Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Bond, James Bond and the Art of the Trailer



The trailer for the new Bond film is out, and it is epic.  There's the grit you want, the explosions you want.  The attractive women.  A great... quip.  ("There are some men coming to kill us.  We're going to kill them first.")  Okay, it's not so much a quip as a great line.

But something felt missing.  Just a hair.  I'm still totally psyched for the movie, but I really felt the trailer could have done 1 thing better.

And to confirm how I felt, I had to go back and look at the previous Daniel Craig Bond movies and their teaser trailers.



Yup, CASINO ROYALE had it.

I remember watching this trailer and the black and white put me off, originally.  But once the mood shifts into color, I was sold.  The money shot, Bond jumping from crane to crane got the little kid in me all giddy again.

Plus... it had what was missing from the SKYFALL trailer.



Then comes QUANTUM OF SOLACE.

Yeah, not a great Bond movie (though it holds up when watched right after CASINO.  And it certainly is better than... MOONRAKER).  But the trailer is awesome.  The Craig bluntness.  The pathos.

The stunts.  The money shot.  When this trailer came out, I was psyched.  There was no way they were gonna mess this up.  Look at those stunts.  Look at the explosions!

Okay, they messed it up.

And it has it too.

What SKYFALL is missing.

The blaring Bond theme.  That moment that get the blood pumping.  There's a hint of it, at the very end, during the action montage.  But it really doesn't get going, does it?

And, while it annoyed me when I first watched the trailer... now it's got me rightfully intrigued.  I mean, the film CASINO ROYALE held the theme back until the last moment... until he BECAME Bond.

And, now it's not in this trailer... instead replaced by a hint of the trailer... and wordplay by a psychiatrist?

Are we seeing a throwback to THUNDERBALL?  Where Bond is sent to a spa (or here, therapy) to get his head straight?  To become Bond again?  I mean, look at the suit Bond is wearing when he's running through the London streets.  It's almost exactly the same gray suit worn by Connery in THUNDERBALL. 

Or, does the interrogation signal something worse for Bond?  Could they be adapting from the novel version of THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN, where Bond's been compromised and brainwashed? 

I don't know what it means.  But... you have my attention.

Looking forward to November.

4 comments:

Jay Stringer said...

The Man With The Golden Gun angle is what jumps out at me, because it's such a neat idea that's been overlooked for so log. Maybe SKYFALL is the keyword to activate him. Or maybe it's his previous mission, something that's mentioned right from the off and that lead to him being compromised right at the start. That would be a hell of a pre-title kick, and a good way to build on what Craig has done with Bond so far.

Jay Stringer said...

Still find it weird that an agent of the BRITISH secret service would say ENGLAND when asked for country, but maybe that's just part of Craig's take on Bond and his self-identity.

Thomas Pluck said...

I'm with you, Dave. The trailer needed the Bond theme. And while a brainwashing may have occurred in the books, I think Bond needs to tread very carefully on ground the Bourne movies have already covered. They don't need to mimic the Bourne trilogy (which I enjoyed very much).

Scott D. Parker said...

I suspect that the first official trailer (this being a teaser) will have all the ingredients from the other trailers. We're still pre-Dark Knight and living in the afterglow of Avengers. This is merely a taste to let the folks know that, after summer, after the superheroes, there's James Bond coming a month ahead of Christmas. I'm there.