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Amph 007 Skyfall

Discussion in 'Community' started by DarthLowBudget, Apr 19, 2010.

  1. DarthLowBudget

    DarthLowBudget Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 17, 2004
    We Bond fans can be a fickle bunch it seems. Even I have to suppress knee-jerk rage at things like the gun barrel sequence ending a movie instead of beginning it.
     
  2. SithLordDarthRichie

    SithLordDarthRichie CR Emeritus: London star 9

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2003
    I hope they have now put that back at the beginning again.


    As for QoS, I think the biggest reason it suffered is that it was a direct sequel to Casino Royale rather than a seperate Bond story like all the other films. It could reference stuff that happened in the previous movie, but it seemed far too linked and I don't think that worked for it. It certainly isn't a bad movie, but it could have been better and probably should have tried to be more distinct from Casino Royale.
     
  3. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

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    Feb 18, 2001
    Yesssss, but the reason I brought this up was that Dalton was the first one to go back to Ian Fleming and the character's roots. Daniel Craig has also done this, though in a less fundamentalist way. There is a reason why the producers go back to Fleming when they have lost their way. There's a reason the good actors go back to Fleming to source the character's roots. Everything about Fleming's Bond, snobbery included, was deliberate. It spoke of a casual sophistication. He wore a Rolex Submariner because Fleming did; and Fleming wore it because in 1953, when the Submariner debuted, it was the only watch guaranteed to a depth (I think 100ft, from memory). So for Bond, an expensive diver's timepiece gave off the right mix of know-how and sophistication.

    He drove the Bentley 4 1/2 litre "Blower" because Bentley was a savagely good British sports car that had won Le Mans in the days when motorsport was a largely national affair (with Bugatti being France's best hope; Auto Union and Mercedes the German marque, and Alfa the Italian). It was racey, sophisticated, and suggested again a "know how". Later, Bond upgrades to one of the most beautiful cars ever made, the Bentley Continental Type-R (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mx9wDLdsq...ntinental_type_r%2B25_most_beautiful_cars.jpg). At this stage (and since) Bentley produced very fine cars with powerful engines and had that racing pedigree, so it suited Bond to a tee.

    His suits were tailor made on Savile Row (I believe it wasn't Anderson and Shepherd, as Count Lippe in the Thunderball novel wore these and Bond wasn't a fan. From memory no other bespoke tailor is mentioned). He had bespoke cigarettes made by Morland of Grosvenor Street.

    That, and he was a killer, a cold warrior, a ruthless gambler and ladies' man. A spy and a veteran, he was well travelled around the globe. This is what made Bond resonate with his audience at the time - in the austere post-war world, this escapist luxury and casual brand-name snobbery was the perfect remedy for the grind of daily life and it gave ordinary people the chance to believe they could be this anonymous assassin with his material pleasures.

    Fundamentally this, and not gadgets or stupid quips, are why the producers return to Bond. The actors find in him a tarnished man, a man who represses his natural feelings deep down including his feelings about his job (In Goldfinger, Bond considers regret unprofessional and a "death-watch beetle for the soul"; in OHMSS, as he sits a la plage watching over Tracey he thinks of a childhood at the beach and then shuts the lid firmly on sentimentality). I bring all this up so you can cast your mind to the scene between Vesper and Bond on the train to Montenegro in Casino Royale. The producers have taken all of this and added a modern filter to it - but they still source from it.

    Any idiot can make terrible puns on screen. Dalton and Craig, along with Connery in Dr No and FRWL, proved Bond is Bond without the one-liners. To fault an actor for struggling to fit those out -of-character quirks into his role is to my mind to show you don't actually get James Bond films but love the explosions and occasional Union flag parachute.
     
  4. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

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    Feb 18, 2001
    You've just reinforced my view above with this comment.

    QoS being a sequel allowed them to develop more of Bond's emotional depth as a character, as he dealt with Vesper's death. That's all the film is - Bond's grieving process. In some parts he's harder, and colder, than he was in Casino Royale. Look at his clinical dispatch of Mr Slade in Port-au-Prince. He just doesn't give a damn and was only supposed to question him. He's a little unhinged, because he has little left to care for. On that level, QoS works nicely because Bond has to rediscover his purpose. In Casino Royale, he quits to spend his days with Vesper. If she's gone and betrayed him, what is the point of anything, really?

    But you know, one liners and explosions and stuffs!
     
  5. SithLordDarthRichie

    SithLordDarthRichie CR Emeritus: London star 9

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2003
    I get the films, because they aren't the same as the source material. If you can't do the character the way the producers want it done, don't bother doing it.

    Bond still is all the things you listed above, he was when Connery started and he is now. Being a ruthless mysoginist killer is fine, adding dry with when appropriate and spicing up action scenes with cool but (mostly) believable gadgets makes you stand out. I like Craig but his movies so far have tried to immitate another franchise and not gone down the route of what made Bond films great and loved in the first place. You can have all the old stuff and still make the character as Craig does it, and sounds like Skyfall has managed to do that.

    Bond's wife died in OHMSS, they didn't do a follow-up because it wasn't needed. If he greived or thought about it, it was a minor moment and not the entire plot-strand of the movie.
     
  6. GenAntilles

    GenAntilles Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 24, 2007
    Wasn't the plot of Diamonds are Forever essentially Bond getting to do an Mi6 sanctioned revenge spree on Blofeld and Spectre for Tracy though? I mean sure he got a new girl about 10 minutes in but he was still killing out of revenge.
     
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  7. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

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    Feb 18, 2001
    Yep, the opening in fact has Bond ruthless kicking the crap out of everyone in his way. But it was an overreaction against the sentiment shown in OHMSS. Dalton played the grief nicely in LTK with the scene with Della's garter, for example.

    But which is more believable - what Craig did with Vesper, or what Connery did with DAF?
     
  8. DarthLowBudget

    DarthLowBudget Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 17, 2004
    Gross misunderstanding of an actor's role and process.

    They were supposed to, and they wanted to in their original plan, but Lazenby walked, and Peter Hunt neglected to do the follow up. That and they'd already made the You Only Live Twice out of order.
     
  9. SithLordDarthRichie

    SithLordDarthRichie CR Emeritus: London star 9

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2003
    DAF was a dumb movie, especially with camp plastic-surgery Blofeld despite having been exploded in a volcano (I believe he was not in the book). I thought the plot was mostly about getting Blofeld and Spectre because they were bad and he is required to stop the World Domination loons, although it's years since I saw the movie.

    Bond can kill for revenge if he wants, no-one says he can't be a rebel.
     
  10. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

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    Feb 18, 2001
    DAF is the fourth novel. Blofeld doesn't show up until the 9th book, Thunderball. Basically there's a loose trilogy - Thunderball, which is strikingly close to the film (as it was written by Fleming and Kevin McClory to be a screenplay); OHMSS, which is also very close to the book, and YOLT, in which M is worried about Bond who has been depressed and less effective since Tracy's death. He is sent to Japan on a difficult assignment to snap him out of his malaise and discovers Blofeld in Japan (as Dr Shatterhands). Bond eventually kills him here in a fairly epic climax.

    That aside, Bond is expected to be a professional killer. Chapter 1 of Goldfinger demolishes the idea that Bond can kill for revenge if he so chooses:

    "It was part of his profession to kill people. He had never liked doing it and when he had to kill he did it as well as he knew how and forgot about it. As a secret agent who held the rare double-O prefix—the licence to kill in the Secret Service—it was his duty to be as cool about death as a surgeon. If it happened, it happened. Regret was unprofessional—worse, it was a death-watch beetle in the soul."

    Revenge stands in contrast to the notion about being cold and surgical about death and killing, wouldn't you say?
     
  11. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

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    Feb 18, 2001
    doh double post
     
  12. SithLordDarthRichie

    SithLordDarthRichie CR Emeritus: London star 9

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    Oct 3, 2003
    Bond is only human, if he lost someone who affected him closely there's no reason why he might not seek retribution on those who were the cause of his pain. He's not exactly renound in the movies for doing exactly what he is told to do.
     
  13. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

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    Feb 18, 2001
    And each time he has sought to do so, two things have happened;

    1) He seeks to quit the service to fulfill his vendetta, and
    2) The best Bond films have come out of it (OHMSS, Casino Royale, LTK)

    Aside from the naff DAF, when have MI6 sanctioned Bond taking things personally? In TWINE, they tried to keep him out of the loop re: the Kind investigation for exactly this reason.
     
  14. SithLordDarthRichie

    SithLordDarthRichie CR Emeritus: London star 9

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2003
    It will be interesting to see what he gets up to in Skyfall during the time when he is "dead" and therefore not part of MI6.
     
  15. Havac

    Havac Former Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Sep 29, 2005
    A: Casino Royale was nothing like a Bourne film. Nor was QOS. Some vague sense of a serious tone and some of the presentation of the action, moreso in QOS, but they were distincly Bond films. Bourne doesn't go to high-end casinos to outplay and then capture terrorist financiers. Bourne doesn't drive Astons around the Bahamas. He doesn't go to high-society parties in Southh America to get information to foil coups. The Craig films still feel very distinctly like Bond. They're not losing their way.

    And they're not straying from what made the films great, either. Moore buffoonery did not make the Bond movies great. Flying cars did not make them great. Watch Dr. No and FRWL again. There's never been another film MORE like them than Casino Royale.
     
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  16. GenAntilles

    GenAntilles Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Jul 24, 2007
    I'm not going to be burnt at the stake if I say Moonraker is one of my favorite Bond movies am I?

    Of course that might be due to the love me and my friends had of using moonraker's only in Goldeneye. Now those were good times... so long as you were Oddjob.

    But I liked the Moore movies too. I like Connery, Craig, Brosnan, Moore, Dalton, Lazenby. I mean depending on my mood I know there's a Bond movie to match whatever level of seriousness or adventure I want.
     
  17. DarthLowBudget

    DarthLowBudget Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Jan 17, 2004
    Oh the Moore films certainly have their merits. Moonraker was one of first (maybe actually the first?) Bonds I saw, so I have a soft spot for it.
     
  18. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

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    Feb 18, 2001
    Again, agreed. Though I think you would have to include LTK in there as well...
     
  19. Havac

    Havac Former Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Sep 29, 2005
    Licence is pretty close, but I think Casino Royale gets a little closer. LTK doesn't hit the idea of Bond as international sophisticate as much, and it has a less vivid villain.
     
  20. DarthLowBudget

    DarthLowBudget Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Jan 17, 2004
    But it does have Benicio. And one of the better Leiters.
     
  21. Havac

    Havac Former Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Sep 29, 2005
    Yeah, Benicio's crazy-eyes, homoerotic enforcer is doing the heavy lifting in that department, and both he and Sanchez are good villains -- they're just not quintessential Bond villains.
     
  22. DarthLowBudget

    DarthLowBudget Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Jan 17, 2004
    True. Bond didn't weather the decline of the Soviet Union very gracefully in the villain department.
     
  23. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

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    Feb 18, 2001
    Granted, being confined to "Isthumus" for most of it doesn't give it global spectacle, but I would argue that Sanchez is completely compelling as a villain.
     
  24. Havac

    Havac Former Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Sep 29, 2005
    Sanchez really works as a villain -- the lack of baroque flourishes and the intense performance from Davi gives him a sort of cold, businesslike menace that sells the character as a genuinely scary guy. It's just that he's not really a "Bond villain" in the classic sense, as much as people like Dr. No and Le Chiffre are.
     
  25. yankee8255

    yankee8255 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    May 31, 2005
    I generally liked QoS, thought the biggest problem was that it went back into a lengthy Bond-Vesper-catharsis, and took the whole movie to finally move Bond forward. I absolutely love the final scene in CR, Bond standing over White as the Bond theme is played for the first time, signalling the arrival of Bond. James Bond. And then QoS comes along and essentially ignores that scene and spends 2 hours trying to accomplish what CR did in its last 10 minutes.
     
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