For the purposes of this overall "reboot" discussion, let's establish one parameter: CR and QOS need to be considered as two parts of the same beast. Good?
-Naturalism. Photography, staging, dialogue, everything. All of cinema is going this way
If you're talking about naturalism regarding QOS, I'm absolutely agree with you, but if you're referring to CR I heartely disgree. Craig's debut had a much more believable and down to earth tone than any Bond movie since the eighties, or maybe even the sixties, but that's far from naturalism.
Sorry MottofSteel, but I just can not accept CR and QOS as being parts of a same 'beast'. First of all, because I see the end of CR as a perfect closure of the Bond origin story, just like Martin Campbell declared in the audio commentaries for the film ("the experience has somehow galvanized him, and he's now become the sort of beautiful machine that we know and love"), even Craig said that "they're two separeted movies".
Besides, it's pertinent to have in mind, that the novel's finale (which doesn't have any direct sequel) is included in the movie. The additional filmic scene with Bond and Mr. White in Lake Como, shows how professional Bond have become, and hence, how different from the beggining of the movie is OO7 at this point. That scene doesn't leave the plot in a cliffhanger, it just gives a moderate happy ending to a story that otherwise, like in the book, would have finished sadly.
CR is a complete movie with a concluded plot, that of course gives space to a sort of a sequel like any Bond film would have made, if the producers would have wanted to take that path before. In fact, I don't that see QOS as much of a sequel, than what FRWL was for DN (don't forget that the aim of SPECTRE, in particularly killing to Bond, was to take revenge for the death of Dr. No).
I agree with you. Always have on this point. CR is indeed a complete film, and I would have been happy if "Bond as usual" would have appeared in 22. To be fair, the Bond that begins Quantum of Solace is actually much more traditional (in terms of "seasoning" or as Campbell says, "being galvanized") than the one at the beginning of CR. And as I said earlier, if the producers and filmmakers are guilty of anything, it is perhaps that they rode the CR wave as opposed to blazing forward in a different direction.
But I don't begrudge them for it, and there's two reasons why.
First, while your explanation is entirely accurate and satisfactory, the situation really can be read both ways - it
does feel like there's more to this story, that maybe Bond's basic answer isn't enough, and on the way to becoming even MORE the rounded agent with a subjective view of life that we want, his arc isn't finished. Campbell certainly never intended this - he even mentioned CR as being "the arc" at the initial Craig press conference. And his film wraps up nicely, if that
had been the direction the producers chose. But they saw a different opportunity, and seized it.
And second, which I warn you, is a bit personal.
I've spoken often about how emotionally honest this path to take was, amongst other things. I lost a parent two months ago after an almost cruelly long battle with a terminal illness. My initial reaction for a week afterward was much like Bond's at the end of CR, in that I was fairly stoic and seemed satisfied at some level that at least the pain and struggle, for the entire family, was over. Bottom line, I was mentally prepared to close the book, so to speak.
But life really didn't work that simply. I found my greatest emotional challenges lay in the weeks after that, when life itself just felt different and the simplest things became confusing or elicited an emotional response. It was the same world, but it just felt markedly different at times. Much like the aesthetic I picked up from QoS - and yes, that includes frenetic editing and confused pacing as cinematic techniques.
I'm not so much trying to use this personal example as an excuse to bolster the film's credibility, I'm just saying, this is probably why I see what I see in QoS - because if you're going to follow up the death of a loved one with some kind of continuation, it felt freakishly identifiable to me. Personally. Then again, Bond movies don't exist to serve people who are grieving, and from that point alone, you can make the argument that a different kind of film might have been deserved by the fan populace at large.
But ultimately, given the events that happened in CR and the conciseness and abruptness with which they were resolved, I don't think this particular narrative path was necessarily a bad choice, or executed poorly.
And yes, I was talking about naturalism in QoS
, and even in CR you can see ample amounts
in comparison to DAD, which was borderlined a cartoon at points.
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