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Will there be too much humour?
Hi everyone, new to this site, but I'm a massive bond fan and thought I join up.
I was just wondering, and this is aimed at the people who have seen the leaks or final leaks, what do you think of the humour?
I mean we won't really know until we see it, but do you feel there is too much. I have read and seen Daniel Craig mention about Skyfall and leading into this one about bringing more humour, whereas I felt Casino Royale was perfect for that?
To me I enjoyed Casino Royale's humour and felt it flowed brilliantly. As much as I enjoyed Skyfall, I felt the humour in the writing was sometimes forced.
Does anyone agree or have any insight into Spectre on this matter?
I was just wondering, and this is aimed at the people who have seen the leaks or final leaks, what do you think of the humour?
I mean we won't really know until we see it, but do you feel there is too much. I have read and seen Daniel Craig mention about Skyfall and leading into this one about bringing more humour, whereas I felt Casino Royale was perfect for that?
To me I enjoyed Casino Royale's humour and felt it flowed brilliantly. As much as I enjoyed Skyfall, I felt the humour in the writing was sometimes forced.
Does anyone agree or have any insight into Spectre on this matter?
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Comments
I thought they had the balance of humour about right with SF. The only one liner from
Bond which I thought unneeded was at the end about getting into deep water, as it
Was an emotional scene and it seemed out of place. To me at least.
Making a come back. :D
I think it depends upon what people enjoy in a bond film and I suppose which era of bond's they like. I agree with what you said earlier @DrGorner about getting the balance right in SF. I was never a massive fan of the Pierce Brosnan era, so for me when Daniel came in and did his thing in Casino Royale I thought it was wonderful. I know there was a lot of uproar and dislike for when he first got the part, a lot of that opinion changed. I feel that was down to the way he portrayed it and in my opinion good humour, but not overdone and to much of it. I don't know if you agree with that?
Bond was Dangerous again. =D>
The thug he fought in the casino began to scream as the komodo dragons, started
To eat him, Bond quipped to a passer by " It's the circle of life !" :))
Like I've said it depends upon peoples opinion of humour and one liners and what they like. I will say I watched CR,QoS and SF in the cinema and the best audience laugh/reaction I saw/heard was in CR when he first met Le chiffre. I think it roughly went something like his name was down as beach or something and when Le chiffre asked him "is it beach or bond, i'm a little confused" and bond replied " well we wouldn't want that would we", that was the best reaction i've seen in a cinema in his bond films. Of course it depends upon the audience in the cinema at the time and like I said people's opinions of one liners and comebacks.
I remember got a big laugh in the cinema. Although I do think DC's Bond works best
With the darker humour, or lines with an edge.
One of my favourite lines from the Bonds is from Goldfinger about a horse ..
GF, " A beautiful animal, Mr Bond"
Bond, " Certainly better bred, than its Owner!"
Brilliant stuff. =D>
I never check any of the spoiler threads, so I have no info on SP story or script. But the balance of humour in Skyfall was actually one of the aspects I had no issues with (though I have plenty of reservations about other aspects of SF, but i won't go into that here...).
Dan seems to be quite good at the one-liner delivery, and it contrasts nicely with his darker approach as long as it's done sparingly and tastefully.
Also he is far better in this aspect of one liners than his two predecessors imo, so i'd be fine with them working a similar amount of puns or witty jokes into SP.
Your absolutely right "lines with an edge", I think that is what is was for me in CR. I felt the darker/edgy humour in CR added to some of the tense scenes.
I thought Connery said that line really well. Funny you mentioned GF, a friend who had mentioned the humour asked me which one I like better FRWL or GF, and I said FRWL. I mean you might prefer other connery bond films, but which one do you prefer @DrGorner out of them two?
That's exactly why I joined and it's great to hear peoples different opinions upon the matter. I enjoyed the SF humour aswell, I just felt in my opinion even though there was slightly less of it in CR, I thought it was done better.
My worry was I wouldn't want the humour to be overdone and take away the darker approach; I agree with what you said about it being used "sparingly" and "tastefully".
Agreed. It's the 'lowest common denominator virus'. If the most half-witted plank in the cinema cannot grasp the joke, then it most likely will end up on the cutting room floor...
This is also why I rate FRWL as superior to GF, because it was a far more subtle film - both in direction and especially with regard to script & humour.
But subtlety will often have to make way for in-your-face scripted jokes & puns to please the masses, I'm afraid.
I was about to write these exact same words :D
Like I said I prefer FRWL to GF, again it depends upon what people like in bond films. I liked FRWL better, because there is less humour, but again like CR in my opinion it is done slightly better than GF.
Like me and @DrGorner was saying about the dark and edgy humour, the end of the fight scene in FRWL sums it up to me. After the Shaw and Connery fight which was tense and edgy, Bond says if I recall correctly; "you won't be needing this old man". That to me was good humour, dark and edgy; but also ended the tense scene between the pair of them well. In a way, it seemed to fit at the end of the scene, when it was needed.
@DrGorner said at the end of SF about the deep water line, I agree I don't think it was needed there. It seems like because his CR and QoS, had less, but edgy humour, they seemed to want to add more in certain parts where it really wasn't needed.
I think I disagree with the whole "deep water" line and I think it belongs right where it was. The reason why is because Bond says it when he believes that all is right with the world. He had just killed the villain, and now he gets the girl (M). So he makes the joke in part because he believes everything is fine with his intention of lighting up the mood and at the time had the confidence to do so. Little did he know M would collapse seconds later.
During the RN and PB years, the humor was often sophomoric and contributed to the idea that none of what was going on was very serious. Our hero could never really be in danger because he approached everything with clever witticisms and silly responses.
By far Connery did humor best. Always droll, always detached.
Good humor evolves from good writing. Humor for its own sake--because its time to have a funny bit here--is often self-conscious, misplaced, and not funny.
If that is correct @jake24, then I'm in the wrong haha. I thought the line came after she had collapsed and died, not literally a second straight after, but in the same scene and location. I'll have to watch it again.
I agree @CrabKey, humour is very tricky. Maybe, I'm blowing it all out of proportion. I just feel from the bond fans I have spoken to over the years, both male and female and who are fans of Daniel Craig's films aswell, they love the darker interpretation. I just wouldn't want him to go to far with the humour that's all; of course it has to be in there.
FRWL has a far better plot too, which I think helps finding the right tone for humour. Actually, it has the best everything.
Way before. ;)
Especially the comments that the humour must 'flow from the moment', be droll, detached, dark, edgy, subtle etc.
I also agree that the PB years were the worst for this. Teenage at best.
For me, the SF Bond/Q first meeting was one of the best uses of humour in recent years. Biting but highly amusing, from both of them.
The problem we are likely to face however is that to appeal to a larger global audience, some of the subtle, biting humour that many of us prefer on this board may not translate so well. Therefore, there is a risk that we could see going forward more in your face, obvious attempts that may be beneath many of our refined tastes. I hope not.
I've said as I'm sure a lot you have read when I started the discussion and continued to comment and post upon it, I like and prefer the darker humour, but I wouldn't expect him to act that way with Q. On the other hand, I wouldn't want it too light between the pair of them. I thought it was just about right in SF; good point noted by @bondjames.
I hope there won't be humor that is the verbal equivalent of throwing cakes into people's faces - I never found that funny even in the silent films. I feel the same way about most one liners and most obviously "funny" dialogue. I recently watched a movie where I was painfully conscious of watching dialogue that was written to be funny, and to me was therefore totally unfunny - it felt so unnatural (actors just repeating somebody else's lines that they had learned by heart = never felt like actual conversation), but maybe other people thought it was hilarious. I often find it puzzling what people find funny, though (like... "he had a lot of guts" is actually funny to people? oh, ok...) and what they don't. It's all taste and opinion. There is no universal humor, that's for sure.
Your absolutely true about taste and opinion, that's why I started the discussion to see peoples opinions on how much humour and if they would go to far and like you said the style of humour.
I get your take, but I still think it's an absolute clunker. It's something Moore would say, but not DC. I just think the line is completely unnecessary. Humour is so intrinsically tied to the actor, even more than the character, that I think you have to tailor anything bordering on humour to the actor rather than the icon. Some of the lines in SF are scripted with the idea of that generic Bondian irony in mind.
Stuff that works best for DC are things like 'The whole office goes up in smoke and that bloody thing survives'. There's a truth about the way he plays that. DC has quite a brooding, moody presence and I always think he comes off better when he's being sardonic, rather than overly comedic. Take the Q scenes, there aren't any 'one-liners' as such, there's a more naturalistic mocking, wry kind of feel to it. Nothing written as an out and out gag, like 'Circle of life', or 'Put it all on red', or 'Deep Water'. It's similar case with Lazenby, when he says 'He had lots of guts', it just comes off as tonally divergent.
The weird thing is that Dan really can deliver that sardonic humour brilliantly, they don't need to service the old irony in the specific way they did in the 60's and 70's and 80's, they just need some genuinely decent, clever and comically balanced writing. DC can elevate it.