Thoughts on where bond 25 will sit in the rankings. (Page 3 of 4)

Just finished up watching true detective season 1 again  bearing in mind I'm more of a movie fanatic than tv.
I actually think that it's a masterpiece, story is a nice slow burner which builds and builds, some nice side plots that feel in keeping with the main story. The acting is absolutely excellent, the script is stellar. The cinematography is beautiful.
The music is moody and atmospheric. Glad I own this one on blu ray as I'll be sure to watch it again.

Also started watching beasts of no nation again is really good too starts of with some parts actually quite funny then really turns into a pretty horrific movie. Like I say I've yet to see it but what I have seen was really good.

I also brought sin nombre which is cary fukunaga first feature length movie will be sure to report back once I've given it a watch.

I've said it more than once but I'll say it again, what I've seen of cary fukunaga work so far instills me with a large amount of confidence for "No Time to die" I have no doubt the script is going to be good no doubt fukunaga is going to get a great performance out of his actors after what I've seen with true detective. I think he seems a very hands on director and comes across very confidence and sure of what he's trying to achieve in his movies in his audio commentaries.

Not to mention it's likely to look as beautiful as skyfall, as it's not being shot by roger deakins but linus singren who made la la land, first man and American hustle look pretty amazing.

Plus there using IMAX cameras so it could look pretty epic like some of nolan's pictures.

Lastly I can't wait to get my hands on Dan Romers take on bond, I wonder if there will be slight spoilers in the cue names.

Fair comment there I actually didn't binge watch true detective I
Think you lose something in that.
I also wasn't drawn to true detective right away it took time as I've gotten older though I've tended to grow more towards things that take there time.

Do you by any chance like any movies made by the coen brothers?

Also what do you mean when you say McConaugheys character took writing from another writer and past it off as there own? I'd be interested to know where you heard this from or you saw something where a character was very similar.

Did the writer steal from another writer or where they simply inspired by or paying tribute too?

It's been said before john William's stole from many composers including Korngold but I think it's more of a case that his music was on the temp tracks and Lucas wanted something similar.
Once people hear a piece of music so many times it's almost like it's hard to replace it with anything else.

Last edited by You'veHadYourSix (17th Sep 2019 19:49)

It appears that the plagiarism allegations were not directed at Fukunaga, but Nic Pizzolatto, who did most of the writing for True Detective Season 1........

Textbooks, literary and genre short stories (horror, thriller), grants and proposals, nonfiction articles, and all sorts of business documents, including copy for Web sites and annual reports and publications. I've worked on a few movie proposals with others but nothing serious.  Most publications don't have my name since they're work-for-hire; some writing is under a pseudonym.  I've got a few novel drafts in the can, including a spy story, though they're not final drafts.  I'm on the Web so much because I spend so much time writing.  I'm an academic. The plan is to write and consult full time when I retire, which won't be for a bit.   

My personal preference is for those in the Connery/Lazenby era.  I'm least impressed by those in the Brosnan era, though a few Moore films compete.  The rest falls in between, with the Craig films at the top but not quite as good as anything in the Connery/Lazenby era, even if Casino Royale is close. 

A problem with comparisons though, beyond the Ian Fleming source materials being less available past the 60s and 70s, is that films over time aimed for a younger audience.  Goldfinger, for instance, was made with adults in mind, not teenagers.  So the quality of writing is affected in part by who the film sees as the primary audience. 

Still, modern films tend to be rigidly constructed based on character arcs and the like.  They tend to favor minimalist dialogue and character development (with much of the character development being trivia about the character's past or psychological disposition peppering the story) but to push the action, stunts, and special effects to often increasingly absurd levels.  The obsession with making any story personal to the main character is a holdover from how films moved from the studio system to the "auteur" stage in the 70s and 80s.  To me, it's silly.  So, my tastes lean toward a film where a conversation -- such as the dinner one in Dr. No -- or a golf match -- such as the one in Goldfinger -- can be cleverly constructed to say much more than a 25-minute CGI scene.

So, overall, I'd say On Her Majesty's Secret Service is the best written Bond film while A View to a Kill or The World is Not Enough are the least impressive.   But even a Bond film that is closer to that end of the spectrum is pretty good compared to most action films.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service is, to me, the best Bond film story, and the writing supports that.  It's not the most fun -- that nod goes to Goldfinger, which is directed better -- nor the best film -- that nod goes to From Russia with Love, which is written almost as well but a better production.

It may sound contradictory since On Her Majesty's Secret Service seems so personal a film, but that's not entirely true.  Bond's chasing down Blofeld is still extant of his relationship with Tracy until the two stories converge.  It unfolds naturally, the primary difference here being that Bond more deeply falls in love with the Bond girl, who always ends up threatened by the villain anyway.  There's nothing as ham-fisted as Blofeld being Bond's foster brother or whatever in Spectre.  The film is also part of a series and not a one-off, and it introduces the deeply personal element at a time when that wasn't simply part of the formula.

The writing in On Her Majesty's Secret Service is the most solid because it's the most human and grounded, even though the movie more or less sticks to formula.  Bond is treated not as the hero but as a character.  This happens on occasion -- its bookend, Casino Royale, for instance, is more a movie about James Bond than a James Bond movie -- and the films of the Connery era arguably did more in this regard and more consistently than most of what followed.  On Her Majesty's Secret Service is framed as a tragedy, full of irony (Bond is glib and carefree at the beginning while Tracy is suicidal; at the end, when Tracy is happiest and has everything to live for, she's gunned down and Bond is left broken).   It's left up to the viewer to decide if Bond really saved her life or got her killed by association.

In between, there's action, romance, suspense, and comedy.   It delivers with stunts, chases, and set pieces, albeit more realistically framed than most other Bond films, right down to Blofeld, equally tired of the chase, just wanting amnesty and retirement.  There are some great lines -- even Bond's usual sophomoric quips, like "At least for tonight," take on greater significance as the story travels toward its sad conclusion.  Of course, nearly all of this is in the book, but given how many Bond films often have comparatively little to do with Fleming's literary character, this is one of the purest adaptations while also making its own contributions.

The main problem with The World is Not Enough is pretty typical of a modern film, which is to say, it raises a lot of issues and then does little or nothing to deliver on them.  The idea of a terminally ill villain who can no longer feel pain should be terrifying and great fodder for action and suspense, yet almost nothing is done with the Carlyle character.  He ends up being a garden variety thug who has, what, two or three tepid scenes with Bond?  Even the often puerile The Man with the Golden Gun, another movie that promised more than it delivered in these regards, let Bond and Scaramanga interact on occasion during the film.

Elektra being the true villain comes across more as a stunt -- a twist that's supposed to make us say, "Golly, didn't see that coming.
They're so clever." Again, there's no build up, no real emotional weight to it in the construction of the story, despite the ski scene that starts with almost a shot-for-shot remake of the one from On Her Majesty's Secret Service.  I guess we're supposed to harken back to Tracy with Elektra and do the work of the writer to make the emotional connection.  Consider how much is told to us in expository dialogue -- how Renard got shot, how Elektra was kidnapped and tortured, how her father wheeled and dealed, how M and he have been friends since they were young, and so on.  We never once see any of this developed onscreen, but our knowledge of such is somehow supposed to fill in the emotional blanks for us.

Compare that to On Her Majesty's Secret Service.  About the only thing we're told in this respect that compares is how Draco came to meet and marry Tracy's mother, and then how Tracy lived too greedily to get to the state she was at the beginning of the film -- when Bond enters the picture.  There's a dreaded montage scene of their romance, which they can't resist repeating in Casino Royale, but it's still better than a character just talking about it onscreen.  But pretty much everything else is shown to us, and it's done in an organic way.

The World is Not Enough could have stopped after the first 20 minutes.  At least nearly all of that is narrative, and it's good.  There are a few, I guess, inventive puns later -- "Christmas came twice this year (ho, ho, ho)" and "I never miss."

To me, the best written of Brosnan's Bonds is Tomorrow Never Dies, which would have been better under its original title Tomorrow Never Lies.  It, too, suffers from too much exposition, but by gum, the villain actually does something, unlike in the overrated Goldeneye, where as with Renard, a rogue 00 agent -- another fantastic idea for a villain they do almost nothing with-- is just another pretty ordinary bad guy with a Russian general and a computer nerd on the payroll.

The second best Bond film in terms of writing is Dr. No, and if it wasn't for some of the pulp fiction lines that make it seem more like a 40s or 50s movie, I might even argue it's the best.  This movie not only establishes the Bond character but also creates the template for the Bond villain, and that dinner scene is never eclipsed in any other Bond film, though many of them have their version of it.

Do you think purvis and wade are to blame at all?
Or do you think they are simply often the scapegoats?

You should do an audio commentary on your thoughts on
One of the bond films, could be interesting.

Not all of it.  Casino Royale is the only script of theirs I think is better than average, and Paul Haggis had to be brought in to polish it up.  At the same time, I've read here and there about how they had other more creative ideas but somehow these don't make it to the screen.  They could be mundane, formulaic writers or they could be trying to bring something better to the screen but keep getting overridden by other interests.

Film is a collaborative process, and when there's too many cooks in the kitchen, the result is usually a mess.  That's why the better commercial film directors -- Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, and so forth -- tended to work with the same writer(s) or wrote scripts themselves.  Hitchcock in particular was known to put actors in their place.  From his point of view, it was the director's job to have the vision for makes it to the screen from the script.  Actors were to create the characters from the script, not write and direct.

But when directors, producers, and actors start meddling, ideas usually get diluted.  Is that the writer's fault?  Maybe, maybe not.  I suppose it depends on how strong the script is to begin with it and how turf-centered everyone else is.  Someone is supposed to keep track of whether it all makes sense, but after shooting four hours or more of film, some editor often is tasked with putting something together than makes sense.  In fact, editing may be the most important part of the process.

Eh, I babble about this sort of thing, among other, when I teach.  I don't know that anyone else beyond the generous people on these boards needs to be inflicted with it.   

1)  Why does MI:6's greatest computer hacker even need to hire a hit man to steal a laptop hard drive? [Because he can't get the info otherwise]
2)  Why is a 00 sent to retrieve said hard drive, along with two agents who apparently are neither as skilled nor experienced? [The deal went sideways when Patrice intervened and Bond was called in as cleanup]
3)  How is it Bond is fitted with a tracker in Casino Royale (and again in Spectre) in an age of facial recognition and cameras everywhere, yet both he and Silva can just disappear off the grid without effort? [They're spies. And no tracker in Skyfall!].
4)  How could Silva's plan to infiltrate MI:6 possibly have predicted every last detail, such as where Bond would be standing precisely when an Underground train is passing where a bomb somehow has been planted by somebody well beforehand and that a hearing on MI:6's relevancy would be scheduled later that day? [He had bombs set to go off all around London and lured Bond to that location]
5)  How is it that Silva has destroyed MI:6 headquarters and outed agents worldwide but M's home is neither guarded nor treated as a target, too, even while MI:6 is now on "war footing"?[I don't remember this but M makes it clear that she doesn't want a bunch of carnage]
6) If Bond has been declared legally dead, to the point that his family estate is being sold off, why are his effects in storage, and who pocketed the money when his flat was sold?  If MI:6 owned the flat, why did they sell it? [Nobody was living in it]
7) Just why does Bond think going to Skyfall somehow evens the odds when apparently he has no plan whatsoever for when he gets there other than to lure Silva there? [Silva's tech advantages would be limited, Bond would have the machine gun equipped AM and he expected to find a small armory of hunting rifles that he could use to pick off Silva's men from 500+ yards.]
8) If Bond's goal was to stop Silva and keep M alive, how is it it he's not beyond despair for getting her killed? [He was.]

Hope that helps.

You've done more work here than the screenwriters -- which is why it's a lazy script.  I appreciate the effort, but there's very little onscreen to corroborate the speculation here. 

What you're doing is what Star Trek fans do to explain away inconsistencies when the continuity is disrupted.  Why didn't they use the shuttlecraft?  Oh, it was broken that week.  How is it Vulcans can't lie, but Spock does more than once during the series?  He's half human, so he can invoke that side of his heritage when necessary.  Why don't they just beam the genesis device into oblivion?  They couldn't get a lock on because of the nebula.

Better scripts don't require speculation.  Major plot issues are answered concretely either in dialogue or action or both.  Skyfall's is so sloppy in this regard, people have to do what you're doing, though my suspicion is the writer and director just assumed nobody would pay that close attention.  They bundled something together, put it out there, it made money, and that's that.

We don't need minor, obvious actions explained.  Did Bond open the car door before he got in?  Yeah, there's no other way except to break the window, which is intact.  How did Bond know where the warehouse was located?  I dunno, he googled it?  It's not hiding.  Where did M get that bulldog figurine?  A store.  How did Bond get back to London?  Airplane?  Then maybe a taxi?  These sorts of ordinary things have zero bearing on the plot. 

Now, compare this to the script for Casino Royale.  Why was LeChiffre going to bomb the plane?  He's a mathematical genius who needs to crash the stock to cover gambling losses.  Why doesn't M just have him assassinated?  She wants to shut his operation down and not just eliminate him personally.  Why does LeChiffre poison Bond?  He needs Bond out of the game and to make it look like natural causes.  Why is Vesper put on the mission?  She controls the finances and is a check-and-balance against Bond being reckless.  Why does Vesper turn on him?  She's being blackmailed by LeChiffre.  And so on.

The only thing the script doesn't really answer is whether or not Mathis really was a double agent working against Bond.  That's not even fully resolved in Quantum of Solace.  However, the implication is he was, in fact, a double agent since MI:6 takes him away in Casino Royale.  So it's really Quantum of Solace that muddles things, even though it's suggested in the film he wasn't (the girlfriend says he wasn't, but then Mathis' final words make it less certain.)

Any Bond script has to start with the villain.  What he or she does puts everything else in motion.  The rest is just decoration.

I want a Bond with real emotions and strong dialogue.  If that happens, everything else will fall into place.  If it doesn't happen, everything else will have to be used to try to cover up for it.

It's been done, even with the movies that produced great action and suspense -- Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and so forth.  It can be done again.

Positively shocking.