be developed in a long time type of show (like a TV series), but for a film, the development would not be applied due to how short the film's time, I look at Camille and Severine, as an example of those characters who had undergone childhood traumatic experiences but still not acting as odd as Madeleine.
3. Give their romance some spark not full of blues (if you know what I mean), because it feels like their relationship in the first half of NTTD, for example, was more like a facade but deep inside were a chamber full of shadows and gloom, not real, more like hiding, they're pretending to be happy but their relationship was not felt, the certain closeness and connection just wasn't there, improve it, their relationship was cold as ice, no warmth, no inner fire, no familiarity in watching them as a couple, they're like a couple with a wall in between, it's just very hard to get into.
4. I'm not sure about Seydoux, but I think the age gap between her and Craig didn't helped either, she's so youthful looking in contrast to Craig's aging appearance, maybe, she's trying to chase Craig's maturity, but she couldn't, because the age gap was apparent, she's like a young lady trying to engage in a mature relationship with an older man, and she's trying to be matured herself but it just doesn't fit with her age, I think this would've been believable too had they cast a bit more matured for the role, hence, the lack of chemistry between the two, now we could not say the same about Paloma right? For the good chemistry and banter they have, I still don't see them being in real romance, I only see them as working partners in a mission, but not real love as with the case of Vesper and Tracy, because the maturity levels don't match.
I never thought it was a problem. I suspect someone like Bond would be atracted to someone a bit younger when wanting to start a new life. And while Craig was in his 50s he’d aged better than Moore or even Connery by the end of their tenures, so it never felt odd or like they’d had to adjust the dynamic of the relationship.
Vesper never looked young for her age, she looked matured and quite matched the look of Craig at the time, the same for Maud Adams who also looked matured enough for Moore in OP.
But Lea Seydoux just looked very youthful, she looked young enough to be Craig's daughter.
I really don’t see that to be honest. I think if anything Seydoux comes off as slightly older in that role (I guess she wasn’t even 30). There’s an age gap for sure, but I don’t think it’s as bad as a 50 something year old Moore with some of his co-stars. Nor is it noticeably in the realm of ‘Bond would have been an adult when this woman was born’.
If anything in the contexts of the films it’s Vesper who’s much more innocent. She’s the one Bond had to comfort after he killed someone, the one who seemed genuinely horrified at aspects of his job, and of course whose youth and the fact that she fell for two different men led to her death. Madeline on the other hand grew up with that around her and is much more cold but capable. She’s much more world weary just by virtue of the script, and I don’t think it’s fair to say Vesper’s strength was ever how mature she was compared to Bond. That’s not the point of the character.
I thought Green looked almost looked like a child in CR. She even -still- has quite childlike looks with big eyes and a tall forehead. I think Seydoux looks more mature.
Honestly for me I still find Green slightly miscast. She's very pretty, and they act as a couple well enough at the end, but I don't buy her as the spiky, skewering Treasury agent at the beginning (especially in the train scene, which is pretty much written for Diana Rigg), I don't think she makes it work. Not least she's inexplicably French, and by NTTD it turns out she was Italian! :D
And Vesper (the actual character) was supposed to be British.
And plus Matera's a cool location. So may as well use it. Logic be damned in a Bond film!
This is a series that has little regard for continuity and details. Her nationality is of no consequence. I expect a locale for a couple of spectacular stunts was the reason she was buried where she was.