Spectre

[Aractus]

Firstly let me say I absolutely abhor staggering the international release dates - and Australians such as myself hate waiting for a film that's already released elsewhere.

Secondly I have no idea what is going on in the minds of people giving this movie negative reviews. Yes the movie is too long, and the action should flow at a more consistent pace, but besides that it's a really well made Bond film. The other major flaw of the picture is that its connections to previous films are too complicated for people not familiar with the series to follow.

It utilises the classic elements and conventions of Bond to a T. Now with that said there are a number of similarities in plot to be drawn between this movie and the latest Mission Impossible movie, which just goes to show that originality is not necessarily great, but the execution is very well done.

In Spectre the Blofeld character is recaptured and portrayed perfectly to the Connery-era Blofeld with is eyes firmly set on achieving world-domination. The settings of the film were near-to perfect. It has a classic Bond car chase, a train, Bond entering a secret enemy lair, Bond getting strapped to a chair for torture, it has all the elements needed for a great Bond picture.

All in all a really well made film though.

[Anomalocaris]

I think the negative reviews were first aired by some Daniel Craig.

[Aractus]

So just a point on originality if I may - if we think to the Matrix, it's basically exactly the same story as the Terminator just told differently (Sophia Stewart claimed the ideas were stolen from her, but that's rubbish - the Wachowskis simply re-adapted the Terminator story).

This is very clear for many reasons:

• Both have clear-cut Jesus/Messiah references.
  
• Both have a world where AI takes over control of the world and dominates the humans.
  
• Both have a resistance that rises up to fight against the machines.
  
• Both have machines that go out to hunt and kill humans.
  
• Both have the humans in the future enslaved by the machines.
  
• Both have a "chosen one" who will save humanity from the machines.
  
• Both have someone from the future sent back to the past, although in the case of the Matrix it is the saviour that is sent back, whereas in Terminator it's someone else to ensure the saviour survives to fight in the future.
  
• Both have machines that are targeting the chosen one - in Terminator it's the Terminator, and in the Matrix it's the Agents.
  
• Both have a character explain who the chosen one is to the chosen one/their parent, and in both cases they don't believe it (Morpheus tells Neo he is the chosen one, and he doesn't believe it, and Reece tells Sarah her future son is the chosen one and she doesn't believe it).
  
• Both of them have to kill the machine repeatedly before it dies.
  • In the Terminator:
    • Reece shoots him with a shotgun,
      
    • Then later blows him up in a petrol tanker,
      
    • And then finally Sarah crushes him in a hydrologic press.
      
  • In the Matrix:
    • Trinity kills one Agent by shooting him in the head, but his body just reverts back to person who the Agent occupied (escaping to possess another body),
      
    • Then Neo kills Agent Smith by having him smashed by a train, and the same thing happens - he repossess someone else,
      
    • And finally Neo dives inside Agent Smith, who then explodes destroying him for good - and the other two agents become frightened of Neo and flee.
      
• Both of them have some pretty terrible sequels.
  

Another interesting thing happens if I then discuss Robocop. A machine that becomes self-aware. Questioning the meaning of humanity. The Jesus metaphors. These are themes taken directly from Terminator as well. And then T2 takes Robocop and retells the story - that is a machine that learns the value of humanity. Hence at the end Robocop wants to be called "Murphy" and the T2 T800 says "I know now why you cry...". So they're each stealing from each other. This happens a lot in movies, as it's difficult to come up with completly original plots.