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
In truth, @Matt_Helm, if we expect a Bond film to create entirely new things in this day and age, we need to hire James Cameron and expect the next new hype after 3D. I'm sure none of us would like that. Most of us are perfectly happy getting a film made from good albeit common techniques, but with great photography (which SF certainly has), great acting (ditto), great music (ditto), ...
However, I do think Skyfall will be remembered for years to come, if no other reason than having a very memorable villain and ending.
I've seen it three times since then, and while admittedly it does have some plotting issues, the script, lensing, direction, cast etc, more than make up for it.
As to rankings, I had preliminary had Skyfall in 7/8th place, and it still is.
Although, after seeing it for the first time, I was really looking forward to seeing it again. (my friend had not seen it, so i offered to take him, relculanty). Anyway, I digress. Skyfall is slightly superficial. Well, that isn't fair. Maybe I was slightly disappointed that I saw everything on the first time; on the second time I was expecting to go deeper in the Bond psyche. Like QoS; I discover something new each time I see it, whilst with Skyfall it doesn't.
Hope that made sense. :-)
As already mentioned the Silva/Bond "flirting scene" (which I really enjoyed), the "Pyjamas Dialog" plus Bond approaching the casino (which just looks GREAT) and his use of the construction vehicle to bridge the space between the train wagons (ok,that's original too). That's all, I am sorry to say.
That "new" I've been talking about doesn't rely on just invented technical equipment or improved CGE. I still remain a fan of imagination, talent and originality,even though it seems I'm in a minority with these desires in this day and age.
You change your standards as this thread goes. That is not criticism, this is nitpicking. My point was, and I think everybody here understood it but you, is that in FRWL there are influences from other directors that do not detract from the film, but on the contrary made it richer, stronger, better. FRWL did not give us in return, as if Terence Young had been lazy using Hitchcock and to a lesser extend Kubrick to do some filling, but it give us on top of this.
Oh, and James Joyce's Ulysse was a rewrite of The Odyssey. I know, I know, Joyce was also a shameless copist.
Let me decline that inviation as I'm not going down that road.
Not true. You merely dislike SF, which is your prerogative, but you keep phrasing things as if nothing, literally nothing about SF is worth seeing and also as if those who do appreciate SF are mindless people who would settle for anything as long as it's put out by EON. Furthermore, you try to prove SF as a bad thing by means of elements that, in my humblest of opinions, are a bit unfair. Yes, you're right about SF not inventing anything new. I'd think you must have a pretty tough time finding anything in cinemas these days that suits your desires then. That is unless you restrict your focus to some low-budget and mostly foreign experimental films, in which case being a Bond fan would seem much more of a burden than anything else.
Also, you refer to SF as an imitation of current trends. The word 'imitation' is of course carefully chosen to put yet another bullet in the film. One might also say that SF makes use of current trends. Why would that be a bad thing? Gravity makes use of current trends but I think it's a great movie and many people seem to agree with me. Even Casablanca made use of current trends in its own time. And you can only have a few Citizen Kane's in a century. Expecting a Citizen Kane with every newly released Bond film is an expectation so irrational, it immediately destroys your credibility.
Yes, I know, there's a thing called Bourne. There's a thing called Mission Impossible. Heck, there's even a thing called Austin Powers. And all of these franchises have taken their time to study and analyse Bond and other spy series, catalogue their building blocks, choose from them, in some cases even improve on them, and come up with, arguably, great movies in their own right. Anything Bond does today, will find a brother or cousin in another franchise. Make Bond tough and serious again, and people call out how much he resembles Bourne. Retract Bond's origin, show how he was once very imperfect, introduce conflict and contradiction, and people nag about him being too much like Nolan's Batman. Avoid all this and what? - bring the video game Bond back from 2002 and people will tell you Austin Powers did it first. My point is, the Beatles were once original too but I'd frankly dread being the one trying to keep them going today amidst all the clones and copycats that ended up being their own thing and excelling in that state. Same with Bond. Each direction they take Bond in, you can always dig deep enough and come up with a franchise somewhere that went there first. That's the state of affairs in 2012. Others have caught up with Bond. And if they really would take Bond to a place where no-one's gone before, I don't think the product of that would still qualify as a Bond film, let alone a 'good' Bond film.
Anyone these days who shies away from a Bond film that more or less uses or, to work from you phrase book, 'imitates' other films' storytelling techniques or plot elements or whatnot, might as well ignore Bond from here on, especially when you fail to look passed the most superficial elements. I don't care that Silva is another vengeful creep but I do care what they do with him, how he's performed and how his story is told. If you want a villain so atypical, so 'original' that he'd be about the last thing you'd expect to get in a Bond film, they'd have to resort to - what? - an alien? to pleasure your needs.
Furthermore, in its by now impressive 50+ year run, the Bond franchise has continually taken from contemporary material and worked it into its stories. Also, it's clearly become progressively more difficult over the years to do new things. I like FYEO very much, but recognise that almost nothing in that film is fresh, new, modern, ... I'm a sucker for GE but I'm not as naive to claim that GE was all original, all the way through.
And since when is it a testament of people's bad taste that they are content with a Bond that does 'imitate' elements from other films but combines them in such a way that the sum total is something we've never seen in a Bond film before? So what if some of those things are done in the Bournes or the Batmans or whatever have you? I prefer to keep my focus on the world of Bond himself and hope that the next film in the series will not be a lifeless repetition of its predecessor.
@Matt_Helm, again I say, it's okay to dislike SF and if people give you a hard time for that particular thing alone, I will happily stand up for you. But you might consider this: sounding like a broken record, always repeating how BAAAAAAD SF is because NOTHING about it is original, you will find almost everyone here disagreeing with that. I for example have no problem at all with you disliking SF but I find your arguments essentially illogical. Some folks simply admit that they don't like Daniel Craig's looks and thus avoid his films. They easily get away with that because it's a simple argument that works from personal taste and that, as we know, cannot be debated. But you tell us that SF is a loathsome film because in the year 2012 it fails to stun us with things no-one's ever seen. That's like telling your wife after 20 years of marriage that she's a lousy cook for serving you a meal not unlike the one you had in a certain restaurant last year...
May I repost myself here?
That's hardly a "NOTHING", is it?
After all, I am trying to be objective!
=D> =D> =D>