25 replies to this topic

[Daddy Bond]

Okay, up front, Daniel Craig is definitely one of my favorite Bond actors.  I have enjoyed all three of his movies thus far, and am looking forward to Spectre, but here's my question, "What happened to Craig's Bond career as a double-0?

 

Think about it.  In CR and QOS he was getting started, right?  Then in SF they're speaking of him as if he's washed up and worn out, as if he's at the END of his career. So what happened to the main part of his career?  I know more is coming, but has anyone else found this odd or irritating?  Two movies getting him ramped and started, then the third movie he's old and ready to retire.  Huh?  Thoughts on this? 

 

The implication is that he has a whole career we basically missed...or am I missing something?

[tdalton]

The implication is that he has a whole career we basically missed...or am I missing something?

That's exactly what the implication made in Skyfall is. One of the many missteps in that film.

[Karloff]

 

Think about it.  In CR and QOS he was getting started, right?  Then in SF they're speaking of him as if he's washed up and worn out, as if he's at the END of his career. So what happened to the main part of his career?  I know more is coming, but has anyone else found this odd or irritating?  Two movies getting him ramped and started, then the third movie he's old and ready to retire.  Huh?  Thoughts on this? 

 

The implication is that he has a whole career we basically missed...or am I missing something?

 

The reason for him being at the end of his career is not his age, but his mental and physical state. He is washed up, has "lost a step" due to his injury. Mallory suggesting that he maybe should retire has to do with him failing the tests (Mallory doesn't really believe M's lie).

M's comment: "You know the rules of the game. You've been playing it long enough" doesn't imply that Bond is old, only that he is experienced. He's been a double-O for at least six years, and who knows how long he'd been working for MI6 before he got his licence to kill? If we look to Fleming for inspiration, his Bond joined the Secret Service after the war. So in the novel CR he'd been with the service for at least six years. It would't be a stretch then to assume that Craig's Bond could have been working for MI6 for 12 years, which I think qualifies as "long enough"

 

And BTW, according to Fleming the mandatory retirement age in the double-O section is 45 and Craig was 44 in Skyfall.

 

The point of Skyfall is that Bond is broken down mentally and physically, but by the end of the film he has been "resurrected" and bounced back. He's an experienced agent and hadn't it been for him being shot by Moneypenny, then his position and ability wouldn't have been questioned. 

 

Now, there is still six years (since QOS must have been set the same year as CR, '06) worth of missions that we haven't seen. A shame, but I would like to think that all of Craig's "un-personal" and more professional mission took place during this period.  

Edited by Karloff, 22 August 2015 - 09:07 AM.

[Guy Haines]

In CR Bond was just getting started as a Double O agent, not as a raw recruit. The impression I got of Bond in CR was he had been around the block a few times and was now ready for Double O status. M had some regrets after that business in Madagascar but in the end her faith in Bond is restored, and he of course is put through the wringer physically and emotionally.

Leaping six years on to SF, what we see in the pre title scenes is M at her most desperate and ruthless - and we soon find out why! - and Bond being Bond, getting shot and for whatever reasons - disgust at M perhaps - losing it for three months. And those disollute three months took their toll.

Then again, we don't know what happened to our man post QoS and pre SF. Maybe something was building up inside him during that time which came to the boil when the mission in Turkey went badly wrong.

All of which, in real life, might lead to necessary treatment and a transfer to other duties, but we're not talking real life here, are we? Ian Fleming had a character to keep going and on the occasions when Bond fell to bits - YOLT, and then TMWTGG - a trip to Sir James Molony and "shock treatment" was applied. SF dealt with it differently. Return to active duty when Bond clearly wasn't quite ready - though once in the field 007 did a good job hiding it! - and M having faith in her instincts rather than data.

As I say, not perhaps the way it would go in real life.

[Odd Jobbies]

Casting too old and leaving too many years between movies. By SF Craig looks like he's been at it for quite a while with his lived in face (no offence, it's great lived in face). I know 37 is seen as the perfect age, but not for a fledgling Bond reboot. However, it was a price worth paying in order to have Craig as Bond.

 

Another factor is the lack of original ideas in the film industry, or the lack of funds willing to back them.

[Guy Haines]

A radical change in six years between "young Bond" and washed up veteran would have been one thing, and wouldn't have worked well, or at all. But in CR Bond is at the start of his Double O career. He's already something of a military and intelligence veteran by the time he becomes 007.

In the Fleming novels Bond had already done some intelligence work before the Second World War, and Casino Royale is set over ten years after that started. I guess what makes the "rookie-to-basketcase" in six years seem perplexing is the great play made about CR being the film of Bond on his "first mission". Wrong. His first as a Double 0 - something I don't think the novel Casino Royale made any great song and dance about - it just happened to be the first James Bond novel and in it Bond is an already established veteran, which is also what he appears to be in the film.

[Orion]

The website for CR had a great thing giving you Craig's Bonds back story as Villiers was recommending Bond for consideration in the OO division, he'd had quite a long and distinguished military career pre his OO licence. Also Bond points out in CR that "I understand the OO's have a very short life expectancy, so your mistake will be short lived" So relatively speaking 6 years is a long time in the position.

 

[trevanian]

If SPECTRE really does try to pull what looks to me like a grand-unified-field-theory-of-Bond with Oberhauser's claim to be responsible for all his pain, then the missions we've seen are the only significant moments in Bond's whole adult life, unless they are going to mention other moments that were also supposedly orchestrated by this in-the-shadows nemesis. So is the conceit that Bond's life wasn't worth interfering with until he became a Double 0? And how could all the ops be put in motion with the idea of making Bond hurt at the core of them (or even the periphery?) If QUANTUM was always SPECTRE's bitch or satellite or cover, wouldn't some operatives start questioning the effort put into involving a British spy with their conspiracies?

 

Totally different angle: at least one Bond site put forward the idea that any number of other pre-reboot adventures happened to Craig's Bond between QUANTUM and SKYFALL ... a lame attempt at making excuses for the inclusion of the Connery tricked-out Aston instead of the CR plain one, I guess. But it does contribute to the old/burned out notion, which I think Logan dragged in from seeing WRATH OF KHAN too many times.

[Daddy Bond]

Excellent input.  Also, I noticed this gem from a conversation in the most recent trailer. 

 

Moneypenny:  "So, what's going on James?  They say you're finished."

 

Bond:  "And what do you think?"

 

Moneypenny:  "I think you're just getting started."

 

Interesting, perhaps the writers sensed a *bit* of the tension which I pointed out in the OP.  Although I agree that it was the events surrounding his getting shot in SF that set Bond off course for a while.  Still, interesting that this little back and forth dialogue should make it into Spectre, isn't it?

[sharpshooter]

Moneypenny saying 'they' think Bond is finished may be referring to the events which take place in the PTS, which may result in an almighty telling off from M. And I think Skyfall was a commentary on the franchise as a whole, not just Craig's Bond.

[Daddy Bond]

Could be.  I see your point.

[dtuba]

I think all that "washed up" and "played out" stuff from SF was Mendes' comment on the series itself. It's a metaphor. It being the 50th anniversary and all.  Over the course of the film, Bond is shot, killed (metaphorically of course ) reborn, and resurrected. At the end of the film, we've come full circle and arrived where we began back in 1962, Moneypenny, red leather door , and all. Bond is reborn, shaved, scrubbed and ready to get back to work.

 

But yes, I'm with you in feeling cheated that we didn't get a film between 2008 and 2012. If I ever invent that time machine...

[SecretAgentFan]

Despite the well known legal difficulties prohibiting another film after QOS to be made before SKYFALL, I guess one should look at it this way: being a 00-agent does not guarantee a long career.  In fact, with the short life-expectancy and the constant psychological and physical stress a few years in active service can and will render agents washed up and burnt out extremely quickly.  

 

Therefore, I don´t have any problems with Craig-Bond aging rapidly between QOS and SKYFALL at all.  But judging from the SPECTRE trailer he recovered pretty well, behaving rather refreshed.

[tdalton]

I think the problem is that EON didn't seem all that committed to the reboot, given the direction they took Skyfall.  That, coupled with some of the comments made by Mendes with regards to the new film, make you really wonder what the point of the reboot was in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.  It would seem to me that, if you're going to reboot the series for the first time in almost 50 years, why not commit to that for more than two films?

[SecretAgentFan]

I don´t think the re-boot was ever meant to completely shake things up but rather to shake things off that had become attached to a Bond film during the Brosnan era.

 

But a Bond film has to reach a mass audience.  And people were asking for more of the typical Bond elements after CR and QOS.  Not to give them these would have risked alienating audiences and the future of the franchise.

 

It is a slippery slope for a Bond film.  Not to use the unique selling points of the franchise can easily cause audiences to say "That is not Bond anymore but Bourne (or any other action thriller)".  To use too much of it quickly turns a Bond film into, well, DAD.

 

Also, the longer an actor´s tenure lasts the harder it becomes for the next film to top the previous one - which often results in going over the top.

 

In the end, I get the feeling that some hardcore fans like you would welcome a kind of Bond film that mass audiences would not embrace.

 

Maybe the main problem (as with most blockbuster enterprises these days) lies in the costs of producing these films.  If a Bond film could be made for 20-30 million dollars it could be much more experimental and different.  But that seems to be impossible.

[tdalton]

I don´t think the re-boot was ever meant to completely shake things up but rather to shake things off that had become attached to a Bond film during the Brosnan era.

 

But a Bond film has to reach a mass audience.  And people were asking for more of the typical Bond elements after CR and QOS.  Not to give them these would have risked alienating audiences and the future of the franchise.

 

It is a slippery slope for a Bond film.  Not to use the unique selling points of the franchise can easily cause audiences to say "That is not Bond anymore but Bourne (or any other action thriller)".  To use too much of it quickly turns a Bond film into, well, DAD.

 

Also, the longer an actor´s tenure lasts the harder it becomes for the next film to top the previous one - which often results in going over the top.

 

In the end, I get the feeling that some hardcore fans like you would welcome a kind of Bond film that mass audiences would not embrace.

 

Maybe the main problem (as with most blockbuster enterprises these days) lies in the costs of producing these films.  If a Bond film could be made for 20-30 million dollars it could be much more experimental and different.  But that seems to be impossible.

 

A Bond film could be made for relatively cheap.  The problem is that the producers and the studio don't have the courage to make that kind of film.

 

They had a golden opportunity, with the "reboot" to redefine what a Bond film is and, thus, change audience expectations for what a Bond film could be.  Instead, they chocked Casino Royale so full of references to the films that supposedly didn't exist in the new timeline and carried over a character from a separate timeline in Dench's M.  Instead of hedging their bets each and every time out, I'd like to see EON fully commit to a vision for a stretch of 2-3 films and actually see some kind of artistic vision all the way through.

 

While it is true that the general audience may not take to the kind of films that some of the fanbase would like to see, it is important to make some effort to keep the fanbase happy.  The only thing really keeping some of us, myself included, around at this point is Craig.  He's too good in the role not to watch.  But, if we keep having to endure Bond dealing with familial issues, mommy issues, and pseudo-sibling rivalries, the exit door will become more and more tempting.  

[SecretAgentFan]

You´re hinting at an interesting question: what is more important for this particular film franchise - the fanbase or the mass audience?

 

I´d suspect that it´s the latter.

 

In contrast to some comic book adaptations which rely a lot on the core fanbase to spread good word of mouth, a Bond film is an entity that belongs and relies on the masses.  It has transcended the fanbase appeal to a general audience because it is a brand, offering what people know about it.  Anything else on top is more or less a bonus.

[trevanian]

Bond has always been worldwide phenomena, probably even more the case now with China's development. So it would make sense to play safe. Which IMO is not what SKYFALL did. You take the best known hero in movies, take him even further off-character than previously, then have him pretty much fail ... and it makes a bil. Makes no sense to me, wouldn't make any sense even if I could stand the damn movie.

 

What's funny about the low-budget art Bond idea is that Eon wouldn't nibble at QT's 40mil Bond, but they spent more than 5 times that on Forster's, which really is in many ways either showing art-house colors or political leanings that don't really jive with the established Bond formula (but help make the film the only Bond movie from this century that I can rewatch all the way through, and do so quite regularly, despite my longstanding allergy to Craig ... to misquote Connery from NSNA: I have NOT grown accustomed to your face.)

 

I am loving this thread though. Lots of thought going into replies instead of just those one-syllable snipes with an emoticon for the reading-impaired (and yeah, I know I'm inviting exactly that kind of response by bringing it up. But as was once said on SEINFELD, 'let's keep this sophisticated, shall we?')

[tdalton]

You´re hinting at an interesting question: what is more important for this particular film franchise - the fanbase or the mass audience?
 
I´d suspect that it´s the latter.
 
In contrast to some comic book adaptations which rely a lot on the core fanbase to spread good word of mouth, a Bond film is an entity that belongs and relies on the masses.  It has transcended the fanbase appeal to a general audience because it is a brand, offering what people know about it.  Anything else on top is more or less a bonus.

Right now, the general audience is more important, but once you start reaching a point where you're turning off the hardcore fanbase, that's a sign of potential trouble down the line. The general audience is a fickle audience. I know that there are plenty of non-fans that are on board with Bond now simply because of Craig. A lot of women are watching these films now because of Craig and the more "high brow" approach they're taking to the films. When Craig departs and/or the current style changes to something else, you have to wonder whether those people will follow or not.

[bond_azoozbond]

You´re hinting at an interesting question: what is more important for this particular film franchise - the fanbase or the mass audience?

I´d suspect that it´s the latter.

In contrast to some comic book adaptations which rely a lot on the core fanbase to spread good word of mouth, a Bond film is an entity that belongs and relies on the masses. It has transcended the fanbase appeal to a general audience because it is a brand, offering what people know about it. Anything else on top is more or less a bonus.

Right now, the general audience is more important, but once you start reaching a point where you're turning off the hardcore fanbase, that's a sign of potential trouble down the line. The general audience is a fickle audience. I know that there are plenty of non-fans that are on board with Bond now simply because of Craig. A lot of women are watching these films now because of Craig and the more "high brow" approach they're taking to the films. When Craig departs and/or the current style changes to something else, you have to wonder whether those people will follow or not.

Interesting thing to think about .. Well I know many people who thinks that the old bond movies (Connery/Moore) are cheap and they do ignore them .. but they like Craig .. Those are not fans but they are definitely following the superheroes trend nowadays..

[Harmsway]

It is odd that the Craig era skips over the "run of the mill" missions, but it is implied, at least, that Bond had a series of missions between Casino Royale/Quantum of Solace and Skyfall. In theory, I'm fine with letting my imagination fill in that gap, though I do think the Craig era would have somewhat benefited from having some EON-authorized "canonical" material to fill in those gaps (a comic book run running alongside the Craig era would have been nice).

But that would require some kind of broader vision, and this approach wasn't taken by design. It was a result of EON's policy of playing things by ear rather than establishing a kind of long-running plan. Watched back-to-back, the Craig era certainly feels a bit rocky, as though it's missing connective tissue. Now Spectre is going to try to unite all of the Craig era as though there was, in fact, some kind of long-running game plan, which is a bold gambit. We'll have to see whether it pulls it off. If it does, it could enhance what came before. If it fails, the Craig era is going to seem even lumpier than it did before Spectre's release.

[Guy Haines]

Years ago, sometime after CR but before QoS I read somewhere - and I wish I could remember where! - that CR was to be the first part of a trilogy featuring 007 against "the organisation", which then became Quantum and now could turn out to have been SPECTRE all the time. It was only one comment amongst many about the future direction of Bond at the time. If there was a plan then maybe the hiatus between 2008 and 2012 de-railed it - certainly there's no hint that anyone was behind Silva in SF other than Silva himself.

Now it looks as if SP may be part of an attempt to link the Craig era so far into a quadrilogy or tetralogy (a pentology if Bond 25 follows on from SP?).

Has there always been a master plan to link all the Craig Bond films? I have my doubts - I wonder if what has happened is, after the enormous success of SF the producers, director and screenwriters are trying to carry forward the themes of SF but at the same time take up where CR/QoS left off.

One other thing I can remember about that article I mentioned - the final part of what should have been the "Quantum" trilogy - allegedly! - would reveal that the organisation's Number 1 was based somewhere in Central Asia. Location changes certainly in SP, I wonder if the story is based on those ideas linked to the themes from SF?

Now, I just wish I could remember where I read about this "trilogy" idea. Have any other members come across it or anything like it?

[trevanian]

I'm thinking that perhaps the unified storyline thing may have been loosely in place when Haggis starting writing QUANTUM, but that when he went astray with his material and left them scrambling, the only ball they absolutely needed to keep in the air was QUANTUM and they couldn't really worry about the future at that point. So that might remain odd film out or it could be the part of 'grand unified' scheme that forms the weakest leg, hard to even guess at this point.

[tdalton]

I don't think that there ever was any kind of strategy.  When they got done with Casino Royale, they took a look at the reaction and decided "people want more of the Bond-Begins stuff", so they extended an already completed "Bond Begins" arc into Quantum of Solace.  Then their approach to that film got widely bashed by the general public, so they decided that they weren't going to do that again and went off in a completely different direction with Skyfall.

 

The only unifying theme of the post-Cubby films have been their desire to look inward on Bond and use some kind of personal trauma or issue to move him forward.

[Guy Haines]

That sounds about right. I always assumed "the organisation" would feature in future Craig films following CR simply because that film left a lot of loose ends which QoS attempted to tie up, but still left more questions than answers.

 

Had it not been for the four year gap and the "shocking" personal storyline which the film makers went with for what became SF rather than the last part of a trilogy, we might have got Bond a year or two earlier and it might have been that final part. As it is, to judge from the trailer titbits in SP we may be getting something like that final part of the "trilogy", but with an unexpected link to Bond's past involved. And we won't have that long now to wait.

 

One other thing; one of the first to give his opinion about QoS was a BBC TV arts correspondent who said that the film seemed like the middle part of a trilogy. Clearly he thought he'd perceived something about the film - perhaps that, at the time, a trilogy was on the cards? 

[Harmsway]

I don't think that there ever was any kind of strategy.

This isn't quite right.

 

When they were working on Casino Royale, P&W had very clear ideas about what the sequel would be (the Bond-goes-after-Vesper's-boyfriend thing is very explicitly set up in dialogue that was dropped from the final film), and I believe they wrote their treatment while Casino Royale was still wrapping up post-production and had a full script for Quantum of Solace written very early on. This was why they originally put forward the May 2nd, 2008 release date for the film: stuff was ready to move.

 

But EON approached Marc Forster, who hated P&W's script and ordered it scrapped. And with that went any sense of a plan, because they brought Paul Haggis on, and he pitched his "Vesper's child" idea, which they later realized wouldn't work and ordered a last minute rewrite. Then they were flying by the seat of their pants as the writer's strike took effect and production began.

So I think there's a good case to be made that there probably was a loose plan originally in place when Casino Royale was released, but the tumult of Quantum of Solace's production rocked that a bit, and the lukewarm reception the film received made EON nervous that their new rebooted Bond was losing his mojo. Hence the reboot's reboot in Skyfall, or How Bond Got His Groove Back.