I personally am very pleased to see Mendes back - it may allow continuity in the franchise to run smoother. He and Craig work well together and the success of Skyfall proved that. For now I think this is a good move and makes clear sense. Especially if they want to continue from where Skyfall left off. So not surprised he's back and quite excited by the prospect of the next movie now the New M is in place as is Moneypenny etc. So here's hoping it delivers more of the same and makes the nostalgic fans happy as well as taking the whole world forward for a new generation. Quite a Modernist outlook that will work well methinks.
Cheers! {[]
Very well said, what I've always admired about the Bond series is how they have a set of cast and crew that stick together which makes the production seem like a family. While this might be a one off for Mendes and Craig may only have a couple left, the new M, Q, and Moneypenny gives me the sense of the old style of Bond productions with a modern twist.
We might look back on this in 20 years as a new "Golden Age" of the series.
This post is not directed at Richard--W personally. It is only meant to be an analyitcal response to his post by me for the benefit of the other members.
Richard states Barbara Broccoli took over the Bond series and cast Craig. As far as I know, she's been producer since Goldeneye, so she actually "took over" the series since then, and she and Wilson are responsible for approving of having Bond's character "reversed" so he is nothing like the previous Bond's or Fleming's
Bond. Stripped of the his positive characteristics (social graces, sex appeal, military service, commendable record, etc.) He is lectured by M for doing stupid things. His adeptness is replaced by brutality, his empathy by indifference. Not sure what Richard-W meant by Bond being "stripped of his social graces". If he's referring to his manners and etiquette, I didn't see any lack of it in Craig's portrayal up to now. He's seems to act like a civilized man outside of the situations where he has to deal with the bad guys in the films. Sex appeal? I haven't seen any of the women in the films (or for that matter the female audience) act like he has no appeal - I've observed the opposite, in fact. Stripped of his military service? When? There is no mention of his military service in the three films as yet,though he is still referred to as a commander. Stripped of a commendable record? When? It's true he has just been given the OO in CR, and M dresses him down after the embassy trouble, but there is no mention of his record prior to that, so how is that he's stripped of it since it's not even mentioned? So far, I don't see any example of Bond's character being "reversed" or stripped of anything. His
adeptness replaced by brutality? Uhhhhh..what? His skills are
replaced by brutality? Are you referring to his ability to fight?
He seems pretty skilled at that - it may be portrayed more brutally
than in the past, but lets face it, if you read the novels, Bond does
some really brutal actions in them - it was the films that made them
less so in order to get a larger audience. His empathy replaced by
indifference? I don't see it. In my eyes, Craig's Bond is empathetic
to the innocents who die, but he won't show it and put's that out
of his thoughts in order to stay cold and efficient in his mission.
Regrets can only come after the mission. Even the older Bond's
were not given a lot of screen time to show their regret when their
actions might have accidentally kill an innocent.
Craig blows his own cover in the embassy attack. I never liked
that part of the plot. Exactly how would the embassy staff or
any journalist know he was an MI6 agent? He got cleanly away
and never said a word to anyone.
Craig doesn't know what clothes to wear? When? Because Vesper gets him a different tux? As I understood it, he states he "has a dinner jacket", and Vesper only got him one she thought she'd like to see him in, and that he only wore it to please her and get closer to her (and it did fit). I personally didn't like that scene either, as is was only put in to add to their Tracy-Hepburn banter and wasn't really necessary.
Craig brags about his skill at cards and loses...excuse me, but that's what happened in the novel. I know...the cinema JB doesn't lose in a casino. Well, this is Fleming's JB and he did.
In SF, Craig is "damaged goods", fails in his battles and his mission.
First, Craig only failed at his train fight because M was so
messed up at personally losing that drive that she lost confidence
in his ability to win that fight and had him get shot. Second, the
Bond in the novels was "damaged goods" after many of his missions because he had been so physically damaged it would take him weeks to recover. This is what Craig does in SF, though it's clear that this story takes place a few years or several missions post QOS, and so he is now burned out by his job and pissed at M for losing her faith in is abilities, but the same thing happens to Bond in the novels when he loses his wife to Blofeld and is sent to Japan on a "soft" assignment, then tangles with Blofeld, kills him, gets amnesia and is brainwashed by the Russians into killing M , then is sent out after Scaramanga, even though he probably wasn't fit enough (M's idea was putting such a Herculean task at him would force him to measure up). Severine is murdered and he makes what seems a cold hearted quip. Wasn't that for the benefit of the villain and his
men (all pointing weapons at him), and wasn't that to put them off
guard for a second so he could surprise them with his attack?
Craig does not stop the assassination in SF. Why
should he? We don't know who the target was. It may have
been a murderer, or someone who was involved in really
immoral things that got innocents murdered, so Bond had no
interest in preventing the killing. As Brosnan had once said "I only
kill professionals" and that target was probably one of them.
He let's Patrice die - uhhh, no, he was trying to save him, he couldn't hold the grip any longer. Now he could not get info from him. Who said he could have if he had saved him? He finds the
coin that lead him to the casino. He's beaten up and loses his
gun...uhhh, almost all the older Bond's have lost their gun in
scenes and..he won that fight (okay, Moneypenny helped - so what). Older Bond's were also helped out of jams before (most of the time by a convenient Q device).
He get's M to Scotland where the villains kill her. I saw total logic
in it. In the older films, he would have saved her and the mission.
This is more like the novels for me. They lure the villain away from
where innocents might get harmed, where his mastery of the
world wide web is useless, knowing that the government would
have not allowed it, would have kept M in London where more
people may have been killed .
M. must face Silva alone while Bond loses his fight under the
lake. What?? I thought he won that fight....and doesn't he get
to Silva and kill him before Silva can put a bullet through his
own head and M's?
Kleinman's title's show the black abyss of Bond's soul? I thought it
was showing symbols of his pain (the wound and the blood)and his profession (the guns and knives and death symbols) and was
foreshadowing the plot scenes (the Chinese dragons - shooting
silhouette of his marksman tests - the bloodletting at Skyfall, etc).
He is reconstructed out of existence in SF. Really? Well, yes, his
skills and his identity are tested, but for me it's still Bond, and
the Bond of the novels even more so. He survives his near death,
gets the disc back and kills Silva and his goons (though M is
sacrificed), and is back up and running for future missions. Sure,
they could have had M survive and just retire (and that would
not have been a bad ending), but the one they went with made
it more dramatic.
Bond was turned into a poor man's Dirty Harry? That's a very
pale comparison to me. Eastwood's iconic portrayal of the
blunt-speaking, unorthodox detective seems pretty far away
from Craig's Bond and if anything, is more of a small imitation
of Bond himself. Bond's lone killing spy was dusting off villains
long before DH made an appearance.
"In a pro-Bond film, James Bond will be cheerful instead of depressed, adept instead of inept."
You're not familiar with the books. In Thunderball, M thinks he's drinking too much and sends him to a health spa to dry out. In OHMSS Bond drinks an enormous amount out of loneliness. In YOLT his drinlking and smoking are out of control. In TMWTGG, Bond has been brain washed and tries to kill M. M sends Bond on a suicide mission because her thinks he's washed up.
The books endings are unhappy or at best mixed. At the end of CR, Vesper is dead. At the end of OHMSS, Tracy is dead. At the end of DAF, Bond is rejected by Tiffany Case. At the end of Moonraker, Bond is rejected by Gala Brand. At the end of FRWL, Bond is poisoned and presumed dead. At the end of TMWGG he's shot. At the end of YOLT he's an amnesiac and the world presumes him dead.
Your understanding of Bond seems to be based on the films which are very different from the books.
"In a pro-Bond film, James Bond will be cheerful instead of depressed, adept instead of inept."
You're not familiar with the books. In Thunderball, M thinks he's drinking too much and sends him to a health spa to dry out. In OHMSS Bond drinks an enormous amount out of loneliness. In YOLT his drinlking and smoking are out of control. In TMWTGG, Bond has been brain washed and tries to kill M. M sends Bond on a suicide mission because her thinks he's washed up.
The books endings are unhappy or at best mixed. At the end of CR, Vesper is dead. At the end of OHMSS, Tracy is dead. At the end of DAF, Bond is rejected by Tiffany Case. At the end of Moonraker, Bond is rejected by Gala Brand. At the end of FRWL, Bond is poisoned and presumed dead. At the end of TMWGG he's shot. At the end of YOLT he's an amnesiac and the world presumes him dead.
Your understanding of Bond seems to be based on the films which are very different from the books.
Great response and nice, concise summation. People really need to study those books more and realize that EON and Craig are trying to get back to Fleming's hero. That's what this whole reboot was about and why they're trying to stay away from the original series with the laser wristwatches and a super(man)spy who is forever smug and never gets hurt. Of course their interpretation will be a bit off-kilter because they are trying to keep the whole thing contemporary (not an easy task for writers) and they can't film the books any longer - but at least they can continue to use the books as their anchor and reference.
Some media journalists got to chat with producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson, writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, and star Naomie Harris while riding on the Skyfall train. Here are a few tidbits they learned, which backs up my idea that they are trying to resurrect Fleming's Bond:
‘Skyfall’ was an original story, but the writers mined two novels for inspiration: ‘You Only Live Twice’ and ‘The Man With The Golden Gun’. The films of the same name were only loosely based on the books.
The seeds of the Silva character [played by Javier Bardem] came from ‘Golden Gun’.
The theme of M, MI6 and Britain in crisis came from ‘You Only Live Twice’. Wade said: “The Japanese won’t share their intelligence with us and Bond, considered to be burnt out, is sent on a mission to restore British prestige. If he doesn’t succeed he’ll die and Britain is finished. It’s interesting that that’s what appealed to us, it kind of summed us [Purvis and Wade] up too.”
Daniel Craig was the driving force behind Bond being out of shape and too old. “[He] really embraced the idea of looking done in and being washed up - played out,” said Purvis.
Naomie Harris thinks ‘Skyfall’ was planned as a “reboot”. She said: “Sam and the writers wanted to go back to the grassroots. To start again almost like it was a baby. To look again at the books. Because you are creating something totally original, you need to go back more to the novels, to ground it, to get the true essence of what it means to be Bond. They really listened to people’s reactions to the previous films.”
The one thing we're ignoring in our critiques of Richard--W is that he claims to have read Richard Maibaum's original drafts of his Bond screenplays, and to him these--and not a bunch of novels by some guy named Fleming--are the sacred texts that comprise the Bible of Bond. Original Sin was Broccoli and Saltzman ever hiring other screenwriters to rewrite Maibaum's Holy Words; the new producers perpetuate the same Sin, and woe unto the second generation!
The one thing we're ignoring in our critiques of Richard--W is that he claims to have read Richard Maibaum's original drafts of his Bond screenplays, and to him these--and not a bunch of novels by some guy named Fleming--are the sacred texts that comprise the Bible of Bond. Original Sin was Broccoli and Saltzman ever hiring other screenwriters to rewrite Maibaum's Holy Words; the new producers perpetuate the same Sin, and woe unto the second generation!
-"Sex appeal? I haven't seen any of the women in the films (or for that matter the female audience) act like he has no appeal - I've observed the opposite, in fact.-"
Which to me implies that not only any (as in ALL) women in the film but also in the audience thought he had a lot of sex appeal...
-"Sex appeal? I haven't seen any of the women in the films (or for that matter the female audience) act like he has no appeal - I've observed the opposite, in fact.-"
Which to me implies that not only any (as in ALL) women in the film but also in the audience thought he had a lot of sex appeal...
Let me edit my comment by just saying that of all the women (including journalists and critics and those I personally know) I've seen speak about Craig's appeal, I've heard very few who dislike his looks. They used to say something similar about James Coburn when the Flint films came out..I never thought he was classically handsome yet women seemed pretty enthusiastic about him at the time. From a hetero male viewpoint, I consider Craig more rugged looking than attractive, but then, to each his own, right?
From a hetero male viewpoint, I consider Craig more rugged looking than attractive, but then, to each his own, right?
+1. Again speaking from a hetero male viewpoint, I just don't see DC as an attractive man while I can understand women lusting after Connery or Brosnan (and the other Bonds too)- but as said, to each his (her) own!
Any connection Skyfall has to Fleming's works is superficial imo, yeah okay it mentions he's an orphan and namechecks his parents; otherwise his home is nothing like I'd have imagined Bond's to be. Sure it touches on similar stuff, Bond going through his physical tests and so on, by the same reckoning many thought that NSNA was a return to Fleming when it came out.
Any connection Skyfall has to Fleming's works is superficial imo, yeah okay it mentions he's an orphan and namechecks his parents; otherwise his home is nothing like I'd have imagined Bond's to be. Sure it touches on similar stuff, Bond going through his physical tests and so on, by the same reckoning many thought that NSNA was a return to Fleming when it came out.
The same could be said for practically every Bond film, couldn't it?
Any connection Skyfall has to Fleming's works is superficial imo, yeah okay it mentions he's an orphan and namechecks his parents; otherwise his home is nothing like I'd have imagined Bond's to be. Sure it touches on similar stuff, Bond going through his physical tests and so on, by the same reckoning many thought that NSNA was a return to Fleming when it came out.
The same could be said for practically every Bond film, couldn't it?
I think FRWL can justifiably make a solid claim, and possibly OHMSS as well. TB is also pretty close to the novelised screenplay come to think of it.
Comments
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
Cheers! {[]
Very well said, what I've always admired about the Bond series is how they have a set of cast and crew that stick together which makes the production seem like a family. While this might be a one off for Mendes and Craig may only have a couple left, the new M, Q, and Moneypenny gives me the sense of the old style of Bond productions with a modern twist.
We might look back on this in 20 years as a new "Golden Age" of the series.
Richard states Barbara Broccoli took over the Bond series and cast Craig. As far as I know, she's been producer since Goldeneye, so she actually "took over" the series since then, and she and Wilson are responsible for approving of having Bond's character "reversed" so he is nothing like the previous Bond's or Fleming's
Bond. Stripped of the his positive characteristics (social graces, sex appeal, military service, commendable record, etc.) He is lectured by M for doing stupid things. His adeptness is replaced by brutality, his empathy by indifference. Not sure what Richard-W meant by Bond being "stripped of his social graces". If he's referring to his manners and etiquette, I didn't see any lack of it in Craig's portrayal up to now. He's seems to act like a civilized man outside of the situations where he has to deal with the bad guys in the films. Sex appeal? I haven't seen any of the women in the films (or for that matter the female audience) act like he has no appeal - I've observed the opposite, in fact. Stripped of his military service? When? There is no mention of his military service in the three films as yet,though he is still referred to as a commander. Stripped of a commendable record? When? It's true he has just been given the OO in CR, and M dresses him down after the embassy trouble, but there is no mention of his record prior to that, so how is that he's stripped of it since it's not even mentioned? So far, I don't see any example of Bond's character being "reversed" or stripped of anything. His
adeptness replaced by brutality? Uhhhhh..what? His skills are
replaced by brutality? Are you referring to his ability to fight?
He seems pretty skilled at that - it may be portrayed more brutally
than in the past, but lets face it, if you read the novels, Bond does
some really brutal actions in them - it was the films that made them
less so in order to get a larger audience. His empathy replaced by
indifference? I don't see it. In my eyes, Craig's Bond is empathetic
to the innocents who die, but he won't show it and put's that out
of his thoughts in order to stay cold and efficient in his mission.
Regrets can only come after the mission. Even the older Bond's
were not given a lot of screen time to show their regret when their
actions might have accidentally kill an innocent.
Craig blows his own cover in the embassy attack. I never liked
that part of the plot. Exactly how would the embassy staff or
any journalist know he was an MI6 agent? He got cleanly away
and never said a word to anyone.
Craig doesn't know what clothes to wear? When? Because Vesper gets him a different tux? As I understood it, he states he "has a dinner jacket", and Vesper only got him one she thought she'd like to see him in, and that he only wore it to please her and get closer to her (and it did fit). I personally didn't like that scene either, as is was only put in to add to their Tracy-Hepburn banter and wasn't really necessary.
Craig brags about his skill at cards and loses...excuse me, but that's what happened in the novel. I know...the cinema JB doesn't lose in a casino. Well, this is Fleming's JB and he did.
In SF, Craig is "damaged goods", fails in his battles and his mission.
First, Craig only failed at his train fight because M was so
messed up at personally losing that drive that she lost confidence
in his ability to win that fight and had him get shot. Second, the
Bond in the novels was "damaged goods" after many of his missions because he had been so physically damaged it would take him weeks to recover. This is what Craig does in SF, though it's clear that this story takes place a few years or several missions post QOS, and so he is now burned out by his job and pissed at M for losing her faith in is abilities, but the same thing happens to Bond in the novels when he loses his wife to Blofeld and is sent to Japan on a "soft" assignment, then tangles with Blofeld, kills him, gets amnesia and is brainwashed by the Russians into killing M , then is sent out after Scaramanga, even though he probably wasn't fit enough (M's idea was putting such a Herculean task at him would force him to measure up). Severine is murdered and he makes what seems a cold hearted quip. Wasn't that for the benefit of the villain and his
men (all pointing weapons at him), and wasn't that to put them off
guard for a second so he could surprise them with his attack?
Craig does not stop the assassination in SF. Why
should he? We don't know who the target was. It may have
been a murderer, or someone who was involved in really
immoral things that got innocents murdered, so Bond had no
interest in preventing the killing. As Brosnan had once said "I only
kill professionals" and that target was probably one of them.
He let's Patrice die - uhhh, no, he was trying to save him, he couldn't hold the grip any longer. Now he could not get info from him. Who said he could have if he had saved him? He finds the
coin that lead him to the casino. He's beaten up and loses his
gun...uhhh, almost all the older Bond's have lost their gun in
scenes and..he won that fight (okay, Moneypenny helped - so what). Older Bond's were also helped out of jams before (most of the time by a convenient Q device).
He get's M to Scotland where the villains kill her. I saw total logic
in it. In the older films, he would have saved her and the mission.
This is more like the novels for me. They lure the villain away from
where innocents might get harmed, where his mastery of the
world wide web is useless, knowing that the government would
have not allowed it, would have kept M in London where more
people may have been killed .
M. must face Silva alone while Bond loses his fight under the
lake. What?? I thought he won that fight....and doesn't he get
to Silva and kill him before Silva can put a bullet through his
own head and M's?
Kleinman's title's show the black abyss of Bond's soul? I thought it
was showing symbols of his pain (the wound and the blood)and his profession (the guns and knives and death symbols) and was
foreshadowing the plot scenes (the Chinese dragons - shooting
silhouette of his marksman tests - the bloodletting at Skyfall, etc).
He is reconstructed out of existence in SF. Really? Well, yes, his
skills and his identity are tested, but for me it's still Bond, and
the Bond of the novels even more so. He survives his near death,
gets the disc back and kills Silva and his goons (though M is
sacrificed), and is back up and running for future missions. Sure,
they could have had M survive and just retire (and that would
not have been a bad ending), but the one they went with made
it more dramatic.
Bond was turned into a poor man's Dirty Harry? That's a very
pale comparison to me. Eastwood's iconic portrayal of the
blunt-speaking, unorthodox detective seems pretty far away
from Craig's Bond and if anything, is more of a small imitation
of Bond himself. Bond's lone killing spy was dusting off villains
long before DH made an appearance.
+1
By the same token, there's more than a few who do ...
Spot on. CmdrAtticus nailed it IMO.
"In a pro-Bond film, James Bond will be cheerful instead of depressed, adept instead of inept."
You're not familiar with the books. In Thunderball, M thinks he's drinking too much and sends him to a health spa to dry out. In OHMSS Bond drinks an enormous amount out of loneliness. In YOLT his drinlking and smoking are out of control. In TMWTGG, Bond has been brain washed and tries to kill M. M sends Bond on a suicide mission because her thinks he's washed up.
The books endings are unhappy or at best mixed. At the end of CR, Vesper is dead. At the end of OHMSS, Tracy is dead. At the end of DAF, Bond is rejected by Tiffany Case. At the end of Moonraker, Bond is rejected by Gala Brand. At the end of FRWL, Bond is poisoned and presumed dead. At the end of TMWGG he's shot. At the end of YOLT he's an amnesiac and the world presumes him dead.
Your understanding of Bond seems to be based on the films which are very different from the books.
Great response and nice, concise summation. People really need to study those books more and realize that EON and Craig are trying to get back to Fleming's hero. That's what this whole reboot was about and why they're trying to stay away from the original series with the laser wristwatches and a super(man)spy who is forever smug and never gets hurt. Of course their interpretation will be a bit off-kilter because they are trying to keep the whole thing contemporary (not an easy task for writers) and they can't film the books any longer - but at least they can continue to use the books as their anchor and reference.
‘Skyfall’ was an original story, but the writers mined two novels for inspiration: ‘You Only Live Twice’ and ‘The Man With The Golden Gun’. The films of the same name were only loosely based on the books.
The seeds of the Silva character [played by Javier Bardem] came from ‘Golden Gun’.
The theme of M, MI6 and Britain in crisis came from ‘You Only Live Twice’. Wade said: “The Japanese won’t share their intelligence with us and Bond, considered to be burnt out, is sent on a mission to restore British prestige. If he doesn’t succeed he’ll die and Britain is finished. It’s interesting that that’s what appealed to us, it kind of summed us [Purvis and Wade] up too.”
Daniel Craig was the driving force behind Bond being out of shape and too old. “[He] really embraced the idea of looking done in and being washed up - played out,” said Purvis.
Naomie Harris thinks ‘Skyfall’ was planned as a “reboot”. She said: “Sam and the writers wanted to go back to the grassroots. To start again almost like it was a baby. To look again at the books. Because you are creating something totally original, you need to go back more to the novels, to ground it, to get the true essence of what it means to be Bond. They really listened to people’s reactions to the previous films.”
Exactly what I was going to say. That being the case, I think the criticism of Craig's looks is sort of irrelevant. But that's just me. :007)
Of course! How could we be so naive?!!!!
-"Sex appeal? I haven't seen any of the women in the films (or for that matter the female audience) act like he has no appeal - I've observed the opposite, in fact.-"
Which to me implies that not only any (as in ALL) women in the film but also in the audience thought he had a lot of sex appeal...
Let me edit my comment by just saying that of all the women (including journalists and critics and those I personally know) I've seen speak about Craig's appeal, I've heard very few who dislike his looks. They used to say something similar about James Coburn when the Flint films came out..I never thought he was classically handsome yet women seemed pretty enthusiastic about him at the time. From a hetero male viewpoint, I consider Craig more rugged looking than attractive, but then, to each his own, right?
+1. Again speaking from a hetero male viewpoint, I just don't see DC as an attractive man while I can understand women lusting after Connery or Brosnan (and the other Bonds too)- but as said, to each his (her) own!
Roger Moore 1927-2017
The same could be said for practically every Bond film, couldn't it?
I think FRWL can justifiably make a solid claim, and possibly OHMSS as well. TB is also pretty close to the novelised screenplay come to think of it.