As a HUGE Jame Bond fan, listening to them talking about the films was painful. The Craig films are probably some of the worst Bond films for people who ACTUALLY like Bond, vs people who like modern spy action-thrillers like Mission Impossible or the Bourne series.
What does being a huge Bond fan even mean? What even is intrinsically Bond? I read a handful of the Fleming books, and only a few of the movies do a very good job of capturing either the original plot or Bond's personality or the overall tone. If we're looking at just the movies, Bond's personality is kinda all over the place depending on what era the movie was made in and who was playing him. I like the Bond movies, but it's such a long-running series that I think of it as amorphous, and I don't have a problem with seeing it change with the times. I don't see the issue with the Craig films becoming more like modern spy action-thrillers with how they're shot. The characterization of Bond, M, etc. still hearkens back to earlier Bond films more than it does to M:I, Bourne, etc.
The Bond in the movies differs from the Bond in the books, obviously, and there are differences throughout the movies, sure, but there is still an underlying sense of style and themes to Bond films. This is less about Bond the character (who in the films ranges from Roger Moore's 'fun' Bond to Timothy Dalton's fascinatingly dark portrayal), and more about the stories and style of the films themselves. Bond films are meant to be kind of wacky, high-flying affairs filled with exotic locations, beautiful women, and great bad guys (in my opinion it is the villain and the actor who plays them which makes a good or bad Bond film, not the Bond). Fundamentally they're adventure films, not spy or action films. This also isn't too far removed from the books either. People often complain that the movies are 'unrealistic' compared to the books, but the books fall into two main categories. The first is more like Casino Royale, and more grounded 'spy' fiction, while others, like On Her Majesty's Secret Service are as wild as the films. Again though, the books aren't really 'spy thrillers' in the modern sense, they're adventure novels. Bond travelled the world and went to luxurious, exotic places at a time when international travel was still unusual, even for the wealthy. It is not an accident that he used specific, named brands of clothing, drinks, shaving cream, etc. Bond was an escape for people of post-War Britain.
Bond himself also holds certain characteristics true, despite whoever plays him. Firstly he is thoroughly anachronistic. Even in the early books, he recognises that he is the last of a dying breed, and to some extent the character is a metaphor for pre-War British Imperial Georgian attitudes. Bond is an unrepentant chauvinist (in the full meaning of the term), and should be expressed as such, and not 'sanitised' by modern political correctness. Secondly Bond is supremely self-confident. While the books and some of the movies have occasionally shown a darker side to Bond, he has only rarely (and not to my knowledge ever in the films) shown any doubt in his own abilities or the rightness of his actions. Bond is not and has never been a morally complex character, and shouldn't be regarded as one. This is perhaps the big difference with the Craig films, is that not only is Craig's Bond darker, but the way the world looks upon Bond is also darker. Bond's actions, attitudes, and methods are criticised and questioned in a way they never were before, and that's bad. It's become kind of a trend to criticise or judge the Bond character, with some (like Alex in the video) arguing that he's an alcoholic, sexist, unstable mass-murderer. While the Craig films don't come out and explicitly call him that, they do nudge towards that more critical analysis of the character. Bond is still the hero, but he's started to drift into anti-hero territory. Now I'm not going to judge the value of that kind of story, other than to say it's simply not Bond. Even when he was going rogue to avenge his friend (in the film License to Kill), the audience was never in doubt that Bond was the good guy doing the right thing for the right reasons. We had the same confidence in Bond that he did in himself.
The Craig films not only drift away from that, they're also not very good. Skyfall is by far the best and, not coincidentally, is the one which most closely follows the old formulas. Casino Royale is ok, but it is also probably the closest of all the films to the source material, so again benefits from the older form. Spectre is extremely forgettable except for the opening scene in Mexico and Quantum of Solace is straight up a bad film, let alone a bad Bond film. There was actually a conscious break between the Craig films and their predecessors, as Barbara Broccoli believed that Mike Myer's Austin Powers films had hit too close to home, and the Bond films needed to get away from that wackiness if they were to avoid parody. This was a mistake in my opinion, or at the very least the subsequent films have dramatically lessened if not outright ditched core elements to Bond films, and, despite the darker character, do not do the books justice.
As a HUGE Jame Bond fan, listening to them talking about the films was painful. The Craig films are probably some of the worst Bond films for people who ACTUALLY like Bond, vs people who like modern spy action-thrillers like Mission Impossible or the Bourne series.
No...nope...don't like the desk. They look too much like a 'real' website. Next thing there will be a dress code, a ban on knives...WE MUST STOP THE PROFESSIONALISM HERE AND NOW!
But the desk could be good for other things, great E3 set.
inkerman's comments