c-jags said:

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I mean I've liked all of them except 2 but when you're at 6 of a series aren't you kinda in Scorcher with Tug Speedman territory?

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Do you think scorcher when you think of the 007 films? And there's more than 6 of those...

Just realized there was a fifth installment after reading this thread. I'm going to have to watch it soon because Ghost Protocol was absolutely amazing.

Because old but still funny

I'm in. I'll think of these last three as their own trilogy. When they got good.

Really great podcast with writer/director Chris McQuarrie. I've never heard a director basically agree to do an interview like this in the middle of shooting, and it's fascinating to not only hear him talk about where they are in filming, but candidly discuss a few story points that haven't quite been figured out yet (no spoilers and nothing to be alarmed about, though). It's very inside baseball for those of you who aren't super knowledgeable about the industry, but still really interesting regardless, as he covers some of his work on Rogue Nation and Ghost Protocol as well, along with parts of the rest of his career, much of which has been alongside Tom Cruise for the last decade or so.

For a little context, McQuarrie got his start by writing The Usual Suspects, and Scriptnotes is a podcast from screenwriters John August and Craig Mazin. August is currently living in Paris for a year, McQuarrie is there shooting M:I 6, and they've been friends for years, hence the meet-up/interview.

Anyway, the interview itself begins at the 11:38 mark...

https://johnaugust.com/2017/from-writer-to-writer-director

Awesome, queued up for later.

This thread has got me interested in this series again. I recall watching the first MI opening weekend in SF of all places. I probably saw MI 2 and wrote them all off.

Let me ask y'all this. If you were invited to the premiere of this movie next year in LA, would you go? Has anyone ever gone to a premiere? No, not as a guest of a star. Just a normal ticket I presume.

I'm clearly in the minority but I liked MI2

I think I've somehow missed two of these movies.

I saw the first one. Second one was with the Asian hottie love interest (Thandie Newton maybe?) who gets poisoned, right? Was the Phillip Seymour Hoffman one the same as the Burj Kalifa one? If so, then I think I've only seen three.

Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)
- Directed by John Woo.
- Deals with a bioweapon called "Chimera" and its subsequent cure.
- Set mostly in Australia.
- Thandie Newton is the love interest (but she's black not Asian).
- Dougry Scott is the villain, a former IMF agent, and ex-boyfriend of Newton's character (who, I'm sure, regrettably, had to drop of out playing Wolverine in X-Men because of scheduling conflicts with this shoot).
- Anthony Hopkins plays Ethan Hunt's superior.
- Big motorcycle chase at the end, but otherwise no super-memorable action set pieces (the main one halfway through felt like a uninspired, unoriginal version of the famous clean room / hanging-from-cables scene in the first movie, only in this one Hunt is hanging from a helicopter instead).

Mission: Impossible III (2006)
- Directed by J.J. Abrams.
- The movie that essentially put the current arc/characters in motion.
- Deals with "the rabbit's foot," a dangerous, unspecified McGuffin that all characters are in pursuit of.
- Philip Seymour Hoffman as the villain (one of the best villains of the century so far, IMO)
- Michelle Monaghan as Ethan Hunt's wife, who is clueless as to his real job until the end, after she's kidnapped.
- Lawrence Fishburne as the head of the IMF.
- Billy Crudup as Hunt's immediate superior, who is ultimately revealed to be a double agent in cahoots with Hoffman's character.
- First movie to introduce Simon Pegg's Benji, an in-office IMF tech guy.
- Also introduces Jonathan Rhys Metyers and Maggie Q as part of Hunt's IMF team.
- Only returning character from the previous movies (save for Cruise, of course) is Ving Rhames' Luther.
- The least action-oriented M:I movie (i.e. no gigantic action set pieces), but arguably the most fun/unique M:I movie to date. Kind of came and went in the theater, but ultimately went on to revive/save the franchise and catapult it to what it is now, under Bad Robot's continued guidance.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
- Directed by Brad Bird
- No true, overarching villain that I can remember. Instead, I think Cruise is basically on the run from his own government for being falsely accused of blowing up the Kremlin? This is the one movie I have trouble remembering the exact plot of.
- Features the aforementioned/famed Dubai/Burj Khalifa action set piece, in which Cruise literally scaled/dangled from the tallest building on Earth.
- No Ving Rhames, but Simon Pegg's character returns to join Hunt in the field.
- Also introduces Jeremy Renner and Paula Patton as part of Hunt's IMF team.
- No love interest for Cruise, as it is revealed in the final scene that he is watching over Michelle Monaghan's character from afar (which she is aware of), since they presumably can't be together for some unspecified reason (her safety, I assume?)

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)
- Directed by Christopher McQuarrie (and the best movie of the bunch, IMO)
- Open's with the movie's biggest action set piece, in which Cruise literally hangs onto the side of a freighter plane in-flight.
- Sees Hunt have to team with Rebecca Ferguson's Isla Faust, a disavowed MI6 agent, in attempt to prove the existence of / take down the "Syndicate," which is basically the anti-IMF.
- The villain is simply known as Lane (Sean Harris), the leader of the Syndicate.
- Sees Renner's character square off against Alec Baldwin's character, the CIA director attempting to dissolve the IMF.
- Sees the return of Ving Rhames' Luthor, along with Simon Pegg's Benji, both working with Hunt in the field.
- Faust is somewhat of a love interest for Hunt, but ultimately goes her own way. It's more of a what-could-have-been type of thing.

As for M:I6 (which could potentially make for a great title, considering Faust's former employer), check my original post for details on who's returning and who's being introduced. One thing I can add is that Lane, the head of the Syndicate, is definitely returning. Whether he's A villain or THE villain, I'm not sure, but my buddy who was recently on set in Paris said he saw them film a scene in which Cruise is hurriedly driving, with Lane riding shotgun in a straight jacket, and Rhames and Pegg in the backseat.

Thanks! I always thought Newton must be a mix of black and Asian, but it appears you're right that she's of black and white heritage.

Looks like I was mixing 3 and 4 together in my head as I now realize I've seen both. 5 was the only one I've missed, just kind of slipped off my radar. Need to check it out. Great series.

And for the record, if it wasn't already obvious, this is one of my all-time favorite franchises. I was not only able to type 98% of that from memory, but I'll even go to bat for M:I-2. It's definitely the worst of the franchise, and features some pretty laughable dialogue/sequences, but overall it's actually a decently fun movie. Granted, I haven't seen it in probably a decade or so, but plan to revisit it - along with the entire franchise - before the new one hits next year.

No problem. And yeah, do yourself a favor and see 5. It's so damn good. Not only that, but 6 is basically a direct sequel and the first movie in the series not only be directed by the same person (McQuarrie), but the first to truly follow most of the characters and plot-lines established in the previous movie.

aggiedata said:

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This thread has got me interested in this series again. I recall watching the first MI opening weekend in SF of all places. I probably saw MI 2 and wrote them all off.

Let me ask y'all this. If you were invited to the premiere of this movie next year in LA, would you go? Has anyone ever gone to a premiere? No, not as a guest of a star. Just a normal ticket I presume.

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Honestly - and I don't mean to sound like that guy - but premieres aren't all they're cracked up to be. I've been to a few, but even as a "VIP" guest of the writers at the Transformers premiere, if you're not actually walking the red carpet, you're basically just in a crowd of a sh*t ton of fans all vying to get a glimpse of the stars posing on the red carpet. I can't stand crap like that anyway, and it's mostly just a bunch of die hard weirdos, tourists, or paparazzi types yelling at celebrities. And then in the theater itself, you're not sitting anywhere close to the cast/crew. The best part, by far, is A) the free food, and B) the after party, which is a more select crowd, but even then, most of the time, you have to be in the VIP section to even mingle with anyone of note. I was lucky enough to get to do so for Transformers, and kind of hung around Megan Fox, Shia, and the whole cast - along with a bunch of other random celebs - but I'm telling you, it gets old fast, and if you weren't actually part of the cast/crew, it's easy to feel a bit out of place. Don't get me wrong, everyone should attend at least one premiere if they can, but I can assure you, if you've attended one, you've attended them all. I would much rather go to the Oscars/Golden Globes or be invited to a celeb-filled party that has nothing to do with a single movie, and everyone's more on "equal" ground, if that makes sense.

MI2 gave us this, so it was a very worthy endeavor

This, all the way. MTV's best movie awards spoof ever.

TCTTS said:

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For a little context, McQuarrie got his start by writing The Usual Suspects, and Scriptnotes is a podcast from screenwriters John August and Craig Mazin. August is currently living in Paris for a year, McQuarrie is there shooting M:I 6, and they've been friends for years, hence the meet-up/interview.

Anyway, the interview itself begins at the 11:38 mark...

https://johnaugust.com/2017/from-writer-to-writer-director

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That's my all-time favorite movie!

Thanks for the insight. That's kinda what I thought. I was very noncommittal.

TCTTS said:

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This, all the way. MTV's best movie awards spoof ever.

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Respectfully disagree

My dad went to a major motion picture premiere, red carpet and all. Inside it was a separate theater for the noncelebrities, he did see some of the bigger names, but only for a bit. The only drama was one of the family members of one of the stars throwing a fit because they weren't In the main theater, Think he enjoyed it but in the end it wasn't a big deal.

Man that reminds me how funny the MTV Movie Awards spoofs were back in that time frame... Just further depresses me to be reminded what MTV used to be and now is.

Great Franchise

Quote:

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Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
- Directed by Brad Bird
- No true, overarching villain that I can remember. Instead, I think Cruise is basically on the run from his own government for being falsely accused of blowing up the Kremlin? This is the one movie I have trouble remembering the exact plot of.
- Features the aforementioned/famed Dubai/Burj Khalifa action set piece, in which Cruise literally scaled/dangled from the tallest building on Earth.
- No Ving Rhames, but Simon Pegg's character returns to join Hunt in the field.
- Also introduces Jeremy Renner and Paula Patton as part of Hunt's IMF team.
- No love interest for Cruise, as it is revealed in the final scene that he is watching over Michelle Monaghan's character from afar (which she is aware of), since they presumably can't be together for some unspecified reason (her safety, I assume?)

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Cobalt aka Kurt Hendricks was the main villian in this one. He was looking to launch nukes and got a nuclear briefcase from the Kremlin. The hotel scene in Dubai was to try and stop Hendricks from getting launch codes. The india party was an attempt to stop him from using the tv tower to launch the nukes. Remember the end "fight" between Ethan and Hendricks in the fancy car parking area was Ethan trying to get the briefcase to abort the nukes that Hendricks had launched.

TCTTS said:

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No problem. And yeah, do yourself a favor and see 5. It's so damn good. Not only that, but 6 is basically a direct sequel and the first movie in the series not only be directed by the same person (McQuarrie), but the first to truly follow most of the characters and plot-lines established in the previous movie.

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Another endorsement of 5. I'm not sure any film so successfully incorporated the set pieces into the plot. Each big action sequence really served to drive forward the plot, and in no way felt like it was shoehorned in (I'm looking at you stupid Force Awakens ball-monster). I'm sure I'm not thinking of other films that deserve recognition for the same achievement. Maybe Wonder Woman is a good recent example of another such film.

Almost forgot about this thread. New title announced this morning, first trailer dropping in 10 days, on Super Bowl Sunday...

https://instagr.am/p/BeX5PWqjbro

There can't be enough Bond and MI movies as far as I'm concerned!!!

That's amazing.

Saw this on another website:

Tom Cruise (55) is almost as old as Jon Voight was during filming of the first Mission: Impossible film (he was 57).

Maybe there is something to this whole Xenu thing....

Oh, and I didn't catch this the first time I saw that picture: there is no one else on that helicopter....