E.R. Torre's Blog, page 151

France

It’s difficult to write about what happened over the past weekend in France.

I mean, what is there for someone like me to add?

The situation is all manners of horrifying and enraging and sad and words are insufficient to lay out the depth of feelings I, and I’m sure many others, have regarding what happened.

It takes me back to 9/11, to turning on the television and seeing the news of a fire (that’s what I thought it was at first) at the World Trade Center and then hearing a plane crash was the cause of the fire.

No sooner did I find that out when the second plane hit the other tower and the network talking heads knew we were well past a possible tragic accident.

But the very worst feeling, when I struggled not to throw up, was when the first of the two towers fell.  I believe Peter Jennings was talking at that moment about the planes hitting and somesuch and he wasn’t aware of what was happening on screen at that very moment as the first of the two towers fell.

That day was shocking, but so too was what came afterwards.

I was never a fan of then President George W. Bush and his administration’s drumbeat to invade Iraq, which began right after the events of 9/11, struck me as strange given those responsible for that atrocity were, the experts said, in Afghanistan.

I sorry, I don’t mean to go off on a tangent, though like dominoes one could argue one event lead into another and another and another.

What happened on 9/11 was horrific and so too was what happened in France.  I just hope the nations of the world and their leaders go after and get those who were responsible first and foremost and we break this deadly chain.

Terminator Genisys (2015) a (mildly) belated review

This is something one doesn’t say that often regarding a would be summer action blockbuster: Terminator Genisys’ biggest failing (though there are others I’ll get into) is that, story-wise, it was overly ambitious.

Seriously.

I know what follows is going to sound like a litany of what’s wrong with the film and you’ll be forgiven for thinking I absolutely hated it.  But it isn’t the case.  In spite of the fact that so much went wrong, I’d give the film a thumbs up.  A mild thumbs up, I grant you, but a thumb’s up nonetheless.

The biggest draw of Terminator Genisys, of course, is the return of in his most famous role as a robotic killer from the future come back to the “present” to either kill or protect (he’s done both) someone whose life has a great bearing on an apocalyptic future.  Upon its initial release, Terminator Genisys (TG from now on) received mediocre reviews from audiences (58% positive) and generally poor reviews from critics (28% positive) over on Rotten Tomatoes.  Further, the film, which was originally planned to be the first of a new trilogy of Terminator films, also didn’t do as well in the U. S. box-office.  My understanding is that it made good money overseas and therefore likely earned a decent profit for the studios.  However, I’ve heard the profit was not enough to continue the series as originally planned and therefore we will likely not see a TG 2 and 3..

When I heard this film was conceived as the first part of a trilogy, I was very worried.  Would this film deliver enough of a story on its own or would we have all kinds of cliff-hangers/plot points left behind to resolve in future films?  And if there is no next film, as it appears at this moment (this could, of course, change), will audiences be left frustrated and angry?

To allay that worry, let me say this: TG presents a for the most part very complete story.  There is at least one major plot issue left unresolved (and it is a big one) but its unresolved nature doesn’t destroy what you see here.  (I’ll reveal that point after the trailer below)

Now that I’ve finished my preamble, let’s get to the movie itself…

While it pains me to give away much of the movie’s plot, I give tremendous credit to the screenwriters of TG.  Instead of giving us a by the numbers sequel, they presented a story that doubled back in time and created a fascinating alternate 1984 universe.

The first part of TG takes place in the apocalyptic future we’ve come to know from the previous Terminator films.  We witness the defeat of Skynet at the hands of John Connor () and Kyle Reese ( taking over for ) before moving back to this alternate original Terminator timeline.

In this vastly different 1984 we meet up with Sarah Connor (the role made famous by Linda Hamilton is played by Game of Thrones‘ this time around) who is far from the meek waitress presented in that film and more like the battle ready version in Terminator 2.

Those opening scenes, which confound our expectations, are among the movie’s best but, unfortunately, this is also when the film starts to go off the rails.

As clever as this twisty-turny alternate timeline concept is, the screenwriters lamentably decided the dialogue between Sarah Connors and Kyle Reese should be “cute” and “humorous” and, for the most part, it is neither.  Worse, when all is said and done there wasn’t all that much chemistry between these two actors versus the originals.

Still, the concept of this new alternate timeline kept me interested in the goings on. We’re given an “older” Schwarzenegger Terminator and this aging is explained quite well.  We’re also offered some more surprises in the movie’s second half but, unfortunately, several of the movie’s trailers gave at least one of the biggest surprises away (Why would they do that?!  Why?!).  The international trailer I’ve embedded below, thankfully, keeps the surprises to a minimal.

As I mentioned above, the movie suffers from being too ambitious and I’ll get to that now.

To begin, the film introduces us to waaaay too many characters.  For example, we get a great actor like  in a smallish role that, while interesting enough, could nonetheless have been eliminated entirely from the film with absolutely no ill effects.  We’re also introduced to several law enforcement/homeland security types, along with the a couple of high-tech scientists/industrialists, who have a few short scenes which also could have been eliminated or trimmed significantly.  Then there’s ex-Doctor Who role.  While important to this story, it amounts to (I kid you not) maybe two or three scenes for no more than 3 minutes of screen time in total.  Did he take the role because it would be more prominent in the theoretical second and third TG movies?  One wonders.

In fact, there’s so much storytelling and introduction of characters going on that at times the movie’s main draw, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator, fades into the background.  Sadly, his function in this film is to be involved in the action sequences and, when things are slow, provide yet more “humor” bits, many of which are forced and/or not all that funny to begin with.

Clocking in at a little over 2 hours, its clear that as clever a concept as TG presents, the film’s script could have used another pass to tighten it up but, of course, that was not to be.

In sum, Terminator Genesys is a decent though very flawed action film whose greatest triumph is in the way it cleverly reworks the previous Terminator films’ well-worn concepts and therefore tries to give audiences something surprising and new.

Sadly, because of bloat, I can only offer a mild recommendation.  It’s a decent enough film but it could have been –should have been- great.

Ok, now about that plot point that is left dangling…

SPOILERS FOLLOW!!!

 

You Were Warned!

Still there?  Ok, here goes…

So in this alternate 1984 we have a Sarah Connors who is fully aware of Skynet and her role in the revolution (ie, as the mother of John Connors and with an awareness that his father, Kyle Reese, is about to appear from the future).

She came to this realization, we find, because when she was a young child her parents were killed and this Schwarzenegger Terminator appeared and, apparently, rescued her and became her surrogate father.  He was the one that subsequently trained her to become the warrior she was and prepared her for the arrival of Kyle Reese and the other (bad guy) Terminator in 1984.

But these bits of the past are presented in a very nebulous way within TG. and we’re never told who sent this now older Schwarzenegger Terminator to “save” Sarah Connors when she was a child.

Note how I put the word save in quotations.  I do so because as a viewer I was left wondering if he actually did save her or, perhaps, was the one who killed Sarah Connors’ parents so that he could then raise her?

We never see who attacks and kills Sarah Connors’ parents when she was a child, only that the Schwarzenegger Terminator subsequently appears and takes her away.  Did he kill Sarah Connors’ parents because this allowed whoever sent him back to create this alternate timeline or did he fight off other Terminators?  If he did, who sent them back?

Alas, there are no answers provided within the movie itself and the older Schwarzenegger Terminator states that his memory of who sent him back was wiped out, presumably to keep the information away from Skynet.

What actually happened?  Nobody knows.

Today in politics…

This upcoming election, at least on the Republican side, has looked not so much like the road to a nomination but rather a circus event.  The two leading candidates for the Republican nomination, at this moment, are Donald Trump and Ben Carson.

While one can laugh at some/many/most/all of Donald Trump’s statements (he’s made mincemeat, IMHO, of “serious” candidates like Jeb! Bush), the fact is he’s a carnival barker and a reality TV star.  Sure he has a real estate empire and knows more than a thing or two about the business world, but what exactly does he offer as president?  Stripping away most of his very heated talk, his most “serious” proposal is to deport millions of illegal immigrants (humanely!) and build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.  He’s made some vague statements regarding international trade and China, but they’re too vague to glean any action he intends to take.  Given his volcanic nature, I’d be really frightened to give him the keys to the kingdom and, especially, the “button.”

Likewise, Ben Carson really scares me as well.  While he is clearly a brilliant surgeon, he otherwise appears to be a man who lives in some kind of alternate reality.  I need not repeat some of his more odd pronouncements (like his idea of what the Pyramids are all about), but every time he does speak I seriously wonder what color the sky is in his world.   As the famous Mark Twain saying goes:

It’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt.

The idea of someone so…detached…from the real world leading us in the real world is therefore beyond scary.

But those two individuals are nonetheless at the top of the polls for the Republican party, much to the chagrin of the “old guard” and now, some are wondering…

Time for GOP Panic?  Establishment Worried Carson or Trump Might Win

The above article, written by Phillip Rucker and Robert Costa for The Washington Post, notes that while there is still quite a bit of time before the general election (a little less than a year at this point), we’re rapidly running out of time regarding the presidential nominations.

In fact, we’re less than three months from the Iowa Caucuses which begin the nominating process and, to date, Trump and Carson not only have but also maintain a strong lead over all the other candidates.

According to the article, many donors are withholding their money and its understandable.  Why would you donate to a Jeb! Bush or a John Kasich, two candidates viewed as far more electable in a general election, when they so far haven’t come close to either Trump or Carson in the polls and therefore don’t appear to have a chance -at least so far- of getting the Republican nomination?

Many thought this nomination cycle would be like the last.  In the previous election, there were a bunch of really far-out candidates for the Republican nomination.  Each of them had their moment in the sun (and polls) only to melt under its harsh lights.  Eventually Mitt Romney, the “safe” candidate, was nominated while all the others were long gone.

Not so this time around.

I’ll be honest here: I’m liberal.  I like change and feel we should always be looking for ways to improve society rather than try to strip away people’s rights and/or return to some kind of non-existent “rosy” past.

You would think someone like me would therefore be gleefully taking in the circus that is the Republican party and relishing the fact that the “old guard” is dealing with the seeds they’ve sown (and make no mistake about it, the “old guard” is every bit as responsible for this mess as they are chagrined by its results).

But I’m not gleeful.

Why?  Because of this chilling line found in the article.  It is provided by an anonymous Republican strategist and puts all this nonsense into perspective (I’ve highlighted the most chilling part):

“We’re potentially careening down this road of nominating somebody who frankly isn’t fit to be president in terms of the basic ability and temperament to do the job,” this strategist said. “It’s not just that it could be somebody Hillary could destroy electorally, but what if Hillary hits a banana peel and this person becomes president?”

There’s another saying, attributed to Woody Allen, that bears repeating here:

90% of success is showing up.

A President Trump?  A President Carson?

Scary thoughts indeed.

It was bound to happen…

I’m noticing that more and more sporting events have players dressed in all kinds of odd combinations/colors.  For example I thought the three most prominent Miami Heat uniforms were:

Then came the variations.  Some were playful, like the “Miami Vice” look…

Or the military look…

There are plenty of others and, in the last few games the players, in what is likely a nod toward Veteran’s Day/the Military, have worn this:

Of course, the alternate dress is not limited to basketball.  Football has its “throwback” jerseys and sometimes you get to see hideous things like this, featuring the Pittsburgh Steelers…

…whose more traditional garb looks like this:

Why all the different clothing?  I suppose its pretty obvious: Money.  Fans who have already bought the “normal” jerseys and their variations may be tempted to purchase the variations.  Conversely, a fan who until now hasn’t bought any of the standard jerseys may be tempted to get one of the many variants.

Which brings us to the topic I wanted to get at: Sometimes, these clothing choices can go terribly, terribly wrong.

Last night, the Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets played on Thursday Night Football and they wore specially designed Nike costumes for the event.  Costumes that had the players dressing in all green and all red…

The problem?  For color blind people, it was impossible to tell the difference between the jerseys!  Read on…

Stupid Nike Uniforms Wreaking Havoc on Colorblind NFL Fans

What’s really cool is that in the link/story above they provide a clip of the game and desaturate the colors so that people who are not colorblind can see what colorblind people saw -or rather couldn’t- in this game.

Lesson learned, one hopes!

How One Man Pranked the Presidential Race…

While I’m not usually one to enjoy pranks (I find phony phone calls, for example, to be a bore), I had great fun with this prank.  The article regarding the prank, written by Chris Moody for CNN.com, made me laugh quite a bit:

How One Man Pranked The Presidential Race

Please click on the link above and read the full story…it is worth it.

I’ll provide a summary below, but, again, you should read the whole thing and check out the video as well.

So here’s what happened: Vic Berger, a freelance video editor “with a sharp eye for absurd humor”, took a Jeb! Bush video on YouTube where the candidate talks about his love of Apple products, edits it to highlight Jeb!’s cringe factor, and got a lot of views of it…including from Jeb! Bush’s staff.

Realizing the Jeb! campaign was looking at his work, Mr. Berger communicated with them and stated he would get a Jeb! tattoo if his post hit a million views.  The Jeb! campaign, thinking this was great promotion, aided him in getting those views and Mr. Berger then did (not really) what he promised: He took a video of his visit to a tattoo parlor to get a terrible (and very large) “Jeb4Prez” tattoo on his neck.

And this is where the ingenious/hilarious elements of this prank kicked in.

Though I really wish you’d read the full article, this single paragraph notes what happened next and had me laughing out loud.  I present it in full:

Back on Twitter, an account claiming to be run by Berger’s father started sending messages to Bush and his campaign staff telling them that they had made a terrible mistake encouraging him (to get the tattoo). The man claimed that Berger had “undiagnosed issues” and that by pushing him to go through with it, he had lost his job and that his life was ruined. Berger himself began telling reporters that he no longer wanted to talk because he was repairing relations with his family after the episode.

You can imagine what happened next.  Those “encouraging” Jeb! texts/tweets suddenly disappear and the Jeb! campaign goes silent regarding the issue, thinking they’d just destroyed -or at the very least harmed- a mentally fragile man.

Read the entire article and see the absurd tattoo for yourself!

Acrophics (like me) beware…

This is just insane.

Insane I tell you…

Here you go: Crazy man climbing around the Eiffel Tower.

While the video stars at night-time (the man filming himself was obviously not given permission to do this climb and therefore had to enter the structure unseen), a minute or two into the video the sun comes out and we see his climb in all its vertigo-inducing glory.

I think I’m going to curl up in my bed now.

The Human Flaw in Self-Driving Cars…

As those who frequent this blog must know by now, I’m fascinated with what I predict is the future regarding cars: They will all be self-driving.  In fact, I predict that in the very near future people will no longer own cars at all.  We will use our smart-phone and a Uber-like app to to call in a self-driving car and it will take us to our destination for a very low fee and, when we’re done at our destination and need to go somewhere else we again whip out our smartphone and viola! call in another vehicle to take us.

It wouldn’t surprise me if my daughters’ children (or, if there’s a delay, their children) wind up being the first generation of people who never bothered to learn to drive at all.

(A random thought here: How will movies deal with the idea of driverless cars?  Will that action staple, the car chase, eventually disappear from films?)

Having said all this, we’re still a few years off from having that fleet of driverless vehicles at our disposal.  In the meantime, Tesla has released a new model of their car and it features driverless functionality, though the auto maker is clear that this should be used as an aid to driving and the driver should not take their hands off the wheel even in the driverless mode.

Will Oremus over at Slate.com offers an interesting look at the current state of driverless vehicles and, specifically, the Tesla models and I encourage anyone who, like me, is interested in this topic read his thoughts:

The Paradox of the Self-Driving Car

What Mr. Oremus gets at is the thought in some quarters that if you’re making a self-driving vehicle, you should probably go all the way toward it, like Google is doing (ie eliminating the steering wheel from the driverless car and anticipating a future where all the cars on the road are driverless and therefore human error is completely eliminated).

Mr. Oremus points out that an “assisted” driverless feature like the one the Tesla may create bad habits in drivers.  They may, for example, check whatever is going on with their smartphone more while driving using the feature, which Tesla clearly doesn’t want them to do.

But people are people and it isn’t surprising they indulge in stupid things they shouldn’t, such as…

Watch a Tesla being driven in autopilot – From the backseat

To say the least, seeing the above article/video made my blood freeze.  Yes, I’m all in favor of driverless cars but Tesla has made it clear their driverless feature is NOT meant to be used like this.

Regardless, we most certainly are living in interesting times regarding cars.  The driverless car is coming (if not already here) and, with technological advances regarding battery power, I suspect we’ll see the end of gasoline use as well.

An exciting -and, after seeing hte above video, scary!- time for sure.

On Othello…

Found this absolutely fascinating article by Isaac Butler on Slate.com, exploring a concept that, I have to admit, I’ve had a curiosity about.  The question involves Shakespeare’s famous play Othello, and the question is:

Why is Othello Black?

I have to give considerable credit to Mr. Butler.  In a relatively short essay he addresses many of the questions I’ve had regarding the character and, even more importantly, why Shakespeare presented him in this way and for what reason.  There is history here and an awareness of what “black” meant to the author in the 1600’s versus what it means to us today.

The conclusions, specifically about what the play tells us about Othello the character (a noble soul driven to -and revealing- his base nature or a man ultimately betrayed by those far less noble -and beastly- than him?) as well as those around him and the questions that are never completely answered, are fascinating and had me appreciating all the more the play and its deep meanings.

A must read!

On Writing…

A couple of weeks ago I read an article about the November Writing Challenge (you can sign up for it here, but 10 days have already passed!).  In essence, the challenge is to write an at least 50,000 word novel in the month.

No, I didn’t sign up for the challenge.  I’m knee deep in book #6 of the Corrosive Knights saga and the last thing I need to do is distract myself from it for a month writing another work.

When I read about the challenge, perhaps on io9.com or somewhere like it, I was fascinated by the commentary section and the various bits of advice people gave would-be authors accepting the challenge.  Though I wish I could find the actual comments, one in particular, which I’ll paraphrase below (sorry, don’t have the actual quote handy), struck me as interesting:

Leave things where they lie and write forward.  Do not go back and revise, rather write around what you originally put down.

In the context of writing a 50,000 novel in a month’s time, this is good advice.  Because of the nature of the challenge you don’t want to get stuck repeatedly going over sections of your book and/or rewriting great parts of it as the deadline looms large.

But as the advice presented is framed towards this particular writing challenge, its easy to point out it doesn’t relate to the type of novels I write.

Of course, I can’t speak about other authors.  If you are to accept what Stephen King wrote in his book On Writing, he claims to write exactly one draft of his novels, puts it away for a little while to “mellow out”, then goes over it one time before it is ready to be published.  Given the copious amounts of books he releases, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is indeed the case, that he writes along the lines of the advice presented above and then moves on to the next work.

As much as I wish I could write like that (oh, the number of books I’d have out there by now!), that’s not the way I do it.

I’ve posted bits and pieces of information on my writing here and there and I’ll likely do so again in the future.  For me, writing is not unlike creating an oil painting.

The painter starts with an idea of what it is they want to paint.  Perhaps it is a landscape or a city.  Perhaps a person or group of people.  You have some ideas of how things will fit together and you come up with a rough drawing.  Depending on how good you are, the drawing is done quickly or, more than likely, you work out spaces and where things lie on your canvas.

Your original idea(s) likely change during this stage, sometimes radically.  After a bit of work you reach a point where you have your drawing down on the canvas (if you do things that way) and you’re ready to lay down colors.  During this process of blending colors together you may have additional discoveries, either done on purpose or found by accident, which step by step further fill in your work. When you’re done, the picture you’ve created may well be very far from what you originally envisioned but if you’re successful, what you’ve completed is far, far better than that original concept.

So it is for me with writing a novel.  Usually I start out with a few rough ideas.  I may have a concept of a novel’s beginning and its end or maybe both and then have to come up with what lies between.  Rarely do I have ideas of things that happen somewhere in the middle of the book.

As for characters, I usually have an idea of the ones I want to use and their interactions, but this is often subject to change.

In the case of the Corrosive Knights novel I’m currently writing, I started out with an idea of the novel’s beginning, though this wasn’t set in stone, and its end, which was far better defined.

When I started writing the book and, unlike the advice presented above, I would very often go back over my work as I realized certain plot points worked better another way.  This is how I wound up with almost 30,000 words of material which I may wind up discarding completely.

A waste of time?  Most certainly, but the overall work is better for these unused experiments…if nothing else, they made me realize I needed to do better.

Returning to the characters, the original big bad villain of the piece, I realized, was better served being heroic (though not the novel’s hero).  Further, I added chunks of information originally conceived for the next book in the Corrosive Knights series but which I realized worked better in this one.  These chunks of information fill in historical blanks that finally give the series the 20,000 plus year history I was intent on telling.

Sometimes I wish I could transport back in time and with my latest novel in hand and present it to myself as I was beginning the work.  How would I react to being in the novel’s embryonic stage and then seeing it presented in full?  How would I react to the knowledge that the journey begun with a few small ideas would flower into something so full?

And after admiring the work done, I’d just have to tell myself who won the upcoming Super Bowl.

Might be worth a few more bucks!

A little more on Spectre and other Bond musings…

No, haven’t gone to see the film.  As I said in my previous post, reading the reviews and discovering the “big” spoiler created a really bad taste in my mouth, one which I’ll get into in a moment.

In that previous post, I didn’t want to get into spoiler territory but now that the film has been out for several days and no doubt word of what this spoiler is has circulated among fans of the James Bond franchise, I feel safer in exploring it.

Of course, what I’m about to get into is still…

SPOILER TERRITORY!

You’ve been warned!

Ok, so in that previous post (you can read the full thing here) I offered a link to one review in particular, that of Drew McWeeny for hitfix.com.  The review can be found here.

There are two “big” reveals in the review.  The first was to be expected: The character of Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz) turned out to be Blofeld.  Considering this film was named “Spectre” and anyone with even a passing knowledge of the fictitious evil organization knows that its head is Blofeld, I can only scratch my head as to why they chose to “hide” this fact.

I mean, EVERYONE knew that Mr. Waltz (despite the actor’s protestations) was playing the character.  It was a weak repeat of the weak “surprise” that John Harrison was in actuality Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013).  I suppose one of the earlier examples of the use of this concept in modern times (and modern blockbuster films) was in 2005’s Batman Begins where Liam Neeson’s Ducard is revealed to be…someone else.  This concept was used again in The Dark Knight Rises (2012) with the revelation that Marion Cotillard’s Miranda wasn’t who she said she was, though even by that point audiences were already suspecting she was a certain character’s daughter.

Moving beyond this by now well worn trope, what really infuriated me -as well as Mr. McWeeny- regarding Spectre was this:

…the reason that Oberhauser became a criminal mastermind in charge of an international organization that is involved in human trafficking, drugs, terrorism, and myriad other destructive crimes is because when James Bond’s parents died, Bond was sent to live with the Oberhausers, and Papa Oberhauser decided he liked James Bond better than he liked his real son, Franz.

Yes. It’s true. Blofeld is Blofeld because his daddy liked James Bond more than him.

Wow.

I mean, wow.

Talk about cheap, pseudo-psychological crap.  One comes away feeling Oberhauser/Blofeld needs to get a grip.  I take it back: the screenwriters of Spectre need to get a grip.  How could they use this concept (already used as a joke in the last Austin Powers film!) and think it would come out as anything other than silly?

But like the “revelation” that Oberhauser is in reality Blofeld, the links between villain and hero also have a history.  A history that, by this point, has also slid into cliche.

Who can forget…

Many were totally blown away by this revelation though it, like the concept that Luke and Leia were siblings, was clearly a post original Star Wars creation.

A few years later, Tim Burton’s original Batman introduced this element which, though not familiar per se, created a sense that Joker/Batman were intertwined more than had ever originally been conceived:

In the comic books, the Wayne’s killer was a low level hoodlum named Joe Chill.  In this movie, Jack Napier/The Joker “creates” Batman and Batman, later in the film, creates the Joker.  Its one of those “neat” concepts that are perhaps a little too neat and can only occur in films that deal with the fanstastic.

Now that Spectre is out (and doing fairly well in theaters, though its box office wasn’t quite as high as Skyfall) and it might be Daniel Craig’s last go at the James Bond character, I suspect a major re-evaluation of his films is in the offing.  While the Pierce Brosnan films were box-office successes, following his departure people gave his run a second look and it turned out those films didn’t have legs.  Most today dismiss the Brosnan run as weak even though it did well enough to warrant four films.

I wonder if the same may happen with Mr. Craig’s four film run.  For my money and without having seen Spectre yet (I will, but probably not in theaters), the only really good Daniel Craig Bond film is Casino Royale, but only because it so very well created an “origin” of the Bond character.  I was hoping subsequent films would fully grasp the fun/action/suspense nature of the other Bond films but that was not to be.  Quantum Of Solace was torpedoed by a writer’s strike.  Skyfall was a beautiful film to look at and enjoy while watching it for the first time but immediately afterwards you realize the plot made absolutely no sense.  Spectre appears to be not unlike Skyfall in the sense that it is also a beautiful film to look at but one whose plot -and the character motivations- again suffer.

In time, will we look back and say that Mr. Craig made one really good Bond film and followed it up with three forgettable features?  Is this not what essentially happened to Pierce Brosnan?  Goldeneye, Mr. Brosnan’s first Bond film, is considered by many his best while the others…not so much.

Is history repeating itself?