It's really par for the course with the Bond movies, it's par for the course for any long running franchise. For every highly acclaimed film you end up with at least one middling film and one highly criticized film. The Brosnan films were similar, Goldeneye was seen as a refreshingly brisk revival after the dour Dalton films. Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough are both seen as solid entries, with different strengths and criticisms, while Die Another Day was bad enough to convince EON to drop Brosnan altogether. It is notable that most Bond actors tend to have underwhelming final entries, the only exception is Lazenby's only film and if you count Never Say Never Again as a true Bond film.
A wandering user
So apparently...the "creative differences" was him and Daniel Craig disagreeing in the casting of the lead villain. And the plot would be something of a "modern-day cold war", likely in reference over the recent actions Russia has done over the years.
Edited by Luigisan98 on Aug 23rd 2018 at 8:33:49 PM
The only good fanboy, is a redeemed fanboy.
Huh. Craig didn't want to kill a woman, maybe?
A wandering user
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Actually, it could be that Daniel Craig didn't saw potential in the actor and/or script or wasn't comfortable with each. (The actor was a Polish guy who was set to play a Russian.)
And it's said that he plays a large role in the casting of the movie.
Edited by Luigisan98 on Aug 23rd 2018 at 8:37:41 PM
The only good fanboy, is a redeemed fanboy.
Would that it were so simple.
If Craig has that much unofficial control over the production of the film, and playing Wag the Director a year away from the film's slated release, I'm unconvinced bringing him back for a fifth Bond was a good idea. They could have cut him loose in 2016 when people were still hating Spectre, gotten a fresh actor, and made the film with little fuss.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
A wandering user
Still, Craig could still need a time to shine.
And from the looks of it, maybe the script needs to be changed to be more in line in the world politics (Trump, Brexit) other than Russia. A modern-day "cold war" script sounds like a modern rethread of typical spy movies on the 60s even if Russia's hostile in these years.
The only good fanboy, is a redeemed fanboy.
Would that it were so simple.
Russia just recently undermined American democracy to help put their deranged idiot into the White House. A modern day Cold War is modern politics. Trump, Brexit, and Russia are all interconnected.
Honestly, I think Craig was just throwing his weight around and Eon overestimates his value.
Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Aug 24th 2018 at 8:11:03 AM
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
A wandering user
That's true...
Still, it needs more than Russia in the script, hence why I'm saying it should be changed to include these other two elements.
Hell, maybe include a Neo-Nazi villain as well!
Edited by Luigisan98 on Aug 24th 2018 at 4:16:56 PM
The only good fanboy, is a redeemed fanboy.
Thing is, Bond comes across like Trump but with a full head of hair. It would basically be throwing stones in glass houses.
A wandering user
Except that Bond has a consciousness and moral compass intact compared to Trump.
Even during the height of the Cold War, the Bond movies backed away from making Russia the flat-out villains of the movie. The book From Russia with Love is about a Soviet spy agency hatching an intricate plan to discredit and/or kill Britain's top secret agent. For the movie version, the villain was changed to SPECTRE, a criminal organization not affiliated with any one country, and that's playing both sides of the Cold War against each other for their own benefit.
Would that it were so simple.
That was a product of the time; most Bond movies came out during Detente, not the height of the Cold War — the Bond books did, and reflects the paranoia of the time. I really doubt a Putinist apparatchik would be portrayed as warmly as General Gogol, especially for a British franchise, seeing as Russian spies regularly do terrifying cloak and dagger stuff on the streets of London.
Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Aug 24th 2018 at 11:27:44 AM
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
It seems Edgar Wright and Jean Marc Valle, are among the frontrunners to direct Bond 25. It's nice that Wright is getting more recognition to do more blockbuster films after Baby Driver.
A wandering user
If Edgar Wright gets in, could he invite Simon Pegg? 
I don't know what Britain's relationship with the U.S.S.R. was like in 1963 when the film version of From Russia with Love came out. But considering it came out only a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis, it was at the very least adjacent to the height of the Cold War.
Edgar Wright's awfulness at writing women does make him something of a natural choice for a Bond picture.
A wandering user
And if Jean Marc Valle gets in instead?
I don't see a problem with Bond finding a modern foe. After all he fought Murdoch (metaphorically) already years ago.
Regarding the chauvinistic aspect of the character: You'll never get totally rid of it, but you can allow the females to be competent in their own right (meaning more Pussy Galore, less Christmas whatever) and maybe turn the tables a little bit more often. And stuffing them into the fridge less.
Speaking of Pussy Galore, I am to this day amused that one of the most popular Bond movie is the one in which he is woefully ineffective. I mean, he figures out what Goldfinger is up to, but he never manages to send a message to his people (Pussy does without his knowledge), the agency prepares the ambush and at the end you have Bond kneeling over a bomb, not knowing what to do, until his chef turns up and deactivates it for him. At least he gets to fight Goldfinger one last time in the end, and even then it is physic which does the work for him.
Anyway, I dislike the Craig era movies and can't wait for a recast and a fresh vision for the character. But whatever the fresh vision will entail, there are two important things to keep in mind: Those matcho fantasies for guys, and the movies have to deliver on this. So Bond will always get the girl, so to speak. That doesn't mean that Bond has to sexually assault the woman he is interested in, like he does in a few of the early movie. I am sure that you can give the guys in the audience a nice fantasy with a Bond who is able to show some respect for the boundaries of the other gender.
Too bad though that they will never make him bisexual. I would love to see fanboys all over the world loosing their sh... over the notion that their admired manwhore might like to experiment once a while. But it would be an update which would actually make sense for a modern Bond.
A wandering user
He's kinda is with Silva already...
About Values Dissonance and the book version of FRWL, I also wanted to say that the book version of Kerim is one of the most vile Designated Heroes I've ever seen in any work. He's more or less a Turkish Harvey Weinstein portrayed as a good guy, and that's not an exaggeration - one of the first things he does upon meeting Bond is describe a rape he once committed in extremely lurid detail that makes you wonder if Sir Ian may have been, ahem, writing one-handed.
There are several other characters like this throughout the series, including the book versions of Draco, Columbo, and to a lesser extent Tanaka - the movies massively tone all of them down.
Would that it were so simple.
Good. That's the right move.
Actually, wait, back up a minute here. The lead actor basically fired the director? That's... concerning.
Would that it were so simple.
That's very concerning, it's a classic case of Wag the Director.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
Yeah "fun" is becoming one of those words that gets bandied around the Internet so much it's kind of lost all meaning. Not everybody is going to have the same idea of fun. For some people, the Craig movies were fun.