32 replies to this topic

[Karloff]

 

It does seem an odd thing to have generated such ire.

It's all fictional.

I think it stems from people being fixated by continuity. Continuity in the Bond-verse is like religion. If you suggest to some people there is no genuine logical continuity you're greeted with, 'If I want to believe it, I will believe it!' Reminds me very much of God botherers. Once you accept that searching for continuity is a mugs game, the crippling weight of it will evaporate.

Tongue firmly in cheek.

 

 

I think that the need for continuity is a modern thing. Before the age of VHS and DVDs it wasn't as easy as it is today to scrutinize the Bond films and notice contradictions. Today you can have a Bond marathon in your living room and see the films (or at least the 20 first ones) as one long story (and then watch Craig's three plus SPECTRE as another not-as-long story). It's not that different to binge watching Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad.

Add to that the trend of the last two decades where film series and franchises focus much more on continuity between each installment. One of the first ones to do this I believe was The Lord of The Rings. How much would one understand of The Two Towers without watching The Fellowship of The Ring first?

Think of earlier franchises; all the Burton/Schumacher Batman film were pretty much stand alone adventures. The same goes for the Rambo films, Die Hard etc. Even The Godfather films work on their own. But during the 2000s that kind of changed. LOTR, The Dark Knight trilogy, Harry Potter and subsequent young adult films. Almost all of these needs to be seen in chronological order for one to understand each individual film. My ex-girlfriend loved Guardians of The Galaxy, so I showed her The Avengers. She didn't get it without watching the previous Marvel films about Thor, Capt. America and the guys. So we live in an age where continuity in film franchises is taken for granted and filmmakers actually demand from audience that they've seen the previous films. And this has rubbed of on the Craig era of Bond films.

 

I for one love continuity in Bond. Giving him a history makes him feel like a real human and makes him easier to identify with. And one of the biggest attractions of the Bond franchise is to be able to identify with Bond. To dream about being him and living his lifestyle. The lifestyle aspect is somehow amplified by a sense of continuity between the films, books, games etc.

 

EDIT: Star Wars! Star Wars was probably the first one to be so heavily focused on continuity. But that bring's up another interesting point: Star Wars was in part based on the movie serial formula from the 1940s. Short chapters of what was practically a long movie shown each week at the local cinema. Essentially the TV-series of it's time. But Star Wars was quite unique for it's time, I think, with it's focus on continuity. Besides Star Wars other film series didn't really go in for that stuff until the turn of the century, when George Lucas of course released his prequel trilogy. 

 

So... Have we George Lucas to thank for the Craig era?

Edited by Karloff, 23 September 2015 - 05:50 PM.

[mrmoon]

 

 

It does seem an odd thing to have generated such ire.

It's all fictional.

I think it stems from people being fixated by continuity. Continuity in the Bond-verse is like religion. If you suggest to some people there is no genuine logical continuity you're greeted with, 'If I want to believe it, I will believe it!' Reminds me very much of God botherers. Once you accept that searching for continuity is a mugs game, the crippling weight of it will evaporate.

Tongue firmly in cheek.

 

 

I think that the need for continuity is a modern thing. Before the age of VHS and DVDs it wasn't as easy as it is today to scrutinize the Bond films and notice contradictions. Today you can have a Bond marathon in your living room and see the films (or at least the 20 first ones) as one long story (and then watch Craig's three plus SPECTRE as another not-as-long story). It's not that different to binge watching Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad.

Add to that the trend of the last two decades where film series and franchises focus much more on continuity between each installment. One of the first ones to do this I believe was The Lord of The Rings. How much would one understand of The Two Towers without watching The Fellowship of The Ring first?

Think of earlier franchises; all the Burton/Schumacher Batman film were pretty much stand alone adventures. The same goes for the Rambo films, Die Hard etc. Even The Godfather films work on their own. But during the 2000s that kind of changed. LOTR, The Dark Knight trilogy, Harry Potter and subsequent young adult films. Almost all of these needs to be seen in chronological order for one to understand each individual film. My ex-girlfriend loved Guardians of The Galaxy, so I showed her The Avengers. She didn't get it without watching the previous Marvel films about Thor, Capt. America and the guys. So we live in an age where continuity in film franchises is taken for granted and filmmakers actually demand from audience that they've seen the previous films. And this has rubbed of on the Craig era of Bond films.

 

I for one love continuity in Bond. Giving him a history makes him feel like a real human and makes him easier to identify with. And one of the biggest attractions of the Bond franchise is to be able to identify with Bond. To dream about being him and living his lifestyle. The lifestyle aspect is somehow amplified by a sense of continuity between the films, books, games etc.

 

EDIT: Star Wars! Star Wars was probably the first one to be so heavily focused on continuity. But that bring's up another interesting point: Star Wars was in part based on the movie serial formula from the 1940s. Short chapters of what was practically a long movie shown each week at the local cinema. Essentially the TV-series of it's time. But Star Wars was quite unique for it's time, I think, with it's focus on continuity. Besides Star Wars other film series didn't really go in for that stuff until the turn of the century, when George Lucas of course released his prequel trilogy. 

 

So... Have we George Lucas to thank for the Craig era?

 

 

The Craig era is most certainly more concerned with continuity than those before, and it's not surprising, this is a time where world-building and creating universes is the fad du jour. What I find fascinating about the era, however, is that it could have been so much more effective if it hadn't been for the critical ambivalence surrounding QoS. SP seems like it might bring things full circle, but that involves a retconning, which in itself is going to be littered with inconsistencies.

 

The one thing I prefer is 'character continuity', which they've done 'reasonably' well in this era, bar a missing film between QoS and SF, but aside from that it's been solid. I'm less concerned with the specifics of Quantum and SPECTRE, for example, and more concerned with Craig's Bond completing an arc. I'm assuming this is what you're referring to? Because narrative continuity is secondary in my mind. 

 

What I do feel very strongly about is the need, beyond Craig, to keep the films reasonably self contained. Continuity can not drive this franchise, it never has, and the series won't survive otherwise. Bond should be a character who can be parachuted into any given situation and will respond accordingly. Next to LOTR, Avengers, SW, this is why Bond thrives. He doesn't have to slot into a continuing narrative or a specific time period. No other character has this luxury and it shouldn't be abandoned to satisfy the whims of a changing audience. Cinematic Bond is a man of the moment.

[winstoninabox]

Some quotes:

 

 

 

It doesn't need to be retconned. BloodStone is a standalone story that is in no way canonical to the film series.

Agreed. It's a standalone piece of work. If people want to imagine it falls into the DC cinematic universe, cool, but it's not canon.

 

Agreed. People can choose to think of it however they want, but that alone doesn't make it part of the Craig era timeline.

 

 

And here:

"Hey, I didn't call you crazy. Just said it was 'crazy talk'. Initially I thought this was a jocular discussion about the very, very loose (at times non-existent) continuity across the Bond-verse. I had no idea you were seriously implying there could be a conscious link between Blood Stone and SPECTRE. I just find it flabbergasting. In those circumstances the burden of proof is on you my friend. If you can find evidence suggesting this is even a slither more than just pure fanboy fantasy I will happily eat humble pie."

 

The problem for those implying there's a canon is that they take it as fait accompli that there is one, and that it's obvious for all to see. The advocates refer to it as "canonical to the film series", "the DC cinematic universe, and "the Craig era timeline" as if these aren't at all contradictory beasts.Muddy that with assumption that canon is what the producers say it is, and then it's very difficult to know what exactly makes up this canon that Blood Stone is so readily dismissed from.

 

Canonical to the film series and the DC cinematic universe makes two assumptions that are difficult to reconcile. If what is in the film series is the only basis for canon then is Bond tall, slim and dark haired or stocky, muscular and fair haired? Is Moneypenny white or black? Is Felix Leiter white or black? Does Bond live in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90 or post-2000? Is Bond the know-it-all from the Moore years, or the blunt instrument from the Dalton years? Many generalizations can remain consistent across the films, but there are many specifics that change. It's a little difficult to exclude Blood Stone from canon when its no more inconsistent than much of what would be accepted as canon without hesitation.

 

The problems of canon don't disappear if one attempts to limit it to a canonical DC cinematic "universe". Is this notion of a DC cinematic universe a special case, or are we also to talk of the "Lazenby cinematic universe", a canon consisting of a mere one film? If the latter, then does Lazenby's universe exist alone, or does it "inspire" or somehow inhabit the Connery cinematic universe since the events of OHMSS are connected in some way to those in DAF? If the former, then why does the Craig era warrant such special treatment? Those advocating a canon haven't answered any of the big questions that go with defining a canon for a series that spans multiple actors playing a single character across films that sometimes seem to connect and other times don't.

 

And even if one were to say that the Craig films is a special case, that the reboot brought with it not just a new canon, but also a new way of looking at the series that doesn't apply to the previous films, then there are still the problems of why the DC films make shout outs to those films that it supposedly stands alone from. It makes no in world sense that Q-Branch would arm a long out of production Aston Martin with machine guns (or that a British citizen would or could do it privately) and then store it in a garage in god knows where, except when looked at through the prism of it being a fun moment for the audience *of the previous films*.

 

About the third reason, that Craig's Bond has a timeline is without dispute, but the assumption is that Blood Stone is excluded from this. No reason is given why, just that it is. It seems that not being a film is the major reason for exclusion. But if there were to be an official original novel that detailed a mission that isn't taken up in the film series, I'd imagine that that novel would be "canon". The credits of Blood Stone quite clearly say EON Productions Limited Present..., that it stars Craig as James Bond and Dench as M. With that evidence I find it hard to dismiss Blood Stone as not part of 'the Craig era timeline', considering that an original novel wouldn't even have the actual actors, unlike the films *and* game.

 

After all of this, do I think Blood Stone will be referenced in Spectre? No, I don't. But I also think that Spectre won't reference many other parts of what is considered "canon". I don't think Spectre will address Bond's marriage and Tracy's murder (but as it seems to have shout outs to OHMSS, who knows???) yet those events are in the Fleming novels and referenced in 4 of the previous actors runs in Bond. So not taking up the events of Blood Stone don't make them any less canonical. But I do think the those who dismiss Blood Stone as non-canon have done so without any thought about what this canon is that they think exists.

 

It begs the question what Blood Stone would need to be considered canon. If there were to be a scene in Spectre where Bond is reading a computer screen that lists agents who have been killed at the hands of Spectre, and Nicole Hunter (Joss Stone's character) were there, would that make Blood Stone canon, or would it just be a fun Easter egg for those in the know? What if that were accompanied by M, who is looking over Bond's shoulder saying, "We've all lost someone we knew to them." or the less cryptic, "Hunter. That was one of yours, wasn't it?"

 

Or perhaps Blood Stone is like a novelization of a film in that one can take it as a different interpretation of events, in the case of Blood Stone this particular mission hasn't appeared in any other media. Whatever its status as canon, and whatever that is, I feel that those who were dismissive of the OPs idea that it could be haven't really made any case as to why.