197 replies to this topic

[dee-bee-five]

There is also not one single image in this movie that even gets close to being considered iconic Bond.

You are, of course, perfectly entitled to your opinion. But, personally, I feel the opposite; the movie is chock full of them. Or, at least, what I consider to be iconic about the series - wit, style, balls - although, naturally, these might be very different from yours. Eon have reinvented the wheel with Quantum of Solace. And, for my money, the wheel runs faster and better.

[HildebrandRarity]

It's quite obvious that some Bond fans like to have their tea and cucumber sandwiches served to them as if it were Sunday afternoon...while others can't wait to go out to the bar on a Friday night after having worked all week and drown down six stiff ones in a row...

There has to be room for both and everything in between. It separates Bond from the other movies like, er, Bourne, Star Wars, Harry. Thankfully.

...personally, I feel the ... balls - although, naturally, these might be very different from yours.

[dee-bee-five]

It's quite obvious that some Bond fans like to have their tea and cucumber sandwiches served to them as if it were Sunday afternoon...while others can't wait to go out to the bar on a Friday night after having worked all week and drown down six stiff ones in a row...

There has to be room for both and everything in between. It separates Bond from the other movies like, er, Bourne, Star Wars, Harry. Thankfully.

...personally, I feel the ... balls - although, naturally, these might be very different from yours.

Ah, like Bond's, my reputation precedes me. You know me so well...

[HildebrandRarity]

...while others can't wait to go out to the bar on a Friday night...and drown down six stiff ones in a row...

...personally, I feel the ... balls - although, naturally, these might be very different from yours.

You know me so well...

...i'm aware of your orientation, my friend. Each to their own, eh? Live And Let Live.

[marktmurphy]

He does not argue his points, he wants to force his opinion on the audience in a kind of "AND IF YOU DISAGREE, YOU ARE A FOOL" attitude.

This guy is a joke.

How ironic. Would you call him a fool as well?

[Zorin Industries]

It's quite obvious that some Bond fans like to have their tea and cucumber sandwiches served to them as if it were Sunday afternoon...while others can't wait to go out to the bar on a Friday night after having worked all week and drown down six stiff ones in a row...

There has to be room for both and everything in between. It separates Bond from the other movies like, er, Bourne, Star Wars, Harry. Thankfully.

...personally, I feel the ... balls - although, naturally, these might be very different from yours.

Ah, like Bond's, my reputation precedes me. You know me so well...

Course you know what Hildy's allergic to, don't you - and it ain't bezants!

[SecretAgentFan]

He does not argue his points, he wants to force his opinion on the audience in a kind of "AND IF YOU DISAGREE, YOU ARE A FOOL" attitude.

This guy is a joke.

How ironic. Would you call him a fool as well?

No, just a joke.

By the way, it must be possible to criticize someone without being accused of the same thing as well. AND IF YOU DISAGREE, YOU ARE A FOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Just joking, of course. Mark Kermode spoke with my voice just yet.

[HildebrandRarity]

...while others can't wait to go out to the bar on a Friday night after having worked all week and drown down six stiff ones in a row...

...personally, I feel the ... balls - although, naturally, these might be very different from yours.

Ah, like Bond's, my reputation precedes me. You know me so well...

Course you know what Hildy's allergic to, don't you - and it ain't bezants!

Yes, well, you guys stick to your end...I prefer my bezants to either be my own or made of 14 karat.

[Zorin Industries]

...while others can't wait to go out to the bar on a Friday night after having worked all week and drown down six stiff ones in a row...

...personally, I feel the ... balls - although, naturally, these might be very different from yours.

Ah, like Bond's, my reputation precedes me. You know me so well...

Course you know what Hildy's allergic to, don't you - and it ain't bezants!

Yes, well, you guys stick to your end...I prefer my bezants to either be my own or made of 14 karat.

Ooooh - get her!

[Jim]

...while others can't wait to go out to the bar on a Friday night after having worked all week and drown down six stiff ones in a row...

Fnarr.

[HildebrandRarity]

...down six stiff ones in a row...

...personally, I feel the ... balls

...my reputation precedes me. You know me so well...

....

...you guys stick ..... your end...

Ooooh....

I'm going to drag this thread down to where it belongs. In the gutter. Soon to become extinct. Like the Graham Rye thread.

In a page, Jim will be shutting it down...without banning me again....hopefully.

[SPOTTER]

[quote name='Glockenspiel' date='3 November 2008 - 10:17' post='947660']
I was exactly in the same state of mind as you are before seeing the film, yesterday.
My expectations were high, I worship CR and I wanted to love QOS.
But I didn't...
And, worse, I dislike it more and more hours after hours since I saw it.
It's a mess, Harmsway... Alas, it's a mess.
First reason (in my opinion) : the director (essentialy) screw up his job.
Second reason : the editing is awful.
I hate the action sequences, which are (still imo)the worst in the whole franchise.
You can't see anything.
They are made like in the Bourne movies - no more, no less (that's normal, the second unit is the same and Forster who has, according to me, no idea of how shooting properly a chase or a fight, let this second unit do the job... very badly).
Some like those kind of scenes, I don't.
It's the firts time in a Bond movie that you can't see what happened on screen during an action sequence.
The comparison with the action sequences of CR is very painful.
Campbell knows how to make them, Forster don't.
So, necesseraly, you concentrate on the screenplay and on the dialogue scenes, which are both unsatisfying.
I don't tell more.
You'll see.
As far I'm concerned, I'm now waiting for Bond 23 and I won't see QOS another time.
(sorry for my english, which is not very good).
[quote]

My thoughts exactly! The action sequences had a lot of potential but are over before they have even started. I got more thrills out of seeing the James Bond rooftop chase on the scratch card advert. At least you could see what was going on. Although they are quite different the boat chase in TWINE is far superior to that of QOS because you can actually see what is going on in every frame.

I was quite impressed with the hotel action scenes though. I thought they did those well. I will see the film again because I would love to love this film.

As for the pre credit titles sequence the same thoughts apply as those of the rooftop and boat chase. The best bit of the pre credit titles was when Bond opened the boot and said to Mr White "It's time to get out" I thought that was great. Craig was the best part of the film.

Edited by SPOTTER, 03 November 2008 - 07:32 PM.

[No. 2]

There is also not one single image in this movie that even gets close to being considered iconic Bond.

You are, of course, perfectly entitled to your opinion. But, personally, I feel the opposite; the movie is chock full of them. Or, at least, what I consider to be iconic about the series - wit, style, balls - although, naturally, these might be very different from yours. Eon have reinvented the wheel with Quantum of Solace. And, for my money, the wheel runs faster and better.

Yeah and the fact that you couldn't actually give one single example in your reply pretty much sums it up.

And without wishing to split hairs over whether CR was a 'full' or 'half' reboot, I defy anyone to watch it back to back with DAD (you know, the one with invisible cars, pop-star cameos and sci-fi face-changing) and come to the conclusion that there wasn't a huge and concerted effort to drag the series back to it's origins.

After CR, I was dying to see what the writers were going to do with this exciting new vision of Bond. I was worried when I saw the short running time (well, we all like to see more Bond for our buck don't we?) but soon came to the conclusion that this was meant that QOS was going to be a return to the vintage series, a leaner beast, finely honed by the writers, the flab removed. After seeing it though, I'm more of the inclination to think that the film is so short because there's been a bit of a butcher job on it, certainly something seems to be missing, with the ending in particular very lacking. Some posts have mentioned a missing scene with Mr White, perhaps this is part of the problem with the film not being the one the director intended (and if anyone thinks that Sony and EON would give ANY director full editorial control over their biggest franchise they really have a very niave view of how Hollywood works).

[sorking]

There is also not one single image in this movie that even gets close to being considered iconic Bond.

You are, of course, perfectly entitled to your opinion. But, personally, I feel the opposite; the movie is chock full of them. Or, at least, what I consider to be iconic about the series - wit, style, balls - although, naturally, these might be very different from yours. Eon have reinvented the wheel with Quantum of Solace. And, for my money, the wheel runs faster and better.

Yeah and the fact that you couldn't actually give one single example in your reply pretty much sums it up.

If I list the fall through the roof, the body floating underwater, Fields' fate, Bond skipping over the bannisters, the breathtaking underwater reservoir, the sunken red hotel, the two damaged people walking through the desert and M and Bond in the snow can we just agree that both sides of this debate are coloured by their feelings about the overall film and nobody is 'wrong'?

[Desk]

Well, it's been a while since I've posted here - years, in fact - but I felt compelled to chip in on the debate over Quantum of Solace.

In short, I agree with Kermode - it's a mess.

Am I right in thinking that Paul Haggis only had limited involvement in the screenplay? I can quite believe it.

This has the stench of Purvis and Wade all over it - little to no characterisation, an unimaginative, formulaic plot and action sequences which serve no purpose.

The great thing about Casino Royale was the way it focused on plot and characterisation and took a mature, sophisticated approach to the spy genre. Some of the best sequences were the exchanges between Bond/Vesper/Le Chiffre, and when action sequences DID come along they were presented with some believability and you had a real investment in them because you'd come to care about the characters involved.

In Quantum, action is just stuffed into the film for the sake of it, and we're back to having Bond take on armies of anonymous goons, despatching them with ease as if he's superhuman. We're back to generic, forgettable cookie-cutter Bond - the sort of thing I hoped we'd seen the last off when Brosnan got the boot.

Some of the best sequences in Quantum are the slow, quiet ones, such as the discussion at the airplane bar, but these were all too few and far between, lost among all the action-packed globe-trotting. Note to Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson - dump Purvis and Wade and spend however much money you need to on a scriptwriter of Haggis' calibre, because without a decent screenplay you've got little to nothing worth putting on the screen.

Sadly, there's only one good thing in this film, and that's Daniel Craig as Bond. He's still giving his all to the part, but with a script which offers precious little to work with.

It's a crying shame that all the potential suggested by Casino Royale has been squandered on something which feels like a weak echo of that film and undoes so much of its good work.

Shame on Broccoli, Wilson and EON for allowing that to happen.

Desk

Edited by Desk, 09 November 2008 - 01:17 PM.

[HildebrandRarity]

Appearently they should dump Haggis first, then P+W.

Haggis, after all, got first writing credit on Quantum and, unlike CR, didn't have an Ian Fleming book to work from.

Welcome back to the forums, Desk!

[Fiona Volpe lover]

I don't like Kermode that much but he's right with this film. It's awful and an insult to the series. How could they after the high quality of Casino Royale? It's been a week since I saw it and I'm still wandering how it all went wrong.

[Roger Moore's Bad Facelift]

Well, it's been a while since I've posted here - years, in fact - but I felt compelled to chip in on the debate over Quantum of Solace.

In short, I agree with Kermode - it's a mess.

Am I right in thinking that Paul Haggis only had limited involvement in the screenplay? I can quite believe it.

This has the stench of Purvis and Wade all over it - little to no characterisation, an unimaginative, formulaic plot and action sequences which serve no purpose.

The great thing about Casino Royale was the way it focused on plot and characterisation and took a mature, sophisticated approach to the spy genre. Some of the best sequences were the exchanges between Bond/Vesper/Le Chiffre, and when action sequences DID come along they were presented with some believability and you had a real investment in them because you'd come to care about the characters involved.

In Quantum, action is just stuffed into the film for the sake of it, and we're back to having Bond take on armies of anonymous goons, despatching them with ease as if he's superhuman. We're back to generic, forgettable cookie-cutter Bond - the sort of thing I hoped we'd seen the last off when Brosnan got the boot.

Some of the best sequences in Quantum are the slow, quiet ones, such as the discussion at the airplane bar, but these were all too few and far between, lost among all the action-packed globe-trotting. Note to Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson - dump Purvis and Wade and spend however much money you need to on a scriptwriter of Haggis' calibre, because without a decent screenplay you've got little to nothing worth putting on the screen.

Sadly, there's only one good thing in this film, and that's Daniel Craig as Bond. He's still giving his all to the part, but with a script which offers precious little to work with.

It's a crying shame that all the potential suggested by Casino Royale has been squandered on something which feels like a weak echo of that film and undoes so much of its good work.

Shame on Broccoli, Wilson and EON for allowing that to happen.

Desk

I believe it was reported on this very website that Haggis pretty much did a page one re-write for QOS, with Forster also having someone do a brush-up.

Edited by Roger Moore's Bad Facelift, 10 November 2008 - 01:04 AM.