Also why do you find the climax over the top Icepak? for me it's no where near the excessive level of DAD it's just a burning hotel a few handguns and a fistfight, nearer to the CR sinking venetian palazzo I'd say?
I'd add the final scenes in Russia to any pros list, it's magnificent in its understatement, I also love how they made Camille Bonds equal almost and kept her out of Bond's bed, that adds to her character I think.
I definitely love the scene in Russia too. It's hard not to love it when Stana Katic is in it but she does very little, sadly. Still, great end to the film, especially the part with M.
I also agree about Bond not bedding Camile. It makes the character more believable. And I love how they first meet.
I don't think anything will ever be more OTT than the DAD climax, however, the building exploding for nearly no reason at all in QoS reminded me of the DAD climax pushing everything to the hilt for maximum effect and overdoing it. It seems unnecessary. Further, Camile's character arc here is far more powerful than Bond pursuing Greene but there is more focus on Bond, sadly.
I do seem to like QoS more every time I watch it.
The hotel is powered by solar power with hydrogen fuel cells, it's Carlos land rover crashing into them that sets off the explosions. You see not over the top at all
Niggle' in the hotel with fields covered in oil
M berating bond having him arrested and de-armed
Then 1 minute later when bond when bond escapes
Telling tanner " I trust my man " and letting him go
What changed her mind so quickly?
By the way' the name is "James St. John smythe" I'm English
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 27,749Chief of Staff
Niggle' in the hotel with fields covered in oil
M berating bond having him arrested and de-armed
Then 1 minute later when bond when bond escapes
Telling tanner " I trust my man " and letting him go
What changed her mind so quickly?
Who said she changed her mind? M had a room full of people, so I think she had to be 'seen to be doing her job' - plus the CIA had a 'capture or kill' order out on him...perhaps her plan was to let Bond go when it was safer..?..or maybe she listened to what he told her and believed him..?..he is her best agent, although she wouldn't tell him
QOS is fast on it's way to becoming my favourite Bond movie.
Yes, I totally love Tim, and TND has my favourite Bond girl, but QOS is just so fast & ferocious... like DN's straightforwardness combined with LTK's stark violence. Add to that Arnold's (arguably) finest score and a good lead in to the SPECTRE tie up to the four Craig films and I see a near perfect gem here. Yeah, CR is good, I still have issues with SF, and no matter how much I like SP (and I DO like SP a LOT), QOS is just memorizing to me. I must revise my list soon...
QOS is fast on it's way to becoming my favourite Bond movie.
Yes, I totally love Tim, and TND has my favourite Bond girl, but QOS is just so fast & ferocious... like DN's straightforwardness combined with LTK's stark violence. Add to that Arnold's (arguably) finest score and a good lead in to the SPECTRE tie up to the four Craig films and I see a near perfect gem here. Yeah, CR is good, I still have issues with SF, and no matter how much I like SP (and I DO like SP a LOT), QOS is just memorizing to me. I must revise my list soon...
Totally agree with everything you say. The QoS fan club!!
I'm also happy someone else has called out this is Arnold's finest score too. It's a really original piece that totally matches the frenetic pace.
Don't forget to head to the Ultimate Ranking thread in the trivia section so I can adjust the 2017 rankings!
My problem with QoS is the same as with LTK: Both are decent/good action movies, but it never felt like Bond movies to me. LTK is too much like Miami Vice and QoS is too much like Bourne. I miss the class and charm that Bond has, although the opera scene is done very well. But it is not enough for me to make it feel like a Bond movie.
Also the villain is very forgettable, the plot never really held my interest and it is missing the usual Bond elements like a gun barrel, a Q scene etcetera.
Quantum Of Solace is effing awesome. Just felt like saying it because it's true. And definitely Arnold's best score.
-{
And pretty soon I’ll have you all loving AWTD -{
...softly, softly catchy monkey
Guess what. I already like AWTD. I think its an underrated tune. The music and verses are great. Could've done without the "whoaoaoa" part and "shoot em up bang bang" though. There's a tribute video on YouTube using the song. It's actually really good.
-{
Again, I would be grateful for your opinion on what kind of coupons Greene is stamping in the hut at the harbour in Port-au-Prince.
I never understood the scene.
Craig's next three films I've seen maybe twice before, and haven't thought nearly so much about as I have Casino Royale. So will indoobitably have less to say.
PROS
- Story begins immediately following the last line of the last movie. That's clever, and is the way they supposedly meant to do the OHMSS sequel if Lazenby had stayed. So nice to see that good idea finally implemented.
(do you think the OHMSS sequel would have begun with a similar car chase, since Blofeld and Bunt were just over the horizon in their vehicle getting away? and if so, what would have Bond done with Tracy's body: leave it in the passenger seat while he began the chase, or handed it over to the policeman first before squealing his tires and zooming off in pursuit?)
- This film is so short, and the previous, longer film divided so neatly into two halves, this one is actually more like part three of a three part story, rather than a new adventure in its own right. Too bad they couldn't get Campbell to come back, to make it all flow better.
- There's a few stray very small fragments from Fleming.
One I just noticed: Bond picks up that briefcase at the hotel desk by asking if there's been any messages for the man he just killed. That is from Man with the Golden Gun!!
- "Get in!", spoke twice. My favorite of the many quotes from the old films. (I congratulated myself in the theatre for recognising this)
- Camille is a bird with a wing down, with a very nasty back story. And a nasty looking back! Not an actual Fleming character, but closer to the types of women Fleming wrote about than the films ever gave us before. Remember in Fleming's books, both Tiffany and Honeychile had experienced very violent rapes while still children.
- Olga Kurylenko would play a similar character a few years later alongside Brosnan in the November Man.
- The conversation about how to achieve revenge. Compare with MooreBond's words on the same subject to Melina (he was trying to dissuade her). CraigBond talks about riding the andrenaline, and carefully planning the one shot needed to make it count. CraigBond is so much more coldhearted and pragmatic than the other fellow!
- Strawberry Fields. Very cute, it's hard to believe she has even a hope of controlling this rogue agent on the run. One of our fellow agents once compared her place in the story to Mary Ann Russell from Fleming's FaVtaK, so there's another arguable bit from Fleming.
- Camille and Fields are both very magnificant specimens. Craig may not get quite so much action as the classic Bonds, but he is attracting a very high standard of female. And they're played by better actresses in these new films as well.
- General Medrano is the spitting image of General Alcazar from Tintin!
- There's a lot of geology talk, and debates about natural resource development. Could have been better developed, and more clearly explained, but I like this sort of stuff!
(and hey, an evil plot to divert water is straight out of Chinatown! in case you're maybe ready to watch a good film after this.)
- "His stomach was full of motor oil. Would you know anything about that?" "No, ma'm"
I just got that the motor oil was ironic revenge for Strawberry Fields' death!
CONS
- Back to (almost) no Fleming. and specifically does not use the any elements of the title story. This, after all the fine words of "back to Fleming" justifying of the new fellow and the new approach.
- Gunbarrel in the wrong place, again. Why? because the opening shot was so precious? Lots of other Bondfilms have establishing shots of beautiful landscapes following the gunbarrel. This director obviously had too much creative control, EON was not holding him properly acountable, and this overly long leash may explain many of the other shortcomings in the film.
- Another Way to Die. On the plus side, the singer is trying to do a soulful r&b type voice, as opposed to Cornell's macho metal growl. But the song is shapeless, hookless, lacking in memorable melody AND obnoxiously bombastic! and do the themes even appear in the score? I didn't notice any leitmotifs being reprised.
- Oilfinger, the rooftop drop, two people falling from a plane with one parachute: This film incorporates a near constant barrage of scenes from classic films, perhaps to remind us this is still a James Bond film despite all other evidence to the contrary.
- Craig only displays his comedy chops during the Strawberry Fields scenes. Instead we get way too much of Craig trying to emote.
- Bond and M staring into each others eyes and talking about their feelings.
- Bond and Mathis staring into each others eyes and talking about their feelings.
- Bond and Camille staring into each others eyes and talking about their feelings.
- and Vesper's theme, which was so haunting in the first film, plays each and every time, now signalling we are entering soap opera mode.
- Bond doesn't get Camille in a clinch at the end! what the heck kind of James Bond film is this anyway?
- That opera scene. I don't get the appeal, once the action starts, it breaks down into shorter and shorter edits, and the sound cuts, abstracting the horror and leaving it up to our warped imaginations.
But we can see there is a gunfight in a crowded restaurant, then something very nasty happens in the kitchen, yet it all goes by so quick its almost subliminal. They obviously filmed these scenes, so why cut good action footage down to random fragments and leave the rest on the cutting room floor?
- This begins on ongoing trend of artying up the action scenes instead of letting them speak for themselves, that will continue for the rest of the Craig films.
- Stray bullets hitting innocent passersby. This happened in the last film as well. Whatever happened to the drunk doublechecking his bottle when the zany chase scene rolled by? That was better.
- This film is so episodic it does not add up to a whole.
The precredits and first act are the conclusion to the story begun at the end of the last film. Then, based on the slimmest of connections, after about twenty minutes we begin a seperate story involving Mr Green and Camille. Then there's the unrelated coda with Vesper's old boyfriend.
So three seperate stories, only tangentially linked to each other. Just have to commission a crappy theme song, leave out the gunbarrel, and there's your new James Bond film.
- You know in Fleming's story, Rhoda Llewellyn was a stewardess, thus in position to courier stolen documents to an evildoer without going through customs, and her hapless cuckolded husband Philip Masters was a civil servant in the local colonial office with access to sensitive top secret documents? There was so potential for an espionage oriented first act introducing Fleming's actual characters, that could have spun out into a larger epic, even one involving natural resource development in Bolivia!
Ridiculous waste of yet another Fleming title!
Took me too long to post my updated views, so I'll just say that this one is an 8/10 for me.
"Hostile takeovers. Shall we?"
New 2020 ranking (for now DAF and FYEO keep their previous placements)
1. TLD 2. TND 3. GF 4. TSWLM 5. TWINE 6. OHMSS 7. LtK 8. TMWTGG 9. L&LD 10. YOLT 11. DAD 12. QoS 13. DN 14. GE 15. SF 16. OP 17. MR 18. AVTAK 19. TB 20. FRWL 21. CR 22. FYEO 23. DAF (SP to be included later)
Bond actors to be re-ranked later
Comments
The hotel is powered by solar power with hydrogen fuel cells, it's Carlos land rover crashing into them that sets off the explosions. You see not over the top at all
M berating bond having him arrested and de-armed
Then 1 minute later when bond when bond escapes
Telling tanner " I trust my man " and letting him go
What changed her mind so quickly?
Who said she changed her mind?
M had a room full of people, so I think she had to be 'seen to be doing her job' - plus the CIA had a 'capture or kill' order out on him...perhaps her plan was to let Bond go when it was safer..?..or maybe she listened to what he told her and believed him..?..he is her best agent, although she wouldn't tell him
Yes, I totally love Tim, and TND has my favourite Bond girl, but QOS is just so fast & ferocious... like DN's straightforwardness combined with LTK's stark violence. Add to that Arnold's (arguably) finest score and a good lead in to the SPECTRE tie up to the four Craig films and I see a near perfect gem here. Yeah, CR is good, I still have issues with SF, and no matter how much I like SP (and I DO like SP a LOT), QOS is just memorizing to me. I must revise my list soon...
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
Totally agree with everything you say. The QoS fan club!!
I'm also happy someone else has called out this is Arnold's finest score too. It's a really original piece that totally matches the frenetic pace.
Don't forget to head to the Ultimate Ranking thread in the trivia section so I can adjust the 2017 rankings!
"Better make that two."
-{
And pretty soon I’ll have you all loving AWTD -{
...softly, softly catchy monkey
Also the villain is very forgettable, the plot never really held my interest and it is missing the usual Bond elements like a gun barrel, a Q scene etcetera.
1. Connery 2. Craig 3. Brosnan 4. Dalton 5. Lazenby 6. Moore
-{
Again, I would be grateful for your opinion on what kind of coupons Greene is stamping in the hut at the harbour in Port-au-Prince.
I never understood the scene.
Best regards,
7
PROS
- Story begins immediately following the last line of the last movie. That's clever, and is the way they supposedly meant to do the OHMSS sequel if Lazenby had stayed. So nice to see that good idea finally implemented.
(do you think the OHMSS sequel would have begun with a similar car chase, since Blofeld and Bunt were just over the horizon in their vehicle getting away? and if so, what would have Bond done with Tracy's body: leave it in the passenger seat while he began the chase, or handed it over to the policeman first before squealing his tires and zooming off in pursuit?)
- This film is so short, and the previous, longer film divided so neatly into two halves, this one is actually more like part three of a three part story, rather than a new adventure in its own right. Too bad they couldn't get Campbell to come back, to make it all flow better.
- There's a few stray very small fragments from Fleming.
One I just noticed: Bond picks up that briefcase at the hotel desk by asking if there's been any messages for the man he just killed. That is from Man with the Golden Gun!!
- "Get in!", spoke twice. My favorite of the many quotes from the old films. (I congratulated myself in the theatre for recognising this)
- Camille is a bird with a wing down, with a very nasty back story. And a nasty looking back! Not an actual Fleming character, but closer to the types of women Fleming wrote about than the films ever gave us before. Remember in Fleming's books, both Tiffany and Honeychile had experienced very violent rapes while still children.
- Olga Kurylenko would play a similar character a few years later alongside Brosnan in the November Man.
- The conversation about how to achieve revenge. Compare with MooreBond's words on the same subject to Melina (he was trying to dissuade her). CraigBond talks about riding the andrenaline, and carefully planning the one shot needed to make it count. CraigBond is so much more coldhearted and pragmatic than the other fellow!
- Strawberry Fields. Very cute, it's hard to believe she has even a hope of controlling this rogue agent on the run. One of our fellow agents once compared her place in the story to Mary Ann Russell from Fleming's FaVtaK, so there's another arguable bit from Fleming.
- Camille and Fields are both very magnificant specimens. Craig may not get quite so much action as the classic Bonds, but he is attracting a very high standard of female. And they're played by better actresses in these new films as well.
- General Medrano is the spitting image of General Alcazar from Tintin!
- There's a lot of geology talk, and debates about natural resource development. Could have been better developed, and more clearly explained, but I like this sort of stuff!
(and hey, an evil plot to divert water is straight out of Chinatown! in case you're maybe ready to watch a good film after this.)
- "His stomach was full of motor oil. Would you know anything about that?" "No, ma'm"
I just got that the motor oil was ironic revenge for Strawberry Fields' death!
CONS
- Back to (almost) no Fleming. and specifically does not use the any elements of the title story. This, after all the fine words of "back to Fleming" justifying of the new fellow and the new approach.
- Gunbarrel in the wrong place, again. Why? because the opening shot was so precious? Lots of other Bondfilms have establishing shots of beautiful landscapes following the gunbarrel. This director obviously had too much creative control, EON was not holding him properly acountable, and this overly long leash may explain many of the other shortcomings in the film.
- Another Way to Die. On the plus side, the singer is trying to do a soulful r&b type voice, as opposed to Cornell's macho metal growl. But the song is shapeless, hookless, lacking in memorable melody AND obnoxiously bombastic! and do the themes even appear in the score? I didn't notice any leitmotifs being reprised.
- Oilfinger, the rooftop drop, two people falling from a plane with one parachute: This film incorporates a near constant barrage of scenes from classic films, perhaps to remind us this is still a James Bond film despite all other evidence to the contrary.
- Craig only displays his comedy chops during the Strawberry Fields scenes. Instead we get way too much of Craig trying to emote.
- Bond and M staring into each others eyes and talking about their feelings.
- Bond and Mathis staring into each others eyes and talking about their feelings.
- Bond and Camille staring into each others eyes and talking about their feelings.
- and Vesper's theme, which was so haunting in the first film, plays each and every time, now signalling we are entering soap opera mode.
- Bond doesn't get Camille in a clinch at the end! what the heck kind of James Bond film is this anyway?
- That opera scene. I don't get the appeal, once the action starts, it breaks down into shorter and shorter edits, and the sound cuts, abstracting the horror and leaving it up to our warped imaginations.
But we can see there is a gunfight in a crowded restaurant, then something very nasty happens in the kitchen, yet it all goes by so quick its almost subliminal. They obviously filmed these scenes, so why cut good action footage down to random fragments and leave the rest on the cutting room floor?
- This begins on ongoing trend of artying up the action scenes instead of letting them speak for themselves, that will continue for the rest of the Craig films.
- Stray bullets hitting innocent passersby. This happened in the last film as well. Whatever happened to the drunk doublechecking his bottle when the zany chase scene rolled by? That was better.
- This film is so episodic it does not add up to a whole.
The precredits and first act are the conclusion to the story begun at the end of the last film. Then, based on the slimmest of connections, after about twenty minutes we begin a seperate story involving Mr Green and Camille. Then there's the unrelated coda with Vesper's old boyfriend.
So three seperate stories, only tangentially linked to each other. Just have to commission a crappy theme song, leave out the gunbarrel, and there's your new James Bond film.
- You know in Fleming's story, Rhoda Llewellyn was a stewardess, thus in position to courier stolen documents to an evildoer without going through customs, and her hapless cuckolded husband Philip Masters was a civil servant in the local colonial office with access to sensitive top secret documents? There was so potential for an espionage oriented first act introducing Fleming's actual characters, that could have spun out into a larger epic, even one involving natural resource development in Bolivia!
Ridiculous waste of yet another Fleming title!
New 2020 ranking (for now DAF and FYEO keep their previous placements)
1. TLD 2. TND 3. GF 4. TSWLM 5. TWINE 6. OHMSS 7. LtK 8. TMWTGG 9. L&LD 10. YOLT 11. DAD 12. QoS 13. DN 14. GE 15. SF 16. OP 17. MR 18. AVTAK 19. TB 20. FRWL 21. CR 22. FYEO 23. DAF (SP to be included later)
Bond actors to be re-ranked later