24 replies to this topic

[DamnCoffee]

Something that came into my head when I was out for a cigarette. What if Casino Royale flopped big time, and the public didn't take to Craig at all? Where do you think the franchise would've went from there? Would Craig have returned for Quantum of Solace, causing the producers to up their game big time, and make sure Quantum was fully developed when they started filming? Would Brosnan be brought back? Would Craig leave the role after one movie? Or do you think, the James Bond franchise would go on hiatus again? Maybe for around 10 years so they can try again? I can see the headlines now: LICENCE TO BORE: New Bond film leaves us more shaken than stirred.

It's an awful thought I know, and I'm seriously glad that Craig and Casino Royale delivered. Just thought I should ask anyway, could be an interesting discussion.

Edited by Mharkin, 27 November 2011 - 10:38 PM.

[Chemateo]

I think there would have been a second film at the very least. They would not dump Craig as he is signed to the standard 3 pictures with options after that. It would look bad if EON got rid of Craig. Why should the audience have faith in their choice if the Producers have no faith as well. Plus, it would also send out a bad signal to actors that EON cannot be trusted to stand by their selection. So then there is no real sense of security for the actor.

CR could have taken in a "disappointing" box office gross but by no means would it have been a failure. Bond is too big to fail. Haha, EON has always been very good working with their budgets and also subsidizing it with product placement. They would have turned a profit, just one that would not have been as large as they liked.

I think from CR being a disappointment, EON would set about trying to make QOS with Craig a sure fire hit. Whatever that may be. If that too underwhelmed, I could see them giving the series a break of three to four years before the next film. Let fans start long for anything Bond. Absence helps make the heart grow fonder. Definitely not a ten year hiatus.

[Mr. Blofeld]

Something that came into my head when I was out for a cigarette.

Filthy habit, cigarettes; might want to drop it... there's certainly a reason as to why Bond no longer lights up.

[Guy Haines]

When Craig was introduced as Bond, I suspect there were those in the media who wanted CR to fail. Those who hated the Bond films in the first place (There's a reviewer on The Sunday Times, for example, whose write ups of both Craig films, and the Brosnan movies, are so similar and so negative that I won't even bother reading his review of Skyfall next year. I could write it in advance!)

Those who were convinced that Bond had to be "tall, dark, handsome - and tuxedoed" (The whole "craigisnotbond.com" business was about that, as far as I can make out!)

Then there's the tabloid hacks who would have loved to write about the "death" of the Bond series, just for a nine day wonder story to make the headlines.

Strange then that, with the exception of "craigisnotbond", and the guy at the Sunday Times, all these journalists were falling over themselves to praise CR 2006. Ah well, there's more re-joicing of a sinner who repenteth!

(Incidentally, the Sunday Times review complained that Bond surviving the infamous torture scene in CR was a cliched cinematic cop out on the part of the film makers because Mr White turned up to execute Le Chiffre at a covenient moment. The implication being that the screenwriters couldn't find a way out for Bond. They weren't alone. Neither could Ian Fleming, as the reviewer would have known if he had bothered to read the 1953 novel!)

[Pussfeller]

I disagree with your last point. The fact that Fleming himself perpetrated the narrative laziness doesn't mean that the producers were required to retain that laziness in the film. It's a legitimate criticism to say that the filmmakers should have come up with something better than the deus ex machina in the original novel. When they announced that they were going to adapt CR, I was worried that they would be too authentic. It's not Fleming's best novel. I was pleasantly surprised by Eon's lack of fidelity where fidelity would have made for something cinematically crummy. Given their general willingness to depart from the source material, I was annoyed that they didn't find a cleverer way of extricating Bond from his torture session.

As for its success, I think CR would have been a hit even if it had been lousy by our standards. Bond films despised by fans are often immensely profitable. The excitement of the new Bond combined with a massive ad blitz would have resulted in a success. The actual quality of the film no doubt helped with critics, and helped to legitimize Craig among doubters, but it was probably only a minor factor in CR's popular success.

[dinovelvet]

I agree they wouldn't have dumped Craig after one film - would be acknowledging failure. I think we would have seen the reboot angle scrapped or at least played down, Bond 22 would become a business-as-usual more straightforward Bond film, possibly wrapping up Mr.White and his "organization" early on, and moving on to a villain wanting to blow up the world kind of thing. Craig would be in a couple of machine gun battles and car chases, and Moneypenny and Q would be in it as if they'd never disappeared.

[Jaws0178]

Pussfeller, just out of curiosity, how would you have gotten Bond out of the chair?

[Righty007]

Something that came into my head when I was out for a cigarette.

Filthy habit, cigarettes; might want to drop it... there's certainly a reason as to why Bond no longer lights up.

Must you judge everybody's personal choices? You advertise your filthy habits on your blog and Facebook but we don't judge.

[Safari Suit]

Something that came into my head when I was out for a cigarette. What if Casino Royale flopped big time, and the public didn't take to Craig at all?

Have you ever considered talking to people?

Just "jerking yer chain" as they say , nah as has been said they would have made a "damage control" film with Craig, which would basically undo what the previous film had done, if not explicitly, like DAF (or Skyfall?) If that had tanked, Craig might have been toast.

[Pussfeller]

Pussfeller, just out of curiosity, how would you have gotten Bond out of the chair?

There are various ways. The simplest solution, so simple that it's almost a cheat, is not to show how Bond got out of the chair! Just have him pass out from the pain and wake up in the hospital with Vesper at his side. Leave everything to the viewer's imagination. The only problem with this is that Le Chiffre's death would occur offscreen, so that would have to be revealed in dialogue.

Another way would have been to alter the narrative POV to make Le Chiffre's killing less of a deus ex machina. After all, it was only a deus ex machina because a major plot point was being withheld from the audience. Why not make it clear that Vesper cued Mr. White to arrive when he did? The writers' reason for keeping this a secret is obvious: they preferred not to reveal Vesper's connection to Mr. White until much later, so as to surprise the audience. Because it's all about surprising the audience, right? It would have been far better to reveal Vesper's skulduggery as Bond is being tortured, so that Mr. White's intervention would make immediate sense, and so that Vesper's subsequent fling with Bond would be tinged with tragic irony. That's much better than an a deus ex machina leading to a shocking twist.

Makers of recent spy films, and thrillers in general, have the habit of thinking that merely because something is unknown to the protagonist, it must also be unknown to the audience. They've completely forgotten about the power of dramatic irony to create suspense without reducing a narrative to a labyrinthine mess of twists and non sequiturs. A perfect illustration is From Russia With Love. The audience knows all about SPECTRE and Klebb and Grant, and Bond knows nothing. Nevertheless the story is gripping. Part of the reason it's gripping is because it's comprehensible. It doesn't make sense only in retrospect. If the CR approach had been taken, so that the audience knew only what Bond knew, the result would have been a baffling sequence of deus ex machinas (at the gypsy camp, at the mosque, etc) culminating in a series of shocking revelations (Nash's real identity, Tanya's real mission, an unknown Russian posing as an Italian chambermaid, etc). These things were baffling and shocking to Bond, but not to the audience. And that was a good thing. It wouldn't have worked otherwise.

If I could give one piece of advice to Purvis and Wade and whoever else decides these things, it would be to forget about shocking the audience with clever twists, and get back to FRWL-style dramatic irony.

[Peckinpah1976]

I don't think the ending of the torture scene is a cop-out in any way:-

1) Bond always escapes, here he doesn't.

2) The character we're lead to believe to be the main villain gets killed long before the last reel.

Both of these things fly in the face of the Bond movie conventions (and thillers/action movies in general).

Having a completely naked, helpless Bond be rescued by the intervention of a woman is a great way of saying "all bets are off folks, forget what you think you know." Anyone who thinks that Bond using some device from Q department or strangling his captors with his legs a la Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon, clearly has little understanding of dramatic fiction.

Edited by Peckinpah1976, 29 November 2011 - 08:27 AM.

[David Schofield]

I don't think the ending of the torture scene is a cop-out in any way:-

1) Bond always escapes, here he doesn't.

2) The character we're lead to believe to be the main villain gets killed long before the last reel.

Both of these things fly in the face of the Bond movie conventions (and thillers/action movies in general).

Having a completely naked, helpless Bond be rescued by the intervention of a woman is a great way of saying "all bets are off folks, forget what you think you know." Anyone who thinks that Bond using some device from Q department or strangling his captors with his legs a la Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon, clearly has little understanding of dramatic fiction.

Quite right.

The only plausible alternative in both forms of CR would have been Leiter to the rescue with the cavalry. (Of course, had Fleming had Leiter save Bond it would have been a nice allegory for the USA saving the Brits in WW2, albeit turning up late and after the Brits had taken a lot of punishment; a nice addition to the lease-lend imagery of Leiter helping Bond with money. And of course, had IF done this, rather than have SMERSH kill le Chiffre and mark Bond, it would have made Vesper's later revelation an even greater surprise)

Anyone who believes Fleming or EON could otherwise have saved Bond without altering CR is deluding themselves, and creding themseves with too much skill, though if anyone does genuinely have an exit route from the torture scene, please let us see it.

Though I guess these it an alternative for EON-Bond to escape. Just have Bond seduce Le Chiffre. Bond, using his ingenunity and resourcefulness, Le Chiffre, or lets Le Chiffre him. Then Bond kills Le Chiffre and escapes.

[Dustin]

Though I guess these it an alternative for EON-Bond to escape. Just have Bond seduce Le Chiffre. Bond, using his ingenunity and resourcefulness, Le Chiffre, or lets Le Chiffre him. Then Bond kills Le Chiffre and escapes.

That's coming close to what happened in CS, isn't it?

[Guy Haines]

It seems I've stirred up a hornets nest about one CR scene, without intending to! Just a few further comments. The inference from the newspaper review I remembered reading was that the screenwriters and film makers were relying on a cinematic cop out - no mention that the torture scene was straight out of the Fleming novel and was played fairly close to the book version.

Also, we've had some discussion here about the point of that scene ending as it did, with Bond's life spared when he could have been killed. It could be said that the film version makes more sense than the one in the book. Bond survives the 1953 scene because the SMERSH agent sent to kill Le Chiffre has no orders to kill Bond as well - but still leaves him with the mark of a spy. Imagine the trouble the Russians and others would have been spared if that SMERSH killer had exercised his discretion.

Whereas leaving Bond alive makes perfect sense for Mr White. Only Bond knows his password needed to access his winnings, the organisation's lost money. White already has his double agent, Vesper Lynd, in place to collect the money once Bond has given the password. The organisation no longer needs Le Chiffre, and so Quantum is able to rid itself of an untrustworthy member, and recover its money. (And as we learn in QoS, White had hoped that Vesper would "turn" Bond - another reason for not killing him)

But, as others here have rightly pointed out, these reasons only come together as the film ends, or at the start of the sequel. So, on its own, the scene we've been debating here could look like a cop out, taken on its own.

[Pussfeller]

Anyone who believes Fleming or EON could otherwise have saved Bond without altering CR is deluding themselves, and creding themseves with too much skill, though if anyone does genuinely have an exit route from the torture scene, please let us see it.

The plot itself needn't be changed at all. The same story could have been told more effectively simply by exposing the audience to information that Bond does not possess. The way the events are related in CR, the audience knows precisely as much as Bond, or sometimes less than Bond. Consequently, the manner of storytelling is heavily reliant on twists, obscure motives, and retrospective "oh, now I get it" moments. If Vesper's involvement had been revealed to the audience at the time of Bond's torture, or even earlier, then his rescue would not have been a deus ex machina, even though it would have remained mysterious to Bond. Bond's subsequent actions would have been no different. Literally every plot point could remain the same.

A person doesn't need to be clever or contrary to point this out. If you've ever watched From Russia With Love, you'll know that a plot based on duplicity can be presented to the audience in a straightforward, non-duplicitous way without sacrificing tension. Don't get me wrong, I think CR is narratively the best Bond film since the Connery era. This is a general criticism of contemporary thrillers and their tendency to substitute confusion for genuine suspense.

[SecretAgentFan]

If CR had been a complete flop I could imagine that they would have either gone on hiatus or, yes, asked Brosnan back, Connery-style for one more film. The marketing easily could have put the "it´s a tradition for Bond movies"-stamp on that, making Craig the new Lazenby (only the other way around: acting-chops and looks-wise). But after that we would not have gotten a re-boot but more very traditional films.

[David Schofield]

Anyone who believes Fleming or EON could otherwise have saved Bond without altering CR is deluding themselves, and creding themseves with too much skill, though if anyone does genuinely have an exit route from the torture scene, please let us see it.

The plot itself needn't be changed at all. The same story could have been told more effectively simply by exposing the audience to information that Bond does not possess. The way the events are related in CR, the audience knows precisely as much as Bond, or sometimes less than Bond. Consequently, the manner of storytelling is heavily reliant on twists, obscure motives, and retrospective "oh, now I get it" moments. If Vesper's involvement had been revealed to the audience at the time of Bond's torture, or even earlier, then his rescue would not have been a deus ex machina, even though it would have remained mysterious to Bond. Bond's subsequent actions would have been no different. Literally every plot point could remain the same.

A person doesn't need to be clever or contrary to point this out. If you've ever watched From Russia With Love, you'll know that a plot based on duplicity can be presented to the audience in a straightforward, non-duplicitous way without sacrificing tension. Don't get me wrong, I think CR is narratively the best Bond film since the Connery era. This is a general criticism of contemporary thrillers and their tendency to substitute confusion for genuine suspense.

Hmm.

But I thought you were criticising Fleming and therefore EON for the method in which Bond escaped the torture, and that, by implication, there were better methods Fleming had overlooked?

[Pussfeller]

It's not that there's a plot hole. I see no logical inconsistency in the underlying plot. My complaint is related to the way the plot is presented, and the subjective experience of watching the film. I have a general dissatisfaction with the way the audience POV is so tightly synchronized with the protagonist's POV, and I believe that the torture scene is a particularly clear illustration of the shortcomings of this technique.

It is currently fashionable for espionage/thriller movies to keep the audience in the dark up until the very end. The idea is that this is challenging and somehow sophisticated and postmodern. But usually it's just confusing, unless the plot itself is quite simple. The audience is confused until the very end, at which point they have enough information to retrospectively perceive the entire plot. Some people might find this immensely satisfying, but I don't. It's like solving an extremely trivial crossword puzzle. When watching something fun and unpretentious like an action film, I would rather be fully aware of what is happening as it is happening, with the future the only uncertainty.

I'm not saying that the "ignorant audience" technique should never be used in any form of storytelling, but I do believe that it's simply not appropriate for the majority of action films, thrillers, and basically any cinematic genre in which the plot is the most important element. Filmmakers have adopted the technique purely out of a snobbish belief that it is inherently superior to straightforward storytelling. Contrast this with the "naive" approach of the early Bond films, which allowed the audience to be omniscient, revealing the entirety of the plot in real time, and relying more heavily on dramatic irony as a method of creating suspense.

This is all very subjective, of course.

[David Schofield]

It's not that there's a plot hole. I see no logical inconsistency in the underlying plot. My complaint is related to the way the plot is presented, and the subjective experience of watching the film. I have a general dissatisfaction with the way the audience POV is so tightly synchronized with the protagonist's POV, and I believe that the torture scene is a particularly clear illustration of the shortcomings of this technique.

It is currently fashionable for espionage/thriller movies to keep the audience in the dark up until the very end. The idea is that this is challenging and somehow sophisticated and postmodern. But usually it's just confusing, unless the plot itself is quite simple. The audience is confused until the very end, at which point they have enough information to retrospectively perceive the entire plot. Some people might find this immensely satisfying, but I don't. It's like solving an extremely trivial crossword puzzle. When watching something fun and unpretentious like an action film, I would rather be fully aware of what is happening as it is happening, with the future the only uncertainty.

I'm not saying that the "ignorant audience" technique should never be used in any form of storytelling, but I do believe that it's simply not appropriate for the majority of action films, thrillers, and basically any cinematic genre in which the plot is the most important element. Filmmakers have adopted the technique purely out of a snobbish belief that it is inherently superior to straightforward storytelling. Contrast this with the "naive" approach of the early Bond films, which allowed the audience to be omniscient, revealing the entirety of the plot in real time, and relying more heavily on dramatic irony as a method of creating suspense.

This is all very subjective, of course.

Right.

So you are happy that the way Fleming and EON had Bond 'escape' was the only option - perhaps Leiter and the cavalry aside - available?

[Pussfeller]

As Bond would say, "I think we're talking at cross purposes." I fully agree that the plot of Casino Royale is logically consistent, in light of all the facts provided over the course of the film. There's nothing wrong with the plot. (Which is not to say that it's mathematically perfect and couldn't be changed or improved upon.) To be honest, as a moviegoer, I care far less about the plot than I do about the telling. A strong telling can make up for a very weak plot, but the opposite is not true. When I earlier mentioned "narrative laziness", I was referring to something beyond the logical consistency of the plot.

[SecretAgentFan]

I don´t know - I like twists and developments I did not see coming.

And by the way, this has nothing to do with postmodernism. It´s just good storytelling.

[Pussfeller]

I don't mind a twist if it's earned. But when the writers stack the deck so that there's a twist every ten minutes, simply because the audience is limited to the perspective of a character who is being actively hornswoggled, it ceases to be interesting and becomes merely confusing. To me at least. It requires great skill to tell a story simply.

I guess we go to the movies looking for different experiences. I accept that it's a matter of taste. Personally, I prefer action movies in which some psychic distance is put between the audience and the protagonist. I find that this maximizes the suspense and fun, as opposed to the emotional intensity, psychological power, or what have you.

[SecretAgentFan]

I agree with you on this: some movies try so hard twisting everything that it becomes a gimmick instead of a well told story. With Bond, however, I never got that feeling.

[PrinceKamalKhan]

Something that came into my head when I was out for a cigarette. What if Casino Royale flopped big time, and the public didn't take to Craig at all? Where do you think the franchise would've went from there? Would Craig have returned for Quantum of Solace, causing the producers to up their game big time, and make sure Quantum was fully developed when they started filming? Would Brosnan be brought back? Would Craig leave the role after one movie? Or do you think, the James Bond franchise would go on hiatus again? Maybe for around 10 years so they can try again?

I believe the hiatus option would have happened. Kind of like what WB did with the Batman series after Batman & Robin bombed. Go on hiatus and return with a new actor and a different approach. As long as movies are being made, they'll be James Bond movies though there may be hiatuses and actor changes now and then.

[jaguar007]

I agree with you on this: some movies try so hard twisting everything that it becomes a gimmick instead of a well told story. With Bond, however, I never got that feeling.

Fleming did not let the reader know from the beginning of CR that Vesper was a traitor, and I think the producers did the right thing by keeping the twist in the film.