Bottled In Bond Going On #26

[Zorral]

Was offline until now (at the opera last night -- is that Bondish or is that Corleoneish?)  -- and now I see that the words I quoted in the previous Bond thread was attributed to the wrong person, @Conflicting Thought despite using the quote function that supposedly provides the commentator's name, when it was @Rhom who wrote that we can't / shouldn't judge works of the past by contemporary information, understanding and standards.

So I start this new Bond thread purposely to apologize to @Conflicting Thought for my incorrect attribution.  I am very sorry.  I was wrong.

I really am sorry.  It's extremely unpleasant to have words and thoughts attributed to one that one neither said nor thinks nor believes.

~~~~~~~~

And now, please carry on, commentators, with this interesting conversation!

Before heading out to the opera I finished watching Quantum of Solace (2008) on HBO.  The women stuff again, ehhh.  But! it's really interesting, isn't it, that M is of emotional / personal importance to him, far more so the other women who roll into his bowled with fireballs trajectory.  So far, in both the Craig films, that he is hard, emotionally, is centered, while in both films he demonstrates otherwise. But are these exceptions that prove the rule here? Betrayal there is, by Vesper, which story line is continued then, from the first Craig, Casino Royale.  But M dumps him, but he remains so loyal that he's determined to kill the person responsible for an attack on her.

I really appreciated this up-to-date Big Bad being someone stealing water for gouged profit. Again, it's impressive how current the Bond film writers are when it comes to what threatens us all, while a very truly hard persons make obscene profit from it.

 

 

[Veltigar]

Quote

• Report postI feel very conflicted by CR. On one hand it really is a great Bond movie, one of the best. I really loved the new grittier take on Bond, I loved Craig and it felt like a fantastic setup to a new franchise. 
• 
  But on the other hand, every subsequent movie has been a bit of a dud. This has made me wonder if the direction taken by CR, that those movies have followed, was the right one. 
  
  On paper it makes sense to give James Bond more depth, to give his character more backstory and inner conflict, to make him feel more like a normal human being. That seemed like a good idea after the disastrous Die Another Day. But so far I really don't think I give a damn about Bond's back story, it has seemed so irrelevant and uninteresting. Skyfall fell into a crater plot wise when they went to Scotland and went on about Bond's past... so maybe we don't need to know very much about him at all.
  
  Bond for me has always been an archetype  more than a real character, and some franchises don't need to add flesh to the bones of their characters. In fact I think it's a failing of a lot of modern movies that they think we need to see a backstory before we can care about a character.
  
  I look at the mission impossible series and although they are not a perfect example of it, I think they are often making better Bond movies than James Bond. They know the formula: do a bunch of awesome action sequences, do them well, fit a story in the middle somehow and let the charisma of the actors pull it all together. Ethan Hunt has some depth in those movies, but I think the best ones just gloss over it a bit and get on with making awesome movies.
  
  You could probably do that with Bond as well. I think if they were going to reboot the series I'd want to go back to a much shallower experience. I don't need a long form story arc between movies to keep me interested. Tell me a good story over 2 hours, have some great action scenes, give me a Bond who is aspirationally cool and awesome (not some conflicted relic that everyone takes time to pile onto) , some clever one liners and let me leave the cinema feeling satisfied.  That doesn't mean I want a Roger Moore movie or Die Another Day, I just don't think the franchise needs to rip off Jason Bourne or turn each movie into an intimate character study.

@Heartofice Unfortunately, I couldn't quote you anymore from the previous thread. I'd say that CR made the absolute right choice for the character, but the other films just bungled the executions.

In general, I'd say CR was Bond at its purest. He's simply a killer without much in the way of finesse when it comes to gadgets and the like. They increasingly take steps to bring Craig-Bond to a modern interpretation of the wacky, gadget-heavy Bond most people know, culminating in the terrible SPECTRE.

I'd say that the innovation of CR, namely showing the human side of Bond was great. I'd say the stupid backstory is more an indication of them sliding back into Silly Bond territory. You're right that we shouldn't care about Bond's backstory and making Blofeld related to him is just a lazy decision. 

Imagine a world in which the Bond arc as started in CR was handled more competently. You have CR which establishes a backstory in real-time (i.e. without reverting to lazy exposition or flashbacks), QoS which deepens said story by having Bond take vengeance for Vesper, Skyfall which revolves around Bond saying goodbye to the most important woman in his life (without taking time out for Home alone in Scotland, reintroducing the Aston Martin and whatever other nostalgia boner he has) and then Spectre comes back to establish a big bad with ties to the people who killed Vesper and M.

[Heartofice]

Yeah I can buy that argument, but mainly because CR is a great movie and I remember thinking it was a bit of a game changer to turn Bond into a more interesting character with depth. I agree that subsequent movies have wasted that potential and done a pretty bad job at fleshing out who James Bond is.

Having said that though, I do think the market for Bond movies is pretty casual. Audiences go into those movies looking for a good time, for some entertainment and they have certain expectations. I do think the MI movies are a decent template of how to do Bond movies properly. I could also look at something like John Wick for movies in a series who don't do very much backstory and concentrate on action and entertainment.

Maybe I just see Bond as a character that doesn't need much explanation. I'm not adverse to the occasional silliness and sometimes I prefer it to dour grittiness. There's also an argument that James Bond should be a man of mystery and intrigue and the more you know about him the less interesting he becomes. 

I guess all I'm getting at is that I honestly think that the trend over the last years, when it comes to movies in general, or making sure each character has a backstory and is fleshed out, so that we care about them, is misplaced. It's clearly not been necessary in many great movies. I think of Han Solo and Indiana Jones. Neither had an especially deep back story and yet you cared about them deeply and understood them due to the charisma of Harrison Ford and the great writing. 

I see no reason to really go into any great depths with James Bond, as I said, we all understand roughly who he is. The movies should be concentrating on telling exciting stories that involve him, and less about trying to get into his mind.
 

[Veltigar]

7 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I guess all I'm getting at is that I honestly think that the trend over the last years, when it comes to movies in general, or making sure each character has a backstory and is fleshed out, so that we care about them, is misplaced. It's clearly not been necessary in many great movies. I think of Han Solo and Indiana Jones. Neither had an especially deep back story and yet you cared about them deeply and understood them due to the charisma of Harrison Ford and the great writing. 
 

Young Indiana Jones was awesome though  

[Heartofice]

1 minute ago, Veltigar said:

Young Indiana Jones was awesome though  

Lol, yes used to love that! 
 

But I never considered it canon

[Zorral]

Quote

@Veltigar  In general, I'd say CR was Bond at its purest. He's simply a killer without much in the way of finesse when it comes to gadgets and the like

Yah -- that really stands out, particularly in contrast to the Brosnan Bonds, particularly in the first Brosnan -- the audience can see Bond thinking all the time in those endless action sequences. So not only does he have a magic suit, magic car, magic watch, but he has a super fast brain.  None of these elements are in the Craig Bonds.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You know? one of the pleasures of watching the 90's Brosnan Bonds retrospectively is all the  faces well-known now from Brit tv: Michael Kitchen; Lawrence Fox; Julian Fellows; Jonathan Pryce; Samantha Bond; Hugh Bonneville; Brendan Coyle; Patrick Malahyde, among others.

This is right before the period when Fellows made Gosford Park and was on the beloved series, Monarch of the Glen.  Though alas, the enchanting figure of Monarch of the Glen, Susan Hampshire in just about her final appearance on a television series, isn't in any of these Brosnan Bonds. 

 

[Veltigar]

On 2/10/2020 at 10:48 PM, Heartofice said:

Lol, yes used to love that! 
 

But I never considered it canon

Really? Oh, I feel that is hard to do. For my young self that was one of the better prequels I had ever seen. Particularly all the WWI episodes

On 2/11/2020 at 7:08 PM, Zorral said:

Yah -- that really stands out, particularly in contrast to the Brosnan Bonds, particularly in the first Brosnan -- the audience can see Bond thinking all the time in those endless action sequences. So not only does he have a magic suit, magic car, magic watch, but he has a super fast brain.  None of these elements are in the Craig Bonds.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Craig's Bond is by far the most realistic depiction of that kind of man. I do personally prefer Brosnan more though. Out of all the guy's playing Bond he was the most able of switching from Craig Bond to Moore Bond and making it work the entire time. A pity the quality of his films went downhill the longer he played Bond. Not unlike Craig really!

On 2/11/2020 at 7:08 PM, Zorral said:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You know? one of the pleasures of watching the 90's Brosnan Bonds retrospectively is all the  faces well-known now from Brit tv: Michael Kitchen; Lawrence Fox; Julian Fellows; Jonathan Pryce; Samantha Bond; Hugh Bonneville; Brendan Coyle; Patrick Malahyde, among others.

This is right before the period when Fellows made Gosford Park and was on the beloved series, Monarch of the Glen.  Though alas, the enchanting figure of Monarch of the Glen, Susan Hampshire in just about her final appearance on a television series, isn't in any of these Brosnan Bonds. 

 

Who was the media mogul in tomorrow never dies again? That was Fellows right

I also really liked Toby Stephens in Die Another Day. So sad that his major role in a film was wasted on such a stinker.

[HexMachina]

18 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

Really? Oh, I feel that is hard to do. For my young self that was one of the better prequels I had ever seen. Particularly all the WWI episodes

Craig's Bond is by far the most realistic depiction of that kind of man. I do personally prefer Brosnan more though. Out of all the guy's playing Bond he was the most able of switching from Craig Bond to Moore Bond and making it work the entire time. A pity the quality of his films went downhill the longer he played Bond. Not unlike Craig really!

Who was the media mogul in tomorrow never dies again? That was Fellows right

I also really liked Toby Stephens in Die Another Day. So sad that his major role in a film was wasted on such a stinker.

The media mogul (Elliot Carver) was Jonathan Pryce

[Veltigar]

1 minute ago, HelenaExMachina said:

The media mogul (Elliot Carver) was Jonathan Pryce

Shite, I was doubting between those two  Thanks for answering my question!

[HexMachina]

Just now, Veltigar said:

Shite, I was doubting between those two  Thanks for answering my question!

Fellows is the Minister of Defence (i just looked that up, i don’t remember the film too well). I really like Michelle Yeoh in it though

[Veltigar]

1 minute ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Fellows is the Minister of Defence (i just looked that up, i don’t remember the film too well). I really like Michelle Yeoh in it though

I only recall the motorcycle ride really. Can't say what she does in any other scene. It's been a while and it was never one that made much of an impression to me. It's like the Quantum of Solace of the Brosnan era. And it had no Denise Richards 

[Zorral]

Ha! the neflixen dvds for Skyfall and Spectre arrived today.  As said I didn't pay that much attention to the screen when I saw Skyfall in the theater, and I've not seen Spectre at all.  So this might be fun, since I'm looking at these for historical cultural reasons.  But I think this means I'll see the new Craig in the theater in ... April? it comes out?

All of this is the fault of @Rippounet!

 

[KiDisaster]

I'm digging the Billie Eilish theme song for the new movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO6wDBss8PI&feature=youtu.be

Full track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB_S2qFh5lU

[Rhom]

2 hours ago, KiDisaster said:

I'm digging the Billie Eilish theme song for the new movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO6wDBss8PI&feature=youtu.be

Full track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB_S2qFh5lU

Thanks for sharing!  I really like it.  Very classic Bond theme feel.

[Rhom]

That got me thinking about the many theme songs over the years.  As I said in the last thread, I couldn’t begin to rank them all; but I do think I could list one most memorable from each of the Bond actors’ run.  (Except Lazenby.  He only had the one; and while the movie is a bit underrated, there was nothing memorable about the theme song.)

Connery - Goldfinger, Shirley Bassey.  Really set the stage for all Bond themes to come.
Moore - Live and Let Die, Paul McCartney. Hey, when Guns n Roses is doing covers of your song years later, you know it stands the test of time!  
Dalton - The Living Daylights, A-Ha! Similar to Lazenby, not a lot to choose from; but this one stands out and is just a fun 80’s-tastic jam.
Brosnan - Goldeneye, Tina Turner.  Classic sounds and a return to form.  Really set the tone for the movie.  All of his themes really did strike the Classic Bond form.
Craig - Skyfall, Adele.  You Know My Name from CR is my favorite of his themes by a long margin, but Adele was huge with this song.

 

[Veltigar]

Meh, not a big fan of the new track. She's almost doing a parody of her shtick for this song. I think some of her own songs would be a better fit for Bond than this   

[Heartofice]

It's a pretty decent tune. But it's far from memorable. It's not like I'm going to be going around humming it any time soon.

[Veltigar]

2 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

It's a pretty decent tune. But it's far from memorable. It's not like I'm going to be going around humming it any time soon.

They should have just done a slight rewrite of Bad Guy 

[Raja]

16 hours ago, KiDisaster said:

I'm digging the Billie Eilish theme song for the new movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO6wDBss8PI&feature=youtu.be

 

That's a pretty good track!

Though I also enjoyed this

 

[Zorral]

    . . . . As this is Valentine's Day, it seems appropriate to acknowledge movie Bond's consistent love for one person, which we first see creeping toward the center of the Bond narrative with the 90's Pierce Brosnan Bond character reboot.

Despite the hideous business made by the writers between Bond and the masturbation fantasies of Moneypenny for the Brosnan Bond, these are the films in which we see the relationship between M and Bond slipping into the foreground. At the start of Brosnan Bond, Goldeneye (1995) M's unflinching hardass teaches Bond the hard lessons about personal relationships he must learn in order to serve their beloved England.

Bond says, "I don't trust anyone."
M responds, "Now you're learning."

By the time we get to the 2000’s Daniel Craig reboot, and the final Dench M, in Skyfall, (2012), it is their relationship that matters most to both of them. Nor have they anyone else. Everyone they've come up with, worked with, along with the changed world has retired, or died, including M's beloved husband. It's the formula that increasingly embitters these two Bonds that everyone Bond has ever loved, or even not even bothered to pretend to love, has died too. Our Q, provider of ever more powerful magic amulets with which the Brosnan Bonds are still supplied, has kept the persona, but has been incarnated already by a series of new, and younger Q's as one after another has succumbed to the end. 

M won't tell Brosnan Bond that he's her very best, she does tell others. M betrays Bond more than once in the Brosnan and the Craig Bonds. By the end of the Brosans, Die Another Day (2002), Bond is conflicted about how she treats him and certainly by the value of what the service supposedly is for. 

Craig’s Bond, in contrast, though he flouts her orders and often expresses disgust for what she does and he does, resigns and deserts, at bottom, perceives her behaviors as doing her job, and doing it right, i,e, through being the most hardassed loyal of loyal.  He shares her values like no one else does. Her decisions are always, she says, in the best service of  England, queen and the service's purpose.

This is the antithesis of Big Bad, Silva, a rejected agent from back in the days of her Hong Kong posting, thus Skyfall's plot driver, Silva's quest to personally kill M. One agent turned pathological due to her treatment. The other is willing to lay his own life down to save M.

Silva tells Bond that once he'd been M's favorite. M herself says in Dench's M's typical harsh needling of Bond, "[Silva]was the best I ever had, better than you. Until he went off campus, making his own deals with our enemies." Craig doesn't protest.  He's aging, his ability to be the sure shot that provides the first skill for 007 rank, is gone -- like the empire and the post WWII world of intelligence agents in the field, which is the world of which both he and M were the premiere artists.

This is love between the truest of true professionals, which begins as mentor and mentee. M and Bond's relationship IS the loyalty to the ideal of empire, the lost UK dominance in the world and even in intelligence services. All the imagery of Skyfall, from the opening music / credits sequence, is about death and burial.

However, M and her office per se, resurrects in a new M. Presumably then, the message is so will the UK as and Empire and MI6 resurrect. Dench's M's desk accessory, the china John Bull Dog, that Craig's Bond derides, survived the bombing of MI6 headquarters. In her will, M left John Bull to Bond.

Early in the first half of Skyfall, when Silva asks Bond what he does for a living, Craig's Bond says, "Resurrection." But right now, he's the only one left.

Next up: Spectre (2015).

~~~~~~~~~

As far as the theme for No Time To Die: I don't care for it, but I don't care for that musical formula of the high, breathy voice.  No more than I'm a fan of the way overdone, omnipresent melisima either.