What's the best PTS of the Craig era?
Revolver66
Melbourne, AustraliaPosts: 470MI6 Agent
Interested to hear opinions on each of Craig's Pre-titles. Personally I think all four of Craig's PTS's are great in their own way. Yes even Quantum of Solace 
)
But my vote for the best would have to be Skyfall. With Casino a close second. I loved Spectre's PTS and still do but the cgi brings it down a touch for me now.
)But my vote for the best would have to be Skyfall. With Casino a close second. I loved Spectre's PTS and still do but the cgi brings it down a touch for me now.
Comments
QoS: The worst of the four. The jarring editing ruins it, and the lack of a gunbarrel doesn't have an excuse this time.
SF: Well done in all respects bar one- though this time there IS an excuse.
SP: Could have done without "The Dead Are Alive" but otherwise the best all round.
No surprise to find this is my favourite Craig PTS so far
I also don’t think there is any ‘jarring editing’ at all in the PTS ?:)
CR is also excellent...can’t say I’m overly impressed with the other two
The slow reveal to the screaming V12 DBS is brilliant and it has a Dr No-ey feel for me, for some reason but CR's noir look and sharp tone is also equally nice.
Skyfall's well done but it's not as original as the first two and Bond's being played as a super-action, comic book hero that doesn't fit in at all with Craig's previous films. The ending is tedious because there was no excuse for the shot, he could've finished the job himself if they had given the poor fella a chance.
As stated in my review for SPECTRE, not only is the opening shot amazing but the rest of the sequence is spectacular and I had an eye-gasm watching it. The humour's back (although it doesn't quite fit in with the rest of them but who cares anyway) and it ended on a truly spectacular stunt. If only had Newman risen to the occasion, though I do love Los Muertos Vivon Estan.
Skyfall is number 2. Though it sadly lacks a gun barrel, it is a well-done action sequence. The ending with M ordering Eve to shoot Bond is just stupid.
Quantum would have been great if the editing were done so you could see it, and there's no excuse for not having a gun barrel. It just feels like it's missing at the start of this film since it's supposed to be a Bond film.
Casino Royale is trying way too hard. Black and white in unnecessary and is too stylised for Bond. It serves no purpose and takes me out of the moment. The design is the gun barrel at the end looks terrible.
1. CR - PERFECTION
2. QOS - PERFECTION
3. SF - AMAZING
4. SP - PRETTY GOOD
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I also like SF's PTS because it throws all the expected and cliché Bond action at the very beginning of the film. There's a car chase, a gunfight, a motorcycle chase then a fight on a train. Then once Bond gets shot off the bridge I interpret it as the film saying to the audience "ok we've given you what you expect but now we're going to do something a bit different". And also the lack of gunbarrel doesn't bother me here either. Seeing Bond turn the corner and hear a brief DA DAAA was a perfect alternative.
I like how even when he is masked, we can guess its him and not some villain, because of the walk.
Then the final section, the helicopter fight, it already looks very dangerous as the helicopter keeps tipping in all directions, then the camera pulls out to reveal how close they are to the ground and several hundred people panicking and running for cover just metres below.
Skyfall gets part marks too because it is the slickest transition from precredits action to main titles we have had in a long time.
Is there a name for that moment when the precredits action resolves and freezes, and the first recognisable note of Bond music begins? that specific moment is as important to the Bondfilm experience as the credits themselves. I think the cat with the diamond necklace in DaF is my alltime favourite such moment.
Not as far as I know, but there should be! "Credit Transition" perhaps,? And of course, for the opposite moment when the credits end and we re-enter the film. If Loeffelholz is reading this, it might be an idea for the Glossary: https://www.ajb007.co.uk/topic/31194/the-ajb-glossary-so-far/
Worst: Easily Quantum of Solace. From its ADHD editing to breakneck speed, it takes what is essentially a pretty mundane car chase and tries to jazz it up.
That leaves Skyfall and Spectre. I still find Skyfall's PTS curiously devoid of gravitas -- stuff happens, but it doesn't feel particularly exciting. I still don't understand why the laptop hard drive has to be physically stolen rather than simply hacked by Silva, who we keep being told is a computer genius. I'm not even sure why the British agents were in the field with all of that data in the first place -- and then more British agents had to swarm in to try to recover it. It all just feels contrived to serve the plot.
Spectre's PTS was marginally better, if only because of its sense of style. The tracking shot, walk across the rooftop, helicopter fight are all stylishly done. But like Skyfall's PTS, it feels flat in the action department. Mendes seems to have little concept of suspense and dramatic tension.
I never even stopped to think that the editing was making up for something even worse. I always blamed how bad it was on the editing, but if you could see what's going on you'd probably wish it was over sooner!
It also makes me realise that the editing was bloody good. That car chase is really dire if you look at and imagine it without the break neck cuts - boring. I take back everything bad I said about that editing now.
Plus you get the added bonus of a truly great Bond theme tune :007)
And you call yourself a musician 8-)
8-) oh boy, here we go again
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
He‘s just doing that for the groupies
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
Good thing I'm not a film editor, too. :007)
Ssh, trade secret!
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
Good editing enhances rather than disguises, at least in terms of action. That's what makes the fight scenes in From Russia with Love and Diamonds are Forever so brutal -- you see the brutality and carnage but it stops just short of being pornographic and focusing on the bloodiest of imagery. The pace is right. Quick but not so quick what's going on isn't discernable or your brain doesn't have time to react to it before it escalates. (The editing is what makes these fight scenes more intense than, say, Bond's fight with Hans in You Only Live Twice. The earlier fight at Osato Chemicals is both choreographed and edited better.)
With the car chase in Quantum of Solace, it's mostly just glimpses, sometimes so hard to discern that you have to see it two or three times before it makes sense. There's not much geography -- your eye might be looking to the right when the quick cut suddenly forces you to look all the way to the left before it's back to the right.
What I usually hear from people is that the more you watch the car chase, the better it seems. Yeah, that's proving my point. It's not supposed to be viewed multiple times before it makes sense. It's supposed to make sense the first time.
That said, there is some good photgraphy and the moment Bond spins the car to rip off the door is a good move. But other than that, it's a pretty mundane car chase that at times seems more like a luxury car commercial.
QoS' PTS puts us immediately in the midst of action, in such a unique way that's as 1st person in perspective that it can ever get; even the way he dispatches the occupants in the Alfa is so anti-cliche...no savage machine gun rounds tearing into Bond's target followed by a super explosion. If anyone has ever gotten into a fist-fight as a kid (or an adult) like me, I remember the adrenalin and that surreal feeling that you are in the middle of a devastating experiencing, in real time…that’s how the QoS PTS felt like as a viewer/participant.
Lastly, however, the SP PTS had so many elements I liked, a macabre “foreign” festival, shots of Bond being Bond, right down to the swagger, high-tech weapon, an offensive action leading to an instant, catastrophic outcome (the destruction of a building), coming out of that unscathed (Bond’s “Nelson touch” as M put it in the books) and culminating in the take-down.
So, it’s between QoS and SP. Bigger and more “stuff” doesn’t necessarily mean better. QoS with all the intensity crammed into its succinctness really does it for me…but if there can only be one, for me it’s SP.
Cheers :007)
SF
QOS/SP
CR