Bond 23: Skyfall

[Biohazard]

Originally Posted by roscoegino

No, he's no Gary Oldman, but have you seen CLOSER?

No, but I've been meaning to.

[InfiniteJest]

Craig is a great Bond, but I'd love to see Fassbender's take. I think he would kill it as 007.

[mge457]

I think Hugh Laurie could be an excellent Q.

[Twofingeredtypist]

Originally Posted by mge457

I think Hugh Laurie could be an excellent Q.

His comedy partner, Stephen Fry, played an ersatz Q in Stormbreaker.

[Left Hand]

Sam Mendes directing a James Bond script from John Logan?

"Medium popcorn and a large Sprite, please."

[entlassen]

Just saw the new trailer for this.

Kind of disappointed in that they're still re-using ideas from earlier films-- the handprint ID gun, Bond faking his death, etc.

Just more proof that Casino Royale was not a real reboot, just a beginning of a new era, no different from when any of the previous actors were brought on.

It does look better than Quantum of Solace though, which is pretty much already forgotten.

They really need someone who gets the Fleming novels to do these films. Not sure if Sam Mendes is up to that.

Even more than that, they need a great villain for Bond to go up against. There hasn't really been one since he dropped Blofeld down a chimney decades ago.

[mgwriter]

Originally Posted by entlassen

...They really need someone who gets the Fleming novels to do these films. Not sure if Sam Mendes is up to that...

Yeah somewhere around when Pierce Brosnan took the role they forgot one key element of the Bond franchise. James Bond has the COOLEST F-ING JOB IN THE WORLD and Connery was the embodiment of that. It added some fun. Most men watched Bond to dream about the greatest job ever.

Not anymore, now Bond acts like he hates his job just like the rest of us, like he's this tortured soul at odds with his boss...just like everyone else. whah whah, cry me a river. People don't need to go to the movies to see that, they feel it at work everyday. I'm not saying they need to go back to the campy days of roger moore (it was fun for the time) but at its core Bond was pure male fantasy. it was about a guy with major swag, a guy with the attitude like 'yeah i'm a bad mother-shutyourmouth and I got the coolest f-ing job in the world..what?' how many guys or teenage boys fantasize about being the Daniel Craig Bond? Boring. Poor Bond has to kill people for a living and bag the best babes, boo hoo. I would love to have a license to kill...love it!

[SNAFU]

Originally Posted by mgwriter

...how many guys or teenage boys fantasize about being the Daniel Craig Bond? Boring.

Agreed.

IMO, the broad problem is, mainstream movie "stars" today stink. Compare any of them to Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, Sean Connery, Lee Marvin, Cary Grant, etc...no contest.

Today's crop are boring, bland, generic.

And of course, the scripts mostly stink, also.

[SEJ300]

Huge fan of the Bond films. Thankfully so is my wife. Before we had kids we could kill a whole Saturday watching Roger Moore & Sean Connery and maybe even a bit of Brosnan & Dalton. Now Dora and a bunch of other kid shows dominate the tube. (But I do like Shaun the Sheep) But I digress.

I've enjoyed watching the Craig Bond films but I do miss the tone of the previous films. I think mgwriter summed it up well. Bond has the coolest job in the world, why shouldn't it be fun? I hope Skyfall doesn't disappoint.

[entlassen]

The Bond of the novels certainly doesn't love his job. The recent Bond movies actually got this right. There's nothing cool or suave about Fleming's Bond; he's nothing more than a foot soldier for the British government. He kills when he's ordered to, and to take the edge off he enjoys smoking, drinking, and fine dining.

The literary world that Ian Fleming created was very cynical. Bond was constantly getting double-crossed, betrayed, tortured, beaten up, etc. It was a world where he knew he could die at any minute, but he was beyond caring. The Craig films got this part right-- it was much of the previous films that got that part wrong. Bond was never supposed to be a hedonist or a playboy.

So yeah, there's really nothing cool about taking orders your entire life and getting a small government paycheck for it, but it's what Bond does. Again what the series needs is a great director and a great villain. I'd recommend bringing on Chris Nolan to write and direct a Bond film with a revived Blofeld for Bond to fight. A hero is only as compelling as the villain he's up against.