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SomeDuderr t1_j2axma7 wrote

Reply to comment by WeDriftEternal in One off Bond movies: Can it work? by djalekks

But they used the same actors for older Bond movies as well. Both Connery and Moore did quite a few movies, with no need for continuity between them.

So yea, I think this can definately work and is probably my preferred format for Bond. The experiment with Craig and his decades-long lusting for Vesper was... interesting? But ultimately not worth dedicating 6 (?) movies to.

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GetFreeCash t1_j2ayac8 wrote

>The experiment with Craig and his decades-long lusting for Vesper was... interesting? But ultimately not worth dedicating 6 (?) movies to.

five movies - and I have no proof, but I would bet a lot of money that the plan back in the Casino Royale days was NOT to have Bond mourning the girlfriend he knew for a month, for fifteen years. the movie even ends in a way that would seemingly lend itself to Bond becoming the character we know from the first 20 movies.

it just so happens that they struck gold with the Bond/Vesper relationship (and with Craig and Green's chemistry) and decided, unwisely, to keep bringing it up in the subsequent movies as part of the emphasis on making everything a Personal Vendetta™ to Bond.

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ads7w6 t1_j2b5ckj wrote

I think they freaked out after Quantum wasn't really a hit and pivoted. I was a big fan of the direction they were going with those movies (even though Quantum had its shortcomings due to the writer's strike) but then really turned off by Skyfall and Spectre.

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Glittering_Egg_9196 t1_j2bq7fy wrote

Quantum is a direct sequel to the Vesper story from Casino Royale. Skyfall more or less ignores that whole thing and is standalone (other than M). Spectre is where they became obsessed with continuity.

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Rougarou1999 t1_j2c36zo wrote

>Spectre is where they became obsessed with continuity.

That was mainly due to the studio finally regaining the rights to use SPECTRE and Blofeld, and, rather than put time and effort into building them up as threat, they used them immediately as the antagonists, which led to the Craig-era self-referential retcons to make SPECTRE relevant.

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Glittering_Egg_9196 t1_j2c6dl9 wrote

I feel like it would have been okay to use him immediately without the "author of all your pain" nonsense. Hell, even that might have been tolerable without appropriating the joke brothers twist from Goldmember as the big dramatic reveal.

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Rougarou1999 t1_j2c6q5j wrote

Trying to tie the villains of Spectre back to the previous few movies was a move that I cannot understand why the writers thought it would work. It makes little narrative sense, especially when they already built up Quantum as Craig’s SPECTRE-esque organization.

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nautilator44 t1_j2ea1k9 wrote

I still don't know what happened in Quantum. I'm 70% sure the camera guy was throwing punches. I still have whiplash. Whoever invented that kind of camera work needs to be slapped. Hard.

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WeDriftEternal t1_j2ay3g2 wrote

Agreed on the Daniel Craig movies... they long story arc was totally unnecessary and really made at least half of his movies not feel like Bond movies, they are action rom/coms. No Time to Die wasn't even feel like a bond movie, it just happened to have a character named James Bond starring in some mission Impossible knockoff with a love story wedged in there

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GetFreeCash t1_j2ayqqn wrote

when the personal relationship at the core of the story works (Bond/Vesper, Bond/Leiter, Bond/M), I don't mind the action taking a backseat to the drama. it's when it doesn't work, notably with Bond/Madeleine though they did improve it a bit in NTTD, that it feels like a step in the wrong direction.

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WeDriftEternal t1_j2cc2vl wrote

Agreed here, wrong direction is a good call, it just didnt work this time

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OnlyFuzzy13 t1_j2fivum wrote

The thing I love about ALL the pre-Craig movies is that every movie is essentially Bond’s 4th mission. He’s not a rookie, has no ‘origin’ story, and spends the prologue ‘finishing’ a mission, then going back to work. He is good at his job and you don’t need to know where he came from, who his family is or why they are gone.

The Craig era has been great Jason Bourne movies, but not eternal adventures.

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ScarletCaptain t1_j2flbkt wrote

There was continuity of the Bond movies though, every Bond through Brosnan referenced his dead wife, thus connecting them as the same man. Craig was the first official reboot, even if it carried over Judi Dench’s M.

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