New Bond Film - "Spectre" - October / November 2015

[prisonermonkeys]

I know that the adverse is usually true, but I actually prefer songs like this to a theme fit for the film. It makes it, in a twisted sense of things, personal to the artist singing it rather than to the film production. That is why I think that Chris Cornell's 'You Know My Name' worked. It was composed and presented in the film as an impersonal song (to EON) compared to the previous 15 years of Bond themes.

I think that's risky, but when it works, it works. You just need a writer who can pull it off. And Cornell, the driving force behind Soundgarden, can do it - but Smith doesn't have the chops to do it. The song is just so ... generic.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Early critical reactions - both from professional critics and the wider public to "Writing's On The Wall" have generally been negative. Most people find it boring and ill-suited to Bond, and question the approach of Smith trying to sing from Bond's perspective.

 

[GTboyz]

Once again, Sam Mendea had a hand in writing the lyrics. Not that i defending Smith but i think Bond's perspective were written by Sam Mendes. The only good thing about the song imo is the instrumental at the start.

I changed my mind, this song to "Skyfall" is like "Another Way To Die" to "You Know My Name".

 

[prisonermonkeys]

The Daily Mail has a whole host of new photos:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/eve...-inside-story-expensive-dazzling-007-yet.html

Just make sure you burn it after reading.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

A third and final trailer is coming this week, probably attached to The Martian or The Walk. I've seen a few descriptions around, and it's sounding pretty epic:

Spoiler

"The trailer starts with Bond in the helicopter looking at the Spectre ring. Also, after Bond shoots the window and the building window explodes, the building begins to fall towards Bond who is on a rooftop, and the building collapses ontop of the roof, having Bond running and jumping and hanging from a crumbling side of the building. Looks amazing, but a little CGI as well.

There's a scene where Bond is jumping out of the way from a falling building in Mexico, Waltz asks, "why did you come?" Bond responds, "I came here to kill you." Waltz, replies; "and I thought you came here to die." Bond; "it's all about your perspective."

There's a scene where Bond cocks his gun, while walking into a building, and there's desert behind him. Also, another scene has a group of men walking towards a building construction, which looks like it could be Waltz's lair. There's another scene of a car driving on a desert plain, which also could be Morocco. The strangest scene I saw, is what looks to be Bond shooting at what looks to be his reflection? It's a bit mysterious.

 

[JKgo]

...Ran into a pretty interesting article. It talks about so-called the "Bond Effect".

It's about product placements in the upcoming film.

$45 mil for a brief glimpse of a bottle of Heineken? Why not, right?

 

[prisonermonkeys]

New trailer due at 6:00pm BST. In the meantime, here's a TV spot out of Romania, featuring all-new footage (some of which will be in the trailer):

 

[AudiMan2011]

Final trailer:

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Nice to see that they've tidied up some of the digital grading.

Some of the sets look very Ken Adam, too.

 

[Robin]

That's the spirit Daniel!

www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3264241/I-d-slash-wrists-Daniel-Craig-says-t-imagine-playing-James-Bond-does-money.html

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Which is completely at odds with everything else he has said in the past.

 

[Robin]

Early critical reactions - both from professional critics and the wider public to "Writing's On The Wall" have generally been negative. Most people find it boring and ill-suited to Bond, and question the approach of Smith trying to sing from Bond's perspective.

It's terrible IMO, way to slow, durgy and utterly forgettable, it's only been out a couple of weeks and already no one is talking about it any more. I still feel they should have gone with something more up beat after Skyfall to mix things up seeing as we have had pop/dance style songs in the past.

Having said that when it was sung by someone else and used for something slow (on Strictly Come Dancing) it was slightly better, or maybe Georgia dancing to it was what made it better

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Having said that when it was sung by someone else and used for something slow (on Strictly Come Dancing) it was slightly better

Just about every cover version is better.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

IMAX poster:

And some new stills from the film:

 

[JKgo]

IMAX poster:

...

Is that Craig under the mask???

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Yes.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Early interviews are in, and they're very positive.

 

[JKgo]

Early interviews are in, and they're very positive.

...I'm stumbling across a few early reviews myself and more than a handful all have backhanded comments or two regarding the movie's overall quality. Such choice words like "bit too long", "going through motions" and "feeble villains" are popping up in regularly.

Overall impression I'm getting is, that this film is just not as good as Skyfall.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

I'm stumbling across a few early reviews myself and more than a handful all have backhanded comments or two regarding the movie's overall quality. Such choice words like "bit too long", "going through motions" and "feeble villains" are popping up in regularly.

Those are the usual complaints about Bond films.

 

[JKgo]

Those are the usual complaints about Bond films.

...Many other Hollywood action movies also get that kinda flak, I guess. Still, I see it's averaging 7.1 on RT, so it's above average it seems.

I'll reserve my opinion until I've seen it, of course.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

...Many other Hollywood action movies also get that kinda flak, I guess.

Sometimes critics have too high an expectation when it comes to Bond - they want the franchise to do something new and revolutionary, even if it means abandoning everything that makes it a Bond film. They think that it's an acceptable trade-off, and that the longer the franchise goes, the more necessary it becomes.

Still, I see it's averaging 7.1 on RT, so it's above average it seems.

A lot of niche publications put out early average reviews to get site traffic. There was one for Skyfall that gave it a positive review, but a poor rating to get interest on RT because everything else was positive.

 

[Sanji Himura]

Sometimes critics have too high an expectation when it comes to Bond - they want the franchise to do something new and revolutionary, even if it means abandoning everything that makes it a Bond film. They think that it's an acceptable trade-off, and that the longer the franchise goes, the more necessary it becomes.

And they're idiots for thinking so. I have enjoyed the Bond films, especially the Craig films, on both their own merit and as a continuity, something that before obtaining the rights back to Casino Royale (and now SPECTRE) lacked any meaningful context into why Bond acted the way he does.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

And they're idiots for thinking so. I have enjoyed the Bond films, especially the Craig films, on both their own merit and as a continuity, something that before obtaining the rights back to Casino Royale (and now SPECTRE) lacked any meaningful context into why Bond acted the way he does.

It's certainly given the films more focus. The old continuity was very episodic, which resulted in some forgettable films, like Tomorrow Never Dies, and where attempts to depart from the norm were simply too radical - case in point, Licence to Kill - and could have invariably destroyed the character. That's how we wound up with the fan-despised motif of questioning Bond's loyalty time and time again.

If you take the run from Casino Royale to Spectre in isolation, you actually get a pretty compelling story arc: in Casino Royale, Bond is a rookie agent learning the nuances of being a blunt instrument; in Quantum of Solace (mishandled as it was), he is trying to balance his judgement and personal morality; this is followed by Skyfall, where he anchors himself in a version of reality and must compete with the demands of an alternative intruding upon him (I like to think of Bond as a paradox: a cynical spy in a romantic layman's world and a romantic layman in a cynical spy's world at the same time, and it is this quality that allows him to succeed), and finally in Spectre:

Spoiler

Where it looks like he is confronting the physical manifestation of the next great evil. The plot revolves around "Nine Eyes", a joint intelligence venture among the world's powers, with SPECTRE a beast that feeds off paranoia and insecurity.

 

[MatskiMonk]

It's certainly given the films more focus. The old continuity was very episodic, which resulted in some forgettable films

I agree with how you see they've changed, but I'm not convinced it's a better way of doing it. I don't find the person as interesting/entertaining as I do his antics, and they've now spent a decade trying to flesh out the character at the expense of the typical story lines - it's become about Bond, rather than about what Bond does.

On the one side, yes, where the films have had crap stories it makes for bad films (TND may be an example), but the reverse is true also.

On the other side, building the stories around the person is fine if you like or are particularly interested in them - but I'd accepted Bond as a womanising killer employed by the government by the time I was 6 and I'd seen him drop Christopher Walken off the Golden Gate bridge and nail some lass half his age in the shower - I don't need to see where he grew up or see him get his heart broken to justify it or make sense of it.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

I agree with how you see they've changed, but I'm not convinced it's a better way of doing it. I don't find the person as interesting/entertaining as I do his antics, and they've now spent a decade trying to flesh out the character at the expense of the typical story lines - it's become about Bond, rather than about what Bond does.

A lot of the original Fleming novels dealt with the character in depth, even if the Craig films have been more overt about it. The novels really positioned Bond as someone who had to maintain the status quo, which morphed into a war that he could not win as the obvious evil of the Soviet Union regressed into something more latent and malignant in the form of SPECTRE. Fleming's Bond became someone who had to fight to keep things the way they were, even in the face of increasing social change which challenged his role as the moderator.

 

[MatskiMonk]

A lot of the original Fleming novels dealt with the character in depth, even if the Craig films have been more overt about it. The novels really positioned Bond as someone who had to maintain the status quo, which morphed into a war that he could not win as the obvious evil of the Soviet Union regressed into something more latent and malignant in the form of SPECTRE. Fleming's Bond became someone who had to fight to keep things the way they were, even in the face of increasing social change which challenged his role as the moderator.

In the context of a film franchise though, especially one as long as this, Bond's personal position in the world, or his 'struggle' can't really be dragged out enough to even warrant a trilogy. It's useful perhaps to explain his character, but they can't really develop or evolve it without turning him into something other than a spy.

I wonder where that could end (making the films more about Bond)... given the number of notches on his bed post, it certainly wouldn't be a stretch for the producers to drag up a Son/Daughter for Bond to have to protect... and that would be terrible!

Anyhow, it sounds like Spectre might well offer a good mix. I wasn't a fan of Skyfall, hopefully this film won't have the same issues for me.



Also, in other news, I've updated the poll in this thread https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/threads/your-top-5-james-bond-films.318213/

 

[prisonermonkeys]

In the context of a film franchise though, especially one as long as this, Bond's personal position in the world, or his 'struggle' can't really be dragged out enough to even warrant a trilogy. It's useful perhaps to explain his character, but they can't really develop or evolve it without turning him into something other than a spy.

But you can build on what has been covered without necessarily having an over-arching story.

 

[Sanji Himura]

Comic Book Resources has a massive video dump from Spectre:

1. A compilation of five clips:

Spoiler: Track list

1. Bond (Craig) enters Q's (Whishaw) new office at MI-6 and plays around with a new rifle.

2. Bond corners Lucia Sciarra (Bellucci) in what is assumed to be in the SPECTRE compound.

3. Bond converses with Madeleine Swann (Seydoux) on a train.

4. Some footage of the fight between Bond and Mr. Hinx (Bautista) on the same train.

5. The start of Bond's escape from the SPECTRE compound.

2. TV Spot #12



3. TV Spot #13

 

[prisonermonkeys]

The fight with Mr. Hinx looks suitably brutal. I especially like the way it looks like a real street brawl, rather than a highly-choreographed routine. Don't get me wrong; the fight with Patrice in the Shanghai skyscraper was both as stylish as it was stylised - thank you, Roger Deakins - and it was a real high point for the franchise, but it's not something that films should rely on. If anything, this is more like the fight with Slate in Quantum of Solace but with the added advantage of being against a character that has been built up.

 

[GTboyz]

That fight scene is really good. You can actually see what's going on.


On another topic, i hate how everyone just take Craig's slashing wrist out of context. Makes you think how easily provoked people nowadays.