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If visions align, why shouldn't EON pursue the best director their money can buy? We live in a time where the delineated line between genre movies and prestige films is slightly blurred. Artists of all pedigrees want to work.
Exactly. You wrapped this up nicely. Aligned visions/best talent available to execute. End of story.
That's a great categorization, @Mendes4Lyfe
I think the films in Type B were also those that follow the Fleming style very closely, two of them are adapted from the source material.
Yeah but the Danny Boyle thing happened and Boyle doesn't look like a snob or anything.
Because "texture" is only useful if it has a purpose. If the point is that Bond and Madeline start off prickily and fall in love, there's no reason that process can't play out in a more lively, upbeat context. There's nothing justifying their dynamic being so formal and stiff.
But it does have a purpose as you yourself seemed to say. You just don’t personally like how it’s done. Fair enough, and this is all subjective, but I don’t quite understand what you’re getting at here by your own criteria beyond you saying the film isn’t your thing.
I think an issue with trying to categorise Bond films in that way is you can argue something like GE belongs to any of them dependent on opinion/how you want to view the film. Does it lean more wholeheartedly into Bond formula tropes or does it do so to purposely subvert fundamental ideas in a Bond story? It’s not rule driven in that sense. Does it belong to subcategory 1 potentially? Same with TLD. Alternatively something like SF does actually include many Bond tropes not seen before in the Craig films and has more in common with GF than perhaps TLD does. What is ‘the Bond formula’ for the films exactly? I suspect it involves a whole range of fundamental things no Bond film can function without (a villain being a major example).
I wouldn’t be too academic when it comes to these stories. Sometimes putting them into strict categories can be undone with a single example, and it’s a bit opinion based.
If these stats are accurate I would suggest Eon and Amazon consider making the most expensive film ever made for Bond 26. 500 million dollar budget. I accept that's an obscene amount of money and arguably morally questionable but if Amazon make 1.29 billion dollars a day they would recoup the production and marketing budget in half a day!
I think Bond 26 as the most expensive film ever made, and it looks it on screen, is the way to market Bond 26.
Also, Bond 26 as 500 million dollars would justify a six or more year gap between NTTD and Bond 26. I would even consider a non theatrical release. Straight to Amaxon Prime.
Bond 26 as the premier film on Amazon in 2026 or 2027.
Also I suspect that 1.29 billion a day from Amazon is stretched out in an obscene numbers of ways before Bond. So there's a chance they won't be allowed a 500 million dollar budget. It's a crazy amount of money though, agreed.
Put it this way - You yourself have admitted that SP and B25 share elements with classic bond films, right? SP has the gadget car, the henchman, the train fight, the bits of humour, etc.
The difference is that unlike, say, Skyfall, the ways in which SP diverts from the formula are exactly what makes it worse off as a story. As much as I'm not really a fan of Skyfall, I will admit that Sam Mendes and Co. Clearly had a vision and a story to tell that justified taking certain liberties. Everything still added up to a whole, even if the whole might not be my cup of tea personally. The difference is that with SP I can't help but feel that underlying material or vision just isn't there, so as a consequence, when you have scenes with bondian aspects, and a conclusion which basically amounts to "stop the villain, save the girl", then I can't help but feel like it would work better as a straightforward, sleek bond adventure with all the fat cut out. If Madeline is going to end up as a damsel strapped to a chair that bond has to save, then why waste time setting her up as quiet, soulful character that bond falls for. Make her lively and give her and Bond more of a fiery dynamic, like a traditional bond/bond girl back and forth. Why not? If Blofeld is basically going to amount to a typical moustache-twirling, or indeed pussycat stroking villain by the end, why make out like he's some missing puzzle peice from Bond's former life, the only peice left? If we're going to end on a tradition bond gets the girl and heads off into the sunset ending, then why not treat it that way from the start?
I may as well ask, if Bond is supposed to fall in love with Stacey Sutton, why make her a dumb mid-20s blonde who wears the shortest silk PJs ever instead of being a genuinely interesting and mature, intelligent woman the audience can actually get attached to and believe in the relationship between her and 007, instead of getting irritated every time she yells "JaaAAammes!"?
Why do we have fans asking for things like the films having less depth, fewer stunts, less money spent on them, rubbish filmmakers working on them etc. so often? It feels like people don't want them to be the films they're are and actively worse. This guy doesn't even know what the last film was called.
My hope for the next film is that they keep doing what they've always done throughout the last 25 films, and maybe hopefully throw in some ideas to make it just that little bit even better. That would be great.
It's a valid set of opinions and I really don't disagree with all of them. I just don't fundamentally think there's anything wrong with having a 'romp' of a Bond adventure that has character based ideas (although as I said I'm not quite sure how character driven or angsty SP actually is in practice) if its the Bond story they want to tell. I think all Bond movies use the Bond 'formula' simply because they can't not. There has to be a villain, regardless of whether they're personally connected to Bond like in SP or GE, or if they're a maniac who wants to flood the world. There has to be a love interest (or at the very least a sexual partner for Bond) regardless of whether or not she dies. The villain has to have a scheme for Bond to go against, regardless of whether it's world domination or something as simple as getting revenge. Bond, and by extension 'good', needs to triumph over evil, regardless of whether he saves the day and beds the girl, or if he sacrifices himself.
I think SP did what it did was because they wanted to create the most interesting Bond adventure they could. Even without the Blofeld subplot there still would have been an element of darkness/personal history there (Blofeld was, after all, effectively responsible for Vesper's death and has been aware of Bond but hiding in the shadows until now. Even without the personal history in the film we got it's a completely valid thing to explore). Fair enough if you don't like how the Madeline/Bond relationship was handled, but I actually quite like it at points. Bond answering the questions in the clinic is actually one of my favourite scenes of the series (love how nonchalant Bond is about the pretence). I also quite like Madeline being drunk and telling Bond to watch over her (feels like something Fleming would write and that his Bond would be attracted to. And as I said I love that we actually get to see Bond doing some heavy drinking and getting a bit tipsy. It's simply something the character does, and I think the mouse scene is quite funny).
If someone cried buckets over Chuck Lee CIA getting killed well then great; but a lot more people had damp eyes watching Vesper die, I can assure you- and that made for a more compelling and exciting climax and made for a properly excellent film.
Bond doesn't fall in love with Stacy Sutton.
Also I never asked for films to have less depth, just that if you're going down that road it should make up a cohesive story of its own, like Skyfall did.
She's the love interest of the movie. A fling isn't terribly interesting.
But explain: why shouldn't Stacey be a more interesting character?
You are asking for it to have less depth. Using some exisiting tropes and adding flesh to them (like the evil master villain Silva) is not a fault, not at all. Otherwise that's all Batman movies in the last 20 years which should be chucked in the bin too, or y'know: Ian Fleming books. Audiences like seeing characters they believe in.
It's just not coherent to say they shouldn't add any flesh to a story which is x amount closer to an older Bond movie than Skyfall is. Where is the cut off line exactly? How much are they allowed to do? Is the beach scene in GoldenEye too much? Because that's a very old style Bond movie, but here's Bond talking about feelings- is that too much?
Ultimately, as I said, it comes down to specifically what they want to do. But as I kinda said before as well, these are James Bond films, and they go into it wanting to make a James Bond adventure. Something like SP (and indeed SF) didn't start out with them wanting to make a dark, angst ridden drama with no villain or love interest, but instead was the conclusion of what they thought a good high stakes Bond adventure would include - inclusions of Bond's past and all. Whether or not it was an enjoyable Bond film is subjective and thus questionable.
I understand thinking that this film would have been better had it leaned into certain tones a bit more, but I don't think you can have a Bond adventure that isn't recognisably... well, a Bond adventure, no matter what character driven stuff it contains.
For the same reason Boris the computer programmer isn't - its unnecessary.
Boris is a bit different. He's a flat, rather duplicitous character in the context of the film, rather than the more rounded one Stacy is set up as. But that's actually ok incidentally. Not all characters need to be rounded or change. The difference is how you set them up, and Stacy is set up very differently to Boris. Boris gets his comeuppance too incidentally in the place of character growth - he underestimates Natalya and dies by his own arrogance. Simply different characters (love Boris by the way).
The difference is that you think that EON were intentional, but to me the decisions seem more based in fear. It feels like they recognise on some level that the general audience wants to see a return to more classic elements, a Type A Bond film, but at the same time they feel like doing that will mean giving up some sophistication and prestige. So films like SP are supposed to be a halfway house, to try and keep the both the media elite and the general public happy. I don't think the series can ever truly move forward until it is ready to embrace a TSWLM level of heightened reality again, and I don't just mean in the setting and aesethics, I mean the storytelling, the cinematic language, the tone, etc.
And that doesn't mean slides whistles and gondolas BTW.
Well, obviously neither of us were there nor know how this film was made conceptually. I must say from what I've read briefly it doesn't seem like the logic of what you're saying was ever in mind, but it's probably not worth going into too deeply as it's so second hand to both of us.
I'd love Bond to go to a TSWLM type of place again! Heightened reality, spectacle, and a good dose of character driven drama/a rounded love interest at its heart. Maybe make a slightly more interesting villain, but otherwise I like it. I like that that film is very fast paced too and not afraid to be pause at those more intimate character moments (SP and NTTD do as well to be fair, but they're much more drawn out pace wise). I'd love them to even slightly deviate from the Bond formula established from GF and have them put Bond in situations, even personally, he hasn't quite been in before.
I agree, would love them to embrace TSWLM!
Says who?
She's the co-lead of the film, she should engage the audience. We should care for her.
Now, it doesn't matter in AVTAK so much because it's essentially a cartoon. Fun, but slight. And even in that, as 007HallY astutely points out, they did try and give her a little depth, as they had even been adding to Bond himself over the course of the last five or six films.
But if the filmmakers decide they want to aim for a slightly different tone, one which will engage audiences even more, who's to say what's unnecessary?
A reminder that we just had a poll of forum users' favourites on here, and OHMSS came top. The one which is all about Bond falling in love and marrying, and with the sad ending: sad because we've grown to love and care for the character at the heart of it. People like and enjoy emotional peaks and troughs in these films. Maybe they are necessary.
Spoiler alert, OHMSS is one of my favourite Bond films too. But that's irrelevant since I never said Bond films shouldn't have depth or emotional range or whatever. But If you're going to go for that, then you'd better have the material in a story and a vision to make it work. Otherwise you're going to end up with, well, with SP and B25. My point is that the story of SP is weak enough that it might as well be a more traditional Bond adventure with all the "depth" taken out and would work much better just as a straightforward romp. I think people would find it more memorable if that were the case, and people would talk about it in a more favourable light, I'd imagine.
People seem to think making something more complex or throwing in extra elements automatically makes something better, when in actual fact often times the opposite can be true.
Like assuring there are Gen Z elements? Something Skyfall failed to do? (A few days ago you were very hung up about this…)
I’m gonna start gobbling these word salads of yours pretty soon, but I’m fearful of my health since they’re nutrient deficient…
Skyfall didn't "fail", it didn't have Gen Z elements because the oldest members of Gen Z were only 15 at the time.
The Craig films do look considerably dated compared to modern movies now.
Does anyone think that, though? I think we've all complained about unnecessary elements making a film feel bloated. I, for instance, have never made peace with the vastly oversized horse racing subplot in a film that futilely tries to get me nervous about microchip espionage. And whatever sort of benefit TWINE draws from making Renard impervious to pain is lost on me as well.
Then again, some sub- and side-plots can add value to a film, I think. I was never against the Nine-Eyes thing in SP since it helps to establish Spectre as a sinister leader in controlling information and misinformation, a modern and by all means very frightening threat. As for NTTD, I know it has its distractors who feel that too much is going on, but I see half of those plots as tying up loose threads from previous films, and the other half as giving us an idea of what retirement and post-retirement life could be like for 007. I appreciate both, especially in a film that runs for nearly three hours.
I, too, like my Bonds brisk and fleet, but I also appreciate a little extra meat on the side. Something that feels redundant can still somehow pay off at the end. Surely, we hadn't much use for Paris Carver, but knowing that her husband had her killed made Bond's rather sadistic termination of his life more satisfying than it had otherwise been.
Whoa, now THAT is a statement I cannot agree with. CR and QOS still look like they were made yesterday. They, and the other Craigs, do not look dated; they are simply 'above' the lowest common denominator of mass-produced Netflix movies and your standard CGI-heavy action flicks. The absence of (poor) CGI and the classy cinematography gives them a timeless quality. Besides, what constitutes "modern movies"? Barbie? Sonic The Hedgehog? Avatar 2? Fast X? Because those aren't films we want the Bonds to look like, now are they?
I'm genuinely curious as to what exactly you mean by this?
The oldest Gen Z members are, what, 27-28? I'm not too far off the oldest in that spectrum but for a lot of people I know my age/younger, this was their first or favourite Bond film.
For a lot of people I know this is one of the only Bond films they've actually watched. Again, they're younger, not Bond fans, and have liked it. I know you've talked about what you see as 'Gen Z' elements (although I think you've been spitballing/it's not entirely the case in practice- 'goofy' humour, self referentiality etc. Correct me if I'm wrong). I just don't exactly know what you mean.
I'm just not seeing a coherent argument here. What is it you're saying? That they should have made Spectre better? Well sure, they should have made AVTAK better too, but guess what: they tried to. The benefit of hindsight is it's really easy to say something didn't work as well as it should have done, but usually it's actually possible to point to the actual problem with hindsight, something you're not really managing here. Just saying 'SP would have worked better with the depth taken out' doesn't even hold up to close examination, and of course they were never going to do that because they were making a follow-up to Skyfall, one of the most successful Bond films ever, and so of course were trying to stay in the same tonal ballpark. It's why they got the same director. It's meaningless to say they should have made it shallow like a cartoon, because that's not what they were going for, nor should they have.
I think Paris Carver could have been handled better if they are initially jovial with eachother, like old friends, but we know from the car ride with M there was a thing between them, and then when she turns up at bonds hotel room they get more personal and intimate. I just don't like the "I never knew what I'd feel if I ever saw you again", "to the gun" exchange between them, it feels way to theatrical, almost old hollywood.
I agree bond films should feel like a complete meal, but SP and B25 could both work probably much better as 130 minute movies.
The Craig era can be criticized for many things, but looking dated ain’t one of them. In fact I’d argue that the Craig era represented some of the best action/adventure films for the time they were made, and when compared to the vast majority of action blockbusters coming out today, films like CR and SF still hold their own.
B25 has a name. I hope you don't mind me saying that it's very childish to shake off your frustrations by pretending it doesn't. And it's not the first time you've done that.
SP and NTTD (which stands for "No Time To Die") have a lot going on. And like most films, books, plays, and forum posts, they could benefit from leaning up a bit. In hindsight, there's always stuff we all might want to cut away. What we'd choose to cut out almost qualifies as a Rorschach test, I reckon. Some of us want less intimacy, others want less comedy, and others still prefer less talking. Even some of the shorter films, like QOS, have bits that I could do without, but there's also stuff I might consider throwing in. So a definitive 130-minute feature length is meaningless to me. What I would take out and put in differs from what you would take out and put in. As such, we might end up with vastly different cuts of the same movie, resulting also in vastly different feature lengths.
In the end, however, these are not our films. Chef's cooked our food and we are politely asked to finish the meal. You may not like the sauce and I may not like the side dish, but it's a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. I'll happily swallow down the side dish provided that the majority of what's on my plate tastes great. And I'm not going to complain about it because what I enjoy, you may not; and what you enjoy, I may not. So it's probably best to leave it to the chef and decide whether you want to return to his kitchen.