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No Time To Die: Production Diary

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  • RC7RC7
    edited August 2017 Posts: 10,512
    noSolaceleft wrote: »
    I never offered this as something else than a far-fetched theory, but still you have to admit there are many pieces not really fitting together.

    EON have announced Craig is returning via their official site and social media channels. It's not far-fetched it's simply wrong.
  • noSolaceleftnoSolaceleft
    Posts: 1,162
    RC7 wrote: »
    noSolaceleft wrote: »
    I never offered this as something else than a far-fetched theory, but still you have to admit there are many pieces not really fitting together.

    EON have announced Craig is returning via their official site and social media channels. It's not far-fetched it's simply wrong.

    All right, I wasn't aware of that. May I ask you when exactly that happened?
  • MinionMinion Don't Hassle the Bond
    Posts: 1,165
    I'm not seeing anything conspiracy theory worthy here. EON announced a release date last month, and Craig has confirmed he's been signed on to return since about a month prior to that.
  • RC7RC7
    Posts: 10,512
    noSolaceleft wrote: »
    RC7 wrote: »
    noSolaceleft wrote: »
    I never offered this as something else than a far-fetched theory, but still you have to admit there are many pieces not really fitting together.

    EON have announced Craig is returning via their official site and social media channels. It's not far-fetched it's simply wrong.

    All right, I wasn't aware of that. May I ask you when exactly that happened?

    Not long after the Colbert exclusive.
  • noSolaceleftnoSolaceleft
    Posts: 1,162
    Thank you, I just checked it out myself. And still the way it is phrased still doesn't sit right with me. "The actor confirmed". Why not a bold : EON is proud to announce the return of DC in ..."?
    But I admit it's quite possible that I have just read too many detective stories in my life.
  • mattjoesmattjoes Kicking: Impossible
    Posts: 6,726
    Because EON did not confirm DC would play Bond for a fifth in the Colbert Show. DC did. Also, right before that, it says "Daniel Craig is returning to play 007 in Bond 25". That's pretty definitive.

    Craig's announcement makes perfect sense, in retrospect.
  • mattjoesmattjoes Kicking: Impossible
    Posts: 6,726
    bondjames wrote: »
    mattjoes wrote: »
    I
    bondjames wrote: »
    RC7 wrote: »
    bondjames wrote: »
    They shouldn't come to the US to pander to US audiences. That won't work.

    US audiences didn't feel SP was mediocre due to where it was filmed. It had to do with their overall opinion on the quality of the product.

    It was somewhat soulless & clinical for general American tastes. It's been my observation that you've got to give the Americans some grit. Some passion.

    I agree with your first point, but I find the idea US audiences are any more discerning than ROW difficult to accept. They still fork out big money for stuff like Transformers and the Furious films. They'll always spend more on US films than international, which is fair enough.
    I'm not suggesting they're more discerning. Just that they need some passion in their films, even if it's dumb passion. Some soul.

    I've said before that SP comes across very cold. To me it has a distinctly European aesthetic. More suppressed. It's in the characters as much as it is in the ambience.

    SF was the opposite. All heat and bombast. Bursting with charisma.

    Not your average opinion, I know, but I find Craig in Skyfall to be slightly dull, stiff, disengaged, as if in every scene, his mind (Bond's mind) was somewhere else. The film reflects that. It has plenty of interesting, even fascinating scenes and moments, but it doesn't come together as a satisfying experience. It's Skyfall that feels cold to me, instead of Spectre. Obviously, audiences didn't feel that way or they just didn't evaluate the film in those terms.

    Quantum of Solace had a similar reception to Spectre. Would you say it had less passion and grit than Skyfall? I wouldn't, and I'm not particularly crazy about the movie. It's a dark, though energetic and well made film, except for the action scenes.

    While I'm cool with the idea of analyzing the reasons behind a film's success or failure, I'm not convinced by this particular line of thinking.
    I don't disagree with you on Craig in SF. I've always maintained that he was somewhat secondary to the success of that film. It was everything that was going on around him which resonated.

    With QoS, I just remember it suffering in comparison to CR. There were a lot of Bourne rip-off comments, especially since it followed The Bourne Ultimatum which was a massive hit in the prior year. I wouldn't say that the characters in this film would necessarily be expected to resonate with North American audiences either. Again they are more European in flavour imho, particularly Greene.

    I'm perhaps not using the right words to explain it and it's not easy to explain really. I think North American audiences need clear motivation for the antagonist's behaviour and it must be simple to understand. Revenge is passionate, and it's easy to relate to. The character must sell it though. Not necessarily flamboyantly, but convincingly. That came across in SF (Bardem nailed it), but it's not there in QoS or SP which are more subtle and opaque when it comes to rationale. Greene was just a cog in QoS and there was nothing else to hold onto (unlike Vesper/Bond in CR).
    I see what you mean now, and I agree that Quantum and Spectre are less obvious in that way, though I don't think that's necessarily indicative of their quality as films (Spectre's script, however, is not only opaque in this respect; it's muddled). Ultimately, you're talking about the "hooks" a film has, the way it engages the audience.

    bondjames wrote: »
    mattjoes wrote: »
    I
    bondjames wrote: »
    RC7 wrote: »
    bondjames wrote: »
    They shouldn't come to the US to pander to US audiences. That won't work.

    US audiences didn't feel SP was mediocre due to where it was filmed. It had to do with their overall opinion on the quality of the product.

    It was somewhat soulless & clinical for general American tastes. It's been my observation that you've got to give the Americans some grit. Some passion.

    I agree with your first point, but I find the idea US audiences are any more discerning than ROW difficult to accept. They still fork out big money for stuff like Transformers and the Furious films. They'll always spend more on US films than international, which is fair enough.
    I'm not suggesting they're more discerning. Just that they need some passion in their films, even if it's dumb passion. Some soul.

    I've said before that SP comes across very cold. To me it has a distinctly European aesthetic. More suppressed. It's in the characters as much as it is in the ambience.

    SF was the opposite. All heat and bombast. Bursting with charisma.

    Not your average opinion, I know, but I find Craig in Skyfall to be slightly dull, stiff, disengaged, as if in every scene, his mind (Bond's mind) was somewhere else. The film reflects that. It has plenty of interesting, even fascinating scenes and moments, but it doesn't come together as a satisfying experience. It's Skyfall that feels cold to me, instead of Spectre. Obviously, audiences didn't feel that way or they just didn't evaluate the film in those terms.

    Quantum of Solace had a similar reception to Spectre. Would you say it had less passion and grit than Skyfall? I wouldn't, and I'm not particularly crazy about the movie. It's a dark, though energetic and well made film, except for the action scenes.

    While I'm cool with the idea of analyzing the reasons behind a film's success or failure, I'm not convinced by this particular line of thinking.
    On a related note, I personally think Craig has been a very inaccessible Bond since CR. In the first film, we really got to know him in character. He had a spark. Since then he's been somewhat closed off as a persona because the scripts haven't permitted him to reveal himself as much.
    Yes, I agree with this. That openness is not something that a Bond film requires, but Casino Royale (and Craig) succeeded at it so well that it's a shame they haven't matched it since in that department. In CR, Bond having Vesper with him for much of the running time facilitated that aspect, but Quantum and Skyfall let us down in that respect, even though their female characters were interesting and shed some light on Bond. Spectre brought a bit of the CR spark back, especially through Bond's promise to White of taking care of his daughter, and the relationship between Bond and Madeleine. But the films haven't managed to adequately and sustainedly intertwine the narrative with that openness in Bond's character that CR had. (Which is not navel gazing, by the way.) I think Bond working on his own for long stretches of time is something that might get in the way of that. There is no other character to anchor the film, or they are not prominent enough.
  • barryt007barryt007
    Posts: 19,339
    But if that is the case ,as you say,with American audiences,then why is LTK the lowest revenue Bond ?

    OK,it wasn't marketed well and had stiff opposition ,but,surely ,word of mouth would have stated it was a blatant antagonist in the film,chaps eh ?
  • bondjamesbondjames You were expecting someone else?
    edited August 2017 Posts: 23,883
    mattjoes wrote: »
    bondjames wrote: »
    mattjoes wrote: »
    I
    bondjames wrote: »
    RC7 wrote: »
    bondjames wrote: »
    They shouldn't come to the US to pander to US audiences. That won't work.

    US audiences didn't feel SP was mediocre due to where it was filmed. It had to do with their overall opinion on the quality of the product.

    It was somewhat soulless & clinical for general American tastes. It's been my observation that you've got to give the Americans some grit. Some passion.

    I agree with your first point, but I find the idea US audiences are any more discerning than ROW difficult to accept. They still fork out big money for stuff like Transformers and the Furious films. They'll always spend more on US films than international, which is fair enough.
    I'm not suggesting they're more discerning. Just that they need some passion in their films, even if it's dumb passion. Some soul.

    I've said before that SP comes across very cold. To me it has a distinctly European aesthetic. More suppressed. It's in the characters as much as it is in the ambience.

    SF was the opposite. All heat and bombast. Bursting with charisma.

    Not your average opinion, I know, but I find Craig in Skyfall to be slightly dull, stiff, disengaged, as if in every scene, his mind (Bond's mind) was somewhere else. The film reflects that. It has plenty of interesting, even fascinating scenes and moments, but it doesn't come together as a satisfying experience. It's Skyfall that feels cold to me, instead of Spectre. Obviously, audiences didn't feel that way or they just didn't evaluate the film in those terms.

    Quantum of Solace had a similar reception to Spectre. Would you say it had less passion and grit than Skyfall? I wouldn't, and I'm not particularly crazy about the movie. It's a dark, though energetic and well made film, except for the action scenes.

    While I'm cool with the idea of analyzing the reasons behind a film's success or failure, I'm not convinced by this particular line of thinking.
    I don't disagree with you on Craig in SF. I've always maintained that he was somewhat secondary to the success of that film. It was everything that was going on around him which resonated.

    With QoS, I just remember it suffering in comparison to CR. There were a lot of Bourne rip-off comments, especially since it followed The Bourne Ultimatum which was a massive hit in the prior year. I wouldn't say that the characters in this film would necessarily be expected to resonate with North American audiences either. Again they are more European in flavour imho, particularly Greene.

    I'm perhaps not using the right words to explain it and it's not easy to explain really. I think North American audiences need clear motivation for the antagonist's behaviour and it must be simple to understand. Revenge is passionate, and it's easy to relate to. The character must sell it though. Not necessarily flamboyantly, but convincingly. That came across in SF (Bardem nailed it), but it's not there in QoS or SP which are more subtle and opaque when it comes to rationale. Greene was just a cog in QoS and there was nothing else to hold onto (unlike Vesper/Bond in CR).
    I see what you mean now, and I agree that Quantum and Spectre are less obvious in that way, though I don't think that's necessarily indicative of their quality as films (Spectre's script, however, is not only opaque in this respect; it's muddled). Ultimately, you're talking about the "hooks" a film has, the way it engages the audience.
    Yes, that's exactly it. For North Americans the hook has to be obvious these days. A far cry from the 70s films that I've seen, which weren't that way.
    mattjoes wrote: »
    bondjames wrote: »
    mattjoes wrote: »
    I
    bondjames wrote: »
    RC7 wrote: »
    bondjames wrote: »
    They shouldn't come to the US to pander to US audiences. That won't work.

    US audiences didn't feel SP was mediocre due to where it was filmed. It had to do with their overall opinion on the quality of the product.

    It was somewhat soulless & clinical for general American tastes. It's been my observation that you've got to give the Americans some grit. Some passion.

    I agree with your first point, but I find the idea US audiences are any more discerning than ROW difficult to accept. They still fork out big money for stuff like Transformers and the Furious films. They'll always spend more on US films than international, which is fair enough.
    I'm not suggesting they're more discerning. Just that they need some passion in their films, even if it's dumb passion. Some soul.

    I've said before that SP comes across very cold. To me it has a distinctly European aesthetic. More suppressed. It's in the characters as much as it is in the ambience.

    SF was the opposite. All heat and bombast. Bursting with charisma.

    Not your average opinion, I know, but I find Craig in Skyfall to be slightly dull, stiff, disengaged, as if in every scene, his mind (Bond's mind) was somewhere else. The film reflects that. It has plenty of interesting, even fascinating scenes and moments, but it doesn't come together as a satisfying experience. It's Skyfall that feels cold to me, instead of Spectre. Obviously, audiences didn't feel that way or they just didn't evaluate the film in those terms.

    Quantum of Solace had a similar reception to Spectre. Would you say it had less passion and grit than Skyfall? I wouldn't, and I'm not particularly crazy about the movie. It's a dark, though energetic and well made film, except for the action scenes.

    While I'm cool with the idea of analyzing the reasons behind a film's success or failure, I'm not convinced by this particular line of thinking.
    On a related note, I personally think Craig has been a very inaccessible Bond since CR. In the first film, we really got to know him in character. He had a spark. Since then he's been somewhat closed off as a persona because the scripts haven't permitted him to reveal himself as much.
    Yes, I agree with this. That openness is not something that a Bond film requires, but Casino Royale (and Craig) succeeded at it so well that it's a shame they haven't matched it since in that department. In CR, Bond having Vesper with him for much of the running time facilitated that aspect, but Quantum and Skyfall let us down in that respect, even though their female characters were interesting and shed some light on Bond. Spectre brought a bit of the CR spark back, especially through Bond's promise to White of taking care of his daughter, and the relationship between Bond and Madeleine. But the films haven't managed to adequately and sustainedly intertwine the narrative with that openness in Bond's character that CR had. (Which is not navel gazing, by the way.) I think Bond working on his own for long stretches of time is something that might get in the way of that. There is no other character to anchor the film, or they are not prominent enough.
    Yes, I agree again. It was the Vesper/Bond aspect which really shed light on Craig's Bond as a character but he's been somewhat 'walled off' to me since then. This could be on account of the writing or it could be due to the lack of female repartee, as you note. I generally find most of the other actors more engaging, & this could be on account of Maibum's input.
  • RogueAgentRogueAgent
    Posts: 12,506
    Maybe the 4K restoration will happen for the 60th anniversary of the franchise along with a new actor in the role?!!!!
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,547
    @RogueAgent
    That makes a lot of sense.

    For the record, I'm superthrilled Craig returns.
  • 00Agent00Agent Any man who drinks Dom Perignon '52 can't be all bad.
    Posts: 5,185
    RogueAgent wrote: »
    Maybe the 4K restoration will happen for the 60th anniversary of the franchise along with a new actor in the role?!!!!

    They will want to cash in on that sooner, for sure. Around Bond25 is more probable, when the Bond hype is in full swing
  • JamesBondKenyaJamesBondKenya Danny Boyle laughs to himself
    Posts: 2,730
    RogueAgent wrote: »
    Maybe the 4K restoration will happen for the 60th anniversary of the franchise along with a new actor in the role?!!!!

    Theyll have like 8k by then
  • ClarkDevlinClarkDevlin Martinis, Girls and Guns
    Posts: 15,423
    JamesBondKenya wrote: »
    RogueAgent wrote: »
    Maybe the 4K restoration will happen for the 60th anniversary of the franchise along with a new actor in the role?!!!!

    Theyll have like 8k by then
    Exactly what I was going to say.
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    edited August 2017 Posts: 5,979
    NickTwentyTwo wrote: »
    I LOVED the CR gunbarrel and loved the Spectre one as well. Controversially I also loved how it just went to black, and we got the text "The dead are alive" which had cool subtext, and then straight into Dia de los Muertos. As long as the gunbarrel is at the beginning of B25, I have faith that it'll be cool.

    Casino Royale, the pseudo-retconning of the gunbarrel to represent his first kill on the path to becoming 007 was brilliant, and it was so unexpected that I was blown away by it when it happened.

    It's not subtext. It's text.
    thelivingroyale wrote: »
    ClarkDevlin wrote: »
    bondjames wrote: »
    ClarkDevlin wrote: »
    RC7 wrote: »
    Barbara had always intended for the organisation behind CR to be Spectre, the prolonged rights issue is the reason for the appearance of Quantum. It's a shame really.
    Just like I expected.
    All they had to do then was not mention the organization by name in the last scene with Greene. A little forethought would have been nice. A pity they did.
    Agreed. It would have been nice to give a little background or some overview of Quantum, whatever was that. That's why it just falls flat in every imaginable sense. Or they could have just left it ambiguous and set up a "true first encounter between Bond and Spectre" without having to name it until they got the rights.

    I genuinely thought that's what they were doing with White's mysterious organisation in CR, setting up a SPECTRE return. And I'm sure I remember reading that mentioning Quanum by name in the scene with Green was a last minute addition because of the backlash to the title. But whether using that as the name of the organisation was planned in advance or not it still makes me hate QoS as a title even more. Not only is it pretentious and weird and the opposite of everything a Bond title should be (sexy, cool, evocative) but they couldn't even commit to it. Why write a film that relates to that meaning, with Bond finding his quantum of solace at the end, but then also name the bad guys Quantum? What does that serve? To anyone who didn't get (or lets be honest, couldn't be arsed to look up, nobody knew what it meant when they announced it) the titles original meaning it still doesn't make sense because yeah the villains are Quantum but what's the solace part mean in that context? God I hate that film.

    The "Q"s were also in the opera scene. Pretty sure it was always the plan to call them by their name, "Quantum."
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    edited August 2017 Posts: 7,526
    It is text, and text can have subtext...?
    I didn't say it was subtext, I said it had subtext.
  • bondjamesbondjames You were expecting someone else?
    Posts: 23,883
    There was certainly subtext as well. It's throughout the film with all the dead people being thrown in our faces via video tapes, childhood photos, hanging photographs, reminders by chief villains etc. etc.
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    edited August 2017 Posts: 9,117
    NickTwentyTwo wrote: »
    It is text, and text can have subtext...?
    I didn't say it was subtext, I said it had subtext.

    You said it 'had cool subtext' when it actually had nothing of the sort.

    The 'Dead Are Alive' subtitle was more student film level of layered on subtext for those too thick to notice it in the actual film frankly. Terrible and just like SF Mendes' delusions of grandeur are more important than giving us an unmolested GB.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    edited August 2017 Posts: 7,526
    Yes and to a certain extent, Blofeld being "dead" to the franchise, and his return.
    And it also plays heavily into the themes of dia de los muertos.
  • RC7RC7
    Posts: 10,512
    TheWizardOfIce wrote: »
    NickTwentyTwo wrote: »
    It is text, and text can have subtext...?
    I didn't say it was subtext, I said it had subtext.

    You said it 'had cool subtext' when it actually had nothing of the sort.

    The 'Dead Are Alive' subtitle was more student film level of layered on subtext for those too thick to notice it in the actual film frankly. Terrible and just like SF Mendes' delusions of grandeur are more important than giving us an unmolested GB.

    If I were 15 and looking for a band name I'd seriously consider 'Unmolested Gunbarrel'.
  • MajorDSmytheMajorDSmythe "I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it."Moderator
    Posts: 13,894
    TheWizardOfIce wrote: »
    NickTwentyTwo wrote: »
    It is text, and text can have subtext...?
    I didn't say it was subtext, I said it had subtext.

    You said it 'had cool subtext' when it actually had nothing of the sort.

    The 'Dead Are Alive' subtitle was more student film level of layered on subtext for those too thick to notice it in the actual film frankly. Terrible and just like SF Mendes' delusions of grandeur are more important than giving us an unmolested GB.

    "Did you touch it?"
    "That's between me, and the gunbarrel."
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    What can I say chaps? When it comes to fucking up the GB Mendes is the Savile to Forster's Fritzl.
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,330
    It's still better than the CR/QOS and SF gunbarrels.
  • MajorDSmytheMajorDSmythe "I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it."Moderator
    Posts: 13,894
    They should have just stuck with the GE-DAD gun barrel. Even now, that still looks more classy than the CR, QOS, SF & SP gun barrels.
  • barryt007barryt007
    Posts: 19,339
    Murdock wrote: »
    It's still better than the CR/QOS and SF gunbarrels.

    Agreed...at least its a sign that things have settled finally....and this is from a Moore baby ,who grew up with him being my Bond.

    To lose the gunbarrel (CR not included ,that was cleverly done) properly for QOS & SF did hurt ,at the cinema..at least SP has nearly got it right.
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,330
    Hopefully Bond 25's gunbarrel is like this.
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    Murdock wrote: »
    Hopefully Bond 25's gunbarrel is like this.

    Yep it really is that simple EON.
  • RC7RC7
    Posts: 10,512
    TheWizardOfIce wrote: »
    What can I say chaps? When it comes to fucking up the GB Mendes is the Savile to Forster's Fritzl.

    Can't believe you got them both in.
  • mattjoesmattjoes Kicking: Impossible
    edited August 2017 Posts: 6,726
    They really need to have it expand at the end and reveal the first shot of the film, though. I like that because it turns the gunbarrel into a kind of gateway into the world of the movie.

    Edit: the people who came up with the intro to Never Say Never Again understood that. It shows the camera literally crossing over into the world of Bond. It looks good.
  • barryt007barryt007
    edited August 2017 Posts: 19,339
    Murdock wrote: »
    Hopefully Bond 25's gunbarrel is like this.

    Do me a cheeky favour @Murdock and put the 1981 FYEO/LTK 1989 onto that Craig gunbarrel if u can ?
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