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SPECTRE (new James Bond movie)

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New James Bond.

First 3 minutes was spectacular, the rest of the film was a load of old shit. Style over substance.

I always like these new bond films more on a second viewing, but right now I feel like this could be the worst of the 4

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New James Bond.

First 3 minutes was spectacular, the rest of the film was a load of old shit. Style over substance.

I always like these new bond films more on a second viewing, but right now I feel like this could be the worst of the 4

Yeah, Spectre was rubbish. It was a high-budget Bond parody. :tmeh:

Highlight of the movie was seeing the new Star Wars trailer on the big screen! :tup:

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Yeah, Spectre was rubbish. It was a high-budget Bond parody. :tmeh:

 

Despite what people said about Goldeneye as a return to form, Bond movies are always at their worst when they're reminding me of older and often better Bond movies. The moment when the Spectre trailer had the line "I need to disappear" or whatever, I immediately thought, "Oh, like Bond did in You Only Live Twice." And the hook there totally failed to find any purchase.

 

It feels like a matter of time, who knows how long, before Bond movies are a mix-and-match of previously established elements from Bond movies, whether intentional or no. I feel like the fascination with showing audiences "Bond like you've never seen him before" is pushing us closer to that point in time, even more so than consciously striving for it...

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Highlight of the movie was seeing the new Star Wars trailer on the big screen! :tup:

Yes THIS. I get all emotional every time I see it :)

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It's weird that Casino Royale was so well-liked but none of the new Bond films seem to understand why.

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well I guess you've all saved me a ticket. I did not like Skyfall and was wary of Spectre.

 

and Casino Royale was also bad so it's not surprising that the Bond movies that attempt to bottle that lightning fail; you can't trick people into thinking that you've reinvented Bond more than once.

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Is Spectre at least less pointless and plodding than Quantum of Solace? Christ that was a bad movie, let alone a bad Bond.

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I can't even tell because I don't remember anything about Quantum of Solace other than thinking it was shit.

 

On the flip side, I watched Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation and it was basically the same plot as Spectre only not shit. It felt like a long-running series realising exactly what works and what doesn't and just making a movie out of it.

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I can't even tell because I don't remember anything about Quantum of Solace other than thinking it was shit.

 

On the flip side, I watched Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation and it was basically the same plot as Spectre only not shit. It felt like a long-running series realising exactly what works and what doesn't and just making a movie out of it.

 

I am interested in what people didn't like about Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. I agree Skyfall had issues, mainly the omniscient villain trope I hate. They are not the best Bond films, but they are so much better than the post GoldenEye Brosnan films. Mainly by downsizing the stakes. In general the two things a Bond film needs to be good is a smaller scale plot, (my favorites are From Russia With Love and For Your Eyes Only, both of which revolve around code machines.) and a more badass Bond girl.

 

I have yet to see Spectre so I can't comment on it yet. 

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Oh so that's what the bond movie after Casino Royale was called..

It was just kinda forgettable and all it's noticeable moments were direct callbacks to other movies. The only parts I can remember are the painted woman, a boat chase, and a talking at a party scene. The biggest thing I can remember after seeing it at the theatre was my Dad complaining that all of the action happened too fast. I brushed it off a the time but it might be a good point. Most of the action scenes I can remember as being good follow the approach highlighted in that Jackie Chan action tutorial. Basically they do show reaction shots to the big things that happen to give it more impact and make it more memorable. But a lot of 'new' Bond action scenes are tightly wound and choreographed except that one scene at the start of Casino Royale that did have slower pacing.

Anyway I haven't seen Skyfall or Spectre and only seen QoS once so maybe I'm mistaken but that was my general impression.

Anyway I'm off to see the new Del Toro movie with some friends. I haven't heard much about it other than it's a well made movie with not much special to it but with Del Toro that should still be a good thing.

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Saw Spectre, yeah it was bad. Also agree with JKO that the plot is basically the same as Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, I was definitely thinking that while watching.

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We're in a weird place where a Bond movie is compared unfavourably to a Mission Impossible film, but then again they started building them around Simon Pegg which is a move I certainly approve of.

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well I guess you've all saved me a ticket. I did not like Skyfall and was wary of Spectre.

 

Well the consensus on here is pretty emphatic so clearly I'm the odd one out but as someone who also didn't care for Skyfall whatsoever, I thought Spectre was totally serviceable, even quite fun in places. That they've dialled down on addressing the sexism in the series is disappointing but Spectre handles that stuff heaps better than any of the "classic" Bonds, so if you could put up with that before then it shouldn't be an issue with this one.   

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It wasn't the sexism I cared about, although it gets my hackles up. It was the fact that it was predictable. Let me make things worse and compare it to Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, which uses an Indy plot to have its characters do a crazy thing, and then have that thing go wrong so then they have to fix it. Most Bond plots don't manage that kind of counter-play, because it's hard to give the villains an unexpected way to make things worse when they mostly, sensibly, rely on henchmen.

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Finally saw Spectre on Blu-Ray as I was ill when it was in cinemas.

 

It was really frustrating to hear a lot of chatter around release without going to see it as everyone was discussing why this bit didn't make sense or why that bit in the story was stupid. After seeing it I did find it too referential to the other Daniel Craig films. Ten years ago the world had to be under immediate threat of destruction in every action film, nowadays the world still has to be under immediate threat of destruction but it also has to neatly link into the other films and spin-offs that proceeded it. So very frustrating in that regard, I would love if every film could just be a standalone spy adventure.

 

Having said that I thought it was bloody good! Sam Mendes comes across as a more confident action director but also lets you know early on that you are allowed to laugh and be entertained by Bond once again with the sofa gag in the opening sequence. The supporting characters get a good amount of air time and it's nice to see a new dynamic of Bond having more experience than his support.

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I just saw Spectre and thought it was truly bad. Way too long, asked me to are about characters from previous movies I couldn't even remember, chock full of exposition, took itself way too seriously. I can't really think of any way it was good; it certainly wasn't entertaining.

I still like Craig, but the only good Craig Bond is still Casino Royale.

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I'm halfway through Dirk Gently and enjoying it.

 

I saw SPECTRE and found it a little boring. Nothing we haven't seen before in the Craig Bonds, and the whole

 

Blofeld/SPECTRE

thing was really underused - finally getting to the top of this shadowy organisation that's run though all the films could have been really cool (and the "interconnectedness" didn't strike me as strange, as they did a similar thing in the first few Bond films). Another thing that let it down was

 

Blofeld being Bond's evil brother and purely motivated by childhood jealousy

- just really silly, and too similar to Silva. Speaking of which, it doesn't make sense to me how

 

Silva was involved with SPECTRE. Everyone else was, because QUANTUM is an arm of SPECTRE and they were all overtly linked to the former, but Silva was just a rogue ex-agent seeking revenge.

. The opening action sequence was pretty great, though.

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17 hours ago, Ben X said:

Speaking of which, it doesn't make sense to me how

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Silva was involved with SPECTRE. Everyone else was, because QUANTUM is an arm of SPECTRE and they were all overtly linked to the former, but Silva was just a rogue ex-agent seeking revenge.

 

 

Yeah, it was shit. None of the SPECTRE stuff worked for me at all. The whole thing was retconned to its breaking point, brought on exclusively by the fact that MGM got the rights back to use the SPECTRE name. The movie pretty much blows up everything the earlier movies set up. QUANTUM was a vastly more interesting and modern organisation: terrorists by way of bankrolling evil stuff in the world and slowly eking out political power and gains. It was subtle and fun and exciting. SPECTRE is a cartoon in comparison, a ludicrous affair with no tangible relation to the current world. All I kept thinking was: how did Blofeld convince a legion of white IT specialists to relocate to Africa and also train in martial arts to stop the single infiltrator they'll ever get? 'C'mon, the evil life's for you!' You've really done it when I start questioning the believability of a

James Bond movie. I'm inclined not even to consider SPECTRE canon, if only to preserve the genuine sense of excitement and threat in the first three films, all of which, including Quantum of Solace, are good to excellent action/spy movies.

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2 hours ago, Roderick said:

 

 

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Yeah, it was shit. None of the SPECTRE stuff worked for me at all. The whole thing was retconned to its breaking point, brought on exclusively by the fact that MGM got the rights back to use the SPECTRE name. The movie pretty much blows up everything the earlier movies set up. QUANTUM was a vastly more interesting and modern organisation: terrorists by way of bankrolling evil stuff in the world and slowly eking out political power and gains. It was subtle and fun and exciting. SPECTRE is a cartoon in comparison, a ludicrous affair with no tangible relation to the current world. All I kept thinking was: how did Blofeld convince a legion of white IT specialists to relocate to Africa and also train in martial arts to stop the single infiltrator they'll ever get? 'C'mon, the evil life's for you!' You've really done it when I start questioning the believability of a

James Bond movie. I'm inclined not even to consider SPECTRE canon, if only to preserve the genuine sense of excitement and threat in the first three films, all of which, including Quantum of Solace, are good to excellent action/spy movies.

 

They did such a good job building Quantum up in Casino, its a shame to see them fumble SPECTRE so badly

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Saw Spectre like a year ago, the opening scene was amazing! Like brilliantly shot and executed.

 

The whole movie then again was a mess. I hated the whole plot. Adding in Blofeld was good, but they way they changed Bond's whole history is dumb.

 

Casino Royale was great, Quantum of Solace was a boring movie and the only thing I remember about it is James Bond's wonderful jacket from the ending scene. That's a jacket I would like to own, but it costs a fortune like all product  placements in Bond movies. Skyfall had some good scenes, but ultimately it was way too long and also started to introduce dumb history bits to Bond legacy that were just really bad.

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I've said it before and I'll say it again: Quantum of Solace has really grown on me since the initial release (and subsequent disappointment). It's a lean and fun Bond adventure, which had the bad fortune of tailing the excellent Casino Royale.

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I remember feeling unsure about how I felt about Quantum of Solace when I saw it, and I haven't watched it since. I honestly eat all this new Bond shit up - Casino Royale is my favorite but I've enjoyed all of them. I should rewatch QoS (or all of them, back to back).

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Yeah, I get the feeling I'll learn to appreciate Spectre too upon rewatching it. Especially if I managed to finagle it in my head so that it's not canon (because it destroys the fun build up of Quantum in favor of the absolutely stupid Spectre organisation).

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I quite like the idea of revealing Quantum to be an arm of an even larger and more secretive organisation, but the way they did it in the movie was pretty terrible.

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17 hours ago, Ben X said:

I quite like the idea of revealing Quantum to be an arm of an even larger and more secretive organisation, but the way they did it in the movie was pretty terrible.

 

Yeah, it was definitely targeted for maximum twistiness and it ended up kneecapping the previous movies. My friends and I did a full rewatch of all the Bonds back in May (which was a lot of fun, but holy fuck a lot of time and a lot of vodka to get through) and, while Quantum of Solace improved with time and space, I don't feel that Spectre did. Waltz's performance is cheesy and jarring in an otherwise very self-serious movie, the best parts of the previous Craig movies (especially Skyfall) are sold off like a fire sale, and the third act still feels like a dream because it's so over-the-top and unearned. I'm honestly surprised that Craig's coming back for one last movie after it, regardless of what his contract says.

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