I watched them roughly once every night or two. And I’d previously seen them all.
And I was rather surprised at how I felt about the films afterwards. It seemed really clear that the quality of the films went continuously down after Casino Royal.
I thought Skyfall would stand out as the best followed by Casino Royal. But, in sequence, nah. Despite having clearly positive qualities, it seemed bloated and empty by comparison.
I also thought Quantum of Solace would rank pretty low as I recall thinking little of it at the time it came out. Instead, I thought it paired really well with Casino as a great follow up.
In fact, it felt like the Craig-era was basically Casino + Quantum and “other things”. And yea, the “post-Skyfall” films just didn’t feel like they were worth the effort. I thought they’d be more passable than they were, but after Casino + Quantum, which, for me, had a real punch and through-line, Spectre + No-Time-to-Die just felt like they were going through the motions and taking up space. At times, they really seemed to be badly flawed. And that’s where my impression of Skyfall really hit … it seemed that was the “what do we do now with this character?” moment and that Skyfall belonged with Spectre etc not the other way round.
Is this common among Bond fans or am I off base here?
I’m pretty sure that Quantum of Solstice was hampered by the 2007 writers strike with production starting before the script was even done. Unfortunately, that really messed with the story arc and the next two films were spent trying to pick up the pieces.
