The esteemed Jim has provided a thread of much entertainment and healthy discussion for the month of April, but this one, no, this one is a wind-up.
It’s not a question that deserves an answer. TMWTGG, 9th, is the superior of the films on either side - I mean, it’s right there, right there! Sir Rog needed a 3rd nipple, but not a 4th.
April 19:
I like STAR TREK III.
As for The odd jobs of Bond: no, just as even.
And “The Kelvin timeline” has ended up flipping the trend.
I like it well enough. And the first one, as far as that goes. But its usually the even numbered ones that get the love.
As far as the “Kelvin” timeline, it’s pretty much garbage all the way around, but I’ll admit “Into Darkness” was especially heavy on the spoiled fruit and diapers.
DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER is the 7th James Bond film.
MOONRAKER is the 11th James Bond film.
A VIEW TO A KILL is the 14th James Bond film.
QED
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you now have endured that bit of the film.
April 19 -
From Russia with Love is 2
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is 6
Live and Let Die is 8
The Spy Who Loved Me is 10
For Your Eyes Only is 12
Licence to Kill is 16
Tomorrow Never Dies is 18
The Craig era odd numbered films are absolutely the superior entries for his run, but I’d make the argument that, prior to Craig, the even numbered films are superior.
But Goldfinger and Goldeneye are films seen as classics even outside of fandoms. The pattern idea really doesn’t work.
My first reaction to NTTD: angry for ruining a good film with Bond‘s death.
My second reaction: it‘s daring, absolutely justified and great.
Months later: it is clever yet struggling to wrap up everything and tends to be too gloom-doom happy, with many elements crumbling if you don’t want to force an explanation for every misstep.
So, yes, I agree: „Spectre has no time to die“ would have been more interesting. Just like „Casino of Solace“.
I was thinking about this yesterday, and, in terms of Bond’s “growth” you’re right. You can very easily watch just Casino Royale and No Time To Die as one story, the only thing that would be confusing would be how Bond was now with the daughter of the guy he just shot, but even that just needs the 3 (even that is gracious, the opera isn’t needed, it’s just the two conversations) scenes Jesper Christensen did in the 15 years between the 2 films. Otherwise it moves from Bond losing his girlfriend to him visiting her grave because it was having an effect on his current relationship, making the 3 films in between perfunctory in terms of Bond growing as a character.
But this is James Bond we’re talking about, it’s not really a character meant for growth. The stories are rollercoasters, not dissertations.
I think it’s a fair point. I like NTTD but once you know how it ends, well, it has “pacing” issues (IMHO they all do except for FRWL, OHMSS, TND and QoS) and ultimately it’s on a hiding to nothing. The point of the film is the end and so everything else - the villain and his scheme, Blofeld, Swann, M, Felix, what-have-you, all of it is, perhaps not pointless, but purposeless. Unlike OHMSS, the ending and the last act work so well because of the preceding couple of hours. I think it may have been Benson who first made the point that Maibaum improved upon the novel by meshing the storylines together.
The worst thing about the internet is that if you’re like me and you can’t help yourself, well, I knew the point before seeing the film for the first time. And therefore spent a couple of hours only half-immersed in what was going on, because NTTD is all final act, final scene(s) perhaps, because all you’re doing is waiting…
I enjoyed it - took more of it in maybe, on second viewing, enjoying the ride rather than getting to the destination, which was definitely the case first-time around. It’s not my favourite but it is an improvement on its predecessor (not hard, as that is the worst in the franchise but that’s a different discussion I am happy to have. Well not…happy), and it has enough to justify its purpose. That said, if you change the ending and nothing else, you’re left with a stylish, more than competent, couple of hours that lack the drive that would propel the film under “one more entry” circumstances.
The end justifies the means, but the means don’t quite justify the end.
I would tend to agree. QOS is to a large degree dependent on CR, and yet I don’t think it adds anything essential to the story. If Fleming was content to leave the Bond/Vesper plotline where he did, why shouldn’t I be?
It’s a little more complicated with SP and NTTD. Even if SP is close to a total loss and I’d just as soon we hadn’t wasted a film on it, it does a lot of work to set up NTTD. Blofeld has to be established as a known enemy and already in prison, a Spectre network has to exist, etc. Since Seydoux and Craig have little to no chemistry on screen, the only thing adding any weight at all to their “relationship” in NTTD is the fact that we’ve seen them together already in an earlier film, so SP helps there, too.
But all that said, I’m sure there would have been ways to make some version of NTTD work without SP. I get the distinct impression the planning sessions went like this: “We need to give Daniel a death scene. How do we get to that ending?” There are any number of ways they could’ve achieved that goal, and many of them would have been more imaginative than, “Let’s borrow from Endgame and Logan.”
The only two Craig films I found myself enjoying pretty much all the way through were CR and NTTD, so as far as I’m concerned, yes, they could’ve skipped everything in between, including even SF.
I know CR has a huge following, and I do love many parts of it - but many parts I find overrated or downright embarrassing („little finger“ anyone?)
So my preferred sequence of Craig films would actually be this:
start with SF: an established Bond, at the end a wisened Bond ready to move on with a new M
go to a fast and unconventional adventure which establishes Spectre, a „Spectre of Solace“
have another Spectre adventure which implies M is getting seduced by Spectre
go to NTTD, with M joining Blofeld to combat a still in service Bond (who has to sacrifice a future with wife and child but not his life)
Interesting that you’re willing to let M go all the way to the dark side, as opposed to being simply “criminally” inept enough to create a crisis as Judi does in SF and Fiennes in NTTD. Even more interestingly, I find myself agreeing: “turning” M is one of the few things they haven’t gotten around to yet in the “let’s break the formula” game, so why not?
I wonder if that’s so much easier for me to sign onto now because “M” is Voldemort?
Gotta admit: this is not my idea. It was an idea for “SPECTRE” but Fiennes nixed it, having become M in the prior film and wishing to remain the good guy.
I love Fiennes as an actor. But this refusal was a disappointment for me. Would have been much more interesting for him (or any actor) to play. And it would have helped the arc of the Craig movies.
April 20 - Quantum of Solace and Spectre both suffered from too much world building and not enough time being their own films. QoS should not have been a direct sequel and shouldn’t have taken place an hour after CR’s ending. Spectre never really explains why Nine Eyes is such a global threat (especially in light of Edward Snowden revealing governments were already doing that prior to 2015). No Time To Die suffers from this too, but handles it better.
Unrelated, I don’t like the idea of M becoming a full on villain. Remember Jim Phelps becoming the villain in Mission Impossible? It was so out of character that members of the original cast derided the film and Greg Morris walked out of the theater in protest. I don’t mind seeing M as incompetent (which Mallory clearly is), but evil? Nah. Also, it’s such an overused trope in spy fiction to present the head of the supposedly good organization as the villain.
But isn´t that exactly what leads to same-same-slavishly true to tropes?
I´m not saying Bond should become a villain. I´m saying: let’s give M something interesting to do. And NTTD at least gave him an interesting idea - but it only led to: “Um, Bond, well, now that you’re back, go clean up my mess.”
Mallory should absolutely have to face the same inquiries that Dench-M had to and be fired and probably arrested for his illegal doings. That I agree with. I just don’t like the idea of M being the villain. Maybe that’s just me.
Well, walking out isn’t much of a protest. They’ve already got your money.
I agree the Jim Phelps “reveal” in M:I was an insult to fans of the show and one of the reasons I absolutely detest that film (but far from the only reason!). It also makes no sense to me: why bother spending millions on a film version of a TV show if you’re just going to piss off all the fans of the show by changing literally everything; first by making Phelps a turncoat and then by abadoning the entire “ensemble” premise of the series to turn it into just another “Look at me! Look only at me!” Tom Cruise vanity project? Obviously the only reason they even bothered to call it “Mission: Impossible” was because they wanted to exploit Schiffrin’s classic theme song.
BUT…having said all that, Jim Phelps was an established character with a lifetime of heroic behavior behind him, not only on the long run of the original series but more recently in an 80s revival. We knew Jim Phelps, we loved Jim Phelps, Jim was a friend of ours, and you, Jon Voigt, are no Jim Phelps. (Incredibly, they apparently had the nerve to ask Peter Graves to reprise his role. Thankfully he declined, and hopefully in colorful language).
However we don’t have such an extended history with Mallory. I’m not that attached to him, so I could buy him turning bad. I’m not saying that’s my first choice, but compared to making two M’s in a row such colossal cock-ups, it’s not too much more of a stretch to make one just flat-out crooked. At least then the damage done will have been the result of a master plan and not simple incompetence.
The upside of “M versus Bond” is that we could see some cool “Double-0s vs Double-0” action since M controls the section. The downside is no matter who won those show-downs, it’d still be a loss. And at the end, we’d still get a dead Bond (to lure Craig back with a juicy death scene) but also a broken MI-6, which is probably too much of a downbeat to end on.
No era has wasted more time than Daniel Craig’s. It’s one missed opportunity after another, and it completely wastes Craig’s brilliant portrayal of 007 because it’s clear that the powers that be had no idea what to do with him.
As with just about every Bond, save for Moore, EON hits the ground running with Casino Royale, making Craig’s first film the homerun that his portrayal deserves. This was a film made by people out to prove something, and it shows. EON needed to prove that they were better than the Brosnan era, a series of films that is the definition of diminishing returns. Craig needed to prove the immature internet trolls wrong. They both hit it out of the park. Then, despite all of that, they managed to just about top it with the follow up. Quantum of Solace is a darn near perfect Bond film, standing right up there with the franchise’s very best. Those that endlessly whine about it being “too Bourne”, or a movie too focused on revenge, don’t get it and, quite frankly, show that they haven’t a clue what they’re talking about. Quantum of Solace is Craig’s best performance in the role, improving upon his work in Casino Royale. The scene towards the end, where he comforts Camille in the middle of the burning hotel room while he contemplates putting her out of her misery so she doesn’t have to face the same fate as her deceased family members and then, presumably, turning the gun on himself is one of the most haunting moments in the entire franchise, and like with the rest of the film, Craig acts the hell out of it. I remember seeing that moment in the theater and thinking to myself that we’d truly entered a new era of Bond films, where they’d actually have the guts to go there.
Little did I know that the good times would end there. MGM’s near bankruptcy absolutely derailed Craig’s era. Skyfall is a nice film, but it’s a lot of nothing wrapped up in some really pretty packaging. We get some elements of The World Is Not Enough thrown in, albeit done better here, a memorable villain, and some superb cinematography, but this is the film where the promise of the beginning of Craig’s tenure is completely betrayed. We didn’t need Q. We didn’t need Moneypenny. Craig’s films were better without them. They were better without the outright devotion of the ancillary trappings of the franchise’s past that Skyfall seeks to bring back to the proceedings. Skyfall, while good on its own, takes the excitement, the danger, and the freshness of its two predecessors and smothers it with the pillow of fanservice. It’s EON’s way of saying: you complained about now Q, no Moneypenny, no gadgets, no this, that, or whatever. Well, HERE THEY ARE! All that cool stuff we just got done introducing in the last film. Yeah, forget about that. Here’s the old stuff you wanted.
Even still, if they’d ended Craig’s tenure after Skyfall, it would probably go down as the best era in the franchise. They still betrayed the promise of Craig’s first two films with Skyfall, but it’s still a solid enough film on its own, even if it makes little sense coming on the heels of Quantum of Solace. Spectre and No Time to Die, on the other hand, are just a slap in the face to anyone who has every enjoyed a James Bond film.
Spectre’s faults are so numerous and so baked into the foundation of the film that there’s really nothing that could have saved it. It’s a film that is constructed in a way that you would be shocked to know that it came from people who actually do know a thing or two about Bond, because it doesn’t show at all on the screen. To somewhat answer the question posed, this is a film that’s essentially about nothing. It has no story of its own, other than Bond tracking down his pissed-off not-step-brother. Anything else in the film that constitutes its “story” is just the screenplay cannibalizing the events of Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, and Skyfall in order to extend its running time into feature length eligibility. It’s a film that says absolutely nothing and at the same time still manages to make an absolute mockery of the SPECTRE organization and the Ernst Stavro Blofeld character.
It’s also a failure in the two things that it really needs to do. First, at the time it was released, it was quite possibly going to be Craig’s final film. As a farewell to someone who has been a tremendous Bond, it’s an absolute failure. But then down the road it becomes a film that needs to lead into the actual finale of Craig’s tenure, and it’s a massive failure on that front as well.
No Time to Die goes into its own proceedings with one hand tied behind its back. It’s lead in is terrible. As a finale, it has to build off of what came before it, but unfortunately, what came before it was essentially pointless. This causes NTTD to have to try to manufacture its own stakes by leaning far too heavily on references to previous films, namely On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The biggest problem with No Time to Die is that it’s a film that feels empty and soulless. It’s a film where the stakes are the spread of an artificially created DNA-targeted “virus” across the globe, but we never see anything that resembles the real world that is about to be completely altered forever. We get that one scene with Bond and M, the film’s villain, out on the streets of London, but that’s the only time we get a moment where Bond is actually operating within the world that he is trying to save. Outside of that, Bond and the people in his immediate orbit might as well be the only people on earth, because NTTD operates as though this is the case. Its proceedings only serve to deliver us to the point where Bond meets his death, a moment that was supposedly planned out years in advance. It delivers us there, to that awful moment that is no way earned by this film or any of the ones that precede it, cementing Craig’s era as one that has big ideas that could have potentially been game changing for the Bond franchise, but the lack of follow through on these ideas, the botching of their execution, and the lack of a clear vision for what his Bond films should be, ultimately make remembering the legacy of the Craig era much more difficult than it should be. He was a great Bond, one who EON clearly didn’t know what to do with.