While I agree with most of Harmsway's checklist, I think the key to keeping Craig's tenure fresh and not formulaic is much simpler (and harder) than that: keep a strong focus on characterization, make each character and story element earn its place in the overall story and it won't become formulaic. Producers rely on formulas because that's what they think will make the most money -- the same crap the suckers bought last time. Lazy storytelling relies on cliches and formulas because the only point is to get from one scene to the next, with things like characterization a distant afterthought.
There's no reason why Q or Moneypenny couldn't be reinvented for the Craig movies. If M can be a woman without losing her most essential usefulness to the Bond story, then they can find ways to make Q or Moneypenny interesting and useful. Is it necessary? Probably not, but that really depends on the story for each successive movie.
As for Bond's character arc in CR, I doubt Craig would've taken the role if he didn't feel that Bond was going through some very real emotional and pyschological changes, but they're all very subtly underplayed. For instance, his reaction to Solange's death -- the terse "no" to M's question about emotional attachment not being his problem and the same response "single" to Vesper's remark that smart women aren't his type. That's one tightly wound fellow.
Loomis doesn't see any evolution for Bond in CR and that pov makes sense too -- we don't see any outward sign of changes in Bond, nothing that is out of keeping with what we've already seen. However, I think there's a lot inferred in the last 2 scenes, the only ones after Vesper's death, where he's on the phone with M and then shooting Mr. White. A helluva lot of key things come out in that phone call. Bond realizes:
(a) that Vesper saved his life,
(
that Vesper's betrayal was of a different nature than he'd imagined, revealing her to be more victim than villain,
© that if she left her mobile for him to find then there might be more that she wanted him to know, and when he finds it (White's phone #), he trusts that it's not a trap, but a clue to the Organization behind Le Chiffre, and more importantly, to the people truly responsible for her death. Would he have tried to track down the Organization on his own at that point if he didn't blame them for Vesper's death? I doubt it. He was ready to fly back to London and get on with the next assignment.
When we see him shoot down Mr. White, does anybody think he's doing it just for Queen and country? Of course not, it's revenge for Vesper, or the beginnings of it. It's personal. You can see the self-satisfaction of triumph in his face. How is it different from blowing up Carlos or shooting Mollaka? He's got the big picture this time. He's not going to kill Mr. White, well, not right away. He's realized that he's got a job that's more complicated than just killing people. M admonished him after the embassy killings and by the end of the movie, his actions show that he's not just a blunt instrument anymore.
He's already got all the technical and physical skills necessary for his job -- it's the psychological ones he needs to hone. But the dogged, sheer bloodymindedness of this Bond? That was already there.
How? I don't see it. Right at the start of the film, he's capable of blowing a man (and a family man) away without a second's hesitation, making a cold quip at the same time. How exactly is it possible for Bond to get any emotionally tougher than that?
Is he emotionally tougher by the end of the movie? Yes, but not as a killer, as lover. He's just as coldblooded at his job as before, but his armor is back on as far as loving another woman. Also as M points out, he doesn't trust anyone anymore, he's learned his lesson.
The way I see Bond in CASINO ROYALE is this. He's a born killer, and he knows it, but once he's really gotten into the profession, it begins to take its toll on him. He finds Vesper, finds a way out, but at the last minute, Vesper tears him out of that and ironically has the effect of setting him on his original track more firmly than he was before.
Interesting, but I'll make some quibbles. I'm not sure anyone is a born killer, but I'm more inclined to think of him as Vesper characterized him -- a maladjusted young man shaped by emotional damage and a government's eagerness to turn weakness into strength for their own advantage. If killing takes a toll on him, he doesn't allow himself to admit it. Except to Vesper on the beach, when he admits that he wants to get out while he's still got a soul left to salvage. I don't think that Vesper is the way out so much as a different life line. His job feeds his ego and he needs that. When he falls in love, he finds something much more fulfilling than bedding lots of willing women -- for the first time, he's in love with someone who loves him back. When you have that, you feel that you can do anything. Obviously he knows what it's like to be desired and wanted, but that elusive love thang? Not so much, not until Vesper.
In other words, Casino Royale is the unfortunate story of a man having his dark, impersonal beliefs reaffirmed as a consequence of his first earnest attempts at salvaging his humanity. What we're left with is a cold and broken soul whom we can pity, but at the same time a now-resolute anti-hero for whom we can cheer. That's how I see it at least, and it works for me.
Yup, that works for me, too. And we finally have a Bond that we can all relate to, after all, who hasn't had their heart broken at least once in this vale of tears? The difference is that most of us don't have machetes and gunplay featuring in our romantic problems, at least I hope not!
There's Dryden's "Made you feel it, did he?" line, of course, but even then I take Bond's expression to be one of physical exhaustion rather than remorse or horror - it was a bloody difficult kill, after all!
Hmm, I took Bond's reaction to that as discomfort at Dryden's perception. And he cuts him off before he can go on about it, by shooting him, ironically. He doesn't want to be reminded of that first, really visceral kill.
The Obanno bit is a good point. Again, though, I see exhaustion rather than despair or anything else, although there's no reason why he has to be feeling just one thing.
Agree, there's a lot going on in that scene - exhaustion, pain, shock, disgust, relief - he looks like all his nerves are exposed and he can barely keep it together.
Great thread!
