No Time to Die Spoilers from post #1449 onward

loyatemu · 10-09-2020 2:17pm

In fairness too, QoS and Spectre aren't terrible in the way that (say) Die another Day and Moonraker are terrible.

10-09-2020 2:21pm

Interesting Bond Salary / Total remuneration listing that I stumbled on

Brosnan was looking for $20 mill for doing another Bond Movie

https://www.mi6community.com/discussion/939/the-salary-of-playing-james-bond-through-the-ages

inflation adjusted what Connery got for "Diamonds are forever" would be the biggest pay-day

Craig apparently getting $25 million for this last one

Dades · 10-09-2020 2:25pm

loyatemu wrote: »

In fairness too, QoS and Spectre aren't terrible in the way that (say) Die another Day and Moonraker are terrible.

Moonraker is daft as heck, but I'd still watch it over Spectre on a wet Bank Holiday Monday. I'm partial to a double taking pigeon and Holly Goodhead.

Die Another Day is 007's low-point for me.

pixelburp · 10-09-2020 2:26pm

Casino Royale was a transformative Bond movie in terms of what the franchise could be, but its dialogue was bloody awful in places - in particular all the pillow talk between Bond & Vesper. It made YA novels look like Jane Austin in comparison, with clumsy metaphorical declarations and adolescent cliché. The set-pieces were excellent, and Martin Campbell deserves plaudits for relaunching Bond not just once, twice - but he could do nothing with that dialogue.

Skyfall had a much better script though IMO, while being a better looking movie than Casino Royale (though the earlier film definitely looked the part). Quantum of Solice is noteworthy for having a car chase scene that regularly appears on video essayists' content - usually around the subject of "badly directed action scenes"

10-09-2020 2:39pm

QoS is under-rated - I suggest a re-watch as imo it has aged pretty well.

It's actually pretty well-directed on the whole imo (e.g. Opera scene is quite good and I liked the Bolivian setting) And Olga Kurylenko in her prime was a great bond-girl.

mikhail · 10-09-2020 2:54pm

glasso wrote: »

QoS is under-rated - I suggest a re-watch as imo it has aged pretty well.

It's actually pretty well-directed on the whole imo (e.g. Opera scene is quite good and I liked the Bolivian setting) And Olga Kurylenko in her prime was a great bond-girl.

The action appears to have been edited in a blender, Kurylenko is in brownface and putting on a dodgy hispanic accent, and the script was rough as hell owing to a writer's strike. It has its moments and it's a little better when judged as a sequel to Casino Royale rather than a stand-alone movie, but it's not great.

10-09-2020 3:00pm

the car chase has a few too many cuts but re-watched it recently and personally way prefer it the mega-bloat Skyfall.

Talking about dialogue - Skyfall's attempt at pathos was.... pathetic.

and Spectre is just stupid.

if you have only seen it once (at the time) check it again.

beauf · 10-09-2020 3:52pm

loyatemu wrote: »

In fairness too, QoS and Spectre aren't terrible in the way that (say) Die another Day and Moonraker are terrible.

Moonraker and Die another Day are really products of their era's.

If you think of a cars. If you make a high end car, and don't put any computers in it, it won't date that badly. Put a load of 80's computers and tech in it, and its will date very quickly. Bond movies suffered from this, especially the ones with more gadgets and large fantastical sets.

The Craig era has stayed away from this, and have aged better because of it. But perhaps there isn't a lot of differentiate them from any modern action thriller. Perhaps Mission Impossible is closer to the fantastical of the old Bonds.

New trailer looks good. Looking forward to it.

loyatemu · 10-09-2020 4:02pm

beauf wrote: »

Moonraker and Die another Day are really products of their era's.

but so are all the (pre-Craig) Bond films, and those 2 are particularly awful.

Die Another Day - they didn't have to hire Madonna for the song and then let her "act" as well; they didn't have to have an invisible car; they could have spent a few quid extra on the laughable CGI which looked ridiculous even by the standards of the time. There's actually some good scenes in the film, and the plot is entertaining if ludicrous but overall it's a badly made mess.

mewso · 10-09-2020 4:34pm

Skyfall was when they scrapped the re-imagining of Bond that they started with Casino Royale. I never really understood the glowing praise it got. I do remember the celebratory slant of things UK and the Jubilee contributing to a positive slant on it but it had many issues for me. Bond slipping into the shower of a girl who we had just established was abused from childhood, watching callously as the bad guy kills her not to mention the targeted tube train through the roof nonsense all bundled together made it an average experience for me in the modern era.

I say modern because I still laugh at Connery in Goldfinger slapping the girl in the arse saying 'run along, man talk'. Funny looking back at the attitudes of the time but to have something like the above in Skyfall in modern Bond is ridiculous imo.

pixelburp · 10-09-2020 4:45pm

Oh, the shower scene in Skyfall remains deeply creepy and easily one of Bond's top 10 skuzzier moments. How it slipped past the writer's room without anyone joining the dots is a small mystery. As to the tone, Casino Royale established Bond as a bit of a heartless thug so his nonchalance at her later death seemed on par with that approach. The rest of the movie I thought threaded the line between the historical excess of older Bond movies and obvious Bourne inflected version of Craig's first outing. It wasn't like the "disapproving mother" aspect wasn't there in the background with Judi Dench's M, I liked how Skyfall simply leaned into it as a part of the story.

Very telling mind you tht absolutely nobody is going to bat for Spectre

10-09-2020 4:54pm

basic problem with Bond as much-commented on ad nauseam is that all the original traits of the character and movies are too unwoke for the modern day and yet trying to move too far towards the new societal expectations ruins the whole thing.

there is no perfect balance to be found imo in this regard

something like Mission impossible (not saying it's amazing - just as a comparison) doesn't have this baggage so is at a big advantage as a result.

pixelburp · 10-09-2020 5:04pm

Not everything is about being woke. Bond sneaking into the shower to surprise-sex a woman who had just revealed was sexually abused during childhood was ... ... yeesh. That's just a bit yuck, and nothing to do with modern sensabilities poo-poo'ing heterosexual male power fantasies.

10-09-2020 5:17pm

pixelburp wrote: »

Not everything is about being woke. Bond sneaking into the shower to surprise-sex a woman who had just revealed was sexually abused during childhood was ... ... yeesh. That's just a bit yuck, and nothing to do with modern sensabilities poo-poo'ing heterosexual male power fantasies.

didn't mean my point as a reply to condone that - that's quite a leap.

put that aside and my point still stands as a general point.

they will keep the bond franchise going but all the flip-flopping around means that they don't really have much of a clue how to fix this identity crisis issue.

pixelburp · 10-09-2020 5:30pm

glasso wrote: »

didn't mean my point as a reply to condone that - that's quite a leap.

put that aside and my point still stands as a general point.

they will keep the bond franchise going but all the flip-flopping around means that they don't really have much of a clue how to fix this identity crisis issue.

Fair enough re Skyfall.

TBH, that's just a fundamental flaw of the Bond franchise as a whole. Ian Fleming wrote it as his own author-inserted power fantasy, and as a fictional character doesn't actually have any useful flaws, arcs, or directions you can take the character beyond "horny playa finds love" - which was done twice across the series' run. Beyond that ...? Hard to say without "ruining" the nature of Bond the audience cypher. I don't envy professional writers scribbling Bond scripts 'cos they can't be too inspiring.

There's nothing wrong with that shallowness in of itself, but Hollywood can't let a good thing die so "James Bond" is somewhat cursed to just repeat itself over and over, without any scope to change, develop or do anything new. At least until Bond becomes unsustainably unprofitable. The only thing that changes in the series is the product placement - and technology therein. He kinda IS the dinosaur M chided him as being back in Goldeneye. Again, that's the core strength and weakness of the series as a whole.

Were it up to me - so take that with a pinch of salt - I'd reboot the series back to the 1960s and let it exist as an intentionally anachronistic piece of entertainment. A period action series. Might make it hard for Sony to flog its latest smart-phone so I'd imagine if the idea was ever floated before, it was shot down by the Marketing department quick enough.

beauf · 10-09-2020 5:43pm

The man from uncle reboot etc.

ArmaniJeanss · 10-09-2020 5:43pm

pixelburp wrote: »

Fair enough re Skyfall.

TBH, that's just a fundamental flaw of the Bond franchise as a whole. Ian Fleming wrote it as his own author-inserted power fantasy, and as a fictional character doesn't actually have any useful flaws, arcs, or directions you can take the character beyond "horny playa finds love" - which was done twice across the series' run. Beyond that ...? Hard to say without "ruining" the nature of Bond the audience cypher. I don't envy professional writers scribbling Bond scripts 'cos they can't be too inspiring.

Just on this, I see we sadly lost Tracey Bond/The Countess/Diane Rigg today. Aged 82.

pixelburp · 10-09-2020 5:53pm

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

Just on this, I see we sadly lost Tracey Bond/The Countess/Diane Rigg today. Aged 82.

Shoot that's very sad. Given how long-lived Hollywood stars of her era appear to be that feels curiously younger than expected. A charismatic, classically stunning woman in her pomp.

beauf wrote: »

The man from uncle reboot etc.

If you mention it as an argument against a 60s Bond ... I dunno, UNCLE was an unknown property at the best of times, a fair blatant Bond ripoff from the outset IIRC so can't say the reboot flopping in the cinema came as a huge surprise. It was generally well regarded by those who HAD seen it - including myself.

James Bond though is arguably one of the biggest pop culture icons on the planet. As universal as Superman, Mickey Mouse or Homer Simpson. It should have the runway to make an experiment from time to time - heck it's easy to forget just how big a gamble Casino Royale was at the time.

beauf · 10-09-2020 6:01pm

pixelburp wrote: »

...
If you mention it as an argument against a 60s Bond ... I dunno, UNCLE was an unknown property at the best of times, a fair blatant Bond ripoff from the outset IIRC so can't say the reboot flopping in the cinema came as a huge surprise. It was generally well regarded by those who HAD seen it - including myself.

...

No I meant that treatment would work for your 60s idea. I really thought the Uncle Reboot worked well. Its a treatment that solves a lot of the inherent problems with bond.

Tony EH · 10-09-2020 6:43pm

glasso wrote: »

mixed at best I would say.

personally I would say bloated with a lot of rubbish parts in it that ruined it

the extended scene at the end in particular where Dench kicked the bucket (didn't even care at that point) but even the court / tube stuff and the silly island place - i.e. large parts of it

went back and actually watched Quantum of Solace a while ago and I would argue that it's better - much tighter

'Skyfall' is a little flabby for sure. But it's still a good film, as far as a James Bond film is concerned.

But, I like the three of them. They work, in general, and are a relatively entertaining time.

'Spectre' doesn't really work though, on a fundamental level. The whole Blofeld/Bond thing was just an awful idea from the get go and heavy return to the gadgets/girls/cars angle was a let down after the previous three had toned that down significantly.

The ridiculously named 'Quantum of Solace' I think is an underrated effort and its running time has a bit to do with that. It's very short, for a Bond movie, from which I think people were expecting more, and it's less "explosive" entry in the Bond canon than is the usual affair. In the end, it's really just 'Casino Royale Part 2' and viewed as that, I think it works well enough.

There's a fan edit of 'Spectre' floating about that dispenses with all the Brotherly stuff and other unnecessary additions that were in it. I'll have to see if I can check it out and if it can streamline the movie in a more satisfactory way.

10-09-2020 6:45pm

beauf wrote: »

No I meant that treatment would work for your 60s idea. I really thought the Uncle Reboot worked well. Its a treatment that solves a lot of the inherent problems with bond.

Bond and his foibles are however far more well-known, ingrained and understood by a much larger audience and therefore more resistant to change in that if they are changed dramatically it seems very jarring.

Tony EH · 10-09-2020 6:52pm

flasher0030 wrote: »

Cant compare Craig's outing as Bond to Brosnan's in my opinion. I felt there was nothing likeable about Brosnan's Bond. Bit of a smart-ass. But at least Daniel Craig has brought a bit of personality to the character. Performances aside, Brosnan's films were rather shallow. All about driving tanks, sky-diving, ticking bomb etc.

Form me, Craig has been the best iteration of the character so far. He brought a bit of depth to the proceedings and also a bit of rough and tumble too. It's just a pity that 'Spectre' tumbled into silly territory with the whole Blofeld scenario.

I'll always have a soft spot for Connery, cos he was the first...and it's Sean. But, the 60's efforts have to be viewed now with a bit of "viewer grace" involved, whereby you need to just let the movie away with certain things and not be too critical of their period trappings.

'Live and Let Die' will be a guilty pleasure. But, I couldn't care less about any other Bond movie.

beauf · 10-09-2020 7:08pm

glasso wrote: »

Bond and his foibles are however far more well-known, ingrained and understood by a much larger audience and therefore more resistant to change in that if they are changed dramatically it seems very jarring.

I don't think people want all the bad stuff (obsolete) in the movies going forward.

beauf · 10-09-2020 7:13pm

Tony EH wrote: »

Form me, Craig has been the best iteration of the character so far. He brought a bit of depth to the proceedings and also a bit of rough and tumble too. It's just a pity that 'Spectre' tumbled into silly territory with the whole Blofeld scenario.

I'll always have a soft spot for Connery, cos he was the first...and it's Sean. But, the 60's efforts have to be viewed now with a bit of "viewer grace" involved, whereby you need to just let the movie away with certain things and not be too critical of their period trappings.

'Live and Let Die' will be a guilty pleasure. But, I couldn't care less about any other Bond movie.

I think its very difficult for a modern audience to see them in context. I would say even people who grew up with them, will have also moved with the times, and find it hard to look past at all the stuff that has dated badly.

10-09-2020 7:16pm

beauf wrote: »

I don't think people want all the bad stuff (obsolete) in the movies going forward.

A lot of it is not easily divisible from the core character.

e.g. he's a ladykiller who women just want to jump into bed with, notwithstanding all his misogynistic innuendo and now he has to ask for consent to drop the hand or what?

10-09-2020 7:17pm

beauf wrote: »

I think its very difficult for a modern audience to see them in context. I would say even people who grew up with them, will have also moved with the times, and find it hard to look past at all the stuff that has dated badly.

it's a bit like trying to pick the best bond imo as it's such a long-running series and there have been so many changes in both film-making, realism expectations and society (e.g. attitudes towards women etc) along the way which has affected the movies and scripts (especially recently).

beauf · 10-09-2020 7:31pm

Have you seen the uncle reboot. That the aspect that was covered in that. Its was 60's in look and style, but modern in everything else.

OU812 · 10-09-2020 8:03pm

I was waiting until the new bond comes out to replace my current HD (1080p) versions of the movies with shiny new 4K ones, but I took a look at a couple of them the other day & they're really REALLY dated.

They really don't stand up well at all (particularly the Moore ones).

TSWLM is probably the one I'd like to see remade with a modern aspect, but of them all, only Goldeneye & Goldfinger hold up well.

10-09-2020 8:48pm

beauf wrote: »

Have you seen the uncle reboot. That the aspect that was covered in that. Its was 60's in look and style, but modern in everything else.

I have but imo that movie and source material doesn't / didn't have the same dynamic like the bond girl stuff.

Although I was familiar with the original material, many wouldn't have had any clue of it so therefore the baggage that Bond has is not the same.

Dades · 10-09-2020 9:58pm

I loved the UNCLE reboot, and it could work for Bond - but only as a once off.

People might get an initial kick out of the 60's setting, but 2, 3 or more films and the novelty would wear off. Would be different now too without the "Go on, man-talk..." type lines. :P

I think I read a 60's set Bond book that was release some years back?

beauf · 10-09-2020 10:20pm

No one's saying copy it slavishly, but theres ideas worth exploring.

I like the Craig era but it definitely is missing some things that made it bond and different to just another thriller/action franchise.

pixelburp · 10-09-2020 10:27pm

Part of the problem with Bond now? There's simply no compelling antagonists that work as effectively as Russia and the Cold War did in the franchise's heyday. Now, they're flimsy tech bros gone mad, or some limp Illuminati esque blather. The world, as much as it seems to be coming apart, doesn't have the same obvious factions as the Cold War caused. It wasn't great for peace in the world, but made for good stories and great material for espionage tales of war in the shadows.

beauf · 10-09-2020 10:48pm

Does it require a cold war?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_James_Bond_villains

loyatemu · 11-09-2020 9:09am

I'd like to see a villain who doesn't have some personal beef with Bond or M or whatever. Just some loony, out to take over the world and Bond gets assigned the case.

Dades · 11-09-2020 9:58am

Exactly.

New Bond villains used to popup with regularity. From drug dealers to rebooting the human race in space. Enough with the baddiverse.

OU812 · 11-09-2020 9:59am

I’d like to see Bond go to the likes of Apple (preferably) Netflix, Prime or HBO. A series like Jack Ryan. With the occasional cinema outing for bigger event missions.

Something like the Ryan series would give scope for the actual mission to be longer with more action/adventure along the way. Perfect outlet for it.

flasher0030 · 11-09-2020 10:28am

pixelburp wrote: »

Part of the problem with Bond now? There's simply no compelling antagonists that work as effectively as Russia and the Cold War did in the franchise's heyday. Now, they're flimsy tech bros gone mad, or some limp Illuminati esque blather. The world, as much as it seems to be coming apart, doesn't have the same obvious factions as the Cold War caused. It wasn't great for peace in the world, but made for good stories and great material for espionage tales of war in the shadows.

How about Bond Versus ISIS

Dades · 11-09-2020 11:18am

flasher0030 wrote: »

How about Bond Versus ISIS

A bit too gritty and close to home politically. Jack Ryan did it great but he's CIA. Bond kills for Her Majesty!

11-09-2020 11:43am

Prince Harry dies snorting a bad batch of coke traced back to the Kinahans

Bond is dispatched to cut off Daniel Kinahan's balls with a rusty razor and bleed him out.

Tyson Fury (MTK boxing links) is lead henchman with a feral nose-biting Conor McGregor as mini-me-henchman to be dispatched along the way

Directed by Guy Richie

beauf · 11-09-2020 11:44am

There's a film I'd never watch.

11-09-2020 11:49am

Possible joke element in that suggestion

it is true though that with the 24-hour news cycle and all-accessible internet that it's harder to come up with any soft of credible villain outside nation-state level bodies really and it's maybe not desirable to have the Chinese or the Russian government directly targeted in a bond movie.

is that why they went back to pantomime in Skyfall and Spectre?

mikhail · 11-09-2020 12:21pm

I'm just thinking about the plot in Casino Royale. A money launderer gambles his clients' money on a stock shorting scheme backed up with a piece of terrorism, and when he loses Bond is dispatched to bring him in so that MI5 can leverage his weakness for information. No volcano lairs, no Russian generals, no nukes, perfectly credible. It can be done, they're just too lazy to do it.

FunLover18 · 11-09-2020 12:50pm

mikhail wrote: »

I'm just thinking about the plot in Casino Royale. A money launderer gambles his clients' money on a stock shorting scheme backed up with a piece of terrorism, and when he loses Bond is dispatched to bring him in so that MI5 can leverage his weakness for information. No volcano lairs, no Russian generals, no nukes, perfectly credible. It can be done, they're just too lazy to do it.

QoS gets stick for its ridiculous plot but it was also quite grounded, a shady organization helps stages coups on exchange they get contracts for the nation's utilities supplies.

I never got the love for Skyfall, the plot doesn't make sense. Bond's fake death and comeback is made out to be a big deal but it doesn't really have any impact, it's almost like they forgot about it. Silva's plan is basically to kill one person and he goes about it in the most convoluted way, the whole thing with the hard drive with all the agents names just sort of fizzles out. I can't even remember what Blofeld's plan in Spectre was. The problem is that Bond should never figure into the villain's plan whereas it's getting so that they revolve around him.

Harry Palmr · 11-09-2020 12:59pm

Bond origins - young 007 working for the SIS in Lisbon (a hot bed of spying during the WW2) based intrigue. No shortage of under 35ish actors who could take that role and work with it.

cdgalwegian · 11-09-2020 1:57pm

How about this?
Given the original Bond films had Russia as the big baddie, and potential global destruction through nuclear war, how about making it properly contemporary, yet back to basics? Russians somewhere in the shadowy background, with a single egomaniac as the big baddie, throw in certain ecological destruction, but have the big baddie with the ability to trigger global destruction by a theoretically technical means? Might involve time inversion...

11-09-2020 2:04pm

cdgalwegian wrote: »

How about this?
Given the original Bond films had Russia as the big baddie, and potential global destruction through nuclear war, how about making it properly contemporary, yet back to basics? Russians somewhere in the shadowy background, with a single egomaniac as the big baddie, throw in certain ecological destruction, but have the big baddie with the ability to trigger global destruction by a theoretically technical means? Might involve time inversion...

sounds like something that might pop into Christopher Nolan's head whilst he was taking a sh1t.

cdgalwegian · 11-09-2020 2:33pm

glasso wrote: »

sounds like something that might pop into Christopher Nolan's head whilst he was taking a sh1t.

Where there's muck, there's brass.

ArmaniJeanss · 11-09-2020 2:36pm

Was the Russia/USSR state ever really the bad guy in any film?
Wasn't it usually SPECTRE working with a renegade Soviet for the Connery films.

By Roger Moore's time, General Gogol was generally working with Bond (with the exception of For Your Eyes Only) and if a Russian was a bad guy, again it was a renegade like Orlov (Octopussy).

Dalton's first went with renegade again.

11-09-2020 2:41pm

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

Was the Russia/USSR state ever really the bad guy in any film?
Wasn't it usually SPECTRE working with a renegade Soviet for the Connery films.

By Roger Moore's time, General Gogol was generally working with Bond (with the exception of For Your Eyes Only) and if a Russian was a bad guy, again it was a renegade like Orlov (Octopussy).

Dalton's first went with renegade again.

that's the thing - they don't go there directly - the Cold War usually was a connected backdrop

Mad_maxx · 12-09-2020 12:19pm

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

Was the Russia/USSR state ever really the bad guy in any film?
Wasn't it usually SPECTRE working with a renegade Soviet for the Connery films.

By Roger Moore's time, General Gogol was generally working with Bond (with the exception of For Your Eyes Only) and if a Russian was a bad guy, again it was a renegade like Orlov (Octopussy).

Dalton's first went with renegade again.

the Bond movies portrayed both russia and the usa as incompetent war mongers and blighty needed to send its best to sort it all out

No Time to Die **Spoilers from post #1449 onward**

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No Time to Die Spoilers from post #1449 onward