Source: agentbedhead.com
The first poster for Quantum Of Solace has been issued, and it is most troubling that Daniel Craig has been forced to defend the film’s title as “integral to the plot.” This defence all seems rather unnecessary — can’t audiences just accept the premise and go with it?
When the last Bond film was filming, a certain silver-tongued Bond fan dubbed Daniel Craig as “The Pussy Bond,” but after viewing Casino Royale, she was compelled to issue the following statement: “I take it back. I take it back. I take it back. I take it back.” She then elaborated her rationale:
For the first time since Sean Connery, we have a multi-dimensional Bond. We have a Bond with layers that are, on occasion, sliced back for us to see. It’s completely plausible that Craig’s Bond could actually fall in love, and not just into bed with some willing accomplice who moans “Oh, James” like a faked orgasm played just right. It’s plausible that he actually had issues with killing his first target. No exposition is required to accomplish this feat. No one needs to spell anything out. Craig just has to look at the camera and emote—and we have a new Bond. Yet his Bond is not a shiny new penny—it’s one that’s been sitting at the bottom of a jar, rediscovered when you’re in need of some quick and easily converted cash for a pack of smokes. The date stamped on the penny may read “1953″ but, once you clean off the grime, it’s as good as new and worth just as much as it was back then—if not more.
That and the man looks knuckle-bitingly good in a pair of tiny swim trunks.
Exactly. A similar sentiment appears in a new article by the Telegraph:
Contemporary in 1953, when Casino Royale, the first Bond, was published. Contemporary half a century later in 2007, when Daniel Craig stepped out in those white swimming trunks. James Bond can only be understood and appreciated in the context of myth and legend. He is an archetype in exactly the same mould as King Arthur or Robin Hood, who have also been mauled in print, on stage and on screen (remember Kevin Costner in Prince of Thieves?), but who have, none the less, survived. Five hundred years from now, there will probably be those who believe that James Bond actually existed. Folk heroes don’t die. They just become more real.
The “new” Bond films have, by way of the past, made the James Bond character much more real. The title, Quantum Of Solace, follows this logic very much. The title relates to James Bond’s state of mind at the end of Casino Royale, after he fell long and hard for Vesper Lind. Hell, he was ready to leave the service and build a new life with Vesper, but then, well . . .
SPOILER ALERT
. . . she killed herself. So, and in Quantum Of Solace,” Bond will seek closure (not to mention revenge) over the loss of Vesper. This, in turn, will help us realize how Bond’s broken heart changed his personality for the future Bond installments. You know, how he turned into an asshole.