What (if anything) would you change about The Craig era ?
John from Cork
Posts: 129MI6 Agent
Most people seem to agree that everything was fine enough up to the end of Skyfall, would you have done traditional stand alone mission movies after skyfall or would you have retconned Craigs bond into connerys bond, (which many people thought was the meaning of the end scene in skyfall) and therefore bring back spectre/Blofeld but have Bond already know them
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Plotwise, the only thing I'd change would be to get rid of the whole brother narrative in SPECTRE. Keep Walz as Blofeld, though.
Cast wise, the only thing I'd change would be to get someone else other than Lea Seydoux as Madeleine in SPECTRE. She's a fine actress, but she and Craig have absolutely zero chemistry together. You don't buy their relationship for second, whereas you absolutely believe the relationship between Craig and Greene in CR. They're slightly better in NTTD but not enough to salvage the casting choice.
Production wise, I'd have edited QOS differently.
I'd have cancelled Madeleine's presence from Craig's last ride. To be honest, when Craig announced he would do another Bond (back in August 2017), I never expected it to be a sequel. I imagined we would get a standalone mission, as a great conclusion of his tenure.
The final scene of Sp doesn't necessarily mean there's no way to have Bond back in the next one without Madeleine. For example, one of them could have decided to stop their relationship because of Bond's past and the fact Madeleine didn't want a life where the shadows of death are pervasive.
Furthermore, Madeleine didn't convince many people in Sp, and I hardly imagine the audience complaining about her absence in Bond 25. I guess Danny Boyle and John Hodge thought this way.
Yes from what I read, she wasn't going to be even mentioned in the Danny Boyle and John Hodge movie, nor were spectre and Blofeid going to be mentioned. Their idea was based on " Bonds cold war past" which tbh I thought was really dumb as Craigs bond didn't become a double 0 until 2006.
Are you sure it was Bond's own past ? I take it more as the remains of the conflict from Bond's perspective, although this iteration of the character hasn't been involved...
make WaltzBlofeld the big baddie of the final film. That film was a reimagining of flemings You Only Live Twice anyway, and Bond's sacrifice might have meant something more if he'd gone done fighting his archnemesis instead of someone rando.
David Arnold composes soundtracks for all five films
villlains headquarters sequences should be at the end of the films, London should only be seen at the beginning when Bond receives his mission
. . . . .
other than that, these films just arent meant for me, theyre another generations idea of a Bond film. change those specific details and thered still be a lot of systemic aspects to these film that make me think these are not my Bondfilms, and my BondFilms are just never getting made anymore
@caractacus potts what are your BondFilms ?
probably up to and including For Your Eyes Only, up til then I'd accepted the films we were given as perfectly what they should be
Octopussy was the first one where I felt I'd outgrown this fantasy, and looked upon it and all the films that came after with an increasingly critical eye. Definitely by the time of the Brosnan films I felt there was a generational change in who was making the films, and their target demographic was someone other than me
I’d have made Craig’s tenure like Lazenby’s - one film only - and a darn good one too.
As like @caractacus potts above, the Bond films no longer resonate with me, the Brosnan/Craig era is mostly boring. I accept that it’s an age thing, I grew up watching every single film in the cinema upon release and from DN-LTK it’s good to sublime, what follows is poor to average, CR being the one bright spot.
@caractacus potts
Yeah I didn't understand their logic of bringing back the Blofeld name only to have him go to jail and die in jail in a bit part in the following movie 🤷♂️
It's interesting, because I would have thought you were dealing with the whole Cubby period, from DN to LTK. I consider the 80s as an excellent decade for Bond plotwise, especially in view of the previous one. I love FYEO, and despite the artistic issues I have with OP and AVTAK, I still think they are good films, with good stakes and great villains. I also love Dalton's tenure, despite the radical change in terms of tone between TLD and LTK.
I'm not sure it's an age thing. I discovered Bond in the late 90s, and I'm in love with Cubby's work and Fleming's novels. Brosnan is the Bond I grew up with, which doesn't prevent me from considering his tenure as forgettable, especially plotwise.
I think CR is great, and I'm deeply convinced QoS should have been Craig's pinnacle in view of the plot (Bond on the track of Quantum, the Tierra Project, the role of the CIA and Medrano...). It's with SF my passion took quite a hit. It was the first time I left the theater sad and nostalgic, the worst feeling as a fan.
Brofeld- that for me jumped the shark.
Is Moriarty Sherlock Holmes long lost Brother? No. Is Cardinal Richelieu the Uncle of the 4 Musceteers? No. Is Lex Luthor Superman Brother? No.
Is Darth Vader suddenly Luke Skywalkers Father? Uhhh, Nervermind. Is Harry Potter Voldemorts Brother? I do not think so.
Is Gargamel the Father of the Smurfs? No. In No way can I accept how Fleming was treated by a Soap Opera Plot Device!
But other than that I think NTTD was the strongest DC. I am very fine with Bonds Redemption as a Father sacrificing himself for his offspring after all the casual sex that was the logical way.
I put NTTD as my second favorite of the Craig run of films. It's just so well made from top to bottom.
CR>NTTD>SF>QOS>SP, with the caveat that QOS would be above SF and maybe even NTTD if the editing hadn't been so frustrating. SP suffers from the Brofeld issue as well as being desperately dull.
What would I change?
Erm, Daniel Craig?
That's a bit old hat, takes me back to 2005. However, given the hand-in-glove relationship he appeared to have developed with the producers, I would say it was a bad thing. Other than that, definitely the Brofeld rubbish. And as @SeanIsTheOnlyOne says, my faith took quite a hit with Skyfall, because it promised so much, but ultimately couldn't hold my attention. This became a repetitive feature of the series. Post QOS Craig's films are tedious to rewatch. That opinion may change as I change - I mean I used to detest QOS, but find it remarkably refreshing now - but to be honest I do not have the patience to watch them, so I don;t. They are like those huge canvases in art galleries, big and blustery and self-important, but you end up admiring the paintwork and brushstrokes, yet ultimately, you leave it behind you and your heart stays with the small intimacies of other pieces.
I'm sort of with @caractacus potts in liking the first 25 years or so of Bond - I take it up to AVTAK actually, with only Golden Gun, For Your Eyes Only (which I now quite like) and of course NSNA as the clunkers. Mind you, we could imagine looking at the likes of YOLT with a critical eye if back in the day, and there are implausible things about TB so it depends where you draw the line, it is a thing of getting older... that said, it just seemed too easy to find fault with 'worthy' stuff like the Dalton films and everything after, compared with say Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, The Untouchables and all those other late 80s films.
Back on Craig, I would have had it more forward thinking so the story arc didn't get retconned - they didn't have a five year plan let alone a five film plan. The review of NTTD for the James Bond magazine nailed this point. Recently in one of those 'what has happened to Bond?' tabloid pieces it was suggested the studio didn't have the money to do anything except on a film by film basis but if so, you''d have thought that would mean it more likely they'd plan ahead.
I do get the sense the lead actor and producers have been trolling the public a bit, that they don't really like Bond very much - a credible stance tbf but there's a sense of being at cross purposes.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
@Napoleon Plural Barbara Broccoli reminds me of someone who took over running their parents small corner shop years ago but now sees no long-term future for this business model and wishes they did more with their life when they were younger
Yep.