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.
Posted 27 November 2011 - 10:37 PM
Edited by Mharkin, 27 November 2011 - 10:38 PM.
Posted 27 November 2011 - 11:12 PM
Posted 28 November 2011 - 12:28 AM
Filthy habit, cigarettes; might want to drop it... there's certainly a reason as to why Bond no longer lights up.Something that came into my head when I was out for a cigarette.
Posted 28 November 2011 - 12:38 AM
Posted 28 November 2011 - 01:08 AM
Posted 28 November 2011 - 04:36 AM
Posted 28 November 2011 - 02:59 PM
Posted 28 November 2011 - 05:44 PM
Must you judge everybody's personal choices? You advertise your filthy habits on your blog and Facebook but we don't judge.Filthy habit, cigarettes; might want to drop it... there's certainly a reason as to why Bond no longer lights up.Something that came into my head when I was out for a cigarette.
Posted 28 November 2011 - 06:15 PM
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?
Posted 28 November 2011 - 07:41 PM
Pussfeller, just out of curiosity, how would you have gotten Bond out of the chair?
Posted 29 November 2011 - 08:22 AM
Edited by Peckinpah1976, 29 November 2011 - 08:27 AM.
Posted 29 November 2011 - 08:51 AM
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.
Posted 29 November 2011 - 10:44 AM
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.
Posted 30 November 2011 - 08:01 AM
Posted 30 November 2011 - 09:26 AM
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.
Posted 30 November 2011 - 09:31 AM
Posted 30 November 2011 - 09:38 AM
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.
Posted 30 November 2011 - 10:27 AM
Posted 30 November 2011 - 10:46 AM
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.
Posted 30 November 2011 - 11:01 AM
Posted 30 November 2011 - 11:28 AM
Posted 30 November 2011 - 12:10 PM
Posted 30 November 2011 - 06:02 PM
Posted 30 November 2011 - 09:03 PM
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?
Posted 30 November 2011 - 09:23 PM
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.