Bond 26 (202X)

Blunt Instrument wrote:

The opening weekend is certainly a success ... biggest in the series' history, apparently.

Not to pee on the wedding cake, but when you're opening on 15,000+ screens in more than 4000 theaters domestic, you're getting the numbers you get due to volume as much as interest. Also, screendaily indicated SF at nearly 90mil and SP 70mil+ opened much bigger, but this number being lower may be due to Covid as much as anything else (I'm sure not planning to go to a theater anytime in the foreseeable future.)

hegottheboot wrote:

 TWINE had a lower key aspect which is fine but honestly was a bit too normal looking in spots.

That ordinariness really bothered me a lot when I first saw TWINE, and again when I watched it on disc. I'm not saying Bond has to go all shadowy and look like FAIL-SAFE (though I'd be happy if it did for at least certain moments, just rewatched FAIL-SAFE for maybe the 50th time in the last 45 years and it gets me in more places now than it used to, which is really sayin' something), but I am a big fan of contrast, and think you should never 'see' the fill light, just register it. When something is overlit like some TLD and especially LTK sets, it just switches me out on some level. TWINE doesn't have that TV quality to the set lighting, but the generalness and lack of GOLDENEYEedness is really felt quite a lot.

EDIT ADDON: sorry for the weird madeup words, but my blood sugar is really high right now and I'm feeling lousy.

CJB wrote:

I'm with you, Khanners. I thought SF was the most visually striking Bond film to date. Many great moments, but I always remember Bond floating towards the Macau casino for the dazzling colours etc.

I do think SF looks great but of the recent era I actually prefer QOS. I just think that film looks beautiful (what flashes across the screen of it).

trevanian wrote:

Not to pee on the wedding cake, but when you're opening on 15,000+ screens in more than 4000 theaters domestic, you're getting the numbers you get due to volume as much as interest. Also, screendaily indicated SF at nearly 90mil and SP 70mil+ opened much bigger, but this number being lower may be due to Covid as much as anything else (I'm sure not planning to go to a theater anytime in the foreseeable future.)

Seems like the first weekend would be mostly effects of marketing, fanbase, and what's-playing. After that it's just word-of-mouth. Are people liking it and telling others?

Somerset wrote:

I do think SF looks great but of the recent era I actually prefer QOS. I just think that film looks beautiful (what flashes across the screen of it).

There are some nice-looking locales in QOS (eg. the opera theatre) but, as you've touched on, the film was shot by someone about as steady-handed as I am after a half-dozen pints so you scarcely get to savour anything.

Seems it was the UK opening weekend BO figures that were record-breaking. The US ones were apparently regarded as a disappointment, falling about $4 million short of the estimate. The Covid restrictions still in place at US cinemas are seen as the cause.

CJB wrote:

Somerset wrote:

I do think SF looks great but of the recent era I actually prefer QOS. I just think that film looks beautiful (what flashes across the screen of it).

There are some nice-looking locales in QOS (eg. the opera theatre) but, as you've touched on, the film was shot by someone about as steady-handed as I am after a half-dozen pints so you scarcely get to savour anything.

It's the editing that is the problem, I think, not the shooting. Schaefer didn't shoot shakeycam at all, and in fact told me that he and Forster had no interest in doing anything that looked like BOURNE. After producers hired Dan Bradley to shoot 2nd unit, Forster and Schaefer told him - a BOURNE vet -- they didn't want it looking like BOURNE. So if there is shakey camera work, it has to be from DB's 2nd unit, but really, what I observe most is that the ADD cutting creates the messed up (or if you're feeling charitable, impressionistic) feeling of the movie. Most of the time, if you freeze frame, there's a nice composition on display. It's just that the shots are there-and-gone.

I reallyt understand the temporary allure of both shakeycam and fast cutting, as well as the pitfalls. I spent about a year getting a zero-budget film project together in the early 80s, but knew going in that except for one friend and myself, that nobody in the cast had any acting skills. I figured that since it was a spaceship under attack most of the time, we'd do plenty of camera vibration. That part worked okay, because I had somebody who could handhold the cam well, and the shakiness would disappear completely during the parts where there wasn't a bomb going off.

But since the performances weren't there, I also had to cut after nearly every line being read, or during, which created a self-perpetuating thing of cutting more and more, because if you're already fast-cutting before you get to something requiring fast cutting, what have you got left up your sleeve? It's like the SEINFELD where he shaved a little part of his body and then kept having to shave more and more.

Eventually I emerged with half a film (before the money ran out) in which you'd have the occasional scene (between me and the other guy who could act) that would run a minute or more without a cut, and everything else cut like ... well, we called it MTV cutting in 1983, but it was actually a lot more hysterical than that. It created its own messed up style, like the entire universe was trashed except when these two guys are talking, but the last stretch after the other character is dead was almost strictly fast-cut, except for a couple scenes where we let the cameras roll and whole exchanges with the inexperienced actors played out. That's when I realized I could have cut the thing conventionally and just dubbed the actors to kill the amateurishness of their deliveries, becuase the stuff played well except when their mouths were open.

I know QUANTUM had the typical hypercompressed post schedule of every other Bond, but it was the first that had to also do 900 VFX shots in that tight period. So they had to lock the edit very early on, meaning they cut the film in barely a month.There wasn't time to do a 'regular' edit plus what we wound up with, so they went for this approach right off the bat, which is pretty damned daring (crazed, but daring.) So much as I might wish it to be so, there's no regular version of QUANTUM, because I think that if they had limited the impressionistic hypercutting to a few sequences, and paid a bit more attention to flow (especially in the boat stuff, which just seems incomprehensible to me, even now), you'd have had a more readily enjoyable final product. As it stands, QUANTUM is the only Craig film I rewatch with any kind of regularity (I watch it at least twice each year, whereas I've only gotten through CR in one sitting all the way twice in over 15 years, and only re saw SKYFALL to help with an article), and I do enjoy it a lot, but largely in spite of the cutting.

CJB wrote:

I'm with you, Khanners. I thought SF was the most visually striking Bond film to date. Many great moments, but I always remember Bond floating towards the Macau casino for the dazzling colours etc.

That's exactly what I was thinking of, too, CJB. That, and, of course, the fight scene with Patrice as the neon octopus gesticulates in the background. In fact, just about everything shot in the Orient is aesthetically appealing, including Bond's extended conversation with Severine in the Casino. I rate that conversation, incidentally, as the high spot for all leading Bond ladies.

trevanian wrote:

hegottheboot wrote:

 TWINE had a lower key aspect which is fine but honestly was a bit too normal looking in spots.

That ordinariness really bothered me a lot when I first saw TWINE, and again when I watched it on disc. I'm not saying Bond has to go all shadowy and look like FAIL-SAFE (though I'd be happy if it did for at least certain moments, just rewatched FAIL-SAFE for maybe the 50th time in the last 45 years and it gets me in more places now than it used to, which is really sayin' something), but I am a big fan of contrast, and think you should never 'see' the fill light, just register it. When something is overlit like some TLD and especially LTK sets, it just switches me out on some level. TWINE doesn't have that TV quality to the set lighting, but the generalness and lack of GOLDENEYEedness is really felt quite a lot.

EDIT ADDON: sorry for the weird madeup words, but my blood sugar is really high right now and I'm feeling lousy.

Failsafe is my favorite film. Period. The original, of course, not the Clooney teleabomination.

Somerset wrote:

CJB wrote:

I'm with you, Khanners. I thought SF was the most visually striking Bond film to date. Many great moments, but I always remember Bond floating towards the Macau casino for the dazzling colours etc.

I do think SF looks great but of the recent era I actually prefer QOS. I just think that film looks beautiful (what flashes across the screen of it).

trevanian wrote:

Not to pee on the wedding cake, but when you're opening on 15,000+ screens in more than 4000 theaters domestic, you're getting the numbers you get due to volume as much as interest. Also, screendaily indicated SF at nearly 90mil and SP 70mil+ opened much bigger, but this number being lower may be due to Covid as much as anything else (I'm sure not planning to go to a theater anytime in the foreseeable future.)

Seems like the first weekend would be mostly effects of marketing, fanbase, and what's-playing. After that it's just word-of-mouth. Are people liking it and telling others?

As far as QoS goes, the Tosca sequence and the Kazan Coda are indeed beautiful. I also like the brief aerial fight that precipitates Bond and Camille into a sinkhole. As for the rest of the film, well, there's a reason I've christened it Quantum of Squalor.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

In fact, just about everything shot in the Orient is aesthetically appealing, including Bond's extended conversation with Severine in the Casino. I rate that conversation, incidentally, as the high spot for all leading Bond ladies.

Agree with that. Perhaps the most Fleming-esque (if we can use that phrase again) scene since the Dalton era.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

CJB wrote:

I'm with you, Khanners. I thought SF was the most visually striking Bond film to date. Many great moments, but I always remember Bond floating towards the Macau casino for the dazzling colours etc.

That's exactly what I was thinking of, too, CJB. That, and, of course, the fight scene with Patrice as the neon octopus gesticulates in the background. In fact, just about everything shot in the Orient is aesthetically appealing, including Bond's extended conversation with Severine in the Casino. I rate that conversation, incidentally, as the high spot for all leading Bond ladies.

All the stuff out on the moors in SF looks great, too. The way it's backlit by the titular residence burning is marvellous.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

trevanian wrote:

hegottheboot wrote:

 TWINE had a lower key aspect which is fine but honestly was a bit too normal looking in spots.

That ordinariness really bothered me a lot when I first saw TWINE, and again when I watched it on disc. I'm not saying Bond has to go all shadowy and look like FAIL-SAFE (though I'd be happy if it did for at least certain moments, just rewatched FAIL-SAFE for maybe the 50th time in the last 45 years and it gets me in more places now than it used to, which is really sayin' something), but I am a big fan of contrast, and think you should never 'see' the fill light, just register it. When something is overlit like some TLD and especially LTK sets, it just switches me out on some level. TWINE doesn't have that TV quality to the set lighting, but the generalness and lack of GOLDENEYEedness is really felt quite a lot.

EDIT ADDON: sorry for the weird madeup words, but my blood sugar is really high right now and I'm feeling lousy.

Failsafe is my favorite film. Period. The original, of course, not the Clooney teleabomination.

I happened across the Clooney a couple years back and bought it for 50cents, figuring that if I could watch the MANCHURIAN remake (took me over a decade to try, and should have resisted temptation) with as much as I adore the original, that I could take a chance on this. Well ...

There's just no magic in there. I think there were good intentions, but migod, it has a BAD performance from Brian Dennehy, which I didn't think was possible. And in one of the roles that I find most compelling from the original too (Overton's 'They've got to know we're on the level!' in the orig is so passionately and desperately RIGHT.

I spent this last viewing wondering if F-S has been my favorite movie of all time and I just hadn't realized it before. Emotionally, it engaged me almost constantly, and I think a big part of it is that you see nearly all the characters doing their absolute best to do the right thing while in conflict with one another about results.

Also, It came after a viewing of STRANGELOVE that left me a little less than enthusiastic, which hadn't happened to me before. I've soured at some point on some of my alltime fave flicks (went through a decade when APOCALYPSE NOW stopped impressing me before the pendulum swung back, still can't explain why), but it hit me that Lumet's FAIL-SAFE, like THE BEDFORD INCIDENT, has always worked like gangbusters on me. I think it is a real shame that the film's editor almost entirely omits mention of this film in his memoir, which is great reading. Then again, maybe it just cut like butter and he didn't have any great anecdotes about fights with the director.)

I remember that Clooney wanted to do THE THING as live TV also, and while that would have been insanely ambitious fx-wise, I do think it might have had a better chance of working than this did. At least for me.

trevanian wrote:

It's the editing that is the problem, I think, not the shooting. Schaefer didn't shoot shakeycam at all, and in fact told me that he and Forster had no interest in doing anything that looked like BOURNE. After producers hired Dan Bradley to shoot 2nd unit, Forster and Schaefer told him - a BOURNE vet -- they didn't want it looking like BOURNE. So if there is shakey camera work, it has to be from DB's 2nd unit, but really, what I observe most is that the ADD cutting creates the messed up (or if you're feeling charitable, impressionistic) feeling of the movie. Most of the time, if you freeze frame, there's a nice composition on display. It's just that the shots are there-and-gone.

[...]

I know QUANTUM had the typical hypercompressed post schedule of every other Bond, but it was the first that had to also do 900 VFX shots in that tight period. So they had to lock the edit very early on, meaning they cut the film in barely a month.There wasn't time to do a 'regular' edit plus what we wound up with, so they went for this approach right off the bat, which is pretty damned daring (crazed, but daring.) So much as I might wish it to be so, there's no regular version of QUANTUM, because I think that if they had limited the impressionistic hypercutting to a few sequences, and paid a bit more attention to flow (especially in the boat stuff, which just seems incomprehensible to me, even now), you'd have had a more readily enjoyable final product. As it stands, QUANTUM is the only Craig film I rewatch with any kind of regularity (I watch it at least twice each year, whereas I've only gotten through CR in one sitting all the way twice in over 15 years, and only re saw SKYFALL to help with an article), and I do enjoy it a lot, but largely in spite of the cutting.

Thanks for all that info on QOS, trevanian. The point you bring up about the editing spiraling seems like it would be true enough. Contra your experience where the case was acting, since the hyper cutting in QOS is mostly action-based, do you think it comes out of Forster and/or Bradley not having properly understood how to shoot the action and kind of resorting to that hyper style in order to cover it up?

Perilagu Khan wrote:

As far as QoS goes, the Tosca sequence and the Kazan Coda are indeed beautiful. I also like the brief aerial fight that precipitates Bond and Camille into a sinkhole. As for the rest of the film, well, there's a reason I've christened it Quantum of Squalor.

That's fair enough -- I'd say the geopolitical commentary stuff Forster tries to sneak in is especially "squalid" -- but I'm with trevanian that it is the most rewatchable of the Craigs. There's something about it. The photography itself helps. I love the colors. Maybe it's the visual style, absent the editing, on the whole. I like the production design and the wardrobe a lot, too.

Somerset wrote:

Does anyone have any thoughts about Boyle coming back to revive whatever his pitch for B25 was?

You can hear some of Boyle's ideas here in this thread:

https://bondandbeyond.forumotion.com/t3765-mark-tildesley-boyle-s-film-was-going-to-be-a-crazy-madcap-adventure

While some of it does sound intriguing, I'm not keen on a Boyle-helmed picture. I wasn't when QOS was in development and I wasn't really when it was announced he joined Bond 25. The only positive thing I can say about his Bond 25 ideas is that it sounded like a standalone adventure, which is something I'd have preferred over the direction NTTD took. As Jonathan Pryce said, he's too socialist for Bond. Stylistically, he's all wrong too.

Somerset wrote:

Did Villeneuve start talking about that again? I remember he was putting himself out there before Eon hired Boyle on NTTD, but he was tied up with, I think, Dune.

Enemy might be the only one of his films I'd ever watch again. Arrival and BR were fine, though. He seems to be of the clinical Nolan school, which kind of puts me off.

He did! This is what he said:

Villeneuve said, instead of wrote:

Franky — and I cannot believe I would say that — but the answer would be a massive yes. I would deeply love to one day make a James Bond movie.

It’s a character that I’ve been with — like everybody — since my childhood. I have massive affection for Bond. It would be a big challenge for people to try and reboot it after what Daniel did. What Daniel Craig brought to Bond was so unique and strong and probably unmatchable. He’s the ultimate James Bond. I can’t wait to see Cary’s movie. I’m very excited. I’m one of the biggest Bond fans.

It’s really a massive privilege. I don’t want to say I’m very arrogant or pretentious right now. It’s true that it would be a dream to do 007. I don’t know if such a thing would happen, but it would be a privilege. At the end of the day, that would be pure cinematic joy.

And you're 100% correct Somerset! That clinical look is apparent in both his and Nolan's works which is the antithesis of Bond's colourful world. It should be vibrant, sexy and bizarre, and not anaemic.

BI wrote:

I thought the main reason that Boyle walked was a disagreement with EON over a couple of his/John Hodge's script ideas that (if you've seen NTTD, no details in order to avoid spoilers) seem to have ended up in the movie regardless.

I heard it was "creative differences" (read: 'arguments') with Craig that led to his departure. Which is interesting considering Martin Campbell is rumoured to have felt the same. Quite telling he made a 2nd film with Brosnan and was slated to make a third based on a Hemingway novel.

HGTB wrote:

Heck, I think the last truly good looking Bond was TND.

You're talking my language!

Though I have to agree with above posters and say SF didn't disappoint. As PK referenced, when I think of SF's photography, my mind immediately goes to that neon jellyfish fight, which not only stylistically photographs a fight (in itself a breath of fresh air after QOS), but heightens the danger, bizarre and cultural elements so integral to the James Bond mythos.

And I have to agree with the above posts too: given the chance to linger on a frame for longer than 2 seconds, QOS's colour palette and framing can be quite beautiful, harkening back to that of DN, TB and OHMSS.

RE: TWINE's photography... there's something quite moody about the look of the film. I haven't the technical vernacular to highlight exactly what it is, but there's an intimate feel about it, which serves it well, imo.

trevanian wrote:

After producers hired Dan Bradley to shoot 2nd unit, Forster and Schaefer told him - a BOURNE vet -- they didn't want it looking like BOURNE.

Interesting! I recall Forster saying it was a deliberate choice, symbolising Bond's frame of mind. It's more chaotic at first but as the film progresses, the action sequences become clearer, serving to characterise the clarity in Bond's psyche. Pretentious, right?

trevanian wrote:

That's when I realized I could have cut the thing conventionally and just dubbed the actors to kill the amateurishness of their deliveries, becuase the stuff played well except when their mouths were open.

Avoid ADR at all costs! It's a nightmare.

trevanian wrote:

As it stands, QUANTUM is the only Craig film I rewatch with any kind of regularity (I watch it at least twice each year, whereas I've only gotten through CR in one sitting all the way twice in over 15 years, and only re saw SKYFALL to help with an article), and I do enjoy it a lot, but largely in spite of the cutting.

Skyfall trumps all of Craig's films by light years. But if I had to, I'll always reach for QOS over CR06 and SP (and possibly NTTD) for it's brevity, colour palette and better original score. The fact it's as comprehensible as it is with an unfinished script demonstrates an honour more worthy of CR06, with its vastly superior source material and extra time in development.

PK wrote:

In fact, just about everything shot in the Orient is aesthetically appealing, including Bond's extended conversation with Severine in the Casino. I rate that conversation, incidentally, as the high spot for all leading Bond ladies.

Agreed. The Far East scenes are by far my favourite in SF. The scenes with Severine are so brilliantly done... it's just a shame her co-star and lead actor wasn't up to the task.

CJB wrote:

Perhaps the most Fleming-esque (if we can use that phrase again) scene since the Dalton era.

I'd say any of Bond's scenes with Elektra or Kaufman definitely contend that!

Somerset wrote:

[re: QOS]I like the production design and the wardrobe a lot, too.

I agree, for most part I like the production design. Except that damned MI6 renovation.

And anything with Arterton in a trench can't be all bad.

Somerset wrote:

since the hyper cutting in QOS is mostly action-based, do you think it comes out of Forster and/or Bradley not having properly understood how to shoot the action and kind of resorting to that hyper style in order to cover it up?

Was it not understanding how or not caring enough to bother? I can't say. I've interviewed Forster twice, for QUANTUM and for WWZ, and I thought it was interesting that his ideas on doing a big blockbuster had evolved to the point where he looked forward to Z as a chance to do something big, whereas I think his reluctance on QUANTUM (his regular collaborators kind of talked him into it) was more characteristic.

It's hard even now for me to understand the amount of effort and dollars that went into things like the skydiving scene, which is kind of an example of virtual production in a way, since the wind tunnel stuff was rarely used as-is and mostly served for building a kind of CG version of the characters ... just seemed like an enormous effort for something that flashes by on screen (my main takeaway is that Craig somehow looks more like Gollum than usual in that scene.)

I haven't seen all that many of his movies, but we love STRANGER THAN FICTION, which is odd because with fantasy stuff, I generally prefer ones that have some kind of explanation, which that is sorely lacking. I guess it skates by on a combination of charm (from Will Ferrell? Really?) and creative gusto.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Perilagu Khan wrote:

CJB wrote:

I'm with you, Khanners. I thought SF was the most visually striking Bond film to date. Many great moments, but I always remember Bond floating towards the Macau casino for the dazzling colours etc.

That's exactly what I was thinking of, too, CJB. That, and, of course, the fight scene with Patrice as the neon octopus gesticulates in the background. In fact, just about everything shot in the Orient is aesthetically appealing, including Bond's extended conversation with Severine in the Casino. I rate that conversation, incidentally, as the high spot for all leading Bond ladies.

All the stuff out on the moors in SF looks great, too. The way it's backlit by the titular residence burning is marvellous.

Aye. Jolly good stuff.

trevanian wrote:

Perilagu Khan wrote:

trevanian wrote:

hegottheboot wrote:

 TWINE had a lower key aspect which is fine but honestly was a bit too normal looking in spots.

That ordinariness really bothered me a lot when I first saw TWINE, and again when I watched it on disc. I'm not saying Bond has to go all shadowy and look like FAIL-SAFE (though I'd be happy if it did for at least certain moments, just rewatched FAIL-SAFE for maybe the 50th time in the last 45 years and it gets me in more places now than it used to, which is really sayin' something), but I am a big fan of contrast, and think you should never 'see' the fill light, just register it. When something is overlit like some TLD and especially LTK sets, it just switches me out on some level. TWINE doesn't have that TV quality to the set lighting, but the generalness and lack of GOLDENEYEedness is really felt quite a lot.

EDIT ADDON: sorry for the weird madeup words, but my blood sugar is really high right now and I'm feeling lousy.

Failsafe is my favorite film. Period. The original, of course, not the Clooney teleabomination.

I happened across the Clooney a couple years back and bought it for 50cents, figuring that if I could watch the MANCHURIAN remake (took me over a decade to try, and should have resisted temptation) with as much as I adore the original, that I could take a chance on this. Well ...

There's just no magic in there. I think there were good intentions, but migod, it has a BAD performance from Brian Dennehy, which I didn't think was possible. And in one of the roles that I find most compelling from the original too (Overton's 'They've got to know we're on the level!' in the orig is so passionately and desperately RIGHT.

I spent this last viewing wondering if F-S has been my favorite movie of all time and I just hadn't realized it before. Emotionally, it engaged me almost constantly, and I think a big part of it is that you see nearly all the characters doing their absolute best to do the right thing while in conflict with one another about results.

Also, It came after a viewing of STRANGELOVE that left me a little less than enthusiastic, which hadn't happened to me before. I've soured at some point on some of my alltime fave flicks (went through a decade when APOCALYPSE NOW stopped impressing me before the pendulum swung back, still can't explain why), but it hit me that Lumet's FAIL-SAFE, like THE BEDFORD INCIDENT, has always worked like gangbusters on me. I think it is a real shame that the film's editor almost entirely omits mention of this film in his memoir, which is great reading. Then again, maybe it just cut like butter and he didn't have any great anecdotes about fights with the director.)

I remember that Clooney wanted to do THE THING as live TV also, and while that would have been insanely ambitious fx-wise, I do think it might have had a better chance of working than this did. At least for me.

The intensity and passion of Failsafe from every single character are simply off the charts. Dom Deluise's performance as the sergeant forced to perform an act of treason is absolutely astounding. As he provides the information for how to detonate America's nuclear warheads Deluise registers nausea with his voice and expressions unbelievably well. He is fundamentally revolted with himself for what he has done.

And Ed Binns' wife trying to convince the pilot that it's all a mistake simultaneous with the pilot's gambit of trying to throw off the Soviet missiles by shooting his own missiles to the highest possible altitude is utterly draining for the viewer. Surely one of the greatest scenes in movie history. Then there's that fast-cut ending with the strange sound effects and the screen goes black. Perfection. Sheerest perfection. I've seen F-S probably 15 times and I think I'm going to watch it again soon.

Somerset wrote:

trevanian wrote:

It's the editing that is the problem, I think, not the shooting. Schaefer didn't shoot shakeycam at all, and in fact told me that he and Forster had no interest in doing anything that looked like BOURNE. After producers hired Dan Bradley to shoot 2nd unit, Forster and Schaefer told him - a BOURNE vet -- they didn't want it looking like BOURNE. So if there is shakey camera work, it has to be from DB's 2nd unit, but really, what I observe most is that the ADD cutting creates the messed up (or if you're feeling charitable, impressionistic) feeling of the movie. Most of the time, if you freeze frame, there's a nice composition on display. It's just that the shots are there-and-gone.

[...]

I know QUANTUM had the typical hypercompressed post schedule of every other Bond, but it was the first that had to also do 900 VFX shots in that tight period. So they had to lock the edit very early on, meaning they cut the film in barely a month.There wasn't time to do a 'regular' edit plus what we wound up with, so they went for this approach right off the bat, which is pretty damned daring (crazed, but daring.) So much as I might wish it to be so, there's no regular version of QUANTUM, because I think that if they had limited the impressionistic hypercutting to a few sequences, and paid a bit more attention to flow (especially in the boat stuff, which just seems incomprehensible to me, even now), you'd have had a more readily enjoyable final product. As it stands, QUANTUM is the only Craig film I rewatch with any kind of regularity (I watch it at least twice each year, whereas I've only gotten through CR in one sitting all the way twice in over 15 years, and only re saw SKYFALL to help with an article), and I do enjoy it a lot, but largely in spite of the cutting.  

Thanks for all that info on QOS, trevanian. The point you bring up about the editing spiraling seems like it would be true enough. Contra your experience where the case was acting, since the hyper cutting in QOS is mostly action-based, do you think it comes out of Forster and/or Bradley not having properly understood how to shoot the action and kind of resorting to that hyper style in order to cover it up?

Perilagu Khan wrote:

As far as QoS goes, the Tosca sequence and the Kazan Coda are indeed beautiful. I also like the brief aerial fight that precipitates Bond and Camille into a sinkhole. As for the rest of the film, well, there's a reason I've christened it Quantum of Squalor.

That's fair enough -- I'd say the geopolitical commentary stuff Forster tries to sneak in is especially "squalid" -- but I'm with trevanian that it is the most rewatchable of the Craigs. There's something about it. The photography itself helps. I love the colors. Maybe it's the visual style, absent the editing, on the whole. I like the production design and the wardrobe a lot, too.

On the whole, I like QoS perfectly well. Like the vast majority of Bond films, it certainly has its flaws including the ghastly "Another Way to Die." (Bloody hell, but that's a terrible song.) Still, the film improves as it goes along, and I think it improves with repeated viewings. When I walked out of the theater after first viewing QoS, I simply couldn't figure out what I had just seen. I didn't know what to make of the film. But I now respect it.

One of the best things I can say about QOS is that reintroduces colour to the series. Both literally and through character. Fields, Greene, Medrano and Elvis are quirky and/or interesting enough that feel positively Bondian.

Was tempted to do a separate thread or whatever but was pondering this next film whatever decade it comes out in and the likelihood of -beyond Bond- recasting.

Spoliersish...

But my assumption is that there could be another reboot and let's say there is, will M/Q/Penny/Tanner be recast? Or will Fiennes, like Dench, bridge the gap of two Bond's and press on until he's killed and dies in [insert name]'s arms bemoaning Bond as the son he never had?

Casino Royale managed to do its thing with only M and no Q, Tanner or Penny so could [Flemingesque title/21st century meaningful title] perhaps.

Or, against hope, will poor Smithers return to Q Branch to be subjected to various field tests?

There is delusional and then there is something like this.

You're 43 years old and the pinnacle of your career was arguably playing Lewis' sidekick.
So you were actually playing the sidekick to Morse's former sidekick.

Adding to that that you look like the human manifestation of a pencil.

Fox is very sound politically, but unfortunately Craig has given every weird-looking blond man false hope that they're James Bond.

My favourite story about Fox is him auditioning for a part in a production in which he would've been playing James Fox's son ... they are, of course, father and son in real life.

He didn't get it .

Blunt Instrument wrote:

My favourite story about Fox is him auditioning for a part in a production in which he would've been playing James Fox's son ... they are, of course, father and son in real life.

He didn't get it .  

Classic!