Every Craig Bond movie has put me to sleep. I think brand new writers, a brand new director, and a new actor will be needed to save this franchise.
shareI loved the first two Craig movies. But, the Sam Mendes movies, as is the case with everything else he directs, was deadening.
They just need to stop. Full stop. Wait a few years, and start over.
Nice thread here.
It's really interesting to see that more and more people appear to be rejecting the non genuine Daniel Craig "Bond" era (on here at least).
I won't be watching No Time To Die but I will say that whatever the "woke" element may be it shouldn't really put others who do stomach the Craig films off.
Although it may grind against the current agenda to suggest otherwise, Bond has for a long time now had strong female sidekicks, not mere "Bond Girls". e.g. Michelle Yeoh in Tomorrow Never Dies was absolutely not an inferior to Bond. Then Bond almost became a side character to Dame Judy Dench in TWINE and maybe Skyfall? (tried hard to wipe any memory of that garbage from my mind but that does seem about right!)
As to "saving" Bond films - The Craig films were supposed to be a reboot / off on their own tangent anyway so why not simply officially confirm that. It would be great if EON announced they'd be kicking Purves & Wade out and the next one, with a newly cast Bond, would go back to continuing the series proper after Die Another Day with a traditional genuine Bond film...
Die Another Day almost killed the whole franchise.
Once you have Bond surfing a tidal wave using a car door and a parachute....while a Beach Boys song is playing, you've jumped the shark, hard. The invisible car....the face-swapping....the giant laser beam from space....the ice fortress, etc, etc.
Hey, EVERYONE likes the fun elements of a (good) Bond film....like during the Moore era. And those elemnts (could) get added a bit more into the new formula. But there's no way they can go back to the way, WAY over-the-top direction the films were headed with Die Another Day. I mean....where do you go after THAT movie? It was almost cartoonish it was so...ridiculous.
Plain and simple...Casino Royale not only saved the franchise from dying a silly death....it was also amongst the top 3 or 4 Bond films ever.
I wasn't really discussing DAD per se just pointing out that the series proper could continue after it if they chose to put the final nail in the coffin of the awful Daniel Craig era.
However I'm confused by what metric you're claiming it almost "killed" the franchise? DAD was hugely successful at the time and fares strongly against many other Bonds even when taking inflation into account:-
https://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbean/2020/04/18/all-26-james-bond-films-ranked-at-the-box-office/#647c89601804
Sure everyone knows the surf CGI was crap but if that's what you are talking about that's a huge stretch to say it almost killed it...
I guess though if you're talking DAD being released at the same time as The Bourne Identity resulting in Casino Royale and then the onward downward trajectory of the Craig era taking us at to point where these "Bond" films are now, then yes - in a sense that path taken subsequently has done great harm to the franchise so you may be on to something there.
DAD had good box office because it was a new Bond film, after a long hiatus...so of course there'd be curiosity. But in terms of quality, and fan reaction...I think most people will tell you it is among the worst of the franchise's history. It's NEVER in anyone's list of favorite Bonds. You mention that the CGI was bad with the tidal wave surfing scene? The whole CONCEPT of him surfing on a tidal wave (using a car door???) was so ludicrous it's embarrassing.
It sounds like you're just not a fan of the more serious approach of the Craig-era, and I'm not here to try and talk you into feeling differently. I happen to LOVE the Craig Bond films.....to each their own.
The first half of DAD was actually pretty good. Things started to deteriorate once they got to the ice palace. Still, the ending was better than Diamonds are Forever, which also had an earth orbiting space laser. The plastic surgery technology in DAF wasn't any more believable than the gene therapy in DAD.
"Once you have Bond surfing a tidal wave using a car door and a parachute....while a Beach Boys song is playing"
Aren't you confusing this with A View to a Kill pre-title sequence? I don't remember any Beach Boys song in DAD.
I think DAD was better than TWINE and TND from Brosnan films. I also like Quantum of Solace, which is a generally hated movie. And Moonraker. I also liked Pierce Brosnan most in DAD, I think he did his best acting in it.
Totally agree re the first half of DAD - the best of Brosnan I'd say.
There was also plastic surgery / face swapping in Thunderball as well.
California Girls was in View To A Kill - a nod to the rise of snowboarding at the time...
Of course each to their own but in the context of this thread, i.e. how to save Bond movies, and the OP saying the Craig movies are boring, I just think claiming DAD almost killed the series is a real stretch.
There was no long hiatus before the film either (three years rather than two). I think this graph is interesting to see where DAD really stood up against the other Brosnan films and then Casino Royale:-
https://m.the-numbers.com/movies/custom-comparisons-extended/Die-Another-Day/World-is-Not-Enough-The/Goldeneye/Tomorrow-Never-Dies/Casino-Royale-(2006)
Here's another interesting comparison:-
https://m.the-numbers.com/movies/custom-comparisons/Licence-to-Kill/Goldeneye
License To Kill Vs Goldeneye
Now if any Bond ever came close to really killing the franchise it was LTK!
DAD nearly killed the franchise because a lot of fan reaction was simply: "Where do you go from here?"
Where do you go after invisible cars, windsurfing on Tidal Waves, etc....
It was so, SO over-the-top it got ridiculous. This...while the Bourne movies were getting respect for returning to grit and espionage.
IMO....Casino Royale was damn near a masterpiece.....and a GREAT move by the producers.
Rather than go even MORE silly and even MORE over-the-top....they rebooted and gave us a Bond that looked like he could kill someone with his bare hands (and he did).
The opening scene was brilliant. The following scene (parkour chase) was amazing. The poker scenes were cool. The hand-to-hand fighting was gritty and to the death. Just a great film.
This was a nice antidote to Pierce Brosnan prancing around in his tuxedos worrying if his drinks were shaken or stirred. The last good hand-to-hand fight Brosnan had was in Goldeneye.
I think if people want silly, over-the-top...and funny fun, the Mission Impossible movies have taken over that market. I really like the return to the slightly darker and more realistic Bond approach, like we got with Connery in Goldfinger, From Russia with Love, even Thunderball.
Don't get me wrong...I LOVED the Moore films...especially TSWLM and Moonraker, and those were fun, campy and over-the-top. But I just don't think the franchise can go back to that. They took things to the very edge with DAD, and IMO....pushed it too far.
Mission Impossible movies are a lesson in how to do "over the top" right. DAD is a lesson in how to do it wrong.
"DAD nearly killed the franchise because a lot of fan reaction was simply: "Where do you go from here?"
Where do you go after invisible cars, windsurfing on Tidal Waves, etc...."
Its nothing new. People were probably asking that same question after Moonraker too (and I'm not comparing Moonraker to DAD, I think Moonraker is Moore's best Bond movie).
Yeah, look I'm not particularly one of these people who quotes box office as a barometer of quality or anything like that and I'm not sure if you looked at those graphs I linked to but when you say something like
DAD nearly killed the franchise because a lot of fan reaction was simply: "Where do you go from here?"then that's ok - like we said, each to their own - but we've surely got to accept that's purely a subjective opinion.
Where do you go after invisible cars, windsurfing on Tidal Waves, etc....
I definitely don't factor box office figures into this. This is mostly my opinion...and anecdotally, the opinions of other Bond fans I've interfaced with over the years. I'll also factor-in the general tenor of conversations I've seen over the years on sites like this, IMDB, etc. Nothing scientific....just observation.
If I had the time (and inclination) to do some research, I'm sure I could find more on how close this franchise was to ending...and how much (if anything) the era that DAD was in had anything to do with it. I'm sure you could find plenty of research on Craig haters as well, if you wanted.
Ultimately, I'll just go with my very own opinion on it--and I think I've been pretty clear on it. DAD, while fun in spots....was incredibly ridiculous to me, and almost wrecked the franchise (for me). Casino Royale (and Craig) brought it back (for me)...big time.
I agree. It just needs a competent writer and director. I'd prefer someone other than Craig but he isn't the biggest problem. I loved Casino Royal. Just steal a writer from Mission Impossible. Well, from one of the last three, that is.
With the amount of money spent, I am still shocked that any big budget movie makes it to the can in as bad a shape as the last three 007 movies.
>> Every Craig Bond movie has put me to sleep.
What about the Brosnan films - were they any better?