1017 replies to this topic

[Tiin007]

Maybe this belongs in the unorthodox opinions thread, but...

 

I really like the SPECTRE car chase. 

 

Hear me out.

 

It's shot beautifully, and it finally provides Craig with an innovative gadget laden car that does not take things too far (I'm looking at you TSWLM Lotus and DAD Vanquish). The DB10 is the perfect Bond car for the modern era, and the fact that some of the gadgets are not working properly was a nice shake up of the formula. The humor perfectly fits Craig's incarnation of the character, and the phone call with Moneypenny added an interesting new dimension. This was certainly not your typical Bond chase, and I think its distinctiveness is to the film's credit. 

 

Whereas the camp and overall implausibility were out of control in DAD (to the point of self-parody), SPECTRE really struck a nice balance between Craig-era grittiness and vintage Bond, and I think the Rome chase is a perfect example of this. 

 

Reading some of the comments on this forum, it sounds as if many fans simply wanted a repeat of the QoS opening car chase (albeit without the shaky cam editing). Honestly, we got that type of chase in the Craig era already, and rehashing it just two films later would have come across as stale and uninspired (in much the same way that the smart blood in SP felt like a rehash of the tracking chip from CR). Conversely, simply crafting a car chase in the vein of the Brosnan films would have felt out of place with Craig. What we actually got in the Rome chase is what was really needed, especially if one recognizes that it was never intended to be a major action set piece. While the Austria plane sequence provided the real action in the second act, it nonetheless came across as too by the numbers, as if it was shoehorned in because the film couldn't go too long without another action scene. The Rome chase, on the other hand, was a fresh addition to Bond lore.

 

My only gripe with the Rome chase was the glaring lack of other cars on the road. 

[SecretAgentFan]

My only gripe with the Rome chase was the glaring lack of other cars on the road. 

 

That´s what irks me the most.

 

Basically, car chases are mostly boring since they can only go one way: lots of demolition, one car ends up faster.  The makers of the QOS sequence knew that and went for a visceral experience.

 

If there had been many other cars in the SPECTRE chase it actually would have been much more exciting to see Bond maneuver between them.  Instead it was quite simplistic, ticking off the usual boxes.  And... quite frankly, after Bond escaping with a parachute, didn´t Hinx see him fly through the air and landing?  Bond would have been very easy to pick up for Hinx.

[Tiin007]

I think the flames surrounding Hinx's vehicle prevented him from seeing Bond's escape. And once he finally gets out of the car, he can only see the sinking DB10. 

[sharpshooter]

I think the flames surrounding Hinx's vehicle prevented him from seeing Bond's escape. And once he finally gets out of the car, he can only see the sinking DB10.

Possibly. And even if he saw the ejection, he's not in any position to give chase.

[Dustin]

This is a Bond that has wanted cool toys since the beginning, but has long been denied. All he ever really had is a series of tracking devices.

Don't forget the life-sized Corgi toy car...

Not sure if Craig's Bond really wanted the toys from the go; at least not as much as the audience wanted them. Craig's 007 himself seemed fine with just the guns compartment in his souped-up rides (which incidentally seem also to be resistant to gunshots, up to a point.) At any rate to me the scene was totally lacking in excitement when it should have been a highlight on par with the train fight. Having Hinx beat up the Aston and capturing Bond would have spiced up the whole affair a lot. Instead Bond walks off unfazed as if he has read the script in advance.

Which he probably has...

[SecretAgentFan]

You´re pointing to a very valid point here: in SPECTRE Bond never really seems to feel in danger - with the only exception Hinx surprising him on the train and beating him up.  Apart from that he always seems distanced from the proceedings, planning nothing in advance, just rushing in.  This diminishes the threat of the villains enormously.

 

Even Sir Roger always seemed to be dreading what is happening despite being able to shrug off things after he had made it through an ordeal.

[S K Y F A L L]

Do you suppose when they announce the distribution deal they'll also announce a Bond 25 release date and even possibly a director?

[sharpshooter]

This is a Bond that has wanted cool toys since the beginning, but has long been denied. All he ever really had is a series of tracking devices.

Don't forget the life-sized Corgi toy car...
Not sure if Craig's Bond really wanted the toys from the go; at least not as much as the audience wanted them. Craig's 007 himself seemed fine with just the guns compartment in his souped-up rides (which incidentally seem also to be resistant to gunshots, up to a point.) At any rate to me the scene was totally lacking in excitement when it should have been a highlight on par with the train fight. Having Hinx beat up the Aston and capturing Bond would have spiced up the whole affair a lot. Instead Bond walks off unfazed as if he has read the script in advance.
Which he probably has...

"A gun and a radio. Not exactly Christmas, is it?" This response tells me Bond had a certain expectation in whatever Q had to give him, and he's underwhelmed. Perhaps it's telling he fits his own personal car out with guns and an ejector seat because he's not getting this stuff himself at work. The only other gadget car he has in the films is 009's stolen DB10. Upon reflection I agree that Bond didn't care much for gadgets after coming straight out of the military, but I think he's bound to be more curious and perhaps even jealous these days. Even if he's more at home with a gun and a knife. Gadgets represent a rare treat.

[Harmsway]

You´re pointing to a very valid point here: in SPECTRE Bond never really seems to feel in danger - with the only exception Hinx surprising him on the train and beating him up.

Yes. And even that is deflated and dismissed with a naff punchline.

The torture scene had the potential to ramp things up, but it has Bond shrug off its effects and become superhuman because of the POWER OF LUV.

[SecretAgentFan]

If they at least had shown Bond really struggling to get out of the base, being supported by a team sent and headed by M...

[Agent 76]

Do you suppose when they announce the distribution deal they'll also announce a Bond 25 release date and even possibly a director?

I can see them maybe getting a press release out there announcing a tentative release date, a director? not so much

 

 

only a guess of course

[Dustin]

This is a Bond that has wanted cool toys since the beginning, but has long been denied. All he ever really had is a series of tracking devices.

Don't forget the life-sized Corgi toy car...
Not sure if Craig's Bond really wanted the toys from the go; at least not as much as the audience wanted them. Craig's 007 himself seemed fine with just the guns compartment in his souped-up rides (which incidentally seem also to be resistant to gunshots, up to a point.) At any rate to me the scene was totally lacking in excitement when it should have been a highlight on par with the train fight. Having Hinx beat up the Aston and capturing Bond would have spiced up the whole affair a lot. Instead Bond walks off unfazed as if he has read the script in advance.
Which he probably has...

"A gun and a radio. Not exactly Christmas, is it?" This response tells me Bond had a certain expectation in whatever Q had to give him, and he's underwhelmed. Perhaps it's telling he fits his own personal car out with guns and an ejector seat because he's not getting this stuff himself at work. The only other gadget car he has in the films is 009's stolen DB10. Upon reflection I agree that Bond didn't care much for gadgets after coming straight out of the military, but I think he's bound to be more curious and perhaps even jealous these days. Even if he's more at home with a gun and a knife. Gadgets represent a rare treat.

I think at the time of CR & QOS the general feeling was very much that we're done with the gadget shtick. Weren't there even threads on the absence/lack/need for fresh ones after QOS? I remember some predicted even they wouldn't return. Telling perhaps that I agreed with the theory, shows what my opinion is worth...

I suppose the lack of gadgets was what most everyday-joes complained about after Craig's first two outings, that's why SKYFALL had them back in force, new ones and old ones. Whether that was in line with the character Craig depicted previously was not a concern - as long as it worked in SF's context.

And since it was a success there they tried to play the card again.

[SecretAgentFan]

Absolutely.

 

In a way, CR & QOS proved that neither did Bond need gadgets nor Q and Moneypenny.  Q has been reinvented as a young nerd which I find okay but not a really inspiring new idea.  Wouldn´t Q have been more interesting as a female?

 

And while Moneypenny starting out as a field agent shooting Bond is IMO a great idea it was again dropped too soon and remained underdeveloped since then.

 

I´ve often said that I would not mind if they reverted to the old formula of giving M, Moneypenny and Q just one or two expositional sequences (eliminating the need for big name casting).  But if EON still believes in beefing up these parts they should come up with more interesting characters next time.

[Dustin]

The thing is, in a way it makes perfect sense that the anteroom to M's office is guarded by a woman knowing her way around action. I remember a scene from King's Firestarter where an M-like head of a secret government branch enters his office and his secretary - the usual chlichéed Barbie-type - has her hand on a heavy revolver until his identity is verified. This is something I could even imagine Fleming might have used, had he thought of it.

But the problem remains, with the likes of Fiennes, Whishaw and Harris it's difficult to imagine they'd just do three lines and disappear for the rest of the film. Which is a cul-de-sac really, since Bond's adventures are not the stuff for team-efforts ordinarily. Using the home team in the field will likely only evolve out of the same set of circumstances, drama revolving around the SIS. This is nice for a change - not as a staple diet.

[MISALA1994]

I think there is no point to bring Craig back after 2018...

[DaveBond21]

If they at least had shown Bond really struggling to get out of the base, being supported by a team sent and headed by M...

 

I actually like how easy it is for him to escape. 

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

[SecretAgentFan]

Why?

[MISALA1994]

Why?

Why bring back over 50 years old after 4-5 year gap to do a 1 more movie, when you can look even further in the future with a new younger actor?

Edited by MISALA1994, 05 December 2016 - 08:02 AM.

[SecretAgentFan]

I actually meant to say: Dave, why?

[Dustin]

If they at least had shown Bond really struggling to get out of the base, being supported by a team sent and headed by M...

I actually like how easy it is for him to escape.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Have to admit this is beyond me, too. Wouldn't you appreciate it more if the sequence wasn't akin to watching a YouTube vid of a shoot-em-up game? And a rather uninspired game at that...

[Harmsway]

The impetus behind the scene is clearly thematic: Madeleine's declaration of love "saves" Bond and enables him to destroy the bad guys. Just note how many times Bond looks at Madeleine during that sequence (including the climactic explosion shot).

If the rest of the film had committed to that kind of dreamlike unreality (ala a modern YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE), it might have clicked. But the film is tonally schizophrenic that the scene doesn't land.

[Dustin]

If this was the intention - and I'm not sold on this because it rather feels to me like it was the result of cut pages from the script and cut footage - then it would have been much easier to emphasise the surrealist quality with editing. But frankly I don't get that vibe from the sequence, most of all because Madeleine's confession of love feels just as unrealistic as the events after. It's not the rock amid the sea of pain it should be.

The whole scene should feel more engaging, especially when Bond is 'rescued' by Medelein's love.

[Harmsway]

But frankly I don't get that vibe from the sequence, most of all because Madeleine's confession of love feels just as unrealistic as the events after. It's not the rock amid the sea of pain it should be.

Sure. But that's a failing of execution.

Conceptually, the intent seems clear enough to me. It just doesn't play well dramatically.

[Dustin]

Astonishing how Mendes thought this was fit-for-screening already then. He must have had a very specific vision there, one that outshone the potential of his actual material.

[SecretAgentFan]

If this was the intention - and I'm not sold on this because it rather feels to me like it was the result of cut pages from the script and cut footage - then it would have been much easier to emphasise the surrealist quality with editing. But frankly I don't get that vibe from the sequence, most of all because Madeleine's confession of love feels just as unrealistic as the events after. It's not the rock amid the sea of pain it should be.

The whole scene should feel more engaging, especially when Bond is 'rescued' by Medelein's love.

 

Indeed.  There are so many problems with this escape apart from Bond feeling completely fine after that kind of torture:

 

- the lack of guards inside the lair

- guards with much more firepower do not even manage to at least hit Bond or Madeleine once

- a single blast and the whole lair blows up

- where are all the people Blofeld has hacking away on the computers when he shows Bond around?  

 

When I´m in a good mood I can explain all of this away.  But it remains a sequence that was cut down to the bare essentials - Bond and Madeleine escape and blow up the lair - in the most unentertaining and therefore un-Bondian way.  The escape is basically a run-of-the-mill shoot-em-up with Bond as a Rambo-esque mercenary and the cute damsel in distress on his arm.  

 

By the way: why have a scene in which Madeleine proves adept at handling a gun if afterwards she is clinging to the man with the gun, never even trying to pick up a gun herself?  Even that would have made the sequence better: Bond being supported by Madeleine, a real team having each other´s backs.  No pun intended. 

[Major Tallon]

You raise some good questions, SecretAgentFan, though there's a reasonable answer to your last one.  There's a considerable difference between knowing how to load and fire and an automatic pistol and using a submachine gun.  Madeleine's familiarity with the former wouldn't necessarily make her adept with the latter.

[SecretAgentFan]

Did not know that, thank you.

 

But it still remains puzzling: why include a scene in which Madeleine proves that she knows how to handle the automatic pistol?  Just to show that she knows what it is like killing a man - yeah, maybe.  But then I would have at least wanted to see her reactions to seeing Bond mow down lots of men.  Sure, in the end she says: I don´t want this life of yours.  But does the escape sequence really do justice to her reactions?

 

Have to take a look at it again.

 

I get the feeling - with lots of aspects of SPECTRE - that somehow everything does make sense, yet it is told so minimalistically that at least I yearn for more.  In a way, SPECTRE feels like an extremely cold, calculated film, with all the emotional investment that SKYFALL offered absent.  Almost baffling that these two are made by the same director.

[RMc2]

I still think they should've scrapped the entire London-based fourth act and had a prolonged escape from Blofeld's lair as the finale (they could still have involved MI6 if they really wanted to, from afar - or just have an extra scene with M arresting C).

 

But that would have been too traditional for Mendes.

[Matt_13]

I always assumed that the lethargic action at the base was the result of Craig's knee injury. I suppose they could have subbed him for a stuntman if they had needed one, though. Guess it was just poorly conceived.

[SecretAgentFan]

I still think they should've scrapped the entire London-based fourth act and had a prolonged escape from Blofeld's lair as the finale (they could still have involved MI6 if they really wanted to, from afar - or just have an extra scene with M arresting C).

 

But that would have been too traditional for Mendes.

 

Agreed.  The lair is a wasted location chance.  I don´t know if Mendes had considered a finale set there as too traditional - but he seems to have been hung up on the idea of everything coming full circle.

 

I do like that idea as well - but it should have been executed with more panache.  If they wanted to keep both sequences I would have proposed putting the lair in the middle of the film which sags anyway.  Blofeld should have had the clear objective to lure Bond to him, having Hinx take Madeleine as a hostage.  In the film Blofeld sends Hinx to kill Bond - but actually he wants to gloat how much Bond was always outsmarted by him, something which would have been impossible if Hinx had succeeded.  

 

I´d rather have Blofeld get Bond to his lair, show his superiority... and have that plan backfire because Bond would escape with Madeleine.  Then, trying to stop C´s takeover, everything could have culminated in London.