No more personal stories

24

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  • SzonanaSzonana Mexico
    Posts: 1,130
    I don't mind stories getting a bitt personal as long as they don't trap themselves as making a direct sequel of that film and still there is that regular professional mission like in all the Pierce films.


    In goldeneye Bond was a friend to Alec but still his mission was stop the Goldeneye to be launched and destroy it.
    In Tomorrow never dies he was Paris ex Boyfriend but still his mission was to stop WW3.
    In The world is not enough was about not letting a whole city to be ill because of a newclear weapon and yet Bond felt something fir Elektra and had to save M
    And Die another day shut down the Icarus but still looked for The person who betrayed him north corea and clean up his name.


    So i think the mold for the next Bond movies should be the Pierce Brosnan flicks, maybe the scripts a little more polished but follow his formula.



  • GoldenGunGoldenGun Per ora e per il momento che verrà
    edited May 2016 Posts: 6,758
    In LTK it was fresh, now it's a bit worn out I'm afraid.

    Ideally, we get one personal story every three films or so. The Craig era has been a bit too eager it seems.
  • ShardlakeShardlake Leeds, West Yorkshire, England
    edited May 2016 Posts: 4,043
    Skyfall should have been it and SPECTRE should have been the introduction of that organisation with no links to Bond's past.

    The films need to stay far away from personal stories for the forseeable future.

    The problem is I think actors like this element so I wouldn't nescessarily expect it to be gone when the next actor roles up.
  • Mendes4LyfeMendes4Lyfe The long road ahead
    Posts: 7,969
    GoldenGun wrote: »
    In LTK it was fresh, now it's a bit worn out I'm afraid.

    Ideally, we get one personal story every three films or so. The Craig era has been a bit too eager it seems.

    The thing is each of the Craig films have been trying to be important, like OHMSS and CR. SP was a little different in that regard, because it was a more straight mission, but not entirely.
  • M_BaljeM_Balje Amsterdam, Netherlands
    Posts: 4,416
    Mabey we going to re-meet Madeline her mother.

    spectre1.jpg
    latest?cb=20151204193507
    skyfall-columbia-img07.jpg
    Mother in Skyfall. (Two moms in one room if we count Dench M)
    Motive: Writings On The Wall. Motive 2: We have people everywhere. Motive 3: Another person/reasen found for possible Bond 25 or Bond 26 title: Property Of Lady.
  • Posts: 19,339
    Just give me a stand-alone Craig Bond film,before I lose the will to live !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • edited November 2016 Posts: 4,599
    The trouble is, if they keep Blofeld in the story, they are locked into the "personal" theme as he is the "author of all your pain" etc with the childhood connection. If they do want a traditional Bond story with no personal connection, then they have to dump Blofeld . By doing so, they will be admitting that they made a big mistake with the whole concept of SP and I ma not sure they will do that.

    Another thought, I think we have to differentiate between personal stories that stick within the confines of that movie (in SF, the slate was clean and he was ready to start a new story ) rather than personal stories which impact the whole Bond world and make it hard to continue down a new route.

    Bond is not a robot and it seems perfectly OK to me to see him emotionally connect with characters. But surely SP is the worst example of tampering with the whole Bond universe in an attempt to create a greater emotional connection/impact, simply failing and leaving a right royal mess to clear up.

    Perhaps we should see the introduction of the "SF Rule". Every Bond script leaves him fresh to start a new adventure.
  • Posts: 15,785
    The only thing personal I want in B25 is 007's personal preference how a martini should be made. In fact, I could even do without that for the next couple of films.
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    edited November 2016 Posts: 5,921
    What if Bond 25 were all personal?

    Bond, smarting from Madeleine dumping him between films, self-destructs the Aston and is consoled by Q and his cats over a pint. Place gunbarrel here for an "artistic" reason. Moneypenny arrives to give Bond his mission--M has been kidnapped by some former enemies in Ireland--but she suffers from flashbacks from shooting Bond atop the train in Turkey so she resigns on a Sony phone and is replaced by Tanner. Wracked with guilt over betraying Bond in Tokyo, Tanner wields a long-missing photo of Greene ("my first briefing was my best, 007") then jumps to his death from the inexplicably-still-not-quite-destroyed ruins of SF's MI6 building. Camille shows up for no particular reason, spouts some nonsense about revenge, and Bond yet again does not sleep with her despite her obvious hotness.

    Bond jumps into his Ford Mondeo and drives up to Belfast, where Blofeld paralyzes him by forcing him to watch home movies of their ski holidays in Kitzbühel while he practices his bird calls. Insert nonsensical shot of Birds of the West Indies. When Blofeld suddenly notices that he has no socks and in embarrassment accidentally pushes the wrong button, another eeriely prescient post-mortem video from Dench-M reveals that she foresaw Blofeld's torture of Bond, and with a high-pitched sound, she activates Bond to rescue Fiennes-M and kill Blofeld. Bond awakens to see a white cat and Vesper, who faked her own drowning ("Surely you knew there are simpler ways to commit suicide, James") to escape her bizarre love triangle with Yusef and Corinne. She falls into Bond's arms, "Oh, James."

    James Bond will return.
  • Mendes4LyfeMendes4Lyfe The long road ahead
    Posts: 7,969
    SPECTRE is like an enigma. I love the sections where it is like a traditional Bond film, like the opening and clinic scenes and the train fight. That's all great, it felt like a return to tradition, and a welcome one. However due to it still being a Craig film, the personal and political aspects seem like they were stapled on, and achieve little more than to weight the film down. I still enjoy this film greatly, but its one of the most overlong and tonally inconsistent entries in the franchise.

    My hope for Bond 25 is that they cut out all the fat, including the personal subplots. But I also hope they make a lighter entry, with a quicker pace, perhaps around 120 mins. I'm really fed up with the overambitious piling on of elements until the films sinks under its own weight. Bond needs to be snappy and punchy, he needs to get his groove back and swagger. I would never say I was a huge fan of the Brosnan era as a whole, but recently I have begun to enjoy them alot more after SF QoS and SP.
  • SuperintendentSuperintendent A separate pool. For sharks, no less.
    Posts: 870
    echo wrote: »
    Insert nonsensical shot of Birds of the West Indies.

    This should be a must for every Bond film from now on.

  • edited November 2016 Posts: 6,844
    echo wrote: »
    What if Bond 25 were all personal?

    Bond, smarting from Madeleine dumping him between films, self-destructs the Aston and is consoled by Q and his cats over a pint. Place gunbarrel here for an "artistic" reason. Moneypenny arrives to give Bond his mission--M has been kidnapped by some former enemies in Ireland--but she suffers from flashbacks from shooting Bond atop the train in Turkey so she resigns on a Sony phone and is replaced by Tanner. Wracked with guilt over betraying Bond in Tokyo, Tanner wields a long-missing photo of Greene ("my first briefing was my best, 007") then jumps to his death from the inexplicably-still-not-quite-destroyed ruins of SF's MI6 building. Camille shows up for no particular reason, spouts some nonsense about revenge, and Bond yet again does not sleep with her despite her obvious hotness.

    Bond jumps into his Ford Mondeo and drives up to Belfast, where Blofeld paralyzes him by forcing him to watch home movies of their ski holidays in Kitzbühel while he practices his bird calls. Insert nonsensical shot of Birds of the West Indies. When Blofeld suddenly notices that he has no socks and in embarrassment accidentally pushes the wrong button, another eeriely prescient post-mortem video from Dench-M reveals that she foresaw Blofeld's torture of Bond, and with a high-pitched sound, she activates Bond to rescue Fiennes-M and kill Blofeld. Bond awakens to see a white cat and Vesper, who faked her own drowning ("Surely you knew there are simpler ways to commit suicide, James") to escape her bizarre love triangle with Yusef and Corinne. She falls into Bond's arms, "Oh, James."

    James Bond will return.

    The sad thing is I can actually see ALL of that happening in Bond 25 under the directorship of Sam Mendes except any and all references to Quantum of Solace, which is the one and only Daniel Craig film that henceforth shall not be referenced or named. (Somebody on Spectre's design team got sneaky, however, and snuck a photo of Amalric onto Q's laptop there.)

    Edit: I particularly like how the story thread about M being kidnapped by enemies in Ireland is dropped completely in the second half of the film in favor of Blah-blah-blah-feld. Really in keeping with the trend of things. ;)
  • BMW_with_missilesBMW_with_missiles All the usual refinements.
    Posts: 3,000
    echo wrote: »
    What if Bond 25 were all personal?

    Bond, smarting from Madeleine dumping him between films, self-destructs the Aston and is consoled by Q and his cats over a pint. Place gunbarrel here for an "artistic" reason. Moneypenny arrives to give Bond his mission--M has been kidnapped by some former enemies in Ireland--but she suffers from flashbacks from shooting Bond atop the train in Turkey so she resigns on a Sony phone and is replaced by Tanner. Wracked with guilt over betraying Bond in Tokyo, Tanner wields a long-missing photo of Greene ("my first briefing was my best, 007") then jumps to his death from the inexplicably-still-not-quite-destroyed ruins of SF's MI6 building. Camille shows up for no particular reason, spouts some nonsense about revenge, and Bond yet again does not sleep with her despite her obvious hotness.

    Bond jumps into his Ford Mondeo and drives up to Belfast, where Blofeld paralyzes him by forcing him to watch home movies of their ski holidays in Kitzbühel while he practices his bird calls. Insert nonsensical shot of Birds of the West Indies. When Blofeld suddenly notices that he has no socks and in embarrassment accidentally pushes the wrong button, another eeriely prescient post-mortem video from Dench-M reveals that she foresaw Blofeld's torture of Bond, and with a high-pitched sound, she activates Bond to rescue Fiennes-M and kill Blofeld. Bond awakens to see a white cat and Vesper, who faked her own drowning ("Surely you knew there are simpler ways to commit suicide, James") to escape her bizarre love triangle with Yusef and Corinne. She falls into Bond's arms, "Oh, James."

    James Bond will return.

    And don't forget the brooding. Lots of brooding from our moody, bad-boy Bond.
  • M16_CartM16_Cart Craig fanboy?
    Posts: 538
    I appreciate the personal stories when (A) they're done well and (B) not done to excess.

    I think Craig's first 3 films did them well, though while any 4th film of it would've resulted in inertia, Spectre didn't do much on that front aside from toss those elements in and expect us to find them meaningful because "this is the final level, guys, full circle!".
  • Posts: 19,339
    Birdleson wrote: »
    I still can't find the enjoyment with SP that many others have. I can (finally) be entertained by bits and pieces leading up to the introduction of Swann at the clinic (after that I'm bored, even was in that first viewing). But certainly nothing in the film strikes me as particularly memorable or breathtaking. There is no great Bondian moment, in my eyes. No aspect that I look forward to beyond the gunbarrel (and even that falls short of expectations at its close).

    Doesn't Bond getting his arse kicked by Hinx on the train raise any emotion , @Birdleson ?

  • Posts: 19,339
    Fair enough....where is SP on your list btw ?
  • Posts: 19,339
    What don't you like about him ?
  • Posts: 19,339
    I do admit,its the performance I like the least,and he does come over as arrogant in parts,and over-confident.
    But part of me wonders if it is Bond or maybe Craig himself is getting over-confident,and maybe big-headed..he seemed a bit like that in his interviews compared to his other 3 films..and he had a lot of power in the production of SP.
  • Posts: 6,727
    I think theres always been an arrogance to Craigs performances! Its what makes him human, arrogance means he makes mistakes and then he has to put things right! It makes for more exciting viewing! Apart from SF, which he just seemed burnt out, and apart from the scene where he turns the tables on Silva, i didnt really engage with Craigs performance! Much like the film! I want to like it, but it just isn't happening!
  • Posts: 4,325
    Isn't Bond meant to be arrogant?
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited December 2016 Posts: 17,727
    I think that given the structure of the Craig era Bond films and that they are now dependent on the Spectre Bond Blofeld brother story to keep them going, we are bound to see personal-tinged missions for at least the next two Bond films, regardless of whether Craig returns to the role or not. I think (and hope) that Craig will return by the way. So, in other words then, the forecast is more of the same in the next few Bond films the short to medium term.
  • edited December 2016 Posts: 19,339
    tanaka123 wrote: »
    Isn't Bond meant to be arrogant?

    Of course,but this was a different kind of arrogance to his other 3 films,not as subtle...its hard for me to explain tbh,but I can see where @Birdleson is coming from regarding this.

    Don't get me wrong,i still like his performance in SP of course,just not as much as the other three.

  • peterpeter Toronto
    Posts: 8,254
    Craig's Bond is arrogant which is tied to his ego. He always has to be right. He has to be. Vesper warned him of this, and, although this arrogance has been tempered a little, he still needs it to survive. He can't doubt himself. That's why Craig's 007 feels like he jumps all in.
  • Posts: 14,799
    I think in SP the foster brother angle gave personal motivations... To Blofeld. Bond is surprisingly oblivious about it. He even calls and refers to Blofeld as Blofeld and not Hans Oberhauser the moment his nemesis reveals his new name!

    I love SP but the history between Bond and Blofeld was superfluous. That he was "the author of all his pain" was more than enough to create antagonism and personal motivation.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 17,727
    Birdleson wrote: »
    What I really don't like is that now we are left with the retro-fact that every mission that we have seen Craig connected with, aside from Dryden and Fisher at the start, was because of Blofeld, who more than implied in his own words is a villain because of a childhood jealousy of Bond. So Bond as a 00 and MI6 essentially exist because of this guy and his agenda.
    One could say that Connery's run was similar, but we had GF which also included one unrelated PTS. Plus, unrelated missions were referenced. In other words, we at least got the impression that Connery Bond had regular functions beyond Blofeld, SPECTRE and the past transgressions of MI6.

    Yes, and for a while there we thought that SF and Silva were like GF in that Quantum dud not feature there. Of course SP came along and showed us all just how wrong we were. Some of us felt chested by this. It would have been refreshing and nice for Silva to have remained an independent individual quite apart from Quantum and SPECTRE but it was not to be as it worked out. No repeat of another third film by a Bond actor, GF.
  • DaltonCraig007DaltonCraig007 They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."
    edited December 2016 Posts: 15,686
    SP retro-actively connecting all the previous Craig films together is not a problem, IMO. It was clear to me, from the get-go, that the Craig era was going to be one big thing. The big gripe I have against SP's motivations of Blofeld, is that the way it is presented, and with the dialogue said, SP makes it feel like CR, QOS and SF are the only missions Craig Bond has been involved in. It doesn't sit right with me after SF has made it clear (to me) that Craig Bond has been in several operations since QOS and had now become a seasoned agent. I always like to think that Connery Bond/Moore Bond/Dalton Bond/Brosnan Bond were active in missions in-between their respective films, so I didn't like that SP is suggesting that Craig Bond's entire career was seen in CR, QOS and SF.
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,371
    Having a plan since the inception of CR to tie Craig's era together would've been one thing, but trying to make it all work as one after being four films in didn't do it for me in the slightest. Made it all seem sloppy and forced.
  • edited December 2016 Posts: 6,844
    Birdleson wrote: »
    What I really don't like is that now we are left with the retro-fact that every mission that we have seen Craig connected with, aside from Dryden and Fisher at the start, was because of Blofeld, who more than implied in his own words is a villain because of a childhood jealousy of Bond. So Bond as a 00 and MI6 essentially exist because of this guy and his agenda.
    One could say that Connery's run was similar, but we had GF which also included one unrelated PTS. Plus, unrelated missions were referenced. In other words, we at least got the impression that Connery Bond had regular functions beyond Blofeld, SPECTRE and the past transgressions of MI6.

    Well, the other huge difference between Craig's run and Connery's run is that—as you briefly mentioned in your first paragraph—60s SPECTRE exists in spite of Bond whereas 21st Century SPECTRE exists because of Bond.

    In the 60s, SPECTRE only became aware of Bond because Bond went after SPECTRE during the events of Dr. No. FRWL was really the only mission where things were personal for SPECTRE, and even then the killing of Bond was part of a larger plot to steal the Lektor and publicly discredit the British Secret Service. The only other time things get personal is when Blofeld goes after Tracy at the end of OHMSS. Apart from that it's SPECTRE doing its thing and Bond acting to stop them. If 60s Bond didn't exist, the world would be done for.

    Whereas with 21st Century SPECTRE, evidently the whole organization and Blofeld himself as we know him today only exist because Bond ruined Blofeld's childhood. So if Bond never existed—or if his parents hadn't died or if he hadn't gone on to join Mi6 but had become a baker or a painter instead—SPECTRE wouldn't exist. Which means no Quantum for LeChiffre or Greene to be a part of, no funding for Silva, no 9 Eyes, no nuthin'. In other words, if the world had no 007 during Craig's tenure then Vesper, Judi's M, and Ronson would still be alive, Moneypenny would be less traumatized, and the world would generally be a safer place. Quite the contrast from the SPECTRE of the 60s.

    Edit: And you more or less said the same thing in the post just before mine—creating his own mess to clean up. ;)
  • Posts: 1,478
    Co-conspirator -- Franz, just to be clear. Why are we spending all this money and setting up this massive organization?
    Blofeld--Because I am upset at my step brother and I want to be able to say," I am the author of all your pain."

    That's pretty much how I see the whole dopey Bond brothers plot device. It exists to say one dumb line. The next film needs to find a way to debunk that idea and move on. Erase the whole damn plot line as 'Dallas' did the year the producers erased an entire season that went off the rails.
  • edited December 2016 Posts: 4,622
    echo wrote: »
    What if Bond 25 were all personal?

    Bond, smarting from Madeleine dumping him between films, self-destructs the Aston and is consoled by Q and his cats over a pint. Place gunbarrel here for an "artistic" reason. Moneypenny arrives to give Bond his mission--M has been kidnapped by some former enemies in Ireland--but she suffers from flashbacks from shooting Bond atop the train in Turkey so she resigns on a Sony phone and is replaced by Tanner. Wracked with guilt over betraying Bond in Tokyo, Tanner wields a long-missing photo of Greene ("my first briefing was my best, 007") then jumps to his death from the inexplicably-still-not-quite-destroyed ruins of SF's MI6 building. Camille shows up for no particular reason, spouts some nonsense about revenge, and Bond yet again does not sleep with her despite her obvious hotness.

    Bond jumps into his Ford Mondeo and drives up to Belfast, where Blofeld paralyzes him by forcing him to watch home movies of their ski holidays in Kitzbühel while he practices his bird calls. Insert nonsensical shot of Birds of the West Indies. When Blofeld suddenly notices that he has no socks and in embarrassment accidentally pushes the wrong button, another eeriely prescient post-mortem video from Dench-M reveals that she foresaw Blofeld's torture of Bond, and with a high-pitched sound, she activates Bond to rescue Fiennes-M and kill Blofeld. Bond awakens to see a white cat and Vesper, who faked her own drowning ("Surely you knew there are simpler ways to commit suicide, James") to escape her bizarre love triangle with Yusef and Corinne. She falls into Bond's arms, "Oh, James."

    James Bond will return.

    :)) Please, don't be giving them ideas!
    The scariest part of that treatment, is Blofeld without socks ...again!!!
    Maybe Eon should just stop making Bond movies, because based on the latest drek, @echoe 's treatment is something they might actually consider.

    @somekindofhero Yes, well put re the stark differences between Spectre of the '60s and the current edition.
    Old Spectre or more to the point, the old iterations of Blofeld were so much more enjoyable, so much less strained .
    My understanding as to the reason for the brother angle in SP, is that dumbass Mendes needed something like this, something personal, to make him excited enough to do another Bond.
    In fact Mendes has said as much.
    It truly is all Mendes fault, and of course Babs and Craig's for humouring him.
    Craig to his credit at least, played Bond as not-giving-a-toss about the brother angle. Rather this tedious, utterly superfluous, not-interesting-at-all back story, was entirely Blofeld's obsession.
    Poor Mendes, it almost seems Craig tricked him.
    Going forward, this being cinema fiction, Eon need not be burdened by the brother angle in any meaningful way, and that's even if all of Swann, Waltz and Craig return.
    Eon can write the sequel anyway they want. The key is that Mendes is gone!!!
    Bond can be Bond, blunt instrument on mission, which is pretty much what he was in SP, despite all the character drama surrounding him.
    Blofeld can be good ole Ernst, motivated by his world domination obsession, with a sidebar of I-hate-Bond because he effs up all my plans, and away we go.
    I figure some riff on Fleming's YOLT and Castle of Death is in the offing, with or without Swann.
    Bond doesn't even have to be motivated by revenge. He just needs reason to attack the Castle of Death and say the dragon within, and he's got plenty.
    Eon chose to reintroduce Blofeld by playing with OHMSS, and Swann as new half-arsed Tracy, but I think they wisely shied away from getting too cute with the Tracy parallel.
    The fact they dropped the "We have all the time in the world' line is telling.
    So I think Blofeld Is Back Part 2 will involve some playing w YOLT, as SP played with OHMSS - an homage of sorts to Blofeld and Spectre's Fleming literary roots.
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