What do you do, Johnny Angell? I mean professionally? Do you have production experience? Do you write scripts? do you direct or act yourself? Are you a photographer? Have you ever edited a film? What do you know that you can speak confidently about from experience? Is there anything?Johnny Angell said:Richard, everyone is entitled to their opinion. Trouble is, you are writing yours as if you just came down from the mountain with your opinions engraved on the stone tablets. You're not so much discussing, as you are proclaiming an a priori truth. I've been wanting to sneak that word into a conversation.
There's no analogy between the two scenes.Kai Penttila said:
Thank you, Capt. Au, but let me offer a fuller explanation. Fiona Volpe works for Spectre. She facilitates hijacking the Royal Air Force jet with two nuclear warheads by killing the pilot, whom she sleeps with first, and training his double. Later in Jamaica she traps Bond's assistant Paula and facilitates her torture and murder. Then she sleeps with Bond until her men get there to capture him. She chases him down the street with a group of thugs. They wound him in the foot. She pushes her way onto the dance floor where Bond hopes to elude them, and then she tries to manipulate him into position so that her thugs can assassinate him from a place of concealment. But the plan backfires and she is shot by her own men. What does that tell you about her character? In contrast, however, Severine isn't trying to kill anybody in SKYFALL. She is merely a messenger, deathly afraid of Silva, and a passive victim tied to a post who looks to Bond to save her. He doesn't.Nelson Au said:
Exactly. You nailed it. What a miserable situation to put Bond, and the moviegoer, in. Except that the off-the-cuff remark really stings in the context I describe above. The way the scene plays out, there's no reason Bond can't leap into action with the same fast moves before Severine is murdered. The objective of the scene is to show another failure, another defeat for Bond, another woman whose death he is complicit in. That's what's important to these filmmakers. Every scene in the film, even the most exciting action sequences, are constructed to show Bond losing the contest. He loses consistently right up to the end. That's not an opinion or a judgment. It's an observation of how each scene plays out. The real story-teller in this film is Roger Deakins. I just bought the blu-ray in Like New condition, "mint" according to the amazon marketplace seller, used for $14.99 + $2.98 postage. So my money will not get back to EON.Will*B said:
Speaking as someone who has production experience, writes scripts (nothing produced yet, but my reps and I are working on that), has directed, has acted (which I shan't be doing any longer for the benefit of you and me, I assure you), and has edited every type of film under the sun as well as worked on non-linear digital editing systems and I even have an (admittedly worthless) degree on top of it all ... ... what does any of that have to do with anything? He's not allowed to have an opinion unless he's got professional experience?Richard--W said:
Please quote the post where Johnny told you this.Richard--W said:
I'd love to see his work in the theater but I haven't had the chance yet. I keep missing all the good stuff. I think Sam Mendes is the best director to helm a Bond film since 1969, and John Logan has written the most sophisticated script. I respect SKYFALL as cinema, but it is a devastating almost clinical deconstruction of James Bond. I don't think much of it as a Bond film. Mendes and Logan are a good team. They deconstructed James Bond brilliantly. Now I wish they'd do another, only this time, do a James Bond in which he is James Bond in more than name only. As modern and progressive dramatists, however, I know their instincts are to deconstruct. But one can hope for a minor miracle.performing arts said:i think that Sam Mendes is an indisputed main colomn -star in cinema industry today as well as great stage director.. so Skyfall could not fail ... Each Mendes film is deep emotion to me like Woody Allen and Christopher Nolan.. here I said all
Dial back your own pretensionMattAlbie60 said:You're misunderstanding him, then. He isn't saying that you don't have the right to an opinion. He's saying, and I agree with him, that you're acting like you have the final say on James Bond. That you don't have an opinion - that you're just relaying facts. Which isn't true. All you're doing is stating your opinion, just like everyone else. It's the attitude that people have an issue with. If you'd dial back on the pretension a little bit, we'd probably get a lot more accomplished around here
. Some things are not matters of opinion. Every scene in SKYFALL is constructed to show Bond fail in what he attempts to do. He fails to recover the list, he fails to avoid being shot off the train, he fails catch Silva, he fails to prevent the assault on the tribunal, he fails to recover the hard drive in Shanghai, he fails to hold onto the opposition slipping through his fingers, he fails to save Severine, he fails to protect M. In fact in bringing her to Scotland it may be interpreted that he puts her in jeopardy and facilitates her death. there are layers and layers of personal failure in this script. That's not an opinion. That's how the script is written and that's how the film plays out. Anyone can see that. James Bond is a total failure in SKYFALL. If you were to ask John Logan what he set out to do, I'm sure he would admit to at least this much. There is no doubt of it in my mind. Here's the opinion: People love this deconstruction of James Bond and have every right to love it, but I have every right not to and to state my reasoning without being accused of having an attitude.
And that's why nobody has been debating any of that.Richard--W said:
See? How hard was that! This is where I'll leave it: the only thing people have been taking issue with is the way you've been presenting your opinion. That's all. Asking that guy up there if he had any professional experience, which I think we all assume the answer you wanted was "No," is one of the many examples in this thread of the off-putting nature of this discussion thus far.
This is what I meant and the fact that several others understood that, tells me I made myself clear. To answer the questions about my professional qualifications, the answers are all no. I'm not an actor, producer, etc. My opinions are those of a member of the movie-going public. Note the use of "a", I have no pretensions that I represent all or even many movie fans. I once heard that a diplomat is someone who can tell a person to go to hell and make them like it. Richard, I don't think you'd make a good diplomat, IMHO.MattAlbie60 said:You're misunderstanding him, then. He isn't saying that you don't have the right to an opinion. He's saying, and I agree with him, that you're acting like you have the final say on James Bond. That you don't have an opinion - that you're just relaying facts. Which isn't true. All you're doing is stating your opinion, just like everyone else. It's the attitude that people have an issue with. If you'd dial back on the pretension a little bit, we'd probably get a lot more accomplished around here
I believe that you need to watch that scene again.
EXACTLY!Richard Gallagher said:
I haven´t watched the movie yet because I´ve got to wait another seven days till it will be released in my country on Blu-ray. Now I know the end because you spoilered itTommy R said:
Damn.....
You know, it's not the first Bond film where the villain dies in the end.Mr. Pacino said:I haven´t watched the movie yet because I´ve got to wait another seven days till it will be released in my country on Blu-ray. Now I know the end because you spoilered it
