Ethan Hunt > James Bond?

micks_address

After seeing spectre last week and rogue nation tonight... Got me thinking...

Thoughts?

Looper007

micks_address wrote: »

After seeing spectre last week and rogue nation tonight... Got me thinking...

Thoughts?

Are we talking Craig's Bond here, If we are I still take Casino Royale and Skyfall over Rogue Nation and the Mission Impossible franchise which I love. Spectre was alright, it only went downhill for me In it's third act. But it wasn't Craig's fault, he was excellent as Bond and always is. But Rogue Nation was the more entertaining film and the one I would probably rewatch more. But the M:I franchise had a horrible stinker in M:I 2 that's the QOS of Cruise's although I prefer QOS to M:I 2 and M:I 3 would be the Spectre. But M:I franchise hasn't a CR or SF in it's canon for me. So I chose Bond.

Although I chose Jason Bourne over both.

Skerries

Johnny English would whoop all their asses!

Into The Blue

micks_address wrote: »

Thoughts

Which are?

the whole year inn

Its all about rewatchablity and MI gets it for me.MI2 is a total car crash and even at that ive seen it about 3 times(couldnt belive how bad it was and had to make sure). MI1 and 3 I have watched countless times and RN I have seen twice allready and will no doubt watch it again.

Craig is a good Bond but some of the other bond movies have aged horribly.I watched any MI movie bar 2 over any bond.

Ill be the minority Id say.

micks_address

Into The Blue wrote: »

Which are?

My thoughts? Well I'd agree with others that Mi2 was pretty useless... apart from the scenery on show.. with the impossible series heading towards number 6... i wonder how long will it be before tom cruise is re cast?

With Bond i think Casino Royale was heavily influenced by all the Jason Bourne would kick Bonds ass comments around the time..

I preferred Ghost Protocol to Rouge nation.. Alec Baldwin is a great addition to the series.. Mi3 was a pretty decent outing and probably saved the series from ruin..

Craigs bonds would be Casino Royale, Skyfall, Spectre, Quantum for me..

Mi would be Ghost Protocol, Mi3, Rogue Nation, Mi1 and Mi2.. hard to line up mi1 though as it feels like a completely different type of movie..

fluke

The MI series has been much more fun than Bond has since God knows when...

Sad Professor

M:I all the way. In fact, I’d argue the majority of the Bond films look pretty poor when compared to other franchises. Even the good entries. And the bad ones... I mean, all long-running franchises have stinkers, but Bond has had enough to kill the franchise several times over. It begs the question how the franchise has lasted so long.

I guess the answer is in the title of the thread, which compares the characters rather than the films. It reminds me that discussion of the Bond films as films is always difficult due to the obsession viewers have with the character of Bond. How he looks, how he dresses, how he acts, how many jokes he cracks, etc. It’s like Star Trek, where the continuity and themes became more important than the quality of the films.

It’s the same with Bond. OHMSS is easily one of the best Bond films, but it had the weakest interpretation of Bond, so it was dismissed for years as the worst film.

BuilderPlumber

I like both franchises but would have to choose Bond as my favourite. I also enjoyed MI 2 as well and found nothing wrong with it. The early Bonds probably opened the door for all these type of films like Bourne and MI. Even though they are 50 years old, films like From Russia With Love and Goldfinger were so ahead of their time and are still among the best entertainment to watch to this day.

BuilderPlumber

Sad Professor wrote: »

M:I all the way. In fact, I’d argue the majority of the Bond films look pretty poor when compared to other franchises. Even the good entries. And the bad ones... I mean, all long-running franchises have stinkers, but Bond has had enough to kill the franchise several times over. It begs the question how the franchise has lasted so long.

I guess the answer is in the title of the thread, which compares the characters rather than the films. It reminds me that discussion of the Bond films as films is always difficult due to the obsession viewers have with the character of Bond. How he looks, how he dresses, how he acts, how many jokes he cracks, etc. It’s like Star Trek, where the continuity and themes became more important than the quality of the films.

It’s the same with Bond. OHMSS is easily one of the best Bond films, but it had the weakest interpretation of Bond, so it was dismissed for years as the worst film.

I follow a wide variety of film franchises from MI to Mad Max to Bond to Western franchises like The Man With No Name and Magnificent 7. In all these bar Bond, there are less films. Still things like the Mag 7 sequels have remained underrated and others like Mad Max and MI are generally regarded as going from strength to strength.

Bond has more entries than any other action franchise and since it has lasted so long, it is clear they are doing a lot right. Early films were taut, serious thrillers (Dr No, From Russia With Love) and then humour and gadgets and stunts were added as it went along (Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever). All of these listed films starred Connery as Bond and are great films. Lazenby's film was not as highly regarded as the Connery films and for years it was the forgotten entry between You Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever that fans just wanted to forget. It might as well have been a dream Bond had for all fans cared. A direct reference to Bond's wife is not made again until The Spy Who Loved Me.

Moore's tenure has been ridiculed by many. Yet, Live and Let Die has the feel of a classic Connery film. Others he did like Moonraker and Octopussy are criminally underrated I think. Sure there was humour but they were overall fun and action packed films. True, they were worlds away from Dr No but would 1980s audiences watch a stripped down, low on humour Bond film? Probably not. Bond's use of humour also was not different to Indiana Jones'. Even Mad Max, Rambo and Cobra were using some humour too.

Dalton's 2 films were an attempt to make the series serious again and were excellent if poorly timed. If these 2 films were done in the 2000s, they'd have been more successful. Brosnan's films brought back the Moore era style and Goldeneye and Tomorrow Never Dies are good, old style Bond films comparable to ones from the late 1960s to 1980s. His last 2 drifted away into new ideas, some of which did not work like invisible cars. Craig's Bond had to reinvent the franchise and at least 2 of them are genuine Bond classics and among the best action films of the past decade.

Gwynplaine

Jack Bauer kicks both their butt's.
Seriously, Bond for me, simply because I can't look at a film with Tom Cruise in it, and the newer ones have that clown from Sean of the Dead. No way. I might be tempted to watch them as Marcellus Wallace is in them.
Oh, and Roger Moore is by far the best bond, in my opinion.

Chain Smoker

Is Ethan Hunt much of a character at all? I mean, whatever about the films being better ( I really rate MI-1 and Ghost Protocol, really like 3 and Rogue Nation too), the character hasn't any cultural cache beyond that set piece in the first film and even that is wholly unconnected to anything in particular about the character.