54 replies to this topic

[SecretAgentFan]

I beg to differ.

[agentbug]

This has been an interesting post to read through.

 

Some thoughts: I may have this wrong, but I remember people saying Skyfall could be the longest Bond film. As it is, I think it comes in one minute shorter than the longest, which always struck me as Mendes simply not wanting to have made ‘the longest Bond film.’ As it was so well recevied and people praised him for giving the actors and the action space to breathe, Spectre could well be allowed to be the longest Bond film. Of course, that will still be an obvious criticism critics will level at it, just because it’s easy.

 

Will it be as good as Skyfall? I’d say Skyfall is a 4/5 Bond film, but I doubt Spectre will be as good. I’m biased in that I have studied writing, and a great film begins and ends with the script. The script problems and some indicators as to where the script has chosen to go… I think the film might suffer in that way. We’ll see.

 

I am sure, also, that Spectre will not make as much money as Spectre. At the end of the day figures can be fudged to make out it has, if need be, but  Skyfall came out in 2012 with advantageous factors such as the 50 year anniversary, the Olympics, and the video Daniel Craig did with The Queen, at a time when people’s eyes were on all things British… you just can’t buy that kinda publicity, and it helped significantly bolster ticket sales IMO.

[tdalton]

 

I´m sure EON did not try to reboot their universe without a clear outline of where they wanted to go.
.

I would love it to be true but having worked within studio industry, I can say that strategy is much more at short term.
And EoN never had this kind of vision during 50 years.

 

 

I'd have to agree. 

 

There's been no real plan about where they've wanted the films to go.  When Casino Royale proved as popular as it did, I think that changed things a bit, paving the way for a direct sequel since they probably thought that that's what people wanted, even though the themes they explored in Quantum of Solace (Bond continuing to become "BOND") had really pretty much been wrapped up by the end of Casino Royale.  Then when that film tanked in the realm of public opinion, Quantum got thrown out the window and anything that they'd started with that film fell very much by the wayside for Skyfall.  It's only now that they're realizing that the only have Craig for maybe this one last film or possibly just one after it, they've decided that they need to somehow tie everything up.

 

The quality of filmmaking has been higher than it's been in years' past, or at least in the case of Skyfall they've given off the appearance of higher-quality filmmaking, but to say that there's been a coherent plan in terms of the storyline running through these interconnected films just simply isn't true. 

[Harmsway]

I think, on the whole, Spectre will be a much more consistent film than Skyfall.

 

Whether it will actually be a *better* film, I'm not sure.

[Pierceuhhh]

The editing will almost definitely be worse than Skyfall's - Lee Smith is responsible for the clunkiest botch-jobs in recent memory, whereas Stuart Baird is the sort of solid worker the Bond movies have traditionally used.

Judging by the trailers so far, the photography will be worse.

The action will likely be better.

The villain, music, girls and song are all potential improvements.

The title is already better.

I'm hoping for a long, long runtime. I love that Thunderball feeling that the older Bonds had, where you fall asleep on the couch an hour into the movie, then you wake up three hours later and it's STILL going.

[Guy Haines]

Has there ever been a "long term plan" about the direction the Bond films should take? I don't think there has. The original first movie should have been what became Thunderball - the legal action between Ian Fleming and his former screen treatment partners appears to have kiboshed that, although elements from TB - notably SPECTRE - found their way into the film of DN.

 

The "plan" in the 1960s, once it became clear that Bond was a cinematic money-spinner, would have been to get as many films of the books produced with Connery as Bond. In the 1970s to keep going with a new Bond - Moore - and to continue filming the remaining books. By the 1980s we hit a snag - we're running out of books to film, but the short stories and unfilmed bits from the books should keep things going. The 1990s - about Bond as the character in new stories with only a tenuous link to Fleming - notably the bifurcation of the novel Moonraker in the films GE and DAD.

 

The Craig era? The end of CR 2006 - unless it was a last minute script re-write - suggests they had a sequel in mind, but beyond that? Well we had the four year hiatus - if it hadn't happened maybe we would have had the next chapter in the Quantum saga, or something like Spectre a bit sooner. Instead we had SF because the team had the time to create a new story, as a one off I suspect, and brought in upper bracket talent to direct it.

 

I do agree that it looks like they are trying to tie up loose ends as they perhaps only have Daniel Craig for this new film and the one after that. Perhaps in SP his Bond discovers who he has really been fighting all these years, leading to a final showdown in Bond 25?

[Emrayfo]

Perhaps in SP his Bond discovers who he has really been fighting all these years, leading to a final showdown in Bond 25?

 

I really dislike this notion that Bond has been fighting one enemy the whole time, but I don't doubt there is a good chance that this is where EON will be taking us with SPECTRE. It is one of the reasons why, while indifferent to many plotting aspects of Skyfall and the character of Silva, I like that it exists as a 'mission' outside of facing one eternal enemy organisation or individual. National security concerns are multiple and variable and Bond's adventures should reflect this, much like the books. I think if EON had completely had their druthers in the 1960s and 70s then Bond would have just become a superhero who only ever battled SPECTRE. They inserted SPECTRE into Dr No and FRWL among others and would have gladly done so forever more, I suspect. If they had, Bond as an ongoing film franchise would not have survived to this day. It was the flexibility to write enemy protagonists that could somewhat reflect the geopolitical concerns of the time that kept Bond a fresh and relevant hero for each new film-going audience. Certainly TSWLM was the better for not having SPECTRE as the main baddies. The film franchise in general has been the better for having to do without Blofeld and Co from time to time. It is one of the reasons I am both excited and very nervous about what awaits me on the cinemas in November.

 

When it comes to tying the Craig era into a coherent narrative, and the whole 'what to do' about Quantum and SPECTRE, my personal preference would be for them to be completely separate organisations that became rivals. I like the idea of Q and S having come into conflict in the recent past over a goal they were both seeking - maybe control over a government, or influencing an election, getting control over a crucial technology/company, or manipulating the stock market -  and Quantum losing out in A BIG WAY. That would be a nice method to bring the Mr White character into relevance for the upcoming film and to tie up some loose threads from CR and QoS. As big and bad a conspiracy as Q was, they have nothing on SPECTRE!

[Hansen]

I really dislike this idea of one enemy using Bond like a kite in a hurricane.
It is very un-realistic to me even for Bond.
It is almost a non sense in how EoN presented Bond's Craig (More grounded in reality... bla bla)

[tdalton]

I don't think the "kite dancing in a hurricane" really has much to do with how the villains are playing Bond.  I think it has more to do with Mr. White telling Bond that what he's gotten himself caught up in, or is about to get himself caught up in, is much bigger and dangerous than he can imagine.  I see it more as a warning from White to Bond that, to quote Dalton, things are about to get nasty.

 

I do think that they could possibly find a reasonable way to tie all of Craig's films together, but it would take the absolute right approach and any misstep in that attempt could really go a long way towards doing a disservice to the films that precede SPECTRE.  Just in general, though, I think it would be better off to have left Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace alone as the Quantum double-bill, explain Quantum's demise in a brief aside by Bond or M, and then move forward with SPECTRE.

[007jamesbond]

Obviously it will be better but it will more or less the same! 

[Hansen]

You are right tdalton.
If not done well, it could have the impact on CR that Matrix 2&3 had on the first one.
Matrix was initially a great film and CR is in my top 3. I would be very sad if it does not stay that way

[Shrublands]

You are right tdalton.
If not done well, it could have the impact on CR that Matrix 2&3 had on the first one.
Matrix was initially a great film and CR is in my top 3. I would be very sad if it does not stay that way

 

If this was a likelIhood, the damage would have already have been done by QOS. 

[Emrayfo]

I really dislike this idea of one enemy using Bond like a kite in a hurricane.
It is very un-realistic to me even for Bond.
It is almost a non sense in how EoN presented Bond's Craig (More grounded in reality... bla bla)

 

Hansen, I think you are taking the piss out of my post? If not, my apologies.

 

I don't think the "kite dancing in a hurricane" really has much to do with how the villains are playing Bond.  I think it has more to do with Mr. White telling Bond that what he's gotten himself caught up in, or is about to get himself caught up in, is much bigger and dangerous than he can imagine.  I see it more as a warning from White to Bond that, to quote Dalton, things are about to get nasty.

 

Yes, that is clearly what the kite and hurricane reference means, but I suspect Hansen knew that?

 

 

I do think that they could possibly find a reasonable way to tie all of Craig's films together, but it would take the absolute right approach and any misstep in that attempt could really go a long way towards doing a disservice to the films that precede SPECTRE.  Just in general, though, I think it would be better off to have left Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace alone as the Quantum double-bill, explain Quantum's demise in a brief aside by Bond or M, and then move forward with SPECTRE.

 

I don't want them to try too hard to tie them together, because otherwise they will have to clumsily shoehorn the Silva story into a bigger SPECTRE story. I think that would likely undermine the integrity of the Craig era. The best way to 'tie them together' is to just have a bloody good story in SPECTRE and LET BOND BE BOND. That would at least deliver on the original brief they presented us when CR was released, where we would see Bond become Bond over the course of the Craig films. He stumbled but recovered in Skyfall. Now make him master of his domain. 

 

Quantum can be dust. They can have tussled with SPECTRE and came off second best (to explain why Mr White is a source of information on SPECTRE and how deadly they are). M can explain the demise of Quantum as just a point of history. SPECTRE will work better if they don't try to make the SPECTRE organisation be responsible for everything that's ever happened, some ultimate puppet master from CS to now.

[Guy Haines]

"A kite, dancing in a hurricane" I suspect is Mr White's way of telling Bond he, 007, is up against it and then some. A bit like Professor Dent's comment in DN - "You're up against more than you know, Mr Bond."

 

Has Bond been battling SPECTRE from CR onwards and only now discovers it? It wouldn't surprise me if that was the case, but the idea that in CR and QoS his adversary was Quantum, which in the intervening years since the events of QoS has been driven out of business and/or taken over by SPECTRE wouldn't surprise me either.

 

In CR no name was given to Bond's opponents, just "our organisation", and on leaving the cinema after my first viewing of CR I wondered if 007 would discover in the next film that SPECTRE was nameless entity he was fighting. Of course, it wasn't - perhaps it wasn't feasible or possible to use anything related to SPECTRE at that time, or maybe using the original Fleming title "Quantum Of Solace" gave the screenwriters an excuse to title the organisation "Quantum" - my guess is the latter.

[Tiin007]

In CR no name was given to Bond's opponents, just "our organisation", and on leaving the cinema after my first viewing of CR I wondered if 007 would discover in the next film that SPECTRE was nameless entity he was fighting. Of course, it wasn't - perhaps it wasn't feasible or possible to use anything related to SPECTRE at that time, or maybe using the original Fleming title "Quantum Of Solace" gave the screenwriters an excuse to title the organisation "Quantum" - my guess is the latter.

 

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and I even re-watched QoS to double-check. Is there any point in the film where we are told that the organization is called "Quantum"? The closest we get is the "Q" pin worn by Greene, and Greene's line to Bond at the end: "I answered your questions. I told you what you wanted to know about Quantum."

 

Ever since QoS was released in 2008, fans have assumed that the organization behind White, Greene, and Le Chiffre was called Quantum. But we are never told this, not even once. Maybe Quantum was a subdivision of the organization, or maybe it was the codename for Greene's operation? 

 

Is it possible that the organization was in fact SPECTRE the entire time, and fans (rightly or wrongly) "jumped the gun" a little bit and took Greene's line to mean more than it did?

[tdalton]

I think it would have had to have been something else that Greene was involved with if Quantum isn't necessarily referring to the organization, since Greene's operation in the film is referred to as the Tierra Project.

 

I guess it's possible, but in the end I don't think that it's jumping the gun to say that the organization is in fact called "Quantum".  The 'Q' pin kind of serves the same purpose as the SPECTRE octopus ring, in terms of identifying members of the organization to each other.  Between that and Greene's comment at the end, I think that's enough to piece together the idea that the most likely scenario is that the organization is "Quantum".

[Guy Haines]

In answer to Tiin007 above, isn't there also a line from an unidentified villain in the opera house audience asking whether the Tierra project is a "productive use of Quantum's time?"

 

Again it's a bit vague though - does it refer to Quantum as an organisation, or a project, or what? As with Greene's remark at the end of QoS, we are still left wondering.

 

One suspects though that with Mr White in this new movie we may finally find out whatever happened to "Quantum". And given that in the teaser trailer he looks like something the cat dragged in, it may be that whatever happened wasn't necessarily good.

[Hansen]

Interesting point about the 'kite', as for me it was obvious that White was explaining to Bond he was totally manipulated by Spectre.
But your points are extremely valid. We'll see.
The idea of Quantum being a subdivision of Spectre is far-fetched and very 'mechanical'. It would be pour attempt from authors to tie the Craigsfilm

You are right tdalton.
If not done well, it could have the impact on CR that Matrix 2&3 had on the first one.
Matrix was initially a great film and CR is in my top 3. I would be very sad if it does not stay that way

If this was a likelIhood, the damage would have already have been done by QOS.

Not really as you do not reinterpret CR after having watched QoS

[Emrayfo]

There's a lot of good discussion here to engage with:

 

"A kite, dancing in a hurricane" I suspect is Mr White's way of telling Bond he, 007, is up against it and then some. A bit like Professor Dent's comment in DN - "You're up against more than you know, Mr Bond."

Agreed.

 

I guess it's possible, but in the end I don't think that it's jumping the gun to say that the organization is in fact called "Quantum".  The 'Q' pin kind of serves the same purpose as the SPECTRE octopus ring, in terms of identifying members of the organization to each other.  Between that and Greene's comment at the end, I think that's enough to piece together the idea that the most likely scenario is that the organization is "Quantum".

 

Like tdalton I don't think it is jumping the gun to to say the organisation behind White and Greene were definitely Quantum. And Le Chiffre was a banker for dubious clientele but wasn't himself a Quantum member, per se. However I don't think Quantum were a formal organisation so much as a conspiracy - a meeting of interests pulled from governments and companies around the world; a much more loosely organised group of somewhat 'equals' rather than the very hierarchical and top-down organisation I expect from SPECTRE.

 

One suspects though that with Mr White in this new movie we may finally find out whatever happened to "Quantum". And given that in the teaser trailer he looks like something the cat dragged in, it may be that whatever happened wasn't necessarily good.

 

Yes, this is my feeling too. I rather imagine Quantum came off a rather poor second in their tussle with SPECTRE.

 

The idea of Quantum being a subdivision of Spectre is far-fetched and very 'mechanical'. It would be poor attempt from authors to tie the Craigs films.

 

Agreed. It would just be plain lazy if they went that route, and a missed opportunity to make SPECTRE seem awfully scary. But if instead SPECTRE had had a run-in with the Quantum consortium and eviscerated them it helps explain how the formerly nonchalant and supremely confident Mr White is now reduced to the wreck we see in the teaser trailer. It also helps explain why Bond has sought him out if he is chasing down all possible leads on SPECTRE. Maybe White is one of the few to have crossed SPECTRE and lived. And hence why he is hiding out. When he says he expected death to come from a familiar face, I reckon he was thinking 'SPECTRE'.

[tdalton]

 

I guess it's possible, but in the end I don't think that it's jumping the gun to say that the organization is in fact called "Quantum".  The 'Q' pin kind of serves the same purpose as the SPECTRE octopus ring, in terms of identifying members of the organization to each other.  Between that and Greene's comment at the end, I think that's enough to piece together the idea that the most likely scenario is that the organization is "Quantum".

 

Like tdalton I don't think it is jumping the gun to to say the organisation behind White and Greene were definitely Quantum. And Le Chiffre was a banker for dubious clientele but wasn't himself a Quantum member, per se. However I don't think Quantum were a formal organisation so much as a conspiracy - a meeting of interests pulled from governments and companies around the world; a much more loosely organised group of somewhat 'equals' rather than the very hierarchical and top-down organisation I expect from SPECTRE.

 

I think that this is where I'm most disappointed that they've brought back SPECTRE instead of continuing on with Quantum.  Quantum, like you said, seemed to be a rather different organization than SPECTRE.  Not as formally structured and more of a conspiracy than the rather rigidly structured SPECTRE that we're used to.  We've seen them deal with SPECTRE in several films now, but the idea of Bond taking on a more shapeless organization that truly does have people "everywhere" was an interesting and novel concept, but is unfortunately now pitched by the wayside in favor of an organization and villain that has been featured in six previous Bond films (or seven if you want to include the FYEO pre-titles).

[SecretAgentFan]

I imagine that the secret organization called Quantum is, of course, not that secret anymore since Bond has disrupted them.  But not all the people involved will have been caught or brought to justice, so many of them still can form or join a new secret organization called Spectre.

 

Easy fix and perfectly realistic, IMO.

[Hansen]

I imagine that the secret organization called Quantum is, of course, not that secret anymore since Bond has disrupted them. But not all the people involved will have been caught or brought to justice, so many of them still can form or join a new secret organization called Spectre.

Easy fix and perfectly realistic, IMO.

Experienced vilain defeated by James Bond seeking position in an ambitious organisation with truly evil plans.
Bonus and pension plan welcome ;-)

[rubixcub]

agentbug, I feel the opposite about SP's box office prospects.  IMO the success of SF will only increase the b.o. for SP, not unlike TSWLM's success probably helped MR, GF helped TB, etc.  Very often, the sequel (and the term itself can be argued) makes more $$ than the original regardless of quality, i.e. "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest".

 

Dave

[Hansen]

agentbug, I feel the opposite about SP's box office prospects. IMO the success of SF will only increase the b.o. for SP, not unlike TSWLM's success probably helped MR, GF helped TB, etc. Very often, the sequel (and the term itself can be argued) makes more $$ than the original regardless of quality, i.e. "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest".

Dave

There are counter examples : godfather 2 vers 1, Empire Strikes Back vs Star Wars for sequel of better quality and QoS vs CR (by little) for sequel of lower quality

[rubixcub]

Naturally there are.  And despite the record-breaking opening, the "Avengers" sequel looks like it will place 2nd behind the original, although overseas returns may not all be in yet.

 

Between rising ticket prices and the fact that Bond is still an "event" film and one of the year's most anticipated, I think another record-breaking gross, whether the reviews are more positive than SF's or less, is within the realm of possibility.  Also, don't ask me why, but traditionally, a Bond actor's fourth movie (TB, MR, DAD) is traditionally his highest-grossing; maybe that has something to do with each one being among the "biggest" in scope.

 

Dave