6 ms·

This is actually a very interesting essay. I always liked Die Hard way better than its sequels (Die Hard 2 is merely acceptable, and the rest are embarrassing)

by the_af 3y ago

This is actually a very interesting essay. I always liked Die Hard way better than its sequels (Die Hard 2 is merely acceptable, and the rest are embarrassing), but I never thought about this use of space and architecture. "Military parkour", as the article calls it. Also insightful are the comparisons between Jason Bourne and the latest Bond movies; Bond feels sterile, and I find myself in agreement that some of the reasons for this are: > Jones writes that “there’s no travel in the new Bond”; there are simply “establishing shots of exotic destinations.” By the end of a Bond film, he adds, you simply “feel like you are in the international late-capitalist nonplace,” a geography with neither landmarks nor personal memory. Whereas > “Bourne wraps cities, autobahns, ferries and train terminuses around him as the ultimate body-armor.”

busterarm 3y ago
Bond does feel sterile, dated and out of place. I've long argued that its cultural relevance died off after the end of the cold war. Goldeneye took advantage of that setting but subsequent movies did not. Watching a Bond film feels like the cinematic equivalent of reading a SkyMall catalog. They should shelve the franchise for a decade or two and bring it back recontextualized around whatever geopolitical realities are fresh at that time.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  Skyfall has a decent premise.
  - sleepybrett 3y ago
    The whole siege of the house is one of the only bits of the daniel craig era, excepting maybe casino royale ( I only saw it once but I remember enjoying it ), of bond I can stand. It's not 'bondian' though, bond movies have kind of always been this way. If anything bond has become somewhat less campy in the recent era.
    - nativeit 3y ago
      I think you’ve actually understated the rather precipitous drop off of 007’s campiness. It wasn’t a mistake, the intention was to reboot the series in the same vein as Batman Begins, where he becomes an unbearably gloomy figure who exists as a morally ambiguous antihero brooding among the gritty backdrop of a fully corrupted world. Don’t get me wrong, I am a fan of both franchises, and enjoy the gritty Bond on its own terms, without tying it to the frequently almost farcical source material. I can easily understand why the “gritty realism” action genre trend didn’t last long, and why some folks do not enjoy it, it quickly becomes somewhat oppressive to endure. I think that’s why Taika Waititi’s Thor movies were so well received, they offered a lot of the fun-for-its-own-sake set pieces that were more common in the late ‘80s-early ‘90s action films. Patrick H Willems did a really good YouTube video where he talks about “vibe films” [1], where things like plot details and character development are prioritized behind an overall mood and sense of style. Examples cited include Miami Vice, Bond films, and more recently Tenet. [1] https://youtu.be/ZStkUxC4iL4?si=GSecJKBdbzMcQDVF https://youtu.be/ZStkUxC4iL4?si=GSecJKBdbzMcQDVF
      - sleepybrett 3y ago
        I've never really been a bond fan, but of course the craig era eschews much of the almost 100% of the camp of previous generations. Except (and you'll need to pardon me, i've seen each of these movies at most once and they don't really stick in my brain at all) maybe the villan who's face had been eaten by acid or something, it's not jawz or oddjob levels of camp but it's getting there. Earlier bonds i've seen a few here and there but missed many. Like I've seen moonraker, but never thunderball, view to a kill but not goldeneye, octopussy but not never say never again. I couldn't tell you what any of the plots were (other than i'm pretty sure they go to a moon base in moonraker) or which villan goes with which film. Bond, to me, has always been kind of a mystery to me, how do these terrible films keep getting made? I will also say that 'yes' to thor rangnarok, no to 'love and thunder' which i thought got mired in too many plots and had too many inappropriately timed jokes. Like do the Jane arc or do the Gor arc, but if you do either right they don't both fit in the film. So instead they opted to do a half assed version of each.
- the_af 3y ago
  > Watching a Bond film feels like the cinematic equivalent of reading a SkyMall catalog Nicely put! I'm not saying it has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, mind you. It's just generic and empty. There may be exceptions in specific movies of the saga, of course.
  - busterarm 3y ago
    AmEx's Departures magazine would be another great example.
- fullarr 3y ago
  It's actually just that Barbara Broccoli hates the main character and ever since she took over as Executive Producer they've been on a mission to destroy the character But they have no new ideas, and they only make something that feels vaguely like what it was Bond as a concept is fine, the execution has been trash for over a decade now
  - busterarm 3y ago
    I don't entirely disagree with you, but I would argue strongly that the concept is out of place politically right now. Maybe not for much longer but since the late 90s, surely. There's also just too much info in the public about how real spies operate. It makes the Bond concept pretty nonsensical. The character has to change to overcome the audience's disbelief.
    - fullarr 3y ago
      I think it's ok to have different movie franchises that have different strengths From my perspective it's the realism, seriousness, and lack of everything the franchise did for like 40 years that has successfully killed the fun I also love Bourne movies, and I don't need them to be the same
- throwaway_08932 3y ago
  Time for a "spywave" genre.
- mcphage 3y ago
  I don't particularly like Bond films, but I did really like Skyfall—it felt like it leaned into the things you mention. Like, the movie was about how dated and out-of-place Bond felt (and made the villain in that film explicitly a mirror of Bond, angry at that fact).
- sumtechguy 3y ago
  They basically ran out of material after moonraker. After which Ian Flemings influence was totally gone. One of them basically was a glorified BMW commercial. Another one the 'gadgets' where whatever was cool tech for sony at the time. Which is why your skymall analogy works decent enough. The only new one that came close to what 'bond' was is Casino Royal which was loosely based on Ian FLemings book. Even Ian Fleming saw the problem with the genre he had basically made up was that you could not always fight the same baddy all the time. So he created SMIRSH to do have a way to plug in new bad guys.
bloopernova 3y ago
There's a trilogy of movie fight compilations set to music that was on youtube until it was removed for copyright. Your comment about Bourne vs Bond and how they use the scenery is illustrated in some very cool action shots, especially one where a camera follows Bourne as he jumps from a building into a window to catch up with an assailant. The first is now here: https://vimeo.com/68656656 https://vimeo.com/68656656 I think action can be made much more interesting by a good visual director moving the viewpoint, balancing the view of the action against quick cuts or angles to serve the needs of the special effects and stunt people. There's a silhouetted scene in Bond's Skyfall where the colours and viewpoint are far more artistic, without detracting from the impact of the fight. (Die Hard With a Vengeance, the 3rd one, is better than the 2nd, I feel)
- the_af 3y ago
  > I think action can be made much more interesting by a good visual director moving the viewpoint Definitely! Thanks for sharing that video, I'll go watch it :) There are also many YouTube analyses of why Michael Bay's action scenes are like disposable junk food: thrilling while watching them, but oddly unsatisfying. The most convincing I've seen is that Michael Bay lacks a sense of space or direction; his action scenes are flashy but there are no visual cues of where everyone is placed within the scene, how the location is positioned, etc.
- foobarian 3y ago
  That Die Hard will be forever my favorite because of the nod they gave to the Yugo.
- criddell 3y ago
  If you are going to mention Skyfall, I have to bring up the opening sequence of Casino Royale (my favorite of the Daniel Craig Bond movies). The fight scene is pretty brutal: https://youtu.be/I4fTKmbtu8E?t=68 https://youtu.be/I4fTKmbtu8E?t=68
Keysh 3y ago
Ironically, the Greenglass-directed Bourne films that the quotes refer to are more like Bond than the very first Bourne film (The Bourne Identity, directed by Doug Liman). In that film, Bourne travels by boat to Marseilles, by train to Zurich, and then by impulsively-hired-car-driven-by-sketchy-woman to Paris. (And then by stolen car to someplace in rural France.) In the second Bourne film (the first one directed by Greenglass), he starts off in Goa, then shows up in an airport in Italy, and later appears (with no indication of how he travels) in Munich, Berlin, Moscow, and New York City. And, honestly, there wasn't a whole lot of visible "travel" in the "old" Bond, either. Bond is an agent of MI6, often with a cover as some kind of rich businessman or playboy. So of course he travels everywhere by passenger plane. (Unless he's doing some covert infiltration by parachute or surfboard or whatever.) The difference between Bond and (later) Bourne in terms of travel is that Bond has the resources of a wealthy government, while Bourne has... some kind of ninja superpower, I guess. In both cases, they mostly just translate invisibly from place to place.
- bentley 3y ago
  > In the second Bourne film (the first one directed by Greenglass), he starts off in Goa, then shows up in an airport in Italy, and later appears (with no indication of how he travels) in Munich, Berlin, Moscow, and New York City. Actually… • He is shown departing Goa by bus, and arriving in Naples by sea. • He is shown stealing a car in Naples, and driving it along some picturesque highways to Munich. • He is shown driving another stolen car out of Munich, and along further highways to Berlin. • He is shown riding a train to Moscow (later remarked upon by his pursuers). How he gets to New York is a mystery—though the third film makes the mistake (IMO) of covering this in more detail.

by the_af 3y ago

busterarm 3y ago

Bond does feel sterile, dated and out of place. I've long argued that its cultural relevance died off after the end of the cold war. Goldeneye took advantage of that setting but subsequent movies did not. Watching a Bond film feels like the cinematic equivalent of reading a SkyMall catalog. They should shelve the franchise for a decade or two and bring it back recontextualized around whatever geopolitical realities are fresh at that time.

actionfromafar 3y ago
Skyfall has a decent premise.
- sleepybrett 3y ago
  The whole siege of the house is one of the only bits of the daniel craig era, excepting maybe casino royale ( I only saw it once but I remember enjoying it ), of bond I can stand. It's not 'bondian' though, bond movies have kind of always been this way. If anything bond has become somewhat less campy in the recent era.
  - nativeit 3y ago
    I think you’ve actually understated the rather precipitous drop off of 007’s campiness. It wasn’t a mistake, the intention was to reboot the series in the same vein as Batman Begins, where he becomes an unbearably gloomy figure who exists as a morally ambiguous antihero brooding among the gritty backdrop of a fully corrupted world. Don’t get me wrong, I am a fan of both franchises, and enjoy the gritty Bond on its own terms, without tying it to the frequently almost farcical source material. I can easily understand why the “gritty realism” action genre trend didn’t last long, and why some folks do not enjoy it, it quickly becomes somewhat oppressive to endure. I think that’s why Taika Waititi’s Thor movies were so well received, they offered a lot of the fun-for-its-own-sake set pieces that were more common in the late ‘80s-early ‘90s action films. Patrick H Willems did a really good YouTube video where he talks about “vibe films” [1], where things like plot details and character development are prioritized behind an overall mood and sense of style. Examples cited include Miami Vice, Bond films, and more recently Tenet. [1] https://youtu.be/ZStkUxC4iL4?si=GSecJKBdbzMcQDVF https://youtu.be/ZStkUxC4iL4?si=GSecJKBdbzMcQDVF
    - sleepybrett 3y ago
      I've never really been a bond fan, but of course the craig era eschews much of the almost 100% of the camp of previous generations. Except (and you'll need to pardon me, i've seen each of these movies at most once and they don't really stick in my brain at all) maybe the villan who's face had been eaten by acid or something, it's not jawz or oddjob levels of camp but it's getting there. Earlier bonds i've seen a few here and there but missed many. Like I've seen moonraker, but never thunderball, view to a kill but not goldeneye, octopussy but not never say never again. I couldn't tell you what any of the plots were (other than i'm pretty sure they go to a moon base in moonraker) or which villan goes with which film. Bond, to me, has always been kind of a mystery to me, how do these terrible films keep getting made? I will also say that 'yes' to thor rangnarok, no to 'love and thunder' which i thought got mired in too many plots and had too many inappropriately timed jokes. Like do the Jane arc or do the Gor arc, but if you do either right they don't both fit in the film. So instead they opted to do a half assed version of each.
the_af 3y ago
> Watching a Bond film feels like the cinematic equivalent of reading a SkyMall catalog Nicely put! I'm not saying it has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, mind you. It's just generic and empty. There may be exceptions in specific movies of the saga, of course.
- busterarm 3y ago
  AmEx's Departures magazine would be another great example.
fullarr 3y ago
It's actually just that Barbara Broccoli hates the main character and ever since she took over as Executive Producer they've been on a mission to destroy the character But they have no new ideas, and they only make something that feels vaguely like what it was Bond as a concept is fine, the execution has been trash for over a decade now
- busterarm 3y ago
  I don't entirely disagree with you, but I would argue strongly that the concept is out of place politically right now. Maybe not for much longer but since the late 90s, surely. There's also just too much info in the public about how real spies operate. It makes the Bond concept pretty nonsensical. The character has to change to overcome the audience's disbelief.
  - fullarr 3y ago
    I think it's ok to have different movie franchises that have different strengths From my perspective it's the realism, seriousness, and lack of everything the franchise did for like 40 years that has successfully killed the fun I also love Bourne movies, and I don't need them to be the same
throwaway_08932 3y ago
Time for a "spywave" genre.
mcphage 3y ago
I don't particularly like Bond films, but I did really like Skyfall—it felt like it leaned into the things you mention. Like, the movie was about how dated and out-of-place Bond felt (and made the villain in that film explicitly a mirror of Bond, angry at that fact).
sumtechguy 3y ago
They basically ran out of material after moonraker. After which Ian Flemings influence was totally gone. One of them basically was a glorified BMW commercial. Another one the 'gadgets' where whatever was cool tech for sony at the time. Which is why your skymall analogy works decent enough. The only new one that came close to what 'bond' was is Casino Royal which was loosely based on Ian FLemings book. Even Ian Fleming saw the problem with the genre he had basically made up was that you could not always fight the same baddy all the time. So he created SMIRSH to do have a way to plug in new bad guys.

bloopernova 3y ago

There's a trilogy of movie fight compilations set to music that was on youtube until it was removed for copyright. Your comment about Bourne vs Bond and how they use the scenery is illustrated in some very cool action shots, especially one where a camera follows Bourne as he jumps from a building into a window to catch up with an assailant. The first is now here: https://vimeo.com/68656656 https://vimeo.com/68656656 I think action can be made much more interesting by a good visual director moving the viewpoint, balancing the view of the action against quick cuts or angles to serve the needs of the special effects and stunt people. There's a silhouetted scene in Bond's Skyfall where the colours and viewpoint are far more artistic, without detracting from the impact of the fight. (Die Hard With a Vengeance, the 3rd one, is better than the 2nd, I feel)

the_af 3y ago
> I think action can be made much more interesting by a good visual director moving the viewpoint Definitely! Thanks for sharing that video, I'll go watch it :) There are also many YouTube analyses of why Michael Bay's action scenes are like disposable junk food: thrilling while watching them, but oddly unsatisfying. The most convincing I've seen is that Michael Bay lacks a sense of space or direction; his action scenes are flashy but there are no visual cues of where everyone is placed within the scene, how the location is positioned, etc.
foobarian 3y ago
That Die Hard will be forever my favorite because of the nod they gave to the Yugo.
criddell 3y ago
If you are going to mention Skyfall, I have to bring up the opening sequence of Casino Royale (my favorite of the Daniel Craig Bond movies). The fight scene is pretty brutal: https://youtu.be/I4fTKmbtu8E?t=68 https://youtu.be/I4fTKmbtu8E?t=68

Keysh 3y ago

Ironically, the Greenglass-directed Bourne films that the quotes refer to are more like Bond than the very first Bourne film (The Bourne Identity, directed by Doug Liman). In that film, Bourne travels by boat to Marseilles, by train to Zurich, and then by impulsively-hired-car-driven-by-sketchy-woman to Paris. (And then by stolen car to someplace in rural France.) In the second Bourne film (the first one directed by Greenglass), he starts off in Goa, then shows up in an airport in Italy, and later appears (with no indication of how he travels) in Munich, Berlin, Moscow, and New York City. And, honestly, there wasn't a whole lot of visible "travel" in the "old" Bond, either. Bond is an agent of MI6, often with a cover as some kind of rich businessman or playboy. So of course he travels everywhere by passenger plane. (Unless he's doing some covert infiltration by parachute or surfboard or whatever.) The difference between Bond and (later) Bourne in terms of travel is that Bond has the resources of a wealthy government, while Bourne has... some kind of ninja superpower, I guess. In both cases, they mostly just translate invisibly from place to place.

bentley 3y ago
> In the second Bourne film (the first one directed by Greenglass), he starts off in Goa, then shows up in an airport in Italy, and later appears (with no indication of how he travels) in Munich, Berlin, Moscow, and New York City. Actually… • He is shown departing Goa by bus, and arriving in Naples by sea. • He is shown stealing a car in Naples, and driving it along some picturesque highways to Munich. • He is shown driving another stolen car out of Munich, and along further highways to Berlin. • He is shown riding a train to Moscow (later remarked upon by his pursuers). How he gets to New York is a mystery—though the third film makes the mistake (IMO) of covering this in more detail.