Yeah, but you liked The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I'm not terribly inclined to take your judgment into consideration.
"Bond 23" Announced!
- Thread starter JacksonArcher
- Start date
Yeah, but you liked The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I'm not terribly inclined to take your judgment into consideration.
While I am assuming you are being facetious, Michael Sheen does in fact not have a role. I just wanted to clarify that. Well, he might at some point, but just because he's been in a couple Morgan productions doesn't quite mean he's going to have a role here.
Anyway, this would indeed mark Peter Morgan's first non-historical scriptwriting assignment, I do believe. Part of the reason why I find his hiring fascinating.
I was indeed being facetious. How well you know me! Nice to see you back here, btw - thought you'd been quiet for a while.
"I'm always around".
Thanks. Nice to see you around as well. You're one of the "classic" posters that I always enjoying reading what he/she has to say.
It's not Craig's performance as Bond that's the problem. It's the bad films that surround that. Daniel Craig has nothing to do with the fact that somebody accidentally spliced 40 minutes from some Kiera Knightley romantic drama movie in to the middle of Casino Royale.
It's not Craig's fault that somebody wrote him as a dumb thug (despite the film specifically saying that he's not supposed to be a dumb thug) who falls for his own trick by falling for Vesper.
It's not Craig's fault that somebody decided to pander to a certain part of the audience by having him recreate the Honey Rider scene. And then pandered to that same audience with the torture scene. What's hotter to those people than a guy with his shirt off ? The same guy naked and getting hit in the balls!
You could argue that what they did to Strawberry Fields (now there's a proper Bond girl name) was just as bad but at least they had the decency not to show it.
It's not Craig's fault that, in their attempts to be "realistic", they turned Quantum from being a very exciting SPECTRE replacement in to quite possibly Bond's most boring villains. They scramble around over a few million dollars and then their evil plan is to make Bolivia pay more for their water ? Pffft, Scaramanga and his butler nearly took over the entire energy industry on their own.
It's not Craig's fault that the directors of both films watched Matt Damon in the Bourne films too many times.
So no, it's not a problem with Craig's Bond. It is, as I said, a problem with the bad films Craig's Bond appears in.
It's not Craig's performance as Bond that's the problem. It's the bad films that surround that. Daniel Craig has nothing to do with the fact that somebody accidentally spliced 40 minutes from some Kiera Knightley romantic drama movie in to the middle of Casino Royale.
It's not Craig's fault that somebody wrote him as a dumb thug (despite the film specifically saying that he's not supposed to be a dumb thug) who falls for his own trick by falling for Vesper.
It's not Craig's fault that somebody decided to pander to a certain part of the audience by having him recreate the Honey Rider scene. And then pandered to that same audience with the torture scene. What's hotter to those people than a guy with his shirt off ? The same guy naked and getting hit in the balls!
You could argue that what they did to Strawberry Fields (now there's a proper Bond girl name) was just as bad but at least they had the decency not to show it.
It's not Craig's fault that, in their attempts to be "realistic", they turned Quantum from being a very exciting SPECTRE replacement in to quite possibly Bond's most boring villains. They scramble around over a few million dollars and then their evil plan is to make Bolivia pay more for their water ? Pffft, Scaramanga and his butler nearly took over the entire energy industry on their own.
It's not Craig's fault that the directors of both films watched Matt Damon in the Bourne films too many times.
So no, it's not a problem with Craig's Bond. It is, as I said, a problem with the bad films Craig's Bond appears in.
I have no problem with Daniel Craig getting his shirt off (aside from it makes me feel very weedy
) so long as their is eye candy for me to look at as well (I like Strawberries...) and the torture scene is intrinsic to the book, as is the romance, take them out and there's little point calling it Casino Royale (let's face it not too much else happens in the book) Bond as a bit of an idiot in CR annoyed me somewhat, but he seemed a bit more with it in QoS, and by the end seems to have morphed into the Bond we know and love, so I fully expect 23 to be more of a standard Bond film (I reckon they might ditch some of the crazy editing--well I hope anyway) and hopefully the script will be more polished.
^Let's face it, the Bond films have never exactly been slavishly dedicated to the books (this is true of the Bourne films that they like to copy so much too). It was a specifically anti-male act designed to make the male members of the audience feel uncomfortable. And not too much happens in the film, either!
Our "eye candy" was just too irritating in CR to put up with. Of the three "main" Bond girls so far, the only one who wasn't irritating kept her clothes on the whole time.
Our "eye candy" was just too irritating in CR to put up with. Of the three "main" Bond girls so far, the only one who wasn't irritating kept her clothes on the whole time.
Specifically anti-male act designed to make make members of the audience uncomfortable? Well how is that different from the perception of what could have been happening to Vesper at the same time, or the near rape of the waitress by Metrano in QoS?
Personally I found it a less uncomfortable torture scene than a lot (George Clooney getting his fingernails pulled out in Syriana, Mel Gibson's toes being smashed in Payback) the scene in CR is actually very sanitized (it's a 12A after all) and you definitely get the impression in the book that it goes on a lot longer!
Heck to be honest I find what happens to Felix and Della in Licence to Kill an awful lot more uncomfortable than Daniel Craig's balls being beaten off camera.
Personally I found it a less uncomfortable torture scene than a lot (George Clooney getting his fingernails pulled out in Syriana, Mel Gibson's toes being smashed in Payback) the scene in CR is actually very sanitized (it's a 12A after all) and you definitely get the impression in the book that it goes on a lot longer!
Heck to be honest I find what happens to Felix and Della in Licence to Kill an awful lot more uncomfortable than Daniel Craig's balls being beaten off camera.
The difference is all in the editing. Casino Royale focused as much on the gory details as that 12A would allow them to. We didn't see any of what happened to Vesper, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if nothing happened to her at all.
As for the waitress, we only saw very brief flashes of what was going on and it was a woman who saved her from it. We could discuss whether or not rape is a specifically anti-female act of violence in the same way torturing a man's testicles is a specifically anti-male one too.
It wouldn't have gotten a 12A from me.
Licence to Kill carried a 15 rating in the UK.
Even with its "small time" schemes Quantum shows how dangerous and powerful they are as a group - in Casino Royal Quantum knew more about MI6 than MI6 knew about them, the combined resources of MI6 and the CIA could only focus on a midlevel player like Le Chiffre, they're ahead of them in the propaganda game, and the investigation was infiltrated from the start.
In Quantum of Solace the Quantum syndicate was a few steps ahead of MI6 until the end - Mr. White was successfully extracted from MI6's custody, Quantum had another mole who nearly assassinated the leader of MI6, it is revealed that Quantum has members in the highest levels of big business and government, they find people before MI6 do, they're harder to track than CIA agents, every Third World country is putty in their hands, and they've got an eleborate blackmailing scheme to effectively snag significant members of Western governments (including secret agents).
Maybe it is just me having a reaction to the hype that has surrounded Craig's turn as Bond. It's not a problem with him. So far, at least, they've been purely conceived copies of the vastly superior Bourne series.
Casino Royale is largely a poor film, in my opinion, that does not know what type of film it wants to be. As I said earlier in the thread, I just don't buy that Bond cared that much about Vesper.
They're inconsistent. One minute they've got people everywhere, the next they can't even deal with Camille. At no point in the film does she come across as being so tough that shooting her would not solve the problem.
But the same could be said of any villainous organisation in Bond history, how many have had Bond in their hands and chosen not to kill him right then and there?
We'll have to agree to disagree on the torture scene, all I know is I sat there in the cinema feeling I should be uncomfortable but feeling it was all a bit tame.
I don't know what it is but I really don't get the Bourne love? The first one was good but the sequels...personally I can't tell 2 and 3 apart they appear to be the same film. I'd take CR and QoS over them anyday because Daniel Craig's Bond has something Matt Damon's Bourne lacks, a personality!
Yeah, but you liked The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I'm not terribly inclined to take your judgment into consideration.
Well not ALL of The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Even I considered bailing on it during the whole Sarah losing her mind storyline...
In Goldfinger there was a good reason why Bond was not shot in the eye by Auric Goldfinger: if Bond was found floating around Lake Cumberland, M and Felix would know something was up and send in the troops. So Auric Goldfinger kept Bond around his villa, as if he was keeping Bond as a guest instead as a prisoner, and Auric's compound was being watched by CIA agents.
And while not exactly stealing space capsules, the Lektor was pretty serious business if was an integral device in the KGB's intelligence gathering and covert communictions. The Americans and Chinese would pay good money to SPECTRE to gain the edge on the Soviets.
Hey guys, I just read through the thread and wanted to chime in briefly...
I'm excited for the new film. I think QoS was a pretty big let down... it felt a lot like Die Another Day to me... good action, big scale, but just not very involving. I didn't connect with Bond going after the bad guys, at all. The pay off wasn't very rewarding, and to be honest, I didn't think it was written all that well. It just felt incomplete... like they threw darts at a board saying "OK, let's fly bond here, put him in this car, and have him blow up this building. Film it!"
Keep in mind, I'm a pretty big Bond fan... that said my favorite Bond is still George Lazenby... I thought he captured the essence of the character better than anyone, and was truest to the character was originally written...
Craig is doing a serviceable job, but I'm sick of seeing Jason "Bond" Bourne. If I wanted to see the Bourne movie, I'd go watch one, I own them all... I watch Bond for the story, the fun, the payoff, the girls... the cars... I could care less about the high zoom lens of fast action with blinding cuts... I think the trio behind this movie need to go re-watch Goldeneye and make sure they produce a film that can stand up to that. One thing that made that film incredible was it's build up... SIX YEARS with no Bond movie... a new James Bond, and a fantastic plot with action on an epic scale. And hot chicks, of course. The only draw back was the BMW Z3, but at least it was only seen for a few moments. We've been very lucky with a Bond film every 2-3 years... maybe it's time for the franchise to take a few years off again... if 23 doesn't get it done, I wouldn't expect to see another film for a while... plus isn't this the last one Craig has in his contract? Maybe we can still get Clive Owen... ;-)
I'm excited for the new film. I think QoS was a pretty big let down... it felt a lot like Die Another Day to me... good action, big scale, but just not very involving. I didn't connect with Bond going after the bad guys, at all. The pay off wasn't very rewarding, and to be honest, I didn't think it was written all that well. It just felt incomplete... like they threw darts at a board saying "OK, let's fly bond here, put him in this car, and have him blow up this building. Film it!"
Keep in mind, I'm a pretty big Bond fan... that said my favorite Bond is still George Lazenby... I thought he captured the essence of the character better than anyone, and was truest to the character was originally written...
Craig is doing a serviceable job, but I'm sick of seeing Jason "Bond" Bourne. If I wanted to see the Bourne movie, I'd go watch one, I own them all... I watch Bond for the story, the fun, the payoff, the girls... the cars... I could care less about the high zoom lens of fast action with blinding cuts... I think the trio behind this movie need to go re-watch Goldeneye and make sure they produce a film that can stand up to that. One thing that made that film incredible was it's build up... SIX YEARS with no Bond movie... a new James Bond, and a fantastic plot with action on an epic scale. And hot chicks, of course. The only draw back was the BMW Z3, but at least it was only seen for a few moments. We've been very lucky with a Bond film every 2-3 years... maybe it's time for the franchise to take a few years off again... if 23 doesn't get it done, I wouldn't expect to see another film for a while... plus isn't this the last one Craig has in his contract? Maybe we can still get Clive Owen... ;-)
Bond yes. Camille no. Camille is a nobody. She's ex-Bolian intelligence. Emphasis on the ex. Surely an organisation with people everywhere can arrange for a nobody to disappear ?
The Bourne films are a very good example of how to make a trilogy. Only The Lord of the Rings was as consistently good across the trilogy as Bourne.
The Lektor, as simple as it may seem, makes more sense to me as a plot device than funneling off Bolivia's water supply and making them pay through the nose to get it back.
It's not Craig's fault that somebody decided to pander to a certain part of the audience by having him recreate the Honey Rider scene. And then pandered to that same audience with the torture scene. What's hotter to those people than a guy with his shirt off ? The same guy naked and getting hit in the balls!
You do realize the torture scene is exactly the same in the book, right?
The one thing I do like about QoS is Quantum's plan. Also, it was really creepy when they're everywhere and were literally everywhere (I cracked up with M's rant, it was absolutely perfect). I wasn't a fan of Bond's over the top killing of every person, but that set up the ending, so I didn't mind it. I also liked the locations they visited (even if the people of Siena aren't happy they're about to get flooded with tourists during the next Palio).
For me, exotic locations and beautiful women are the two essentials to a Bond film. The rest is negotiable. I would love a bit slower paced movie with more attempts to be a spy (a la From Russia With Love), and I wouldn't mind a cliché ending of Bond riding, sailing, floating off into the sunset with the girl. But I enjoy the movies not trying to go too far over the top.
For the last time - Yes I realise the torture scene is in the book. This series has very often just lifted titles and nothing else from the books.
That's the problem, really. CR went completely under the top as to be very dull for most of the film, while QoS was so far over the top, the top like an ant to it.
^ Actually, I think in the book LeChiffre used a carpet beater to beat Bond's bits, while it was a knotted rope in the movie.
For the love of God, do not do a Google image search for "carpet beater" with SafeSearch turned off.
But wasn't the whole point of using Casino Royale is that they wanted to be more faithful to the books? After all, otherwise, they would have just created a brand new movie (like they did with the previous four films).
I really can't see what you have against this scene.