Why this Bond?

[Sharktopus]

I think this beautifully describes what people do or don't like about Casino Royale. Bond simply smashes through a wall rather than cutting a hole through it by firing a high intensity laser from his watch or blasting the wall with twin machine guns that pop out of the hood of his car.

[RobtheBarbarian]

To be fair, given the situation that's exactly what I'd do. I'm sure as hell not going to leap through that little hole up there, using gadgets would waste too much time (if I had them) and I'm confident that I could tear through a sheet of drywall with enough motivation. This Bond is much more real, for better or worse.

"Shaken or stirred?"
"Do I look like I give a damn?"

On a side note, I wonder if Bond knew there weren't any studs on the other side of that drywall. 

[Sharktopus]

To be fair, given the situation that's exactly what I'd do. I'm sure as hell not going to leap through that little hole up there, using gadgets would waste too much time (if I had them) and I'm confident that I could tear through a sheet of drywall with enough motivation. This Bond is much more real, for better or worse.

That's what I was getting at. This Bond is considerably more realistic, and while I feel that's a good thing for the franchise, the 007 nut in me did miss the wackiness. I can see why someone might be disappointed by Casino Royale.

[dignan]

I love Casino Royale, it was one of my favorite movies of last year, and yet, when faced with a question of why they should riff it, I can only reply, "Why not?"  I thought the riffing was hillarious.  And it's still one of my favorite movies of last year.  No harm, no foul.

[Just Some Guy]

From experience it is very easy to smash through drywall like that, but it would be funnier if Bond hit the studs that were holding it up. 

[Pak-Man]

Well, at least we know this scene isn't too far-fetched. Drywall is pretty brittle.

Although...

That semi-rediculous stunt, that camera angle... almost Battlefield: Earth-ian?

If it was Battlefield Earth-ian, they would have showed it three times in a row. :^)

[Hobbit]

The crane jumps are "fake".

1-They cut away before the guy lands the second jump-why would they do this except to hide the fact that he landed in a big mattress?  and when he does land it's obviously with a lot less momentum than he should have.

2-If they did have wires holding him how did he manage to get through the middle of the second crane? all the cable would have gotten snagged.

What they probably did is have the two crane-tops in a studio some where(or at least much closer to the ground), and the floor covered with mattresses.  They had the cranes closer together and the guy did the jumps, then in post productuion, they put the cranes 60 feet in the air and used cg to make the gaps between them bigger.

Watch the special features on disk 2.  When the bomber jumped from one crane to the other and then to the roof, it was all one single shot, and I didn't see any pads in the shot, either.  There's an entire documentary on there talking about how all of the action sequences were people actually doing this stuff rather than digitally editing things.  For example, somebody like Lucas would have made the car thrown by the airplane's jet wash a digital add-in.  In Casino Royale, they used a crane to jerk the car off the runway and edited out the wire and harness.

[Ortega]

i love the fact that did this movie.......i love this bond, but Mike and Kevin show you a different look at it that kinda funny.....like they did with Matrix and LOTR.    as long as its funny im game.......i cant wait until they do flims like schindler's list or saving private ryan.......man....watch the forum light up then......................................


Actually......i'd like it if they did Flag of our fathers......

[BBQ Platypus]

Hah... I'm not hardly trying to pick apart any physics. It's just that when somebody says that, except for some safety wires, the 30ft plummet was "real"... I gotta disagree with that. Not even PF Fliers would keep you from... well, you know the rest.

  Actually, I agree with you. I'm sure behind the scenes material on the dvd backs you up. There was probably all kinds of wires, matresses, some digital tweaking, ect.. Stunts, although still dangerous, are made to be as "safe" as possible.

Well, I guess the 20-minute featurette on the official DVD was full of shit then, wasn't it?

[wogoat]

I do think this one was guilty of being a bit whiny for the sake of filling time.  That's generally the problem I have when they try to do a 'good' movie.  Sometimes it feels like they still need to complain about how 'bad' a movie is regardless of whether or not it is.

I'd rather just have them make with the jokes.  If I wanted to hear complaints about all the reasons why something sucks I'll watch the Angry Videogame Nerd.  And I have absolutley no desire to do that.

Examples of quote-unquote 'good' movies that I think were handled well were LotR and Matrix.  They didn't get too complainy about those and it was just plain funny

And even Aeon Flux, a movie they probably could've spent plenty of time complaining about, they didn't, they focused on jokes based on the content and it was all the better for it.

Casino Royale was not at all a bad riff, fairly middle-of-the-road frankly, but it threatened to get really annoying at a couple bits, luckilly they'd pull themselves back with a gem.  I just hope that they keep that in mind and don't go too overboard with sacrificing good jokes to free up time to gripe.
I could get more of my fair share of that reading Roger Ebert.

[wogoat]

On a side note, I wonder if Bond knew there weren't any studs on the other side of that drywall. 

Actually looking at the picture, we see the finished side of the drywall.  The studs would be on the side he's coming from so he'd have been able to actually see them.

[eclipt1c]

I'm very glad Mike and Kevin did this Bond.  I used to be a fairly decent bond fan, but man on man did this one suck.  Say what you will about the older ones being formulaic or whatnot, at least the formula is coherent most of the time, which is far more than what can be said about this movie.  Frankly, I'd like to thank Mike and Kevin for trying to put an end to the perpetuation of the idea of this movie being good.

[BBQ Platypus]

Why is it that the people who don't love this movie think that it's an abomination?  I can't find anything particularly offensive about it.  If you're offended by the lack of "cosmetic" Bond features, you're missing the point.  You're defining Bond by a few characteristic features of some of the movies, rather than the defining characteristic - the personality of Bond itself.  I challenge you to name one thing un-Bondian about the opening black and white sequence.  When I saw this film in theaters, as soon as I heard Craig's nasty, bone-chilling delivery of such a simple line as "Yes, considerably," there was no doubt in my mind that I was watching a James Bond film.

It can't really be the lack of gadgets.  There was a fair amount of gadgetry in the film.  Remember the glove compartment full of high-tech equipment the MI6 nerds installed in the Aston-Martin?  You know, the uber-advanced medical readout gadgetry that saved his life?  (There's a brief, blink-and-you'll-miss-it scene where Bond looks over the interior of the car to find a memo from the "Super-Spy Tech Support Team").

It can't be the lack of action either.  If you think it was boring, you weren't paying attention.  The action sequences in this movie were the best and most convincing I've seen in a long time.  Are the people who criticize this film referring to the several poker scenes?  The original novel centered around card-playing, too, you know.  Making an adaptation of the novel without including card-playing would be like filming a remake of The Hustler without all those tedious scenes of people playing pool.  It's completely consistent with the tone and characterization of the novel.  But who cares about that, right?  It's not like Ian Fleming knows anything about James Bond.  He only CREATED THE DAMN CHARACTER.  So it only makes sense for Hollywood continue to piss all over his legacy by turning his character into a goofy, CGI parody of himself.

Finally, would you please explain to me how this movie was "incoherent?"  It seemed pretty straightforward to me.  Then again, I'm the kind of person who is actually astute enough to discern a logical plot without having it force-fed to me through ham-fisted exposition.  (Indeed, the expositiory dialogue during a few of the poker scenes is one of the few even remotely "eye-roller" moments of the movie).  Then again, I actually read books.

[eclipt1c]

Are the people who criticize this film referring to the several poker scenes?

One of the things I noticed was that they don't actually show a complete poker game, or anything resembling it, they show a bunch of random scenes, that really don't seem that important.  All of these tedious cardplaying scenes then stem off into plot points.  It seems that a montage of several scenes them ending or starting a game would have been appropriate, then showing an extended game when he wins it all, so it isn't incredibly anticlimatic.

Also, as far as incoherence goes, it's never really explained who the guy at the end is.  Yes, I saw him at the beginning, but they never really detail what he has to do with the Africans or who he really works for.  If it was the intention to leave this abiguous for the future movies, they could have at least defined the relationship between him and the Africans or whatever.

Also, if Vesper was cooperating with the Terrorists to save her dad, until they got the money, wouldn't they have killed her dad regardless because Bond killed the guy at the end who had the money?  Also, what did killing herself really contribute besides drama?  It really didn't fit into the plot, she wouldn't have known if the terrorists had gotten the money or not.

[RandyMistie]

Why is it that the people who don't love this movie think that it's an abomination?  I can't find anything particularly offensive about it.  If you're offended by the lack of "cosmetic" Bond features, you're missing the point.  You're defining Bond by a few characteristic features of some of the movies, rather than the defining characteristic - the personality of Bond itself.  I challenge you to name one thing un-Bondian about the opening black and white sequence.  When I saw this film in theaters, as soon as I heard Craig's nasty, bone-chilling delivery of such a simple line as "Yes, considerably," there was no doubt in my mind that I was watching a James Bond film.

It can't really be the lack of gadgets.  There was a fair amount of gadgetry in the film.  Remember the glove compartment full of high-tech equipment the MI6 nerds installed in the Aston-Martin?  You know, the uber-advanced medical readout gadgetry that saved his life?  (There's a brief, blink-and-you'll-miss-it scene where Bond looks over the interior of the car to find a memo from the "Super-Spy Tech Support Team").

It can't be the lack of action either.  If you think it was boring, you weren't paying attention.  The action sequences in this movie were the best and most convincing I've seen in a long time.  Are the people who criticize this film referring to the several poker scenes?  The original novel centered around card-playing, too, you know.  Making an adaptation of the novel without including card-playing would be like filming a remake of The Hustler without all those tedious scenes of people playing pool.  It's completely consistent with the tone and characterization of the novel.  But who cares about that, right?  It's not like Ian Fleming knows anything about James Bond.  He only CREATED THE DAMN CHARACTER.  So it only makes sense for Hollywood continue to piss all over his legacy by turning his character into a goofy, CGI parody of himself.

Finally, would you please explain to me how this movie was "incoherent?"  It seemed pretty straightforward to me.  Then again, I'm the kind of person who is actually astute enough to discern a logical plot without having it force-fed to me through ham-fisted exposition.  (Indeed, the expositiory dialogue during a few of the poker scenes is one of the few even remotely "eye-roller" moments of the movie).  Then again, I actually read books.

BBQ, I hear where you are coming from, and I too just loved the hell out of this movie.  People, (mostly girls), who criticize this move for being unrealistic, (allotta your girl type people, mostly), just don't understand how totally awesome Bond is.

On an interesting and totally insane note; many conspiracy theorists believe that Ian Flemming was assasinated, (his sports car drove off the side of a cliff with faulty brakes in a very suspicious single car accident), by his fellow Illuminati members because his Bond books too closely resembled the inner workings of the Illuminati.  Also, that he WAS a member of that world-manipulating secret society, hence his knowledge of it.  Well, I suppose my mentioning that his "fellow" Illuminati members really was the tip off that he might be included in the club....

Whatever, MAN!  Bond is cool, and if you don't think so, you are a big girl.  That's really all I have to say about that.