James Bond In Skyfall - Part 6

[Ajendo]

Filming scenes and taking a break from filming in Turkey

 

[Metallo]

True and Grant WAS offered the role but he didn't want to commit to doing more than one film.

Well I knew that about Grant. Thats why I thought of him. Never knew Hitchcock was asked to direct Thunderball before. Thats very interesting. Hes on an exclusive list of great directors that were considered/wanted to direct Bond but never got the chance for whatever reason.

 

[Ajendo]

Well I knew that about Grant. Thats why I thought of him. Never knew Hitchcock was asked to direct Thunderball before. Thats very interesting. Hes on an exclusive list of great directors that were considered/wanted to direct Bond but never got the chance for whatever reason.

Yeah Cubby and Saltzman just couldn't meet Hitch's financial demands but that's ok though because Young imo is the best director the series ever had and he did an amazing job helming TB. To be honest, I'd rather Hitch have directed GF instead.

 

[Metallo]

So it as a financial hurdle? Considering the parties involved I figured it would be a creative disagreement. Thunderball was a HUGE hit anyway so as far as the money they made it wasn't a big loss but they should have paid him whatever he wanted. It would have been well worth it.

 

[DACrowe]

And I never bought him as convincingly dark with the smug delivery. Never said he was effeminate but compared to some of the more macho Bonds he was a pretty boy. Doesn't mean he couldn't do a good job but he was.





Like I said some are more than others. as for DAD vs YOLT...yeah they are both over the top...but YOLT was made in the 60's while DAD was made in the 2000s. Some of those things worked better in the past than they did later on. DAD was so concerned with in jokes for the anniversary and being a more generic action film that these things stood out even more. We didn't see Blofeld in powered armor

I feel that if we're going to compare DAD to any film it should be Moonraker.
That was just...ugh

Camp is camp. If it's a hollowed out volcano that can launch space shuttles, a Star Wars-esque laser battle in space with Bond floating in zero gravity, or Bond driving an invisible car through a melting ice palace, they're all way too over the top.

I'd say YOLT, DAF, Moonraker, AVTAK and DAD are all on the same level. What's sad is I think both YOLT and DAD began promising in their first acts before devolving into absurdity. Moonraker from the word go was complete cheese and camp. It may be why I find it more entertaining.

 

[DACrowe]

Well I knew that about Grant. Thats why I thought of him. Never knew Hitchcock was asked to direct Thunderball before. Thats very interesting. Hes on an exclusive list of great directors that were considered/wanted to direct Bond but never got the chance for whatever reason.

Yep. Spielberg wanted to direct what became FYEO, but EON didn't want him to have creative control. So he made Raiders of the Lost Ark instead.

Nolan has expressed interest in doing a Bond movie and I wonder if he may actually get to as Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson are letting more visionary directors like Sam Mendes into the series now.

Also, Gran said he'd do two Bond movies not three, so they went for an unknown (Connery) instead. It works out because Connery was brilliant and Grant was probably too old for the part. Plus, it'd be harder to recast the role if it was viewed as a Cary Grant-vehicle for the first two or three movies.

 

[chamber-music]

YOLT is one of my favourite Connery Bond movies. The only silly bit for me is when Connery pretends to be Japanese.

I liked the Volcanoe base and Donald Pleasence's Blofeld. I think people find YOLT cheesy because its one of the most parodied and ripped off Bond movies.

 

[Webhead2006]

Some cool pics from turkey shoot. And interesting stuff about grant, hitchcock.

 

[chamber-music]

Yep. Spielberg wanted to direct what became FYEO, but EON didn't want him to have creative control. So he made Raiders of the Lost Ark instead.

Nolan has expressed interest in doing a Bond movie and I wonder if he may actually get to as Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson are letting more visionary directors like Sam Mendes into the series now.

Also, Gran said he'd do two Bond movies not three, so they went for an unknown (Connery) instead. It works out because Connery was brilliant and Grant was probably too old for the part. Plus, it'd be harder to recast the role if it was viewed as a Cary Grant-vehicle for the first two or three movies.

Tarantino and Matthew Vaughn have both been intrested in doing a Bond film as well.

Tarantino doesn't like Daniel Craigs Bond though.

I think people stuggle with casting choices for Bond because they usually either think he should be played like a charming, quip spouting, aristocratic pretty boy or a cold hearted rugged swaggering manly man ass kicker.

 

[Metallo]

Camp is camp. If it's a hollowed out volcano that can launch space shuttles, a Star Wars-esque laser battle in space with Bond floating in zero gravity, or Bond driving an invisible car through a melting ice palace, they're all way too over the top.

I'd say YOLT, DAF, Moonraker, AVTAK and DAD are all on the same level. What's sad is I think both YOLT and DAD began promising in their first acts before devolving into absurdity. Moonraker from the word go was complete cheese and camp. It may be why I find it more entertaining.

Except most of those films aren't the truest examples of camp. The term gets broadly overused and misused. The Bond films became more and more cartoonish, flamboyant, and over the top yes but not necessarily camp. The 1967 Casino Royale was a closer example of CAMP Bond. The EON films never went quite that far into the absurdly bizarre. I'd say DAF probably got closest to CAMP but its not in the sequences you would think.

The 60'sand 70's were the fertile grounds for camp and kitsch works. Much of the work of John Waters is real camp. Mommie Dearest, Rocky Horror, Batman...those were camp. Camp seems to get intermixed with silly and cartoony when its not always accurate.

But even if Bond was the point is what worked in the 60's doesn't necessarily work as well in the 2000's. That kind of style was at its peak in the 1960's. It fit the culture. The culture of 2002 was very different. You can't really look around now and see a Laugh In can you? Very distinctive kind of humor and storytelling.

And even then The older Bond films kept a very distinctive British flavor that slowly drooped off over time. People like Derek Meddings and John Barry dying off or retiring were prime examples of changes in the series.

YOLT goes too far over the top and while its fun its a prime example of the excess that went too far that started with Thunderball. But YOLT has a few saving graces that DAD doesn't. Pleasence, the brilliant John Barry, better use of the Japanese setting, etc. The use of North Korea in DAD was a great idea but they utterly bungled it. Like you said the film starts off strong (minus the lame theme song and CGI gunbarrel bullet) but as soon as Bond hits Cuba its all downhill from there.

 

[Metallo]

Tarantino and Matthew Vaughn have both been intrested in doing a Bond film as well.

Tarantino doesn't like Daniel Craigs Bond though.

I think people struggle with casting choices for Bond because they usually either think he should be played like a charming, quip spouting, aristocratic pretty boy or a cold hearted rugged swaggering manly man ass kicker.

QT always struck me as a guy who would prefer a swinging 60's Bond the most. I bet he'd have fun making a period Bond film. He'd probably work the soundtrack into overdrive and have a ton of 60's cultural references but at the same time making it darker when needed. It'd be a playground for him.

At times X-Men First Class (besides being a damn good movie) really seemed like Vaughn's trial run for a Bond film.

As for Bond himself I think there's a solid middle ground in his cinematic personality but there is room for interpretation on different ends of the spectrum.

YOLT is one of my favourite Connery Bond movies. The only silly bit for me is when Connery pretends to be Japanese.

I liked the Volcanoe base and Donald Pleasence's Blofeld. I think people find YOLT cheesy because its one of the most parodied and ripped off Bond movies.

Yeah I've noticed that too. Its so over the top that I think its ripe for parody. The Simpsons and Austin Powers alone have just taken tons of ideas from that movie to use as fodder for parody.

For me its a horserace between Savalas and Pleasence but I love Donalld Pleasense in the YOLT. He's just so bizzare. Like the anti Bond.

I actually love all the Blofelds except Charles Grays. I love Anthony Dawsons mostly unseen Dr Claw inspiring Blofeld in FRWL and Thunderball. Dawson, Von Sydow and Savalas probably match the literary version more in varying degrees. Each on captures some described physical characteristic.

 

[The Guard]

I'm glad Hitchcock never directed Thunderball. He tended to make a lot of changes to the original material he directed from.

We'd have gotten a THUNDERBALL nothing like the original material its based on.

 

[DACrowe]

Tarantino and Matthew Vaughn have both been intrested in doing a Bond film as well.

Tarantino doesn't like Daniel Craigs Bond though.

I think people stuggle with casting choices for Bond because they usually either think he should be played like a charming, quip spouting, aristocratic pretty boy or a cold hearted rugged swaggering manly man ass kicker.

That's right. He wanted to adapt CR with Pierce Brosnan. I wasn't aware that he disliked Craig. I could see why he'd like Brosnan's Bond and wanted to write him dialogue. But for the CR book, I prefer the Craig approach. Still, if Bond 21 was directed for 2004-5 by Tarantino as Brosnan's finale? I would have been happy with that. Then CR/Craig could be in 2007.

I didn't know Vaughn wanted to do a Bond movie. He's not a huge name, so I'd like that.

 

[regwec]

Phwoar!

 

[DarkKnight88]

Hes on an exclusive list of great directors that were considered/wanted to direct Bond but never got the chance for whatever reason.

Well, North by Northwest was basically the model for the Bond films.

 

[Daniel Thompson]

Tarantino should still be given a chance in the future to direct a James Bond film. No doubt it would take place in the 60s with proably former actors in his previous films in his Bond movie. I can see him using Micheal Fassenber as James Bond and Christopher Waltz as a villian. For Bond fans they would get both good talking scenes and good action scenes in the film so it be a win-win situation.

 

[Doctor Jones]

Don't set it in the 60's. Keep it modern.

 

[Metallo]

Well, North by Northwest was basically the model for the Bond films.

Thats probably why he said he felt it was his Bond-style film.

I'm glad Hitchcock never directed Thunderball. He tended to make a lot of changes to the original material he directed from.

We'd have gotten a THUNDERBALL nothing like the original material its based on.

Haha...it would have fit right in with some of the later Bond films. Thats why I was surprised the decision not to do it was monetary and not creative (as far as people here have said so far).

Thunderball has enough controversy around it as is. While the finished film is pretty good it feels a little bloated.

 

[Daniel Thompson]

Don't set it in the 60's. Keep it modern.

Whats wrong with making a period piece Bond film set in the 60s? Since Tarantino loves blaxploitation films he would proably set it in the 70s and do a remake of Live and Let Die.

 

[Webhead2006]

The problem is folks probably wouldn't like to see bond stuck in any one period for x amount of time. Plus the character is timeless and works in any time.

 

[DACrowe]

Yes and no. The character styas relevant as a hero. But his origins, personality and worldview are all informed by the Cold War. It is hard to divorce Fleming's Bond from the 1950s and while EON has divorced their Bond from the 1960s, much of his attitude, lifestyle and persona is from that era. That's why people can watch, say, "Mad Men" and instantly go, "So this where James Bond came from." That sort of male POV and mindset.

I still look at the cinematic James Bond as a 1960s character who is slightly retooled roughly every decade with a new actor to make him contemporary (Moore is the tongue-in-cheek bemused 1970s, Dalton is the tougher and more testosterone-driven boomer-empowered 1980s, Brosnan the ironic post-Cold War cynical 1990s and Craig the angry War On Terror and paranoid 2000s).

Still, the character feels like a product of the mid-20th century to me.

 

[Daniel Thompson]

The problem is folks probably wouldn't like to see bond stuck in any one period for x amount of time. Plus the character is timeless and works in any time.

The X-Men are timeless aswell and can work in any era, but First Class still took place in the 60s instead of modern day times.

 

[BritishChap007]

The X-Men are timeless aswell and can work in any era, but First Class still took place in the 60s instead of modern day times.

In a movie that was a prequel about younger versions of characters who were old in 2000....not the same thing.

If they do a Bond movie in the 60s, will all Bond movies after that take place in the 60s? Or would you bring it back to modern times after one or two? How would you accomplish all that without confusing audiences beyond belief?

It wouldn't work. And it's not worth it. We had Bond films in the 60s.

 

[Metallo]

Audiences didn't care about being confused with the Casino Royale reboot despite things that could be confusing. Its a movie. People know that.

The problem is folks probably wouldn't like to see bond stuck in any one period for x amount of time. Plus the character is timeless and works in any time.

It depends on the adaptation. The character CAN be adapted to work during any time...thats been proven. But there's nothing that says a Bond film set in the 60's absolutely would not work. Some people said the same thing about a period superhero film but as has been said X-Men first Class did pretty good. The most beloved Bond and his adventures are still the ones set in the 1960's.

More than anything the success of a Bond film depends on the QUALITY of the film not primarily when its set.

Like DACrowe said the character is still somewhat of a throwback to a earlier era of manliness. He's been retouched for the times a bit but Bond still isn't your so so called "modern in touch with his feelings, sensitive, sympathetic" man. He's a mans man, a ladies man, and a more solid picture of manliness from days gone by. All of the actors have kept some element off that. Its not only his spectacular adventures and when they are set that are the draw but Bond himself. A man women want and men want to be. To this day we still have a romanticized view of previous decades (even people who weren't alive in them) so nobody can say for sure those periods wouldn't have some kind of appeal to modern audiences as long as the same high lifestyle is there.

As long as Bond's still that kind of fantasy wish fulfillment kind of character on some level that still has the daring adventures its not vitally important when his films are set as long as its sometime during the characters overall existence. It could still work.

 

[Daniel Thompson]

I was just saying if Tarantino did a Bond film he would proably set it back in time to the 60. His upcoming film and last film Inglorious Basterds have taken place back in the day, so if giving Bond he proably have it also be back in the day in the 60s or 70s. Most likely 70s since like I said he loves blaxploitation films and the 70s culture.