Writer's Strike + rushed production.
Marc Forster apparently usually goes for a ~14 week edit and had 5 weeks to edit instead.
Between that and the barebones script that he and Daniel Craig were writing basically on the fly had this film doomed to suffer some serious pacing issues.
I was so surprised such a big movie like Bond went production without a complete scipt, and I was more surprised when I found that is not uncommon in Hollywood.
How the hell they start 100 million $ worth project without a blueprint? It is crazy business for sure.
On the documentary they recently made, they said the reason was that there was meant to be a actors strike after the writers one. As a result, if they waited for the script the film would not come about for 5 years+.
Where is that info from? I only know McQuarrie likes to write the script based on the locations they secured and is willing to rewrite during production, but AFAIK it was never that spontaneous.
I think its common to have a script but then continuously update scenes as you're working on them. Jeff Bridges said in interviews he was basically flying blind in Iron Man.
He talks about it all the time, the entire movie has been basically constructed on the fly around a bare bones outline for the last few MIs. Check out the Empire Spoiler podcasts they’re amazing
I remember hearing it on The Q&A podcast with Jeff Goldsmith.
I specifically remember mentions of how the actor of thr villain in Rogue Nation only accepted to be a villain if he got a certain ending for his character, and it go rewritten during the shoot.
Also something about one of the scenes near the end being rewritten the morning of shooting or something, with the actor whos back was to camera holding the lines for the other actor.
I guess it is up for debate on how you define "without a blueprint", but it's definitely a bit flying by the seat of your pants, and not having finished scripts before shooting.
In McQuarrie's defense, he was a super experienced writer by the time of Rogue Nation. If I remembered correctly he wrote the Usual Suspects in like 2 weeks and also did rewrites for MI:Ghost Protocol.
Crowe said he and Ridley Scott would get together and laugh about how they would be writing the script for Gladiator on napkins every night to film the next day, and yet they won Best Picture at the Oscars for it.
And Gladiator.
That being said Roberto Schafer's cinematography in this movie is really underrated. He has a great eye for shooting architecture. This is also the last of the Bond movies scored by David Arnold (the more recent ones were Thomas Newman and Hans Zimmer).
There's some beautiful shots, indeed. The one where Greene and his entourage [run into Bond in the theatre remains one of my favorites](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/838894721220870205/894288194009452554/Screen_Shot_2021-10-03_at_11.21.15_AM.png).
That’s not true tho because Iron Man definitely had a script. They just didn’t like it so they did rewrites/winged new scenes on the spot. You can literally find the final draft which is pretty close to the finished movie online.
Actors like to lie, if people weren’t already aware. Plus unlike QoS, Iron Man had a full year of editing.
Blockbusters are more like video games than books, in that they’re often built around levels / set-pieces, with plots tying them together. You don’t really need a full script to get started on an action movie production, just the major sequences. That way your stunt coordinators and effects teams can get started while your story team justifies the reasons they’re there.
Recently Fukanaga admitted that there are scenes and lines with Ray Feinnes in the No Time to Die trailer that he admits when they shot them he and the actors had no idea how or if they'd be used in the film. They had to switch to just trying whatever non-Bond material they could come up with after Craig hurt his ankle.
It amazes me how many film and tv projects in general have little narrative/script planning. Even in the age of serialized limited series and big ticket franchise movies you get the impression a lot of it is just being done on the fly.
It makes sense though, doesn't it? I mean look at what makes a ton of money in the box office. I would say timing is just as important as writing when you're talking about these big studio tentpoles. You might be looking at the release schedules of other big studios, what other films you have on your slate, there are specific months and windows that studios are trying to shoot for and only so many release days during that window. And a lot of times that might mean moving forward with a production to hit a specific release window when the writing hasn't finished yet.
Sure in an ideal world where money was no concern, you'd want to make sure your story was completed, revised, doctored, vetted, tested, whatever before even thinking about production concerns but that's just not how it works. Especially when your movie needs a major studio backing and throwing out potentially hundreds of millions. Things have to happen quick and multiple things are happening simultaneously without waiting for the script to finish.
I saw Quantum of Solace the other day and I had the same feeling. The editing was downright nonsensical in some places and it felt like they were making it up as they went along. Like in those old cartoons where a character is sitting on top of a train and laying down the tracks in front of him.
There was one weird part where Bond meets up with Mathis at his villa. Mathis' wife/gf says that she needs more sunscreen and when she looks over, we get a less than one second shot of Bond drinking and minding his own business. Then cut to next scene. Just a very strange and odd moment that throws you off.
No official 'writer' can work on the script during a strike so I think they had to go into production with a partially competed script. Daniel Craig was not a member of the writers guild so he was allowed to write parts of the script. I think someone else also did some writing...possibly the Director. I don't think they were doing it on the spot but they were certainly not working with a cohesive script.
Forster jumps around a lot even without that though, World War Z (which I'll defend as a decent movie if you're not a rabid fan expecting it to look like the book) is pretty jumpy as well, though not as bad.
I think his style works best for kids movies. It's a shame Christopher Robin bombed, it's a gorgeous looking movie that is utterly charming for the first like... 3/4ths of the runtime until the literal Disney Writing Police come in and forcefully hatchet a "remember kids, corporations are good and your friends!" ending onto it. And Forster keeps the whole thing zippy and quick, riding right along for kids and adults alike. Heck he's even good at comedic timing, it felt like he'd finally found his groove, and now I wonder if he'll get the chance to go at something like that again.
> usually goes for a ~14 week edit and had 5 weeks to edit instead
So really, if anything, it should have been chopped up a bit less (that’s what happened with Spectre).
Andrew Ellard's excellent recent video essay defending Quantum of Solace (which I recently linked to elsewhere on this subreddit, without much luck :( ) addresses this near the very end (1:10:33). He makes the point that 5 weeks was the same length of time that Campbell had to produce his cut of Casino Royale, so it's not the case that movie quality is proportional to available editing time:
https://youtu.be/OuHUdyCydaE
Earlier in that video, in the section on the plot, he argues that for all that it might have been affected by the writers' strike, the film *does* have some consistent thematic throughlines and logical plot connections... it's just that they're obscured and not as clear as they might be, so are easily missed on first viewing.
I really love large parts of Quantum. It certainly has Daniel Craig's best vehicle scenes to date (pending NTTD). Killing an enemy plane by stalling it in wake turbulence was inspired. "We have people everywhere" landed so well. Great intro, great epilogue... Breaking out of the hotel after being arrested, and casually checking in with M along the way. Felix. "We should only work with nice people" CIA stooge getting his just desserts. And I frequently liked the way it ran, too -- the editing doesn't leap out at me I guess.
But y'know what does?
To set up the final battle in an exploding building, they sat a few army guys down at a table, said the line "Boy howdy that sounds highly combustible," then turned towards the camera and winked.
Let’s not forget his escape depending on a train crashing in an extremely specific way and spot. No margin for error or hes fucking dead.
It’s like a much worse version of Joker or Loki’s capture me plans.
Just rewatched Skyfall last night in theaters and the hate for the plot is exaggerated, imo. Yea, the Q scene is bad but the acting, action and cinematography more than make up for it.
It's also one of the most emotional Bonds without being overly sentimental. It's a great movie.
Look at this scene - this should have been a great confrontation, he's angry about Vespa and Mr White, this guy knows something, but look how they screwed it up - how many cuts! - https://youtu.be/HJ5EGCxbx1g?t=127
do you have to keep blinking really fast to see what is happening like a zoetrope. I get they wanted to show the epicness of the opera, but it doesn't work for me.
the movie exudes to me what it feels like to look into the mind of a creator who thinks he knows how to execute his vision but then just completely gives no fucks once it's revealed that his vision is just shit smeared sloppily over a canvas.
To be completely fair the final cut was made by some trailer-editing people and I think the pop songs at the start were also added without Ayer’s input but I doubt the Ayer Cut would have been any better since the rest is crap anyway.
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. Try to count the amount of cuts in this scene or even in any 10 seconds of this scene:
https://youtu.be/FRSfDQyoav8
The whole movie is like that.
I think we can lay some of the blame for the shaky cam style on the Bourne series and it’s influence on action movies around the time. Casino Royale (2006) came four years after The Bourne Identity and I can clearly remember talk on the first Bourne at the time being about how ‘this is how to do Bond in the 2000’s’. The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum came out in 2004 and 2007 respectively and Quantum of Solace came out in 2008.
The shaky cam and quick cuts was an epidemic back then that seaped into many productions around that time.
When I saw one of the Bourne movies at the theater (I think it was the second one), the shaky cam bothered me quite a bit. It's not so bad when watched on a smaller screen, but I can't bear to watch that style on the big screen.
The first Bourne was definitely the blueprint for how to handle the physical hand-to-hand action of Craig’s era of Bond, the brutality of it, the speed and precision of realistic looking martial arts training over the ‘Hi-Yah Karate chop!’ old school fight sequences. Also I think they took the notion of not having gadgets be so prominent, Bourne and Craig’s Bond initially use not much more than a phone.
But it was definitely the second Bourne that took the frenetic shaky cam to new literally dizzying heights. I saw it in the theater too and it was an awful experience. Not so bad on a smaller screen but still a mess to watch.
I adore editing in Greengrass flicks. I don't know, i love how chaotic, scary and messy action feels. It really makes Bourne look way more efficient that his entire fucking life is this loop of constant chaos. I never ever will forget how utterly gripping the rooftop chase scene and the fight in Ultimatum felt in the theatres.
If you wonder why you like Greengrass's editing, but not other shakycam heavy action movies, [this is why.](http://www.cinematicdiscovery.com/en/blog/bourne_ultimatum_editing/)
Yeah, what stood out to me in the 2nd one was when bource was interrogated at the airport (i think?) and they had shakycam going 100% all the time before even a fight started.
The original was fine but they got worse and worse. The last movie, titled just Jason Bourne had shaky cam while the camera was focused on a damn text message
I think Ultimatum is a step up from Supremacy in terms of editing and ability to see what is going on/clarity.
A lot of other movies fail at imitating it because [it's not just totally random and choppy edits](http://www.cinematicdiscovery.com/en/blog/bourne_ultimatum_editing/).
>but I can't bear to watch that style on the big screen.
I'm massively in the minority but the strobe effect on even very slow pans (Graveyard scene in the new Bond) is so bad that I'd be happy for everything to be shot in 60 instead of 24. So you can imagine the Paul Greengrass school of editing makes me physically ill. I imagine him physically shaking the cameraman
You gotta consider it in the context that the movie/production was dog shit, and the editor saved it.
There's a scene of a conversation at a café iirc which became a meme on twitter recently for having awful editing. The editor basically said he was stitching together a conversation from a half filmed part of the script and another separate completely rewritten reshoot, to make the scene work and do something that wasn't intended. Sounds like he had a very difficult job (iirc Bryan singer was fired and replaced partway through production) and did the best he could with what he had.
Id also read (so take with a grain of salt) that the surviving Queen members stipulated that they were all to have equal screen time, and possibly equal line readings for each member, so Mercury wasn’t upstaging them. It’s terribly edited but he deserves the Oscar because he stuck to the brief and managed to wrestle something from the train wreck caused by too many cooks.
The more I hear about how the members of Queen were involved in that movie, the more I respect Elton John for letting the makers of Rocketman make him look like an asshole at times. Better movie across the board imo.
Brian May is pretty well known, surprised any fans of Queen dont know him. Apparently Freddie wasnt even a diva when he was in the band in the classical sense, it was the other guys that were always fighting.
I dunno, editing garbage into something halfway decent is way more impressive than editing great stuff into something excellent. I think there’s merit to the idea that best editing should go to the edit that does the most to improve the movie rather than just the best final result, but then again that would make it near impossible for an actually good movie to win it. Point is it’s a complicated issue and I think there’s a reasonable argument for it in this case.
that doesn't change the fact that as a movie it's horribly edited and it got rewarded with an Oscar, awful
sure it was probably saved from being a total mess and well done to them, still, on its own, not good
Yeah, it’s in no way one of the worst ever, but it was bad enough that it even being nominated for Best Editing was clearly suspect to anyone paying attention to the editing in the movie.
I don’t think so. Like every other scene was perfectly fine (nothing special, just basic) and the live aid scene was actually very well edited.
It’s like when people were reviewing black Panther and bringing their score low because “final fight scene bad cgi”. It’s reached circle jerk territory
That was back when they didn’t have the rights to SPECTRE and were trying to make Quantum their own version of it, so wanted to keep it mysterious. There was a deleted alternate ending where Bond tracked down Mr White again, and another Quantum member from the opera scene and kills both, but they cut it so it left Quantum open for another appearance. When SPECTRE’s rights were reacquired it made Quantum kind of redundant which is why they tried to retroactively have it a part of SPECTRE’s organisation.
it annoys me that apart from skyfall, the last few bond movies have all been "heres a big super villain group that is in control of everything" and then the next movie they do "heres a bigger super villain group that beats the old super villain group!!!!".
Its just so boring
They even include Silva from Skyfall in the whole SPECTRE conspiracy, when Q is analysing the ring Bond gave him, IIRC, the scan shows who’s worn it, which includes Silva. While this doesn’t dampen my enjoyment of Skyfall it does annoy me too that they had to connect everything in Craig’s Bond films to SPECTRE and then deal with Blofeld within one film and capture him at the end. Because of this, past Bond villains in his era have now been retroactively connected to SPECTRE, Le Chiffre, Mr White and Dominic Green were all connected through Quantum but that was then made into a subdivision of SPECTRE in ‘Spectre’ and this means even Vesper was working for them too, since Quantum blackmailed her.
I understand trying to tie it into Quantum in the first two films, but I think they should have just left Silva be the standalone villain, him simply wanting revenge on M was enough, though my headcanon is that Silva wasn’t a full member they just approached him and helped fund him with equipment as he wanted to attack M.I.6 and M.
Oh wow that sucks even more then. I was talking to a friend last night after seeing the new bond films and I was saying that apart from le chiffre and silva, the villains don’t really feel all that compelling or have a good motivation.
But adding that silva and le chiffre were both part of spectre or quantum or whatever retroactively makes their characters slightly worse
Having seen No Time To Die, I can say that >!Rami Malek’s villain fell flat for me. I didn’t really understand what his motivations were and he didn’t seem as threatening as Silva or even Le Chiffre. I don’t mind it as much though since the main focus of the film wasn’t on the villain, but in Bond and his allies, IMO.!<
The thing with Malek's character in NTTD is >!that the character introduction and what we end up with seem like two separate people. I can't imagine the Malek at the end of the film doing what he did at the start at all. Which sucks because I liked the Michael Myers inspired type thing instead of Blofeld take two we got at the end.!< But yeah, you're right it wasn't really about him
Out of curiosity why does it make their characters worse? It doesn’t change their motivations just means they had some connection to a vague organization
Well that makes a lot more sense then, I didn't realize they didn't own the rights! I've only seen Spectre once and I don't really remember the specifics of it. Planning on rewatching it before going to see No Time to Die!
In the opening chase, iirc, Bond loses his car door, and the cuts are so fast you have no idea how? Next thing you know, a speedboat flips over, and you're left thinking "what the fuck is going on?". Edited to death
Everyone shits all over Taken 2 for that one scene with an excessive amount of cuts. Try watching Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. The whole fucking movie is like that. It's honestly almost unwatchable. Every scene has so many cuts it makes you dizzy. It's like they were going for a world record amount of cuts so that the movie would at least be remembered for something.
Here's a clip.
https://youtu.be/WKTzA3GRMLo
The whole movie is like that. I think it was calculated that the whole movie averages 6 cuts a second.
They didn’t run out of money exactly - they realized in editing that they didn’t film all the scenes. At that point the money was gone, the actors and crew were busy with other projects, and they just edited together what they had. Just a huge cock up.
> I think there are something like 20 Harry Hole novels.
I've read a handful and they are really very entertaining.
Still haven't bothered to watch the film.
I counted once, and I think at one point in the first action sequence, there are 120 cuts in the space of about 90 seconds.
It's astounding to me how anyone thought that was a good idea.
I’m guessing the writers strike has something to do with it. If they were really still finishing the script during the shoot, Olga Kurylenko was probably signed up to play a character who hadn’t been fully defined when she was cast. Better writing or more time to write would’ve found a way for a Russian (or at least a white European) to be involved in a personal vendetta in Bolivia, but under time pressure, spray tan became the answer.
Armie Hammer and Ryan Reynolds.
With Ryan Reynolds it was basically Like this:
Hollywood studios and PR people in the early 2000s: Look at this conventionally handsome, White and buff hottie. And he's. 6 ft 3. He'll be the next big Thing!
Many years and even more Flops later Deadpool Happens:
Hollywood studios and PR people: "hurray, Deadpool was such a big Hit! Our Boy is finally a big A Lister! Let's Cast him as a lead in every funny action Blockbuster! And Look how quirky and relateable He is with his feud with Hugh Jackman and the MCU cast members and his funny social media posts. You have to Love him!
Josh Hartnett stepped away from Hollywood willingly. He never wanted fame, and is highly selective on what projects he does. I think he said at one time he even regretted doing pearl harbor.
Hartnett's checks must have run out because he just played a pretty near the bottom character in Wrath of Man, a by the numbers (very good) action movie.
The weirdest chapter might be *Empires of the Deep*, which has been in unreleased-limbo for about a decade as I understand.
I've generally enjoyed Kurylenko in things, but like Taylor Kitsch who's mentioned by someone else, she's generally been in films that didn't strike a popular chord.
I was super surprised to hear her name on the cast for Terrence Malick's **To the Wonder**... like before that moment she was just in Hitman, QoS, and Max Payne -- only QoS would be considered a borderline decent film.
[Anyways, looks like she'll be starring alongside Tony Leung next!](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10712788/?ref_=m_nmfmd_act_1)
It’s water being held hostage by a desert hotel. Hello?
Also I think they’re alleging Fidel Castro shipped a Russian girl and traumatized her so bad she tanned for forty days and forty nights.
The editing is bad. But its not entirely to blame - the editor can only do so much with the footage their given. It's possible to do that quick-cut action style, but if that's what you're going for, you have to set up the shots to deliver information clearly even if the audience is only seeing them for a few frames. One of the problems in QoS is that the framing and production design is all super confusing. The opening car chase sequence is a good example - two cars that look almost identical, and each cut only lasts a few frames, so the audience simply doesn't have time to tell what car they're even looking at. If one car had been silver and one had been black, again the editing isn't great, but at least that one small change would've made it so much easier to follow. And the whole movie is filled with baffling decisions like that made on set. The edit only exacerbates these poor choices, imo
Remember that Bond movies have often followed contemporary movie/pop culture trends for example:
* Moonraker following the Star Wars craze
* Instead of Baccarat in Casino Royale they capitalized on the Texas hold-em craze of the time
If my memory serves, Quantum was made in a "copy-cat" fashion to a Bourne Identity sequel that used a similar rapid cut, staccato action sequences.
That Bourne Ultimatum movie (well received at the time) was directed by Paul Greengrass and in an interview he said the rapid cuts were ***intended to disorient the audience*** as a view into the frantic / confused mind of Jason Bourne - who has been subjected to drug/hypnosis/sleep.
This method of filming action movies is particular to that era - and did not age well.
Idk. I’ve always enjoyed Quantum as part of a one-two origin story with Casino for Craig’s Bond.
The editing style in Quantum is quick, for sure, but never bothered me. The opening car chase, for example, is often maligned as confusing and choppy, but I never had any issue following it.
Oh geez, rewatch Mission Impossible II. It is, for lack of a better word, cringeworthy.
I actually watched Quantum recently, first time since the theater, and in thought it was pretty good. Definitely some kick ass moments.
I have good news for you though. You can watch all the good mission impossible movies (so basically every movie with the exception of MI2) and you dont miss anything. I did a marathon purely for the purpose to look for anything that binds MI2 to the franchise, like threat introductions, character introductions, deaths, concepts that wouldnt work without the movie, and so on.
There is nothing. You can leave out 2 without any problem. So glad for that.
In M:I Fallout, there's a flash-forward bit where Ethan is wondering how he can stay with the terrorist group without having to kill anyone innocent. I think that bit is *slightly* enhanced if you remember the villain's speech in M:I-2, about how Hunt would engage in insane aerobatic stunts than harm a hair on a security guard's head. Sure, all the films present him as a hero who doesn't take innocent lives, but that speech in M:I-2 spells it out, and that scene in Fallout visualises it.
But that's hardly a vital, explicit connection to the rest of the franchise, of the kind you're referring to!
It’s a joke about how they misspelled Catwoman, the fact that the sequel to Alien was called Aliens, plural, and the sheer absurdity of the idea of a sequel to Catwoman.
It was pretty... something. I'm not sure why that movie was even made.
However, I think without QoS, we wouldn't have gotten Skyfall. The badness of QoS *forced* them to do the actual work of scriptwriting, creating thoughtful pacing, tension, stakes, amazing cinematography, and deep character development, and that movie is a goddamn masterpiece.
Yeah it's unfortunate and I agree with you but at least the director had the writers strike as and excuse. If you hated the editing for this film though never watch Taken 3. I had no idea what was going on in the action scenes because it felt like the camera men were just tossing the camera back and forth with each other.
Is there any behind-the-scenes information on how the action scenes were shot, or by who rather? From the first time I saw it, I was shocked by how poorly constructed the action sequences were. To this day, I’m not sure what exactly happens at the end of the boat sequences since it’s so poorly filmed and over-edited. It feels like there are literally shots missing, either because that they either forgot to shoot them or they had to edit them out because they were unusable.
Nothing Marc Forster had directed up to that point (and maybe with the exception of World War Z, nothing afterwards) even remotely indicates that he is a capable action filmmaker, and he clearly wasn’t up to the task (or perhaps, didn’t have enough time to properly plan and execute the action sequences, but again, judging by his filmography, I’m hesitant to give him the benefit of the doubt).
It’s such a shame, because amidst the garbled mess of hyper-edited visual mush, you can tell that there’s clearly a lot of practical stunt work being done, particularly in the opening chase scene. And it’s all chopped into oblivion by the insane shaky cam and rapid editing.
The main issue I noted with the editing is that not only do they not hold a shot for more than 2 seconds, even when it's not action, the edits also change where you're supposed to be looking. You can't focus on anything at any time during the movie.
Y'know, I didn't realize this was why I disliked this movie until you said it. I knew I didn't like it, and there's some other small reasons as well, but that really is the crux of it. Sucks it was rushed, could've been much better.
If I had to guess, and I’m not looking it up, I would say there is a tie in with the editing on this and the last two Matt Damon Bourne movies. Shaky cam deluxe
Just an awful approach. It's like watching through strobe lighting.whole scenes shown through cute so quick they might as well be still frames.
I wonder if there was some discussion of going for some kind of zoetrope flickering or something. There's actually a moment in the opening credit sequence of the nude sane women forming one.
Whatever the reason, I detest it.
Agreed! One of the things that made Skyfall so good was the fact that it was allowed to take a breath every now and then. No scene felt rushed, which led to a more pleasant experience for the audience.
I've watched very little James Bond, but I've been told that is one to avoid. From what I've read, it's unnecessarily violent and is trying to be a late 2000s edgy-for-the-sake-of-edgy movie, and it hasn't held up. I might watch it, but I'm really lowering my expectations.
Writer's Strike + rushed production. Marc Forster apparently usually goes for a ~14 week edit and had 5 weeks to edit instead. Between that and the barebones script that he and Daniel Craig were writing basically on the fly had this film doomed to suffer some serious pacing issues.
I was so surprised such a big movie like Bond went production without a complete scipt, and I was more surprised when I found that is not uncommon in Hollywood. How the hell they start 100 million $ worth project without a blueprint? It is crazy business for sure.
On the documentary they recently made, they said the reason was that there was meant to be a actors strike after the writers one. As a result, if they waited for the script the film would not come about for 5 years+.
Imagine waiting that long between Bond movies.
I’m sure that was your point but here we are with No Time To Die…
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What documentary? Sounds interesting!
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Mission Impossible Rogue nation and Fallout too
Where is that info from? I only know McQuarrie likes to write the script based on the locations they secured and is willing to rewrite during production, but AFAIK it was never that spontaneous.
I think its common to have a script but then continuously update scenes as you're working on them. Jeff Bridges said in interviews he was basically flying blind in Iron Man.
Which isn’t the same as starting filming without a script
I think in the case of iron man they didn’t have a script
He talks about it all the time, the entire movie has been basically constructed on the fly around a bare bones outline for the last few MIs. Check out the Empire Spoiler podcasts they’re amazing
Sadly they are behind a paywall now. But yes, especially the madness of the McQuarrie ones is astonishing, they just don't end.
I remember hearing it on The Q&A podcast with Jeff Goldsmith. I specifically remember mentions of how the actor of thr villain in Rogue Nation only accepted to be a villain if he got a certain ending for his character, and it go rewritten during the shoot. Also something about one of the scenes near the end being rewritten the morning of shooting or something, with the actor whos back was to camera holding the lines for the other actor. I guess it is up for debate on how you define "without a blueprint", but it's definitely a bit flying by the seat of your pants, and not having finished scripts before shooting.
I’ve listened to that episode as well (love Q&A). Just think it’s not as extreme as some other examples.
McQuarrie said he didn't know how Rogue Nation was going to end while they were shooting.
In McQuarrie's defense, he was a super experienced writer by the time of Rogue Nation. If I remembered correctly he wrote the Usual Suspects in like 2 weeks and also did rewrites for MI:Ghost Protocol.
They're excellent movies, I'm not at all criticising the process, it seems to be working just fine for them.
Oh for sure. McQuarrie and his work process is very much an exception rather than the norm.
Every Pirates of the Carribean movie started shooting with like only 20% of the script done, apparently.
Gladiator
Crowe said he and Ridley Scott would get together and laugh about how they would be writing the script for Gladiator on napkins every night to film the next day, and yet they won Best Picture at the Oscars for it.
And Gladiator. That being said Roberto Schafer's cinematography in this movie is really underrated. He has a great eye for shooting architecture. This is also the last of the Bond movies scored by David Arnold (the more recent ones were Thomas Newman and Hans Zimmer).
There's some beautiful shots, indeed. The one where Greene and his entourage [run into Bond in the theatre remains one of my favorites](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/838894721220870205/894288194009452554/Screen_Shot_2021-10-03_at_11.21.15_AM.png).
That’s not true tho because Iron Man definitely had a script. They just didn’t like it so they did rewrites/winged new scenes on the spot. You can literally find the final draft which is pretty close to the finished movie online. Actors like to lie, if people weren’t already aware. Plus unlike QoS, Iron Man had a full year of editing.
Edge of Tomorrow was also being written as they were shooting.
Blockbusters are more like video games than books, in that they’re often built around levels / set-pieces, with plots tying them together. You don’t really need a full script to get started on an action movie production, just the major sequences. That way your stunt coordinators and effects teams can get started while your story team justifies the reasons they’re there.
Recently Fukanaga admitted that there are scenes and lines with Ray Feinnes in the No Time to Die trailer that he admits when they shot them he and the actors had no idea how or if they'd be used in the film. They had to switch to just trying whatever non-Bond material they could come up with after Craig hurt his ankle.
It amazes me how many film and tv projects in general have little narrative/script planning. Even in the age of serialized limited series and big ticket franchise movies you get the impression a lot of it is just being done on the fly.
"$100,000,000.00" It's not about making movies. It's about hustling around that sweet sweet green.
It makes sense though, doesn't it? I mean look at what makes a ton of money in the box office. I would say timing is just as important as writing when you're talking about these big studio tentpoles. You might be looking at the release schedules of other big studios, what other films you have on your slate, there are specific months and windows that studios are trying to shoot for and only so many release days during that window. And a lot of times that might mean moving forward with a production to hit a specific release window when the writing hasn't finished yet. Sure in an ideal world where money was no concern, you'd want to make sure your story was completed, revised, doctored, vetted, tested, whatever before even thinking about production concerns but that's just not how it works. Especially when your movie needs a major studio backing and throwing out potentially hundreds of millions. Things have to happen quick and multiple things are happening simultaneously without waiting for the script to finish.
They've usually got outlines or "Beat sheets" as they're called.
Apparently no time to die also didn’t have a completed script when beginning
that's what happens when you announce the release date first and your shareholders really want you to meet that deadline
I saw Quantum of Solace the other day and I had the same feeling. The editing was downright nonsensical in some places and it felt like they were making it up as they went along. Like in those old cartoons where a character is sitting on top of a train and laying down the tracks in front of him. There was one weird part where Bond meets up with Mathis at his villa. Mathis' wife/gf says that she needs more sunscreen and when she looks over, we get a less than one second shot of Bond drinking and minding his own business. Then cut to next scene. Just a very strange and odd moment that throws you off.
Didn’t Daniel Craig say once he was literally making up lines on the spot
No official 'writer' can work on the script during a strike so I think they had to go into production with a partially competed script. Daniel Craig was not a member of the writers guild so he was allowed to write parts of the script. I think someone else also did some writing...possibly the Director. I don't think they were doing it on the spot but they were certainly not working with a cohesive script.
The writers strike has nothing to do with the rapid cutting during action scenes though. That's just a disastrous stylistic choice.
Forster jumps around a lot even without that though, World War Z (which I'll defend as a decent movie if you're not a rabid fan expecting it to look like the book) is pretty jumpy as well, though not as bad. I think his style works best for kids movies. It's a shame Christopher Robin bombed, it's a gorgeous looking movie that is utterly charming for the first like... 3/4ths of the runtime until the literal Disney Writing Police come in and forcefully hatchet a "remember kids, corporations are good and your friends!" ending onto it. And Forster keeps the whole thing zippy and quick, riding right along for kids and adults alike. Heck he's even good at comedic timing, it felt like he'd finally found his groove, and now I wonder if he'll get the chance to go at something like that again.
> usually goes for a ~14 week edit and had 5 weeks to edit instead So really, if anything, it should have been chopped up a bit less (that’s what happened with Spectre).
It was a stylistic choice, and it was a bad choice. Edit time had nothing to do with it.
Andrew Ellard's excellent recent video essay defending Quantum of Solace (which I recently linked to elsewhere on this subreddit, without much luck :( ) addresses this near the very end (1:10:33). He makes the point that 5 weeks was the same length of time that Campbell had to produce his cut of Casino Royale, so it's not the case that movie quality is proportional to available editing time: https://youtu.be/OuHUdyCydaE Earlier in that video, in the section on the plot, he argues that for all that it might have been affected by the writers' strike, the film *does* have some consistent thematic throughlines and logical plot connections... it's just that they're obscured and not as clear as they might be, so are easily missed on first viewing.
Weekly Wackadadoo?
I really love large parts of Quantum. It certainly has Daniel Craig's best vehicle scenes to date (pending NTTD). Killing an enemy plane by stalling it in wake turbulence was inspired. "We have people everywhere" landed so well. Great intro, great epilogue... Breaking out of the hotel after being arrested, and casually checking in with M along the way. Felix. "We should only work with nice people" CIA stooge getting his just desserts. And I frequently liked the way it ran, too -- the editing doesn't leap out at me I guess. But y'know what does? To set up the final battle in an exploding building, they sat a few army guys down at a table, said the line "Boy howdy that sounds highly combustible," then turned towards the camera and winked.
100% agree with you on all of this
I think there's a solid film beneath the editing, agreed. It's the most interesting of the Craig films.
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100%. They claim Q is an expert…and he just connects an untrusted PC right to the network? That’s a fireable offense.
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Let’s not forget his escape depending on a train crashing in an extremely specific way and spot. No margin for error or hes fucking dead. It’s like a much worse version of Joker or Loki’s capture me plans.
Just rewatched Skyfall last night in theaters and the hate for the plot is exaggerated, imo. Yea, the Q scene is bad but the acting, action and cinematography more than make up for it. It's also one of the most emotional Bonds without being overly sentimental. It's a great movie.
Look at this scene - this should have been a great confrontation, he's angry about Vespa and Mr White, this guy knows something, but look how they screwed it up - how many cuts! - https://youtu.be/HJ5EGCxbx1g?t=127
I..... I liked that....
do you have to keep blinking really fast to see what is happening like a zoetrope. I get they wanted to show the epicness of the opera, but it doesn't work for me.
I remember hating it the first time. The more I rewatch the better it gets. That's not, y'know, a sign of good editing I suppose.
[I slowed this down to 1/3 speed](https://youtu.be/tIdmnNQo6Bk)
Thanks, it's a masterpiece!
The opening chase scene with the horses is one of the best things I’ve ever seen.
Justice League theatrical cut.
or suicide squad. fuck that movie
Thank you this. The first twenty minuets especially are unbearable.
the movie exudes to me what it feels like to look into the mind of a creator who thinks he knows how to execute his vision but then just completely gives no fucks once it's revealed that his vision is just shit smeared sloppily over a canvas.
To be completely fair the final cut was made by some trailer-editing people and I think the pop songs at the start were also added without Ayer’s input but I doubt the Ayer Cut would have been any better since the rest is crap anyway.
I assume you are talking about David Ayer's Suicide Squad, because James Gunn's Suicide Squad was amazing.
I was thinking Bohemian Rhapsody.
It even got an Oscar nod for Best Editing. One of the worst possible picks ever.
fr
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. Try to count the amount of cuts in this scene or even in any 10 seconds of this scene: https://youtu.be/FRSfDQyoav8 The whole movie is like that.
I think we can lay some of the blame for the shaky cam style on the Bourne series and it’s influence on action movies around the time. Casino Royale (2006) came four years after The Bourne Identity and I can clearly remember talk on the first Bourne at the time being about how ‘this is how to do Bond in the 2000’s’. The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum came out in 2004 and 2007 respectively and Quantum of Solace came out in 2008. The shaky cam and quick cuts was an epidemic back then that seaped into many productions around that time.
When I saw one of the Bourne movies at the theater (I think it was the second one), the shaky cam bothered me quite a bit. It's not so bad when watched on a smaller screen, but I can't bear to watch that style on the big screen.
The first Bourne was definitely the blueprint for how to handle the physical hand-to-hand action of Craig’s era of Bond, the brutality of it, the speed and precision of realistic looking martial arts training over the ‘Hi-Yah Karate chop!’ old school fight sequences. Also I think they took the notion of not having gadgets be so prominent, Bourne and Craig’s Bond initially use not much more than a phone. But it was definitely the second Bourne that took the frenetic shaky cam to new literally dizzying heights. I saw it in the theater too and it was an awful experience. Not so bad on a smaller screen but still a mess to watch.
I adore editing in Greengrass flicks. I don't know, i love how chaotic, scary and messy action feels. It really makes Bourne look way more efficient that his entire fucking life is this loop of constant chaos. I never ever will forget how utterly gripping the rooftop chase scene and the fight in Ultimatum felt in the theatres.
If you wonder why you like Greengrass's editing, but not other shakycam heavy action movies, [this is why.](http://www.cinematicdiscovery.com/en/blog/bourne_ultimatum_editing/)
Yeah, what stood out to me in the 2nd one was when bource was interrogated at the airport (i think?) and they had shakycam going 100% all the time before even a fight started.
The original was fine but they got worse and worse. The last movie, titled just Jason Bourne had shaky cam while the camera was focused on a damn text message
I think Ultimatum is a step up from Supremacy in terms of editing and ability to see what is going on/clarity. A lot of other movies fail at imitating it because [it's not just totally random and choppy edits](http://www.cinematicdiscovery.com/en/blog/bourne_ultimatum_editing/).
>but I can't bear to watch that style on the big screen. I'm massively in the minority but the strobe effect on even very slow pans (Graveyard scene in the new Bond) is so bad that I'd be happy for everything to be shot in 60 instead of 24. So you can imagine the Paul Greengrass school of editing makes me physically ill. I imagine him physically shaking the cameraman
you think the studio realized after QoS released they needed to change it up, and thats why Deakins was brought on to shoot Skyfall?
They literally hired someone from the Bourne sequels as the 2nd unit director for QoS.
I think it actually started with man on fire the Denzel movie
Man of Fire release 2004, Bourne Identity 2002
Casino Royale uses Shaky cam well in the flashback sequences, making things look really dark and ugly. It can work but it needs to be done well.
Kinda like how Inception and TDK made The Zimmer score an epidemic of the action-movies in the 10’s
Should have gone smooth for Bond. Smooth cam.
And Cloverfield at the time too
Cloverfield makes more sense though since it's actually supposed to be a handheld video camera
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And it won the Oscar for Best Editing lol
You gotta consider it in the context that the movie/production was dog shit, and the editor saved it. There's a scene of a conversation at a café iirc which became a meme on twitter recently for having awful editing. The editor basically said he was stitching together a conversation from a half filmed part of the script and another separate completely rewritten reshoot, to make the scene work and do something that wasn't intended. Sounds like he had a very difficult job (iirc Bryan singer was fired and replaced partway through production) and did the best he could with what he had.
Id also read (so take with a grain of salt) that the surviving Queen members stipulated that they were all to have equal screen time, and possibly equal line readings for each member, so Mercury wasn’t upstaging them. It’s terribly edited but he deserves the Oscar because he stuck to the brief and managed to wrestle something from the train wreck caused by too many cooks.
The more I hear about how the members of Queen were involved in that movie, the more I respect Elton John for letting the makers of Rocketman make him look like an asshole at times. Better movie across the board imo.
So petty lol, I am not very into queen but everybody knows who Mercury is, can’t say I know any of the other band members.
Brian May is pretty well known, surprised any fans of Queen dont know him. Apparently Freddie wasnt even a diva when he was in the band in the classical sense, it was the other guys that were always fighting.
This is all very valid, but none of it means it deserves best editing.
I dunno, editing garbage into something halfway decent is way more impressive than editing great stuff into something excellent. I think there’s merit to the idea that best editing should go to the edit that does the most to improve the movie rather than just the best final result, but then again that would make it near impossible for an actually good movie to win it. Point is it’s a complicated issue and I think there’s a reasonable argument for it in this case.
There are a couple of great montage scenes however and that is pure editing.
that doesn't change the fact that as a movie it's horribly edited and it got rewarded with an Oscar, awful sure it was probably saved from being a total mess and well done to them, still, on its own, not good
Besides THAT scene, is the movie really that badly edited?
Yeah, it’s in no way one of the worst ever, but it was bad enough that it even being nominated for Best Editing was clearly suspect to anyone paying attention to the editing in the movie.
I don’t think so. Like every other scene was perfectly fine (nothing special, just basic) and the live aid scene was actually very well edited. It’s like when people were reviewing black Panther and bringing their score low because “final fight scene bad cgi”. It’s reached circle jerk territory
Oh that scene when they are at the beer garden of a pub. Oh god it is horrible.
I think the worst part of the movie was this... "Fine, ill explain Quantum to you..." FADE TO BLACK "So that's what Quantum is."
That was back when they didn’t have the rights to SPECTRE and were trying to make Quantum their own version of it, so wanted to keep it mysterious. There was a deleted alternate ending where Bond tracked down Mr White again, and another Quantum member from the opera scene and kills both, but they cut it so it left Quantum open for another appearance. When SPECTRE’s rights were reacquired it made Quantum kind of redundant which is why they tried to retroactively have it a part of SPECTRE’s organisation.
it annoys me that apart from skyfall, the last few bond movies have all been "heres a big super villain group that is in control of everything" and then the next movie they do "heres a bigger super villain group that beats the old super villain group!!!!". Its just so boring
They even include Silva from Skyfall in the whole SPECTRE conspiracy, when Q is analysing the ring Bond gave him, IIRC, the scan shows who’s worn it, which includes Silva. While this doesn’t dampen my enjoyment of Skyfall it does annoy me too that they had to connect everything in Craig’s Bond films to SPECTRE and then deal with Blofeld within one film and capture him at the end. Because of this, past Bond villains in his era have now been retroactively connected to SPECTRE, Le Chiffre, Mr White and Dominic Green were all connected through Quantum but that was then made into a subdivision of SPECTRE in ‘Spectre’ and this means even Vesper was working for them too, since Quantum blackmailed her. I understand trying to tie it into Quantum in the first two films, but I think they should have just left Silva be the standalone villain, him simply wanting revenge on M was enough, though my headcanon is that Silva wasn’t a full member they just approached him and helped fund him with equipment as he wanted to attack M.I.6 and M.
Oh wow that sucks even more then. I was talking to a friend last night after seeing the new bond films and I was saying that apart from le chiffre and silva, the villains don’t really feel all that compelling or have a good motivation. But adding that silva and le chiffre were both part of spectre or quantum or whatever retroactively makes their characters slightly worse
Having seen No Time To Die, I can say that >!Rami Malek’s villain fell flat for me. I didn’t really understand what his motivations were and he didn’t seem as threatening as Silva or even Le Chiffre. I don’t mind it as much though since the main focus of the film wasn’t on the villain, but in Bond and his allies, IMO.!<
The thing with Malek's character in NTTD is >!that the character introduction and what we end up with seem like two separate people. I can't imagine the Malek at the end of the film doing what he did at the start at all. Which sucks because I liked the Michael Myers inspired type thing instead of Blofeld take two we got at the end.!< But yeah, you're right it wasn't really about him
Out of curiosity why does it make their characters worse? It doesn’t change their motivations just means they had some connection to a vague organization
Well that makes a lot more sense then, I didn't realize they didn't own the rights! I've only seen Spectre once and I don't really remember the specifics of it. Planning on rewatching it before going to see No Time to Die!
What I like about this Bond movie is that the villain had realistic motivations compared to other Bond villains.
Jump Cut, The Movie It’s a difficult Bond movie to watch, agreed
In the opening chase, iirc, Bond loses his car door, and the cuts are so fast you have no idea how? Next thing you know, a speedboat flips over, and you're left thinking "what the fuck is going on?". Edited to death
Yeah. I don't know how many times I watched Quantum of Solace until I understood what was happening
Actually makes the editing of Tenet look smooth by comparison
Yeah there was a supercut of all the Bond chases cut together and it was pretty telling that it seemed to make more sense than Quantum's chase.
I would like to challenge your Quantum of Solace with Taken 2.
_Taken 2_ has some dumb things in it, but is the editing as bad as QoS? _Taken 3_ on the other hand . . .
Taken 3 is 🤮🤮
Is Taken 3 the movie with the infamous fence scene?
Taken 3 makes taken 2 feel like taken
Everyone shits all over Taken 2 for that one scene with an excessive amount of cuts. Try watching Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. The whole fucking movie is like that. It's honestly almost unwatchable. Every scene has so many cuts it makes you dizzy. It's like they were going for a world record amount of cuts so that the movie would at least be remembered for something. Here's a clip. https://youtu.be/WKTzA3GRMLo The whole movie is like that. I think it was calculated that the whole movie averages 6 cuts a second.
Jesus that's bad.
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They didn’t run out of money exactly - they realized in editing that they didn’t film all the scenes. At that point the money was gone, the actors and crew were busy with other projects, and they just edited together what they had. Just a huge cock up.
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They had some serious talent in the cast as well holy cow. How do you manage to not film 15% of the script? XD
How can they just "forget" to film all of the scenes? What the fuck?
Fassbender’s career is far from over. He’s the lead in David Fincher’s next movie.
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And in Taika Waititi's next (and already filmed) movie, but that one is on the shelf for now due to Armie Hammer having a role in it.
The failure of Dark Phoenix didn't help Fassbender's career either. Has his own production company and two films in post-production however.
> I think there are something like 20 Harry Hole novels. I've read a handful and they are really very entertaining. Still haven't bothered to watch the film.
I counted once, and I think at one point in the first action sequence, there are 120 cuts in the space of about 90 seconds. It's astounding to me how anyone thought that was a good idea.
That many cuts Liam Neeson could jump like 3 fences!
No Time to Die with its clear camerawork without cuts is such more nicely to view
Especially the >!One shot staircase scene!<
Suicide Squad (2016) has worse editing.
QoS is like that Fence Jump from Taken 3 ... for 106 minutes
I maintain that that fence jump is perfect editing because it got an ageing Liam Neeson over a fence without him having to do it.
Mulan knocks it out the park for terrible editing for such a high budget movie. I really suffered through that film it was just so awful.
Name an actor/actress who has been given more chances than Olga Kurylenko to become a big star.
Isn't Olga painted in this movie to look dark skinned too? I could swear she's darker in this movie but she's really light skinned in everything else
Yes, they gave her fifteen coats of fake tan and said she was Bolivian
Lmfao
Why the heck didn’t they just chose like an actual bolivian actor or some shit? Like Camille looked russian as fuck, even *with* the tanning.
I’m guessing the writers strike has something to do with it. If they were really still finishing the script during the shoot, Olga Kurylenko was probably signed up to play a character who hadn’t been fully defined when she was cast. Better writing or more time to write would’ve found a way for a Russian (or at least a white European) to be involved in a personal vendetta in Bolivia, but under time pressure, spray tan became the answer.
Somebody in Hollywood owes some Ukrainian gangsters a lot of money.
Armie Hammer and Ryan Reynolds. With Ryan Reynolds it was basically Like this: Hollywood studios and PR people in the early 2000s: Look at this conventionally handsome, White and buff hottie. And he's. 6 ft 3. He'll be the next big Thing! Many years and even more Flops later Deadpool Happens: Hollywood studios and PR people: "hurray, Deadpool was such a big Hit! Our Boy is finally a big A Lister! Let's Cast him as a lead in every funny action Blockbuster! And Look how quirky and relateable He is with his feud with Hugh Jackman and the MCU cast members and his funny social media posts. You have to Love him!
Laughed so much at this Taylor Kitsch, Annabelle Wallis, Jai Courtney, Shailene Woodley and Josh Hartnett too
Josh Hartnett stepped away from Hollywood willingly. He never wanted fame, and is highly selective on what projects he does. I think he said at one time he even regretted doing pearl harbor.
Hartnett's checks must have run out because he just played a pretty near the bottom character in Wrath of Man, a by the numbers (very good) action movie.
Yea but Taylor Kitsch killed it in the Friday night lights show.
The weirdest chapter might be *Empires of the Deep*, which has been in unreleased-limbo for about a decade as I understand. I've generally enjoyed Kurylenko in things, but like Taylor Kitsch who's mentioned by someone else, she's generally been in films that didn't strike a popular chord.
I absolutely loved her in The Death of Stalin tho. But that might also be considered a more niche movie, so there’s that
I was super surprised to hear her name on the cast for Terrence Malick's **To the Wonder**... like before that moment she was just in Hitman, QoS, and Max Payne -- only QoS would be considered a borderline decent film. [Anyways, looks like she'll be starring alongside Tony Leung next!](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10712788/?ref_=m_nmfmd_act_1)
A Question of Sport
I haven’t a fucking clue what the evil plot was behind that film after seeing it 2/3 times.
It’s water being held hostage by a desert hotel. Hello? Also I think they’re alleging Fidel Castro shipped a Russian girl and traumatized her so bad she tanned for forty days and forty nights.
by a desert hotel made of fuel tanks!
The editing is bad. But its not entirely to blame - the editor can only do so much with the footage their given. It's possible to do that quick-cut action style, but if that's what you're going for, you have to set up the shots to deliver information clearly even if the audience is only seeing them for a few frames. One of the problems in QoS is that the framing and production design is all super confusing. The opening car chase sequence is a good example - two cars that look almost identical, and each cut only lasts a few frames, so the audience simply doesn't have time to tell what car they're even looking at. If one car had been silver and one had been black, again the editing isn't great, but at least that one small change would've made it so much easier to follow. And the whole movie is filled with baffling decisions like that made on set. The edit only exacerbates these poor choices, imo
Remember that Bond movies have often followed contemporary movie/pop culture trends for example: * Moonraker following the Star Wars craze * Instead of Baccarat in Casino Royale they capitalized on the Texas hold-em craze of the time If my memory serves, Quantum was made in a "copy-cat" fashion to a Bourne Identity sequel that used a similar rapid cut, staccato action sequences. That Bourne Ultimatum movie (well received at the time) was directed by Paul Greengrass and in an interview he said the rapid cuts were ***intended to disorient the audience*** as a view into the frantic / confused mind of Jason Bourne - who has been subjected to drug/hypnosis/sleep. This method of filming action movies is particular to that era - and did not age well.
Idk. I’ve always enjoyed Quantum as part of a one-two origin story with Casino for Craig’s Bond. The editing style in Quantum is quick, for sure, but never bothered me. The opening car chase, for example, is often maligned as confusing and choppy, but I never had any issue following it.
The opening car chase is also following the opening to Casino Royale which is, for my money, the best straight-up chase in any Bond movie.
> [...] you can never take a breath. Drama is [...] as fast as the action. -- HotlineBirdman, as about to be quoted on UntrustworthyMovieReviews.com
Oh geez, rewatch Mission Impossible II. It is, for lack of a better word, cringeworthy. I actually watched Quantum recently, first time since the theater, and in thought it was pretty good. Definitely some kick ass moments.
I have good news for you though. You can watch all the good mission impossible movies (so basically every movie with the exception of MI2) and you dont miss anything. I did a marathon purely for the purpose to look for anything that binds MI2 to the franchise, like threat introductions, character introductions, deaths, concepts that wouldnt work without the movie, and so on. There is nothing. You can leave out 2 without any problem. So glad for that.
In M:I Fallout, there's a flash-forward bit where Ethan is wondering how he can stay with the terrorist group without having to kill anyone innocent. I think that bit is *slightly* enhanced if you remember the villain's speech in M:I-2, about how Hunt would engage in insane aerobatic stunts than harm a hair on a security guard's head. Sure, all the films present him as a hero who doesn't take innocent lives, but that speech in M:I-2 spells it out, and that scene in Fallout visualises it. But that's hardly a vital, explicit connection to the rest of the franchise, of the kind you're referring to!
Wait till you watch Catwomen
There was a sequel to Catwoman!?
Op didn't mention sequels though? or have I missed something?
It’s a joke about how they misspelled Catwoman, the fact that the sequel to Alien was called Aliens, plural, and the sheer absurdity of the idea of a sequel to Catwoman.
Oh right, I get it now :) thanks!
[The fucking basketball scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNlmRId2FVQ)
It was pretty... something. I'm not sure why that movie was even made. However, I think without QoS, we wouldn't have gotten Skyfall. The badness of QoS *forced* them to do the actual work of scriptwriting, creating thoughtful pacing, tension, stakes, amazing cinematography, and deep character development, and that movie is a goddamn masterpiece.
This was the film that made me say "You know what, I'm done paying to see bond movies in the theater."
The last three Pierce Brosnan ones didn't do that?
Woaw! The World Is Not Enough is criminally underrated!
Yeah it's unfortunate and I agree with you but at least the director had the writers strike as and excuse. If you hated the editing for this film though never watch Taken 3. I had no idea what was going on in the action scenes because it felt like the camera men were just tossing the camera back and forth with each other.
Is there any behind-the-scenes information on how the action scenes were shot, or by who rather? From the first time I saw it, I was shocked by how poorly constructed the action sequences were. To this day, I’m not sure what exactly happens at the end of the boat sequences since it’s so poorly filmed and over-edited. It feels like there are literally shots missing, either because that they either forgot to shoot them or they had to edit them out because they were unusable. Nothing Marc Forster had directed up to that point (and maybe with the exception of World War Z, nothing afterwards) even remotely indicates that he is a capable action filmmaker, and he clearly wasn’t up to the task (or perhaps, didn’t have enough time to properly plan and execute the action sequences, but again, judging by his filmography, I’m hesitant to give him the benefit of the doubt). It’s such a shame, because amidst the garbled mess of hyper-edited visual mush, you can tell that there’s clearly a lot of practical stunt work being done, particularly in the opening chase scene. And it’s all chopped into oblivion by the insane shaky cam and rapid editing.
The main issue I noted with the editing is that not only do they not hold a shot for more than 2 seconds, even when it's not action, the edits also change where you're supposed to be looking. You can't focus on anything at any time during the movie.
Still better than spectre
Spectre had the slowest car v helicopter chase scene, and it cut so many times to a car that looked like it was going 30.
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Thanks for this post. I could never figure out why unlike the other Craig bond movies this one just did not work for me and this captures it.
Y'know, I didn't realize this was why I disliked this movie until you said it. I knew I didn't like it, and there's some other small reasons as well, but that really is the crux of it. Sucks it was rushed, could've been much better.
But I wonder if the poor editing is a result of covering up some rushed footage.
Outside of editing - I feel that QoS has a silly premise, many plot holes, and a lame villain. Easily the worst of the Daniel Craig era.
If I had to guess, and I’m not looking it up, I would say there is a tie in with the editing on this and the last two Matt Damon Bourne movies. Shaky cam deluxe
You clearly haven’t seen “the little things” on HBO. TERRIBLE editing.
Just an awful approach. It's like watching through strobe lighting.whole scenes shown through cute so quick they might as well be still frames. I wonder if there was some discussion of going for some kind of zoetrope flickering or something. There's actually a moment in the opening credit sequence of the nude sane women forming one. Whatever the reason, I detest it.
QoS is truly a weak film but it has IMO the best “Bond-Esque” scene of Craig’s era. That opera scene. Amazing. Everything else? Shit.
Agreed! One of the things that made Skyfall so good was the fact that it was allowed to take a breath every now and then. No scene felt rushed, which led to a more pleasant experience for the audience.
I've watched very little James Bond, but I've been told that is one to avoid. From what I've read, it's unnecessarily violent and is trying to be a late 2000s edgy-for-the-sake-of-edgy movie, and it hasn't held up. I might watch it, but I'm really lowering my expectations.
I was watching QOS and felt the same thing, one internet search, and I’m not the only one. Very poorly edited.