31 replies to this topic

[DaveBond21]

 

I watched it again last night and it was over too quick for me.

 

I really enjoyed it - especially the Haiti scenes ("You were supposed to kill her:, "Well I missed"), the bike jump, the Opera scenes, Mathis, Fields, Greene's demise and the final scene.

 

I think if the editing hadn't been so erratic on the 3 main action scenes near the start - the car chase, the Palio chase and fight and the boat chase, I think this would be a lot higher on many people's lists. It's interesting that after so much jump-cutting and shaky camera in the first 30 minutes, it actually settles down for the last hour or so.

 

Lots of orange in this movie, and it's an arty Bond film. I like it as an experiment. There is also some humour here. It wouldn't have hurt to have had a couple more lighter moments, and maybe 15 minutes more running time, but overall it's pretty good.

 

[agentbug]

I agree with everything you have said. It does have some good points and lots to enjoy. But it remains the shortest Bond film by far and loses a lot for it. Frankly the opening car chase deserved a much better edit, it is almost a travesty to rip it to shreds the way it was done. And Siena is so, so beautiful, it would have been nice for the audience to see some of it during the Palio sequence. Especially given all the effort they want to to film there, including the cranes being built on concrete foundations just so the foot chase could be filmed safely... What is the repeated mantra? 'Put it up there on the screen.' Indeed. And once it's up there allow people to enjoy it. That film needed room to breathe.

[The Shark]

Nope, it's too long as it is. For a film that's meant to be like a bullet (and that only really applies to the action) it's surprisingly turgid.

[glidrose]

The film - as we have it - is too long. The story needed more fleshing out, in which case it would have been longer, but no doubt feel shorter.

 

Hope what I said makes sense!

[Hockey Mask]

Loved QoS on opening weekend and still love it today.

[freemo]

I dunno. I like it, but I can’t say I crave more of it.

 

It’s better short, for maximum impact.

[x007AceOfSpades]

Even if it was stretched to, at the minimum, two hours, I don't think it's enough to salvage what's left. The car chase in the beginning is fine I suppose, but after that, each action piece is let down by horrid cinematography and editing. Aside from those factors, it's still let down by the script, which is all because of the Writers strike. If they had took their time properly rounding it off and not rushing into the writing room while CR was barely finishing principal photography things might have been different.

It also doesn't help that the director, Marc Forster, doesn't understand the character of Bond or the films. I know it's easy to toss it around, but QOS feels more like Bourne knockoff to me, just based on the shooting style and how the film is paced and whatnot. Forster in my opinion had no business being there.

Seawolfnyy has said this a few times now and I agree with it - I think if it was released in the summer or even the fall of 2009 and without Forster and the other issues corrected, we might have garnered something much different and much better.

[Jim]

No.

[Guy Haines]

During QoS's production Marc Forster said he was determined to get the film in under two hours, but Barbara Broccoli also said there would be "twice the action" of CR 2006. And there, I think, was the problem - something had to give to meet those two demands, and for me it was the storyline. The audience weren't given enough breathing space to take in what was going on as it went from one scene to the next.

 

QoS remains a good Bond film but I wonder if making it a bit longer and more detailed might have made it better?

[x007AceOfSpades]

During QoS's production Marc Forster said he was determined to get the film in under two hours, but Barbara Broccoli also said there would be "twice the action" of CR 2006.

It may have been under two hours, but it certainly didn't have twice the action.

[Goodnight]

Would have been better if it was shorter.

[Odd Jobbies]

To be better it would've had to have been longer.

 

Not because longer is better - it's not;   like Churchill said,  "If i'd had more time i would've written a shorter letter".

 

But it's apparent that some of the more opaque story elements were underwritten because of the dastardly writers' strike and otherwise the script would've most likely been a slightly thicker wedge of A4.

 

Would those extra pages have made it a better movie, or perhaps worse?  We'll never know, but to find out it would've likely meant more pages.

Edited by Odd Jobbies, 27 March 2015 - 10:49 AM.

[David_M]

If the extra length came from a less scattershot, rapid-fire edit job in the action scenes, yes.

 

Otherwise, I think the film would be improved by shortening, not lengthening.  Just cut out ALL the action scenes and replace them with cards that say things like "Bond escapes by boat."

[x007AceOfSpades]

Just cut out ALL the action scenes and replace them with cards that say things like "Bond escapes by boat."

LOL

[plankattack]

As a defender of QoS, I have great respect for the fact that it is the least flabby of the series. It's not a perfect film by a long stretch (none of them are) but it's pace and brevity are a strength. 

 

Agreed that a finished script might have helped flesh out the narrative, but without one there's nothing I could imagine that could have been added without lagging the pace. There's a great many films in the series that didn't have a writers' strike as an excuse that are clearly padded - YOLT, TMWTGG, OP, TWINE, and in each case the film drags in too many spots.

 

While I'm no fan of TND (the next shortest one I think, or 3rd behind GF), it moves along nicely and again, it helps the overall experience, especially for films that will have stand the test of multiple viewings. 

 

The deleted ending with Mr White probably would've added 5 more minutes maybe, but if you're not a fan of QoS to begin with, it's not as if that addition is going to change your mind.

[Mr_Wint]

I don't think the length is an issue. It is poorly directed by Forster and none of the characters are really interesting.

I still don't understand why the police officers wants Bond to take out Mathis body from the car, and why they are screaming "He's moving. Shoot him!". Or how the hell Bond could flip that boat. Or why Bond has "no friends". Or why M suddenly realize that Bond is her agent and she trust him. "You were supposed to shoot her", "Well, I missed". lol, it is just an odd movie.

[Major Tallon]

There was a separate thread on the boat flipping once upon a time.  The answer was given in one of the featurettes.  One of the shots made it appear that the boat tipped over backwards, but in fact, it tipped over forward.  With the boat lodged up on the stern of Bond's boat, Medrano's men started forward, as if to swarm over the front and into the cockpit of Bond's vessel.  Bond then accelerated, and the other boat slipped off the stern of Bond's, being propelled by the weight distribution to nose down in the water.  Then the anchor line, hooked to a thwart at the stern of the villain's boat, snapped taut, further pulling the stern up and pushing the nose down.  As Bond accelerated, the boat tipped over forward.

 

I don't know why "You were supposed to shoot her," and "well, I missed" are puzzles.  Green suspected that Camille had betrayed him and wanted her killed.  Slate was tasked with doing the job when Camille picked him up at the hotel.  Instead, Bond, mistaken for Slate by both Camille and the motorcyclist, made no effort to shoot her and just let Camille drive him away and eventually leave without him.  The motorcyclist, therefore, was confused about "Slate's" apparent failure to carry out his assignment.

 

The police have been sent to kill Bond, and perhaps Mathis.  They could, of course, merely shoot him, but they're both looking for a pretext and planning to make sure that Bond's hands are occupied before they open fire.

 

Why does M, who orders Bond taken into custody, suddenly trust him after he knocks the guards out in the elevator?  I always wondered about that myself, but hey, answering three out of four ain't bad.

[sharpshooter]

I dunno. I like it, but I can’t say I crave more of it.

 

It’s better short, for maximum impact.

I agree with this. 

[Mr_Wint]

There was a separate thread on the boat flipping once upon a time.  The answer was given in one of the featurettes.  One of the shots made it appear that the boat tipped over backwards, but in fact, it tipped over forward.  With the boat lodged up on the stern of Bond's boat, Medrano's men started forward, as if to swarm over the front and into the cockpit of Bond's vessel.  Bond then accelerated, and the other boat slipped off the stern of Bond's, being propelled by the weight distribution to nose down in the water.  Then the anchor line, hooked to a thwart at the stern of the villain's boat, snapped taut, further pulling the stern up and pushing the nose down.  As Bond accelerated, the boat tipped over forward.

Good thing we cleared that up...!
 

I don't know why "You were supposed to shoot her," and "well, I missed" are puzzles.

I didn't mean that as a "puzzle". Just some example of odd dialogue which this film is full with. The funny thing is that Craig delivers all his one-liners as if they were already classics, even if what he says is totally dumb and un-witty. "I really think you people should find a better place to meet!"
 

The police have been sent to kill Bond, and perhaps Mathis.  They could, of course, merely shoot him, but they're both looking for a pretext and planning to make sure that Bond's hands are occupied before they open fire.

Watch the scene again. The way they behave is illogical.

[dtuba]

Yes. The cinematography in QOS is stunningly beautiful (Better than Deakins ' work on SF IMO) but we don't get to perceive it, let alone appreciate it, due to the horrible editing.

 

Better editing = longer camera shots = longer QOS = better QOS.

 

simple really

[winstoninabox]

If the question is to be answered based on the footage that exist for QoS, then as others have said all that needs altering is the editing on the action sequences. My preference would be to leave the foot chase unchanged, alter the car chase a little, and the boat chase a lot. The car chase just needs a second or two length to some of the shots to make it more comprehensible, but the boat chase needs a rethink on how to make it flow better.
As for M's response to Bond after the elevator, he's a problem that she doesn't want to deal with, but has to because he's put her in a bad position. That he's going to escape anyway is the perfect out for her in letting him do best what she wants him to do.

[tdalton]

As for M's response to Bond after the elevator, he's a problem that she doesn't want to deal with, but has to because he's put her in a bad position. That he's going to escape anyway is the perfect out for her in letting him do best what she wants him to do.

 

I think it has more to do with the fact that, if Bond had gone rogue, he wouldn't have doubled back to speak with M after escaping the elevator, he would have simply left the hotel before M and the CIA had figured out that he'd escaped and gone on to continue on with his so-called "vendetta".  But, he does double back, shows remorse for Fields' death, and tells her that "we" need to see this thing through, which tells her that it's probably in her best interest to see this thing through and not blindly follow the CIA in allowing the coup to take place.

[Major Tallon]

I enjoy QOS a lot, but I would certainly prefer to have had the editing done differently.  The opening car chase is exciting and even breathtaking, but a lot of expensive stunt work got left on the cutting room floor.  The movies obviously aren't edited to make the stunt men feel good, but it's worth wondering why the production invested so much time, effort, and money, at some risk to the stunt men's lives, by filming scenes that the director must have known were going to be chopped up in the editing suite. I have to wonder whether such decisions could not have been made at the storyboarding stage.  In some places, the editing makes the action incoherent.  It's impossible to follow parts of the fight in the opera house restaurant, as a shot of Bond doing a diving roll through the service window from the restaurant into the kitchen was deleted.  I have gone frame-by-frame through the elevator fight, and again it's impossible to figure out how Bond managed to overpower his guards (the rehearsals for the fight, shown on a featurette, show how it was done).  Forster's apparent attitude that "he's Bond; he can do anything" is unsatisfactory, at least to me.  In at least a couple of cases, the speeded-up action actually slowed the movie, as I was trying to sort out for myself what on earth I'd just seen.

 

And, tdalton, your explanation of that scene makes sense.  You solved a bit of a puzzle for me.  Thanks!

[Mr_Wint]

Another problem is that almost every action scene starts as a total surprise, in your face. Some time to build up tension before the actual chase begins is always good. The ski chase in FYEO is a good example.

[Messervy]

To me, it's splendid the way it is.

I find some Bond movies way too long, and on the verge of getting boring (DAD, for instance). QoS is a bullet; it fires right at you. Quick, fast. That's the way it was concieved, and that's the way it had to be filmed. Any longer would have "betrayed" the concept.

[AgentPB]

I agree with what many here have said, that QoS would have done much better with about 30 additional minutes of Olga Kurylenko.

[Messervy]

Another problem is that almost every action scene starts as a total surprise, in your face. Some time to build up tension before the actual chase begins is always good. The ski chase in FYEO is a good example.

This is precisely what I love about QoS. The action really is "action". Not something you see coming minutes before and watch comfortably when it actually arrives. With QoS, you're thrown straight into it. You have no time to really catch your breath. You don't really know where to look, what to expect. You experience what action is about.

And besides that rythm issue, what's striking is that it's mostly shot from "inside" the action; the camera is not shooting from above or from the sides. You are physically inside the scene.

In that sense, I really find it brilliant.
And the PTS is a perfect example of that. It is splendid. I really think it's an action masterpiece.

[Grard Bond]

You mean getting very frustrated because you can't realy see what could have been great action and stunts, but you have no idea what is happening?

All those Aston Martins which were completely destroyed and you can't realy see the difference if Bond was driving a Volvo or Aston. That is great?

Edited by Grard Bond, 29 March 2015 - 10:24 AM.

[tdalton]

 

Another problem is that almost every action scene starts as a total surprise, in your face. Some time to build up tension before the actual chase begins is always good. The ski chase in FYEO is a good example.

This is precisely what I love about QoS. The action really is "action". Not something you see coming minutes before and watch comfortably when it actually arrives. With QoS, you're thrown straight into it. You have no time to really catch your breath. You don't really know where to look, what to expect. You experience what action is about.

And besides that rythm issue, what's striking is that it's mostly shot from "inside" the action; the camera is not shooting from above or from the sides. You are physically inside the scene.

In that sense, I really find it brilliant.
And the PTS is a perfect example of that. It is splendid. I really think it's an action masterpiece.

 

 

Well said.  Couldn't agree more.

[Harmsway]

Quantum of Solace is the shortest Bond film, but it feels like one of the longest. Simply adding more running time wouldn't have helped it.