Those who dislike SKYFALL - How do you want Bond 24 to be?

j7wild wrote:

Let's have some real world film shooting.

No more shooting in the day light and then use digital effects to make it look like night time.

No more shooting in warm weather and then use digital effects to make it look like it's freezing outside.

I watch a great many old movies from the 60's and 70's and back then, if it was cold or rainy outside, they still filmed.

Now it seems that actors are reluctant to film in cold weather or rainy weather and CGI is used to simulate cold and wet enviroment.

Back then in those days, when you see a movie character outside in the cold weather and the breath coming out from their mouth, that was real.

Now you can tell many times it's CGI.

Why is that?

Are actors just wimpier now? Is it because their insurance won't cover filming in foul weather?

Or are the actors just more demanding now and it's written in their contract they won't work in adverse weather?

What scenes are you talking about?

I am sure some of the night time scenes in Skyfall were filmed during the day.

Did you know that the opening night surfing sequence in Die Another Day was actually filmed during the day in bright daylight and then CGI and Digitized to make it looks like it's night time right before dawn?

Many movies nowadays do what I mentioned in the above thread before yours.

Okay, do you know any for sure or are you just rambling on?

j7wild wrote:

Many movies nowadays do what I mentioned in the above thread before yours.

Speakee the English?

Python wrote:

Okay, do you know any for sure or are you just rambling on?

I am not rambling.

What I mentioned before is true.

Do some research.

You are a smart man!

Watch the extras on many DVD's and not just the Bond movies.

You will see what I am talking about.

You will say to yourself: "Hey! That scene was set at night in the film but they are filming in a brightly lit sound stage or outside in bright daylight" and "That's a sound stage so how they make it look like it's zero degrees outside?"

j7wild wrote:

Python wrote:

Okay, do you know any for sure or are you just rambling on?

I am not rambling.

What I mentioned before is true.

Do some research.

You are a smart man!

Watch the extras on many DVD's and not just the Bond movies.

You will see what I am talking about.

You will say to yourself: "Hey! That scene was set at night in the film but they are filming in a brightly lit sound stage or outside in bright daylight" and "That's a sound stage so how they make it look like it's zero degrees outside?"

I'm aware of that, that's how filmmaking has been done for over a hundred years. Now, do you know any digitally graded scenes in Skyfall for sure?

First of all I must say that A VIEW TO A KILL surprised me as fairly well written on my recent viewing. SKYFOUL, on the other hand, has several dozen flaws. I was surprised to find out that, in addition to the many flaws I caught on initial viewings and others I've read about here, on IMDb, and amazon reviews, there were still others undetected, like the guy who recently posted here that M reads out her poem - written in general terms, it doesn't make sense at all to read it out in that situation, it holds no value for her arguments - knowing that Silva is already on his way, which unnecessarily puts many people's life in danger - just in order to have this phoney, strongly TDK-inspired Bond-is-running-through-the-streets/he-on-mission-again moment. It surprises me that I hadn't read about this blatant script writing nonsense before, or detected it myself. I was probably so engaged in counting the several dozen other mega flaws that I just didn't notice.
I cannot write a whole treatment, let alone a screenplay, so my suggestions have to be generalized.
Bond has to be sent on a single mission that involves a major threat to humanity (or at least a scenario that may turn into big trouble, the main intention of the villain should be revealed late in the film).
The main genre of the film has to be a thriller, a spy thriller, but with a villainous plot that is what some people rather unprecisely call "larger-than-life".
If you want to include drama elements - which I've always demanded and still do - then write and direct them convincingly (which SKYFOUL does not achieve AT ALL). The characters' traits, their background, intentions, relations to other persons in the film, and motivations have to be made plausible and palpable. No comic book characters, no flat clichés, no dialogue that sounds like teenagers trying to sound very clever (for all of this: I'm looking at you, SKYFOUL!).
More exposition and storytelling at the beginning (the plot must carry on through all parts of the film), no by-the-numbers, overlong and even longer action borefests filled to the brim with - continuing to the next point -
lame attempts at humour and silly gags around every fucking corner of the bloody movie, in almost every single line of dialogue; no adjusting of ties or cuffs or any other silly family entertainment garbage in a film that wants to pass as adult, even sophisticated entertainment; humour has to come in small doses, AFTER an action or suspense or drama scene (not necessarily after the latter, because it can severely diminish atmosphere and tone, as well as the film's whole aspiration to being serious and emotionally compelling), and the humour has to be smart, witty, not ages-old, silly, self-mocking, farcical, lame. Bond is keen-witted and smart, and he is HETEROSEXUAL. He enjoys teasing the hell out of dangerous criminal figures, getting them by their very character flaws and obsessions - the treatment of both Largos are stellar examples of this kind.
The cinematography has to convey a strong feeling of the locales Bond visits. We the audience have to become involved in all of the scenery and action taking place therein. Not just absurdly long landscape shots, interchangeable shots of big cities at night, pointlessly thrown in to feign a noticeable achievement in the cinematography department, while the rest consists of dull, unimaginative studio sets.
The music has to benefit the scenes - it has to be varied, ranging from genuinely dramatic, romantic, to tense, thrilling, exciting, majestic, moving, and much more (ever heard of John Barry? Like that); not a bland, hacky, generic sound pulp (I'm looking at you, SKYFOUL!).
The film has to make sense, not be riddled with a never ending number of ludicrous flaws (I'm looking at you, SKYFOUL!).
I want to feel for the characters. I want to feel genuine suspense and thrill. I want to be on the edge of my seat, rooting for a fairly young, tall, handsome, dark-haired, literate, smart, sexy, suave, HETEROSEXUAL, resourceful, witty, charming, gentleman spy (the very opposite of Craig, come to think of it).
Those thoughts are off the top of my head.
You said you wanted to go back to the novels and the first two films. You were lying. Get intelligent writers who love Fleming and DR. NO, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, THUNDERBALL, THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE, and most of A VIEW TO A KILL, OCTOPUSSY, the best of THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN, and LICENCE TO KILL even. Don't rip off several dozen elements of other films, take a couple as inspiration, be genuinely creative at script stage (and with scoring, set design, and other elements).
If you go back to my multiple posts in which I comment on SKYFOUL, simply take all my criticisms, and make a good Bond film out of the polar opposite of all of SKYFOUL's flaws.

j7wild wrote:

You will say to yourself: "Hey! That scene was set at night in the film but they are filming in a brightly lit sound stage or outside in bright daylight" and "That's a sound stage so how they make it look like it's zero degrees outside?"

I wish you would cite specific scenes. I assume you're talking about the scenes at Skyfall.

I'm not 100% sure if they graded some day scenes to look like night, but I'd like to go out on a limb and say they didn't. Or, if they did, it was very little. Deakins doesn't believe in fucking around with images in post and prefers to get it right in-camera. He also mentions on his site that shooting during the day and grading scenes to look like night is very difficult, especially if you include a lot of shots of the sky.

Who knows. If some scenes were digitally graded, then they didn't bother me.

I know that a large set of LED lights was used to light the moors. In post, they added the flames, smoke, and remains of Bond's former home.

Manhunter wrote:

The music has to benefit the scenes - it has to be varied, ranging from genuinely dramatic, romantic, to tense, thrilling, exciting, majestic, moving, and much more

Newman's score possesses all of these qualities.

I'd like at least 2 major action sequences, with at least one having enough WOW factor to set precedents in the industry.

Skyfall's pre-title was okay, but didn't bite you in the ass like an Octopussy pre-title which is now 30 fucking years old.

j7wild wrote:

Let's have some real world film shooting.

No more shooting in the day light and then use digital effects to make it look like night time.

No more shooting in warm weather and then use digital effects to make it look like it's freezing outside.

I watch a great many old movies from the 60's and 70's and back then, if it was cold or rainy outside, they still filmed.

Now it seems that actors are reluctant to film in cold weather or rainy weather and CGI is used to simulate cold and wet enviroment.

Back then in those days, when you see a movie character outside in the cold weather and the breath coming out from their mouth, that was real.

Now you can tell many times it's CGI.

Why is that?

Are actors just wimpier now? Is it because their insurance won't cover filming in foul weather?

Or are the actors just more demanding now and it's written in their contract they won't work in adverse weather?

Has little to do with the actors, but common sense. Film making today is a whole different ballgame from the 60's. There's a reason why the Bond producers could release a film a year for four years back then. That would be impossible today. Especially for the Bond series. The amount of money and people involved in the production is enormous. Just thinking of the basics...catering, places to stay, transportation, etc. to get to the location each day. The cost is enormous.

It comes down to making difficult things easy. It's much easier and cost efficient to shoot a nighttime scene in the day (as long as you don't take shots of the sky), mainly close/tight shots.. And it has been around since the earliest days of film and was used in the early Bond films, especially in OHMSS.

It's kind of like saying why did the Bond films use so much back projection in the early days? Because it was easier and cheaper. Sure, it would have looked better to get Connery on location, throw him in a car, strap a camera to it and film the chase in DN, but realistically the cost of filming it at the studio was the cheaper and easiest method.

It's finding a balance: What do we have to do for real? How can we cut some corners, but still get a good result to come in under budget?

Mrs Aural Sects wrote:

I'd like at least 2 major action sequences, with at least one having enough WOW factor to set precedents in the industry.

The problem is that it's very difficult to do this convincingly without jumping the shark. No doubt whoever thought that having Bond escape a solar-powered death ray in an ice dragster by driving it over the edge of an icy escarpment and parasailing to safety as the death ray carved a new iceberg out of the glacier while the villain made jokes about global warming was an awesome idea when it was written. And it certainly does have that wow-factor, because until then, nothing like that had ever been committed to film. But at the same time, its execution was so poor (and the film had already lost credibility with the invisible car) that audiences railed against it.

The audiences did not rally against that, only bitter Bondfans did. ;)

Mrs Aural Sects wrote:

Skyfall's pre-title was okay, but didn't bite you in the ass like an Octopussy pre-title which is now 30 fucking years old.

This is true. In fact, the PTSs in many of the Bond films, especially OP, TLD, TSWLM, GE, MR and TWINE have a WOW factor that will continue to thrill audiences for years to come.

I knew a lot of non-Bond fans who hated it.

I think production made the mistake of assuming that just because something had not been committed to film before, that automatically made it worth showing. And it's probably very difficult to be original in these days, though it can be done - like the spinning hotel room in INCEPTION (love or loathe Nolan, it's difficult to deny that that scene and the use of practical effects to do it was laudable).

FieldsMan wrote:

Mrs Aural Sects wrote:

Skyfall's pre-title was okay, but didn't bite you in the ass like an Octopussy pre-title which is now 30 fucking years old.

This is true. In fact, the PTSs in many of the Bond films, especially OP, TLD, TSWLM, GE, MR and TWINE have a WOW factor that will continue to thrill audiences for years to come.

Indeed.

Watching my Blu-ray of A VIEW TO A KILL the other day, I noticed that its PTS - while it's hardly one of the outstanding PTSes of the series - is perhaps the most energetic and Bondian part of the film. Yes, I know that it has Bond surfing to "California Girls" and that dreadful and embarrassing ending on the iceberg submarine ("Call me James - it's five days to Alaska"), but it still has some wow factor, or at least compared to much of what comes after in the main body of the film.

In another forum I go to, there is a thread about bad movies you have viewed recently.

Here's what the, the REAL world critics, are saying about Skyfail.

Quote :

I'm just going to say that I was very disappointed with this movie. I've been a Bond fan since the days of Connery and although I wasn't so keen on Roger Moore, I've always looked forward to the next release.

For me, Skyfall was no better than Quantum and I really can't visualise the hospitality provided to all the critics that raved about it, because it was so lacking, despite having plenty of money spent on the production.

The script was weak, the film, over-long and there was no significant Bond girl. Much of the story was seriously improbable, especially the rather silly shoot out in Scotland at the end. In fact, this finale was almost stupid beyond belief.

Some action sequences might almost have been borrowed from Bourne and Mission Impossible films and the really interesting ruined town was barely exploited. The whole thing had the feeling of a speedy lash-up and it could have been so much better.

As I said in another post, "Sorry Bond fans," but although I like Craig as an actor, this production simply didn't do it for me.

Quote :

Skyfall was a long boring music video, not a Bond film. Yet everyone and their dog was calling it the "Best Bond Movie Ever". Then again this is a generation that thinks Twilight and the Hunger Games are cinematic masterpieces...

Quote :

Skyfall. Absolute rubbish. I have no idea how it managed to get so much praise. I mean, the villain tries to kill Bond by shooting him with an (empty) tube train... and misses!

Quote :

I found "Skyfall" to be disappointing and dull. I can't understand the love for it.

Loomis wrote:

FieldsMan wrote:

Mrs Aural Sects wrote:

Skyfall's pre-title was okay, but didn't bite you in the ass like an Octopussy pre-title which is now 30 fucking years old.

This is true. In fact, the PTSs in many of the Bond films, especially OP, TLD, TSWLM, GE, MR and TWINE have a WOW factor that will continue to thrill audiences for years to come.

Indeed.

Watching my Blu-ray of A VIEW TO A KILL the other day, I noticed that its PTS - while it's hardly one of the outstanding PTSes of the series - is perhaps the most energetic and Bondian part of the film. Yes, I know that it has Bond surfing to "California Girls" and that dreadful and embarrassing ending on the iceberg submarine ("Call me James - it's five days to Alaska"), but it still has some wow factor, or at least compared to much of what comes after in the main body of the film.

Agreed. Plus, it's enormously helped by one of the most rousing cues Barry ever wrote for Bond.

Largo's Shark wrote:

Loomis wrote:

FieldsMan wrote:

Mrs Aural Sects wrote:

Skyfall's pre-title was okay, but didn't bite you in the ass like an Octopussy pre-title which is now 30 fucking years old.

This is true. In fact, the PTSs in many of the Bond films, especially OP, TLD, TSWLM, GE, MR and TWINE have a WOW factor that will continue to thrill audiences for years to come.

Indeed.

Watching my Blu-ray of A VIEW TO A KILL the other day, I noticed that its PTS - while it's hardly one of the outstanding PTSes of the series - is perhaps the most energetic and Bondian part of the film. Yes, I know that it has Bond surfing to "California Girls" and that dreadful and embarrassing ending on the iceberg submarine ("Call me James - it's five days to Alaska"), but it still has some wow factor, or at least compared to much of what comes after in the main body of the film.

Agreed. Plus, it's enormously helped by one of the most rousing cues Barry ever wrote for Bond.

I'll drink to that.

tiffanywint wrote:

...realistically B24 will serve up more of the Craig-era template. Meldodrama and more melodrama with requisite action, the mimimal Bond-girl quotient and just enough nods to established Bond tropes, so that we know it's a Bond film we are watching but just barely. Gun barrel at end of course! Nothing will change till Craig is gone.

Quantum real goal will be what Blofeld (OHMSS) can have done.







Eon whant to make Harry Potter stylish Bond Daniel Craig era.

All 3 Daniel Craig Bond movies are not easy to at to the other Bond movies. There take disstance with things up side down/mixed up things. What i like to see is that Bond 24 elements be handeld like Thunderball, OHMSS, OP, TMND, QOS, Yolt, DAF. Example: Plot should mixed up elements of Yolt, OHMSS, DAF, LALD and TMND/CR-QOS,Skyfall. The thrill should be like Thunderball and QOS.

Daniel Craig his Bond proof that he is smart sometimes but also very gritty, what i like to see is that we see a longer time (more then 3 months we see in Skyfall) Bond take disstance from Mi6. I whant to see him gamble, Martini, Bond girl and if needed we should see him smoke again, dreaming about Vesper, Mathis for example and someboy trow him out of Casino or we see him on the streets. Of course somebody from Quantum, Mi6 or Felix/Cia can bring him back in the game > Waterplot/Quantum real goal and Camile.

I want Bond to get back to his Flemingesque roots, yes this time for real.

1. Bond is NOT a Spy.
2. Bond works for the Ministry of Defence not MI6.
3. Bond is a warm-blooded heterosexual who loves to love women, drink, and gambling.
4. Bond has meaningful dialog.
5. Bond is Not Martin Rigg, Ethan Hunt, or Jason Bourne.
6. Bond is not a superhero or a part of 'The Fantastic X-Men".
7. Bond does not need to be in constant contact with M.
8. Bond is not a clown, but can be funny.
9. Bond does not have issues from the ups and down.

I'd argue that in SF Craig's Bond did step away from the Bourneishness of QOS towards the more traditional women/drink/gambling and humour elements you mention.

I take your point with the constant contact with M bit (or Q as was the case for the London sequence). I'm worried that technological advances mean we haven't seen the last of Bond with an earpiece chatting to HQ whilst, in bygone days, he'd have just got on with the job.

CJB wrote:

I take your point with the constant contact with M bit (or Q as was the case for the London sequence).

I think the "constant contact with M" think is more M's character than Bond's. Her way of running MI6 was to seek regular updates from her agents, and by replacing Judi Dench with Ralph Fiennes, it opens up the door for a new style of leadership. It's only really a problem if it continues.

As for Bond being in constant contact with Q, I don't think that was really a problem. He was, after all, trying to navigate the service tunnels of the Underground, which is not something you could reasonably expect him to know about (Bond's knowledge base has generally been quite broad in nature; he understands subjects - like the diamond trade - enough in such a way that he can readily understand more sophisticated concepts related to them, but there are only a handful of subjects that he is an out-and-out expert in, like wine). Especially considering that he had never been in the underground bunker until the events of SKYFALL - expecting him to know precisely where he was relative to where he was going and being able to find his way through a labyrinth of isolated and obscure maintenance access routes to track a fugitive would require a massive suspension of disbelief.

I agree with PM. I don't think the Underground London stuff means Bond will be in constant contact with Q, it's just that he was able to guide him. With M, it was never really an issue during Brosnan's era, save for TWINE, but she was emotionally involved in that, and Elektra called her out - Bond even asks what she's doing in the field.