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Comments
I applaud your reach brudder.
"Small world..." *smirk*
I like the butler, but I REALLY like his nerdy assistant. I don't know what it is, but he's really loveable somehow.
I think people discount the importance of little moments, or minor characters, or interesting sets in appraising Spectre. "I gotta brudda" from DAF, "Double sixes, fancy that" from OP, these little moments are highlights of their films. The design of the room where Dent gets the tarantula raises the quality of Dr No substantially. Locque in FYEO does very little, but is a treat to watch. And Spectre is full to the brim with great minor characters, beautiful set design, and fun, original moments (Q's escape from the goons is so overlooked).
I feel a lot of people are letting their burned hatred of the Brofeld angle or the retconning make them miss loads of great stuff in this film.
(As for me, I've come to enjoy Brofeld for what it is...)
Much like TWINE and TMWTGG, I think that there are a lot of great moments and ideas that are never really allowed to truly grow/develop. Indeed, I often wonder what they all might have been like with even just a few month's worth of extra pre-production.
However, the criticism that SP's look is the result of some kind of horrific post-production colour grading mistake, is objectively wrong. You don't have to like the orange and hazy visuals, but it does look exactly the way it was always intended to.
The camera lenses, set designs, lighting, makeup, and film stock were all chosen with that look in mind; the colour grading was merely the final step. That's why I'm unimpressed by all those "I fixed the SP colour grading" videos out there.
In order to remove the orange look and hazy lighting, they have to artificially boost the colours and sharpen the image and it all ends up looking like an episode of the Tellytubbies.
I'm obviously a massive fan of it as it's my favorite Bond film, but you're absolutely right: this film has all the ingredients to be an indisputable top five film for everyone, and they didn't pull it off. As great as I think it is, it doesn't reach its still-higher potential, and it could have.
Take for instance the scene with Mr White, a great scene with great acting from both but you never get the feeling that either are in any immediate danger, there's no ticking clock aspect and because of this the exposition can feel dull and boring. You feel like Bond and White could sit there and chat forever.
What would have made this particular scene better, is if Bond got there and Mr White tells Bond Spectre have sent someone to kill me and he's on his way. You can then carry on with the scene with mostly the same dialogue. This would then up the stakes and the tension to the dialogue because we the audience would know something is coming but we wouldn't know when it was going to happen.
Then you could have had Bond having to protect a frail Mr White from Hinx, which then gives the audience a callback to Skyfall with Bond having to protect M. Let's say Hinx arrives, a shootout happens and Mr White is killed by Hinx but Bond gets away. Now Bond is fully aware of Mr Hinx's capabilities and now he feels a real responsibility to protect Mr White's daughter Madeline as he couldn't protect her father. Which would in turn add even more stakes to the already great train fight as Bond barely survived his last encounter with Hinx and it would add to the tension of the scene later, when Blofled shows Madeline the tape of her dad dying as it was Bond who couldn't protect him rather than he just shot himself.
It would also add to the pacing of the film, as it would be more like a race against Hinx to get to Madeline and protect her
I had similar thoughts on how this scene could’ve been improved as well. There needed to be an action sequence of some sort. Maybe Hinx, on orders from Blofeld and with a small squad of SPECTRE goons, could’ve led an assault on Mr. White’s chalet to kill both Mr. White and Bond: two for the price of one. Mr. White, however, dies in the process, leading to a chase through the wilderness where Bond has to evade Hinx and his men.
I would’ve preferred something like this as opposed to the scene that we actually got i.e. Bond in the plane having to rescue Madeleine.
I also read this as a bookend to "Every now and then a trigger has to be pulled." "Or not pulled." from Skyfall. Only that it is (like most of SP) not really hitting it correctly, as not shooting Blofeld isn't some complicated, in-the-moment, facts-on-the-ground, tactical decision only Bond could make. In a way Bond is the only person who would possibly execute Blofeld in that situation.
I think the whole film is so bloody smug and pleased with itself.
Which is why the brilliant fight on the train seems so out of step with the rest of the film.
+1. As much as I enjoy the PTS, I gotta admit that the “one shot” take is a little pretentious, as is the SPECTRE meeting. In places where the film should have been hurrying along and getting to the point, it drags the momentum.
1. The PTS one shot bit is great including the initial pan past DC and then back to him as the camera follows Sciarra. May be it is just taking more to impress me these days but I was very underwhelmed by the helicopter fight scene both one first viewing and subsequently.
2. I have no issue with Waltz and Craigs performance, they should have just removed the family connection, it wasn't needed and took something away from the menace of subsequent scenes.
3. The brain drill was a pointless and over the top means of torture that purely served as a setting to provide background details. It would have been better if a more physical threat was presented such as in Casino Royale.
4. The funeral scene and Lucia's villa scenes are excellent
5. Q is brilliant in this and has great scenes with Craig but dragging him to the Hoffler Clinic was a pointless effort to expand the role.
6. I really enjoy the MI6 HQ/funhouse scenes and any opportunity to showcase London is welcome but I feel the Morocco base was underutilised.
7. I just didn't buy into the Madeleine love story, she hated him then he dispatched Dave Bautista and can't keep her hands off him...? I also think Madeline is very one dimensional, I am surprised she is back for NTTD to be honest.
8. DC just doesn't do humour, it doesn't work for him.
I know Fukunaga is a big fan of them, and a fan of doing them right, so I do hope we get something similar from him during an action sequence or set piece in NTTD.
I also saw it as a callback to QOS where Bond has Yusuf arrested rather than killer. Hence his remark in SF.
This is the best negative comment I think you've made against SP. Yes, there are some places where I think they just wanted it to be so pretty they forgot about real conflict... still, I'll take a bit of glacial ride over yelling at the characters onscreen watching them do things that I'd never do (so they certainly shouldn't).
Yes, that's SF. ;)
This time I was a bit more open to it, I guess.
The NTTD trailers look magnificent, even though, again, there are some plot elements that have me rolling my eyes. Yet, I don't think that I will be nearly so disappointed again. With SP, all of the teaser bits that got me excited were the set-up; the set-up of Bond confronting Hermit Mr. White, the set-up of a traditional SPECTRE meeting, set-up Bond v. Blofeld, the score from OHMSS implying that is what they were going for. All great at the time, but in retrospect nothing very cool actually happened in that teaser. No great Bond moments, no great Bond line. Just a really cool bit from Mr. White which was essentially the highlight of the film. Already spoiled.
Yet with these NTTD trailers I can point out several lines and moments that are already worthy of a great Bond film in and of themselves. The Craig from the '00s appears to finally have returned to a degree. So, despite being beaten down, I am fairly happy. But, if they do something extremely dumb and insulting, like kill off Bond, I'll leave it in the dirt and not look back no matter how good it is.
And, as I have stated in the past. Even cracking my Top 20 would be cause for joyous celebration at this point.
Im so disappointed with that last hour or so it dropped from top-five right to the middle-to-low tier of films for me. Overall I think the movie has a major identity problem. Hints of marvel fun, hints of Moore, hints of MI-seriousness. A Bond film that works sticks to what it strives to be.
Things just kind of happen in the last hour with no background detail or cause.
Very good point @MattyHerrmann
The identity problem is why the whole film seems 'off' somehow. It just doesn't work.
Good point, and I feel the same. It's a bit like the record-setting explosion: as a Bond fan, I knew on paper that these things were meant to be really extraordinary, but up on screen it lacked impact.
Maybe it's the way it's filmed or something - I realize that a helicopter doing a barrel rolling loop is bloody impressive, but perhaps it could have been made more visceral or immersive somehow.
Within the helicopter itself, the fight does just feel sort of cramped and I don't get the sense of danger or immediacy that should be just huge.
Hints at M:I seriousness? Whaaat?
It’s the M:I franchise who’s trying to mix a lighter MS fun with some Craig era’s serious tone.