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I wish the series continued the direction Casino Royale started.
M16_Cart
Craig fanboy?
Casino Royale was arguably the most impactful movie in the series since Goldfinger. Critics loved it, many fans loved it, people who weren't Bond fans loved it and the film industry took it seriously.
Following it up presented some trouble.
Quantum of Solace, facing a rushed deadline, wasn't able to have as deep of a story, but it captured the emotions very well and continued in the overall direction Casino Royale did.
Skyfall was a tolerable concession to people who longed for the fantasy element of Bond. It was more of an allegory with a theme than a flesh and blood tale. It did follow the formula quite a bit, but at least it had some big twists and turns.
Spectre lacked focus, neglected story and was reliant on formula. And, 10 years later, it feels like the series spun its wheels and not built on the high promise it set.
What made Casino Royale great?
In a general sense, these are the elements that have earned Casino Royale its praise:
* Having a quality director who is talented, and good at getting all of the little subtleties right.
* Placing scenes in the film based on their importance to the narrative rather than how cool they look
* Casting characters carefully and choosing the best actors for the role (not just the most trendy)
* Placing an emphasis on storywriting ; having a script that's coherent and substantive.
* Be original ; Don't rely on formula ; Have a story with a degree of unpredictability.
Continuing the route of Casino Royale doesn't mean that a film can never be funny or colorful again!!!
Look at Goldfinger for example. It had all 5 elements I listed above, but wasn't violent, brutal, romantic, psychological or somber at all. I'm totally fine with a campy film. Just be original, don't be complacent, pay attention to the little important details and have some things in there that adults with intelligent brains can digest.
I'm disappointed with the regression
It seems like a sect of Bond fans want more of the same, a film that ticks all of the boxes but differs in its filming locations and gadgets. We have probably a dozen films that do this already. I'm not sure why there's a necessity for another Goldfinger clone (except with X, Y and Z).
Dr. No and Goldfinger were brilliant films for their time and still are, but there's only so many times you can copy them. I think Dalton was completely right when he said that he wanted to keep the fantasy element of Bond, but it also needs an element of believe-ability to it in order to give it a sense of purpose.
Bond films used to be taken seriously because they innovated, but now they're sort of looked at by film buffs condescending as an example of big budgets mattering more than clever writing and talented acting.
Occasionally, when a brilliant Bond film comes out, people give it its due respect, but so many have become cynical and only go out to see a Bond movie when its "one of the good ones".
When middle america wasn't fond of Revolver, the Beatles didn't just go back to making Eight Days A Week. Instead, they kept pushing forward until the public warmed up to it. Yes, they found ways to tailor their works so that there was something in there for everybody, but they didn't give up. I wish the Bond series hadn't gave up so easily.
Following it up presented some trouble.
Quantum of Solace, facing a rushed deadline, wasn't able to have as deep of a story, but it captured the emotions very well and continued in the overall direction Casino Royale did.
Skyfall was a tolerable concession to people who longed for the fantasy element of Bond. It was more of an allegory with a theme than a flesh and blood tale. It did follow the formula quite a bit, but at least it had some big twists and turns.
Spectre lacked focus, neglected story and was reliant on formula. And, 10 years later, it feels like the series spun its wheels and not built on the high promise it set.
What made Casino Royale great?
In a general sense, these are the elements that have earned Casino Royale its praise:
* Having a quality director who is talented, and good at getting all of the little subtleties right.
* Placing scenes in the film based on their importance to the narrative rather than how cool they look
* Casting characters carefully and choosing the best actors for the role (not just the most trendy)
* Placing an emphasis on storywriting ; having a script that's coherent and substantive.
* Be original ; Don't rely on formula ; Have a story with a degree of unpredictability.
Continuing the route of Casino Royale doesn't mean that a film can never be funny or colorful again!!!
Look at Goldfinger for example. It had all 5 elements I listed above, but wasn't violent, brutal, romantic, psychological or somber at all. I'm totally fine with a campy film. Just be original, don't be complacent, pay attention to the little important details and have some things in there that adults with intelligent brains can digest.
I'm disappointed with the regression
It seems like a sect of Bond fans want more of the same, a film that ticks all of the boxes but differs in its filming locations and gadgets. We have probably a dozen films that do this already. I'm not sure why there's a necessity for another Goldfinger clone (except with X, Y and Z).
Dr. No and Goldfinger were brilliant films for their time and still are, but there's only so many times you can copy them. I think Dalton was completely right when he said that he wanted to keep the fantasy element of Bond, but it also needs an element of believe-ability to it in order to give it a sense of purpose.
Bond films used to be taken seriously because they innovated, but now they're sort of looked at by film buffs condescending as an example of big budgets mattering more than clever writing and talented acting.
Occasionally, when a brilliant Bond film comes out, people give it its due respect, but so many have become cynical and only go out to see a Bond movie when its "one of the good ones".
When middle america wasn't fond of Revolver, the Beatles didn't just go back to making Eight Days A Week. Instead, they kept pushing forward until the public warmed up to it. Yes, they found ways to tailor their works so that there was something in there for everybody, but they didn't give up. I wish the Bond series hadn't gave up so easily.
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Comments
The last time I watched CR, I was a bit saddened by how dated it looked. And the storyline is still a bit unclear and nonsensical: so, I disagree that the script was coherent. Don't get me wrong: it is still one of my top 4 Bond films, but it is no longer neck-and neck with SF and TB as my all-time fave.
1. Bond's ride on the van and subsequent entrance into the embassy. The music is hokey, and so is the stuntwork and photography. It looks like an 80s episode of MacGyver. It really is bad. Craig's somersault, ending with him looking up at the camera is actually gut-bustingly lame.
2. At the embassy, the explosion takes place on a set with a terrible backdrop. Too fake.
3. The Ford Fusion drive through the Nassau streets was horribly directed and awful. It's a Ford commercial immersed in a Bond film. (And Bond is driving a Ford?) I can handle product placement if it feels natural/normal; this wasn't.
4. There was no regression. The plot of CR is full of holes. The script is not "coherent" as much as we'd like. Because this is a Bond film, I forgive it this; but when fans use CR as some sort of gold standard, I have to point out the lunacy of the plot. There was no reason for Bond to play the game, certainly not without a lot of agents around. All MI6 needed was for LeChiffre to enter the game and then not show up after the first hand. All this involves is taking him, placing him a safe house, and letting him lose by forfeit. Done.
5. Another serious plot hole involves Vesper's role. In the novel, it is simpler, and her death due to ...
6. The airport chase scene just goes on and on and on and on.
7. The use of Prague as a substitute for Miami is also laughable. Anyone who's been to Miami (and apparently neither Martin Campbell nor anyone else on the production team had) knew right off that this wasn't even close.
SF was a superior film on every level.
QoS went overboard with too much M in the field, but by the time we got to SF and SP, the supporting cast just ate up too much of the (already long) screen time. I wish that Mendes had thought more about what actually worked in CR--hint: it wasn't Q or Moneypenny. My hope is that Bond 25 is more like CR and QoS than SF and SP. (Happily, there is precedent. Even Fleming more or less jettisoned SPECTRE in the novel YOLT.)
Yes. Moneypenny, Q, gadgets, one-liners, martinis, etc. are all good at the right moments, but not every Bond film needs them. And they shouldn't be tacked on just for the sake of having them in there.
And yes, I should be at the edge of my seat wondering what's going to happen. In a formulaic Bond film, I already know Bond's gonna save the day and get the girl, so why worry?
While I think the Craig era has still managed to live up to most of what I had hoped after seeing CR, by having films that treat Bond seriously and that make him a fully formed character with depth, there are of course things I'd have changed, as I would have with even the 60s films. It's only natural that there are things you don't engage with along the way, but as far as other eras go, the Craig era is the only one whose films I love in their entirety.
I do heavily agree with your last paragraphs, however, bemoaning the Bond formula. I can't for the life of me understand why people want to go back to the old way of doing things where the movies have to follow the same tired old box-ticking that worked in the 60s because it was the first set of movies to do it, but that grew into parody and redundancy in the Moore and Brosnan eras especially.
I don't want to go back to the days where we have to spend over ten to twenty minutes of the damn film showing a villain, showing Bond go to M's office, talk to Moneypenny, and see Q for his gadgets. The Craig films have shown us that all the story beats can be hit (showing us a villain and getting Bond on their tail with his resources) in more inventive and fresh ways. CR gave us a nice introduction to Quantum just as Bond came on to the case gradually after only stumbling on the bombmaker in Madagascar, much like Bond gets wrapped up in the plot of FRWL. In QoS there's again a sense of Bond being enveloped by a gigantic conspiracy gradually, like a great detective story. Skyfall starts us off with Bond right in the middle of the action, and SP again continues the idea of Bond being introduced to threats gradually, not seeing the full scope of the evils he's facing until later on. None of these films needed Bond sitting down in M's office talking to him about things, or heading to Q's shop for a tired old gadgets seminar, scenes that were better done fifty years earlier.
This isn't to say I don't like these elements, as I love watching Bond go to M's office, chat up Moneypenny and see Q for his latest tools-but only in the 60s films and not that far outside of that. Because the 60s films were the first out of the gate they were able to include these elements in each film without it feeling exhausted and redundant at the time. The problem is that with the 70s Bond decided not to do anything new, and instead stuck to the same template as before, a lazy approach that returned in the Brosnan era along with all the horrid one-liners and overemphasis on gadgets that at times made the Moore films look Shakespearean in comparison.
It genuinely pisses me off that the Bond series is more defined by the worst films of the series in the form of the Moore and Brosnan films than the truly exceptional early Connery films that are the true holders of the Bond tradition. Some seem to forget that the series started with Bond as one man facing his enemies with nothing but his wits and PPK, with little else in between. Films like DN, FRWL and TB weren't about Bond getting out of every scrape with a gadget that just so happened to fit the exact life-threatening situation he found himself in at the time, as if Q was able to see the future early on in the movie. Instead he had to think and adapt, facing SPECTRE with his mind and all the skills he'd crafted in his career. Part of the reason why those films are classics is because Bond is an ordinary man facing extraordinary circumstances, using iron will to see his missions through. YOLT unsettled this idea, almost losing sense of Bond as a character amongst the gadgets and camp, and after OHMSS we lost all that made the Bond films special in look and feel as the true Bond series died along with Tracy and everything was overtaken with lazy parody.
The Craig era was a long overdue return to the feeling of the Young films in how Bond was used as a character, and I for the life of my can't wonder why people want more formulaic stuff from Bond again. We've seen in the Brosnan era that the 60s way of doing things doesn't work in the modern era. There's something so sloppy, hokey and eye-roll inducing about seeing Brosnan try to be Connery and failing every step of the way. It's of no fault to the man, but what worked in the 60s worked then because of the day and movie climate, but not necessarily after that as the series aged. People say they want fun back in Bond (I don't think it ever left, anyway) but that can be done without resorting to doing what better films have already done.
As @MI6_Cart said, we don't need another DN or GF, we have them already and they're special on their own. It's time that Bond continues to tread new ground as the Craig era has done, not necessarily shunning Bond's traditions but doing away with such a strict emphasis on following the 60s playbook. Keep the 60s strengths of Bond being a man on a mission with little to aid him but his wits, really making him feel like a predator in the field, and hold on to the timeless fashion of his suits and his interactions with villains that define his character, but axe the heavy gadgets, one-liners and 3 Act story structures that make the films predictable. The Craig era has shown that the best of the 60s can return in feeling to the series while doing away with the excess stuff that doesn't hold up in a modern context, and that's the way the Bond series should continue to progress to avoid staling itself.
Then his cover would blow.
And how were they supposed to guarantee that? By arresting him?
What would the point be? Their aim was to recover the money, and they left Vesper with Bond so that she could recover it, which she did.
The boyfriend worked for Quantum/SPECTRE, Bond was spared because Vesper promised she would get them the money.
I think you have answered your own question, Brady. :)
The formula was done well in the sixties, mainly because it was fresh and new. Then it got repeated to death, and became self parody, with Bond just idling along on a conveyor belt of familiar scenes. Breeziness gave way to listlessness, and all the energy and creativity was gone. But at the end of the day, there's nothing outdated about Bond talking with his Boss in his office, that can still happen. And operatives are usually supplied with equipment when heading into the field, nothing dated about that as a concept. I think what it comes down to, if you'll pardon me for saying, is the execution. :)
When people such as myself advocate for a revival of the old formula, we aren't demanding a literal return to the type of campness and routine that characterized the 70's. However, I can't see any reason why the formula couldn't be updated and redefined to fit with today's sensibilities. Like you say, there's no reason why Bond shouldn't meet Q in the field, or why the traditional chastisement from M couldn't be saved until later into the film, like it is at the end of OHMSS. I think to some up my thoughts on this, there's no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. :)
1. Bond's cover has nothing to do with it. You don't think MI6 has the muscle to abduct an arms dealer in a casino? I'm just saying, it was unnecessary for Bond to win the money in order to screw LeChiffre. It was a plot contrivance we went along with.
2. It wasn't clear that Yusef worked for Quantum--and was only alluded to at the end of QoS. Regardless, his kidnapping was used to blackmail Vesper into "cooperating" with Quantum. But for what? This is where it gets ridiculously confusing. If Quantum was using her, why? In the unlikely event an MI6 agent won the tournament? Let's back up. They go to the trouble of kidnapping a treasury secretary's boyfriend (or telling her so) to help them get access to money that an MI6 agent "might" win? This means Vesper's job is to help Bond win, in which case her anger over buying him back in was inconsistent with her aim. She needed Bond to win to save her boyfriend's life. I could go on and on, but none of it made sense. And to boot, knowing Vesper is dead, they stage Yusef's fake death? Why? To throw Bond off?
3. Furthermore, since Quantum needed Vesper to get access to the money, why did they allow her to be taken by LeChiffre and tortured. HOWEVER, in the book, the kidnapping was all a ploy. If the movie is following this line, then we're even further down the rabbit hole, because if LeChiffre knows who Vesper is, then why the heck is he all pissy? He knows Vesper will get him the money. No, it's pretty clear that LeChiffre had no idea who Vesper was working with/for.
4. The money was used to spare her boyfriend's life. But then M says that it was used to spare Bond's. The suggestion is there that Vesper dealt the money for Bond rather than Yusef. OK...let's say Yusef was working for Quantum. Then Mr. White still would have executed Bond there in Venice. He had no allegiance to her deal. She was dead. Remember, White says, "If she hadn't killed herself, we would have had you, too." Huh? Because they were loyal to her??? They did have him. Right there.
In short, there is no correct way to deconstruct this mess.
Vesper's kidnapping in the movie CR is also a ploy. Vesper does not get the password for the money until later.
"If she hadn't killed herself, we would have had you too" could refer to them turning Bond into a double agent.
Sure. I think the process for the writers including these tropes is to largely forget about these things while they're writing the story, but then occasionally say "Wait a second. A Q scene would work perfectly here", rather than trying to hamfist all of them in whether its necessary or not.
As far as box-ticking goes, if there's 10 boxes, instead of ticking 9 of them, EON should try to tick 3 of them. Leave people in suspense. If you have a "Bond, James Bond" line in every movie, it gets predictable. But if you go two movies without it, and then all of a sudden it comes at a perfect time, it would feel great.
I agree @Carty, we don't need to hear "Bond, James Bond" "Shaken not stirred" every time. Q can pop up in the field, so we don't need a tour of the lab in each film either.
Not my favorite sequence. My main problem with the Madagascar chase is that it goes on forever with virtually no dialogue to break it up. I'm simply bored while the action keeps going and going.
Agreed. It's fake and terrible. Not sure how that was approved by Campbell or by anyone else.
I've never thought about it too hard. Doesn't bother me. But I guess it does have a car commercial quality to it.
But then you wouldn't have a movie. More outlandish and nonsensical things have happened in Bond films. In an ideal world the plot would be airtight every time, but when it comes down to it, you can poke your finger through virtually everything with explosions that's come out of Hollywood over the past 30, 40, 50 years like it was a piece of swiss cheese. Doesn't invalidate your points, but when you can apply the same to, I don't know, 70 or 80% of the series, in a sense it kind of does.
Agreed. Between the Madagascar chase and the airport chase, Casino Royale has plenty of fat that needs a-trimmin'.
I've never been to Miami. Was the Prague airport substituted for Miami Airport? If so I guess that would be distracting if you're familiar with the airports.
Here we come back to my swiss cheese comparison. At the end of the day, they're both swiss cheese. It's just one has bigger holes, smells a bit funny, and has some wonky CGI growing on it.
The Bodyworks exhibit is supposed to be in downtown Miami. And it's anything but, even though they placed a few palm trees on the streets to give it this appearance. It only made it worse.
TBH, since they filmed on location in the Bahamas, I don't know why they couldn't have used parts of downtown Nassau to double as Miami. They must have had reasons.
Gotcha. I suppose they figured they were filming indoors for most of it and the Bodyworlds exhibit has traveled enough around the globe. Still, I see where you're coming from living in a place and seeing it represented by a poor substitute on film.
Great post.