No Time to Make a Bond Thread
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Okay, you're all getting a James Bond thread now.
@Arantor said in The Official Short Movie Review Topic:
less tl:dr; "Bond almost gets killed, flirts awkwardly with Moneypenny, has a briefing where he can demonstrate super-obscure knowledge that not even the head of MI6 knows. He gets on a plane to an exotic location, meets some weird psychopath with a super-insane business plan, some stooges try to kill him, but they fail, leaving Bond to make some crass one-liner, finds at least one woman to sleep with, ideally more, before having a weird show-down with the psychopath's principle henchman, then making sure the psychopath dies, before bedding one of the women he'd met along the way. Completely by the book adventure that somehow manages to pretend the British empire isn't entire defunct."
Bond films following the Bond film recipe is a pretty common criticism of the James Bond franchise, and while there is merit to that argument, I argue that following the recipe is what makes them enjoyable. To illustrate that point, here's a non-car analogy:
Would you like dessert, sir?
Yes, I'll have the Chocolate Delight. It's probably my favorite thing on the menu.
Excellent choice, sir.10 minutes later...
Here you are, sir: 
Hey, wait a minute! Are you sure this is the Chocolate Delight? This... this doesn't even smell like chocolate! Eww... it stinks...
Ah, yes. Focus group studies have indicated that to satisfy modern audiences, it's important to "subvert expectations." Hence our recent menu changes.
Menu changes?! I've been going to this restaurant for over 10 years and the Chocolate Delight has always been the same, and always delicious! It's most of the reason why I even come to this restaurant! And now you're telling me you changed the recipe just because?
Look, sir. Times are changing, and you need to get with the times. If we were to just serve you a regular chocolate dessert, the food critics would eat us alive for not innovating in our recipes.
A regular chocolate dessert?! That regular chocolate dessert is why I patronize this restaurant, and when I go to a restaurant and order a Chocolate Delight, I should have a reasonable expectation that the dish will contain literal, and not metaphorical, chocolate. Who cares what the critics think? Are they the ones ordering dinners?
Why don't you just give it a try? You might enjoy the reimagined Chocolate Delight!
I can't, because it seems pretty obvious to me that the chef just dumped a brown trout on a plate and called it Chocolate Delight.
Sir, we cannot abide such scatophobic opinions in this restaurant.It's the same reason why Coca-Cola does not change the Coca-Cola recipe (and why they got an enormous backlash when they did try), or why the creators of the Fast and Furious franchise consistently make movies full of action and stupid car stunts. Because that's what their respective audiences want.
Is James Bond too over-the-top? Perhaps. Then go watch one of the Bourne movies or numerous other, more "realistic" spy franchises. Would James Bond be better with a female protagonist? Maybe, go watch Atomic Blonde instead (which is actually an amazing movie). Is the Bond recipe all written-out and overdone? Could be. Make a new, different spy movie franchise that is updated and appeals to modern tastes.
But don't you touch James Bond.
And now, hot takes from someone who has seen them all:
- Dr. No's pacing makes it painful to watch. But it's still not among the worst.
- James Bond films have always been feminist (note how Honey Ryder pulls a knife on Bond and that Rosa Klebb was Number Three even in the early 1960s, and that the female lead is frequently a scientist, engineer, or another spy and counterpart to Bond)
- Goldfinger is overrated and Thunderball is a far better film.
- You Only Live Twice is the best Connery.
- On Her Majesty's Secret Service is the best Lazenby (and one of the best overall).
- The best Moores are Man with the Golden Gun, Moonraker and For Your Eyes Only, and the rest of the Moores are simply "okay."
- Licence to Kill is hands down the worst Bond film (because it's a 1980s buddy cop gore porn druglord movie and doesn't follow the recipe). It's worse than some of the Craigs, and that's saying something.
- Die Another Day is the best Brosnan (but the rest are all right)
- Casino Royale is a couple of chase scenes and a Texas Hold 'Em game. I'd much rather watch the unofficial 1967 version.
- Quantum of Solace is someone looking at the grim and grit of The Dark Knight and its attendant annoying, Nolanesque sound design, and saying, "Hey, let's make this into a Bond movie!"
- Spectre is the best Craig, and one of the few that are watchable, because it follows the recipe.
- Bond films also capture the zeitgeist of when they were made, so I was not at all surprised that No Time to Die had a Covid-stand-in for the subject matter. It seems such a shame to become an hero because of blood nanites when one's watch has a perfectly functional EMP which would ostensibly disable those blood nanites on account of their being nanites.
Discuss. Fight me. Or both.
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@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
here's a non-car analogy
The TDWTF readers expect car analogies. Subverting our expectations does not satisfy this audience (modern or not).
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@HardwareGeek said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
here's a non-car analogy
The TDWTF readers expect car analogies. Subverting our expectations does not satisfy this audience (modern or not).Fair enough. In that case, observe that cars have had steering wheels for a very long time, and that the shape and dimensions of steering wheels offer quite a few safety and ergonomic benefits.
Then, this comes along:
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@Groaner It's been too long since I watched any of them; most of the details are fuzzy, so in general I won't argue with your evaluation of individual films. I'll just comment on a couple:
Die Another Day is the best Brosnan (but the rest are all right)
I've always been a fan of Brosnan. I thought he'd be a great Bond, long before he was selected to play the role.
It's worse than some of the Craigs, and that's saying something.
the best Craig, and one of the few that are watchableYeah, not a fan of Craig. I'm not sure if it's him, or the scripts he's given, or
, but I haven't seen one of them I really liked. I think you captured it when you said "the grim and grit". Bond is not grim and gritty; he's smooth and elegant and debonair. Making him grim and gritty breaks the recipe, regardless of the actual plot.
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@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
Bond films following the Bond film recipe is a pretty common criticism of the James Bond franchise, and while there is merit to that argument, I argue that following the recipe is what makes them enjoyable.
Okay, but what is the recipe? For example, I liked the prospect of Moneypenny as a field agent in Skyfall. She could've played a recurring role similar to Felix Leiter. It's definitely outside the formula for the older movies, though.
(Of course, Skyfall promptly shot that down. That, along with the sins of killing Judi Dench's M and firing David Arnold as composer, led me to skip the last two Craig movies entirely.)
If you really wanted to be a
you could argue that a female M is outside the recipe, but Judi Dench is my favorite actor in the role. (Which was probably helped by the scripts making her more of a character, but the end result is what it is.)- Die Another Day is the best Brosnan (but the rest are all right)
Die Another Day was too obsessed with callbacks because it was movie #20. It was enjoyable but I wouldn't say it was the best Brosnan film.
(I'd probably say Goldeneye is the best, and the other three are all about equal. But wow does the soundtrack suck, which sometimes makes it hard to give the movie its due.)
- Casino Royale is a couple of chase scenes and a Texas Hold 'Em game. I'd much rather watch the unofficial 1967 version.
On the one hand, you're not wrong. On the other hand, even if I can't argue that it's the best with a straight face, it's still probably my favorite Bond movie overall.
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@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
It's the same reason why Coca-Cola does not change the Coca-Cola recipe
They do. They just don't announce it anymore, not after the New Coke fiasco (fun fact: when they "reverted" New Coke, they kept the New Coke recipe and just used the old packaging instead.) Also, every country uses a slightly different recipe; you can really taste the difference.
Now, let's actually read the post...
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@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
Spectre is the best Craig, and one of the few that are watchable
We must've seen different movies. It was so godawful boring that I lost all interest halfway through (just before the car chase scene which kept me alive for five more minutes). I don't even remember what it was about. I remember the secret organization because it's in the title, but I can't even say what they were after or why Bond was there.
Casino Royale is the hands down best Craig movie. Because it does not follow the recipe. Not entirely at least, it does for the most part, but it skews from it quite significantly. The sudden plot twist in what-you-think-would-be-the-epilogue, for example - has any other Bond movie done that?
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@Unperverted-Vixen said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
Bond films following the Bond film recipe is a pretty common criticism of the James Bond franchise, and while there is merit to that argument, I argue that following the recipe is what makes them enjoyable.
Okay, but what is the recipe?
In the OP:
less tl:dr; "Bond almost gets killed, flirts awkwardly with Moneypenny, has a briefing where he can demonstrate super-obscure knowledge that not even the head of MI6 knows. He gets on a plane to an exotic location, meets some weird psychopath with a super-insane business plan, some stooges try to kill him, but they fail, leaving Bond to make some crass one-liner, finds at least one woman to sleep with, ideally more, before having a weird show-down with the psychopath's principle henchman, then making sure the psychopath dies, before bedding one of the women he'd met along the way. Completely by the book adventure that somehow manages to pretend the British empire isn't entire defunct."
To that, I would also add that either Desmond Llewelyn, John Cleese, or Glasses Boy make an appearance and issue Bond a Chekhov's Gun or two which eventually become vital later in the movie.
For example, I liked the prospect of Moneypenny as a field agent in Skyfall. She could've played a recurring role similar to Felix Leiter. It's definitely outside the formula for the older movies, though.
I wouldn't have had a problem with that, and there is some precedent for the idea given that Moneypenny accompanies M to Bond's home at the beginning of Live and Let Die, even going so far as to help cover his, um, "indiscretions." Moneypenny also does some brief field work "evaluating" Bond in Goldeneye. So making her a field agent has some precedence and does not necessarily conflict with the recipe as above. There are also a couple times where Q shows up in the field, such as in You Only Live Twice and Licence to Kill.
(Of course, Skyfall promptly shot that down. That, along with the sins of killing Judi Dench's M and firing David Arnold as composer, led me to skip the last two Craig movies entirely.)
Much of Skyfall was "Okay, how do we rebuild James Bond after we so thoroughly screwed up the last two installments," along with the poor decision to keep continuity between the films instead of using the heretofore episodic formula. This presents further difficulty in the Craig films in that Lynd is supposed to haunt Bond in a manner like Tracy di Vincenzo... until the precise moment that Madeline Swann enters the scene.
If you really wanted to be a
you could argue that a female M is outside the recipe, but Judi Dench is my favorite actor in the role. (Which was probably helped by the scripts making her more of a character, but the end result is what it is.)The purpose of M is to give mission briefings. Doesn't really matter if it's a man, a woman, or Voldemort.
- Die Another Day is the best Brosnan (but the rest are all right)
Die Another Day was too obsessed with callbacks because it was movie #20. It was enjoyable but I wouldn't say it was the best Brosnan film.
A lot of it is going to come down to taste. I liked it because a North Korean Orbital Solar Cannon is such a Bond idea. Gustav Graves was such a Bond villain (especially in his final scenes with the supervillain wrist-computer and armor plating). Mr. Kil is such a name to die for. Laser raves are a very Bond thing. Bond even gets a sort-of mission briefing from a North Korean general (to find out what corrupted Colonel Moon).
(I'd probably say Goldeneye is the best, and the other three are all about equal. But wow does the soundtrack suck, which sometimes makes it hard to give the movie its due.)
Goldeneye is a solid choice, no doubt, but it's dwarfed in comparison imo. The main thing that Tomorrow Never Dies has going for it is in how much Carver resembles Steve Jobs, otherwise it's kind of forgettable. The first half of The World is Not Enough is good, but the second half is annoying with the torture lighthouse and submarine battle.
Yeah, the song for Die Another Day is kind of ass. But that was also before Wilhemina Eyelash made a Bond song.
- Casino Royale is a couple of chase scenes and a Texas Hold 'Em game. I'd much rather watch the unofficial 1967 version.
On the one hand, you're not wrong. On the other hand, even if I can't argue that it's the best with a straight face, it's still probably my favorite Bond movie overall.
Interesting. What about it is appealing?
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@Gąska said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
It's the same reason why Coca-Cola does not change the Coca-Cola recipe
fun fact: when they "reverted" New Coke, they kept the New Coke recipe and just used the old packaging instead
This isn't true.
Coke Classic, the current recipe, supposedly tastes similar to the original, pre-New Coke formulation. (It's slightly different because Coke Classic uses corn syrup instead of sugar.)
New Coke, which you can get at the Coca Cola museum in Atlanta (they have a whole exhibit) tastes very different than either of the other recipes. It's much sweeter and actually tastes closer to Diet Coke than it does to regular Coke.
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@Gąska said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
Spectre is the best Craig, and one of the few that are watchable
We must've seen different movies. It was so godawful boring that I lost all interest halfway through (just before the car chase scene which kept me alive for five more minutes). I don't even remember what it was about. I remember the secret organization because it's in the title, but I can't even say what they were after or why Bond was there.
I'll give you that Spectre is convoluted, and No Time to Die suffers from similar issues.
Casino Royale is the hands down best Craig movie. Because it does not follow the recipe. Not entirely at least, it does for the most part, but it skews from it quite significantly. The sudden plot twist in what-you-think-would-be-the-epilogue, for example - has any other Bond movie done that?
Yes. On Her Majesty's Secret Service. And it did it a lot better.
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@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
Bond films following the Bond film recipe is a pretty common criticism of the James Bond franchise, and while there is merit to that argument, I argue that following the recipe is what makes them enjoyable.
You missed an important part of the formula: You're only allowed to make one movie every two or three years.
If there were four James Bond films and two TV shows coming out every year, the formula would all wear very thin very quickly.
Otherwise, I agree completely.
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@GuyWhoKilledBear said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
Bond films following the Bond film recipe is a pretty common criticism of the James Bond franchise, and while there is merit to that argument, I argue that following the recipe is what makes them enjoyable.
You missed an important part of the formula: You're only allowed to make one movie every two or three years.
If there were four James Bond films and two TV shows coming out every year, the formula would all wear very thin very quickly.
Otherwise, I agree completely.
I guess we can be thankful that it all started decades before the MCU.
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@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Gąska said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
Spectre is the best Craig, and one of the few that are watchable
We must've seen different movies. It was so godawful boring that I lost all interest halfway through (just before the car chase scene which kept me alive for five more minutes). I don't even remember what it was about. I remember the secret organization because it's in the title, but I can't even say what they were after or why Bond was there.
I'll give you that Spectre is convoluted
But that's the thing. It's not convoluted. It's quite straightforward actually. There's only one threat, and it's the Spectre. Everyone who isn't Spectre is there to stop Spectre. All members of Spectre share the same goals, and at the moment Spectre has only one goal. I just can't remember for the life of me what that goal actually was.
Lord of the Rings is convoluted. There are so many intertwining plots I can never remember what half of the main cast is there for. Spectre is very simple by comparison. It's just that boring.
Casino Royale is the hands down best Craig movie. Because it does not follow the recipe. Not entirely at least, it does for the most part, but it skews from it quite significantly. The sudden plot twist in what-you-think-would-be-the-epilogue, for example - has any other Bond movie done that?
Yes. On Her Majesty's Secret Service. And it did it a lot better.
See? While following the formula will always give you an okay Bond movie, the best movies are made when they deviate from it.
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@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
Die Another Day is the best Brosnan (but the rest are all right)
That's a strange way to spell GoldenEye.
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@Zenith said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
Die Another Day is the best Brosnan (but the rest are all right)
That's a strange way to spell GoldenEye.
GoldenEye is my second favorite Brosnan. Can you elaborate on why you deem it superior?
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@Gąska said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Gąska said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
Spectre is the best Craig, and one of the few that are watchable
We must've seen different movies. It was so godawful boring that I lost all interest halfway through (just before the car chase scene which kept me alive for five more minutes). I don't even remember what it was about. I remember the secret organization because it's in the title, but I can't even say what they were after or why Bond was there.
I'll give you that Spectre is convoluted
But that's the thing. It's not convoluted. It's quite straightforward actually. There's only one threat, and it's the Spectre. Everyone who isn't Spectre is there to stop Spectre. All members of Spectre share the same goals, and at the moment Spectre has only one goal. I just can't remember for the life of me what that goal actually was.
They also spent most of the film setting up what Spectre is (which was probably unnecessary, Dr. No did it in a sentence or two, From Russia With Love and Thunderball each did it in a single scene).
Casino Royale is the hands down best Craig movie. Because it does not follow the recipe. Not entirely at least, it does for the most part, but it skews from it quite significantly. The sudden plot twist in what-you-think-would-be-the-epilogue, for example - has any other Bond movie done that?
Yes. On Her Majesty's Secret Service. And it did it a lot better.
See? While following the formula will always give you an okay Bond movie, the best movies are made when they deviate from it.
If you lop off the last five minutes or so of OHMSS, you end up with a cookie-cutter Bond movie, because aside from the ending, OHMSS follows the recipe to the letter.
Casino Royale is a lot more active in breaking the recipe in that it's focused on the Bond-Lynd dynamic, Le Chiffre, his creditors and a goddamn card game much more than it is on what makes a typical Bond film.
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@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Gąska said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Gąska said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
Spectre is the best Craig, and one of the few that are watchable
We must've seen different movies. It was so godawful boring that I lost all interest halfway through (just before the car chase scene which kept me alive for five more minutes). I don't even remember what it was about. I remember the secret organization because it's in the title, but I can't even say what they were after or why Bond was there.
I'll give you that Spectre is convoluted
But that's the thing. It's not convoluted. It's quite straightforward actually. There's only one threat, and it's the Spectre. Everyone who isn't Spectre is there to stop Spectre. All members of Spectre share the same goals, and at the moment Spectre has only one goal. I just can't remember for the life of me what that goal actually was.
They also spent most of the film setting up what Spectre is (which was probably unnecessary, Dr. No did it in a sentence or two, From Russia With Love and Thunderball each did it in a single scene).
Casino Royale is the hands down best Craig movie. Because it does not follow the recipe. Not entirely at least, it does for the most part, but it skews from it quite significantly. The sudden plot twist in what-you-think-would-be-the-epilogue, for example - has any other Bond movie done that?
Yes. On Her Majesty's Secret Service. And it did it a lot better.
See? While following the formula will always give you an okay Bond movie, the best movies are made when they deviate from it.
If you lop off the last five minutes or so of OHMSS, you end up with a cookie-cutter Bond movie, because aside from the ending, OHMSS follows the recipe to the letter.
Wait, you're telling me that EHMRGRD had an entirely new plot point set up, expanded upon and concluded all within those five minutes? And those five minutes together provide more entertainment than Casino Royale's last half hour? I find it hard to believe. Not as hard as that somebody genuinely liked Spectre, but still.
Given what I learned about your movie preferences, I'm pretty sure that if I watched On Her Majesty's And So On, it would be the worst movie I've seen all year.
Casino Royale is a lot more active in breaking the recipe in that it's focused on the Bond-Lynd dynamic, Le Chiffre, his creditors and a goddamn card game much more than it is on what makes a typical Bond film.
Maybe that explains why I liked it so much more than a typical Bond movie. Though I mostly remember it for many well executed action sequences, which are severely lacking in later movies. Also, come on. The card game took like 5 minutes of screen time in total, in a 2.5-hour movie.
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@Gąska said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Gąska said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Gąska said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
Spectre is the best Craig, and one of the few that are watchable
We must've seen different movies. It was so godawful boring that I lost all interest halfway through (just before the car chase scene which kept me alive for five more minutes). I don't even remember what it was about. I remember the secret organization because it's in the title, but I can't even say what they were after or why Bond was there.
I'll give you that Spectre is convoluted
But that's the thing. It's not convoluted. It's quite straightforward actually. There's only one threat, and it's the Spectre. Everyone who isn't Spectre is there to stop Spectre. All members of Spectre share the same goals, and at the moment Spectre has only one goal. I just can't remember for the life of me what that goal actually was.
They also spent most of the film setting up what Spectre is (which was probably unnecessary, Dr. No did it in a sentence or two, From Russia With Love and Thunderball each did it in a single scene).
Casino Royale is the hands down best Craig movie. Because it does not follow the recipe. Not entirely at least, it does for the most part, but it skews from it quite significantly. The sudden plot twist in what-you-think-would-be-the-epilogue, for example - has any other Bond movie done that?
Yes. On Her Majesty's Secret Service. And it did it a lot better.
See? While following the formula will always give you an okay Bond movie, the best movies are made when they deviate from it.
If you lop off the last five minutes or so of OHMSS, you end up with a cookie-cutter Bond movie, because aside from the ending, OHMSS follows the recipe to the letter.
Wait, you're telling me that EHMRGRD had an entirely new plot point set up, expanded upon and concluded all within those five minutes?
Yep! (TRIGGER WARNING: Contains spoilers, of course)
On Her Majesty's Secret Service Ending – 02:04
— bigjamesbondfanAnd those five minutes together provide more entertainment than Casino Royale's last half hour?
That's not what I said, but yes, I would gladly pick OHMSS over Casino Royale, and I have watched both multiple times.
I find it hard to believe. Not as hard as that somebody genuinely liked Spectre, but still.
Spectre may be my favorite Craig, but that's not saying much.
Given what I learned about your movie preferences, I'm pretty sure that if I watched On Her Majesty's And So On, it would be the worst movie I've seen all year.
Go for it. You might love it, you might hate it, but watching it will better inform your opinions on Bond films irregardless. Since you have obviously not watched all of them, and I have, my opinions are more well-informed than yours. You now have the opportunity to get on equal footing.
Casino Royale is a lot more active in breaking the recipe in that it's focused on the Bond-Lynd dynamic, Le Chiffre, his creditors and a goddamn card game much more than it is on what makes a typical Bond film.
Maybe that explains why I liked it so much more than a typical Bond movie. Though I mostly remember it for many well executed action sequences, which are severely lacking in later movies. Also, come on. The card game took like 5 minutes of screen time in total, in a 2.5-hour movie.
Over 5 minutes!CASINO ROYALE | Poker Game – Daniel Craig, Mads Mikkelsen | James Bond – 05:22
— James Bond 007It's also a bit more complicated than that, as to whether you count all the introductory scenes with Lynd laying out the plan for the big game, the intermission with Le Chiffre's creditors, Bond meeting Leiter, etc. It's not unreasonable, I think, to say that the movie is centered around the card game (it's in the title, FFS).
That said, I find it more interesting when people disagree with me on Bond. One of my friends who's helping me host a marathon loved Dr. No and Goldfinger, while I think both of those are poopy. I've also seen countless lists of "Top N Bond Movies", each of which gives a completely different ranking, and most of which I disagree with. Such are tastes.
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@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
- Casino Royale is a couple of chase scenes and a Texas Hold 'Em game. I'd much rather watch the unofficial 1967 version.
David Niven is the best bond. I will fight you.
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@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
irregardless
I've been mostly agreeing with you up to this point, but you just lost all your credibility.
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@DogsB and he’s not even the only actor in that film billed as “James Bond 007”…
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@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
Casino Royale is a lot more active in breaking the recipe in that it's focused on the Bond-Lynd dynamic, Le Chiffre, his creditors and a goddamn card game much more than it is on what makes a typical Bond film.
But it is curiously all the closer to the book for doing so.
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@dkf I've only read a couple of the original Fleming stories (of which Casino Royale is not one), but the Bond of those stories is quite different from that of the movies. He's much less a spy and much more an assassin. But that's not what I want from a movie Bond; I want a movie Bond who follows the tradition of the other movie Bonds.
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@HardwareGeek said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
I've only read a couple of the original Fleming stories (of which Casino Royale is not one)
I beg to differ.
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@dkf I parsed the sentence as "I've only read a couple of the original Fleming stories; Casino Royale is not one of the ones I have read."
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@Arantor said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
not one of the ones I have read.
This. I've read Octopussy and another I remember the plot of, but not the name. It's set in Berlin, before the construction of the Wall. Both sides are aware that a particular person is going to escape to the West, and even know where he's going to try to cross. The East Germans (or Soviets) have an assassin ready to shoot him as he tries to escape. Bond's job is to assassinate the assassin before he (spoiler) can shoot the guy escaping.
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@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
Dr. No's pacing makes it painful to watch. But it's still not among the worst.
Having recently rewatched it, I agree. There's a lot of focus on the build-up and the investigative nature of Bond's mission into Crab Keys and very little (comparitively) for the showdown between Bond and No.
But it's also interesting to note that this is probably the most accurate Bond ever is: no use of gadgets (Desmond Llewelyn does not make an appearance as Q, and the only thing that Major Boothroyd, quartermaster, provides is a Walther PPK to replace the Beretta Bond used previously that jammed on him.)
Other things that interest me about Dr No: we see actual spy techniques of a sort - the checking of the hotel room for bugs, the hair across the wardrobe door; and the aforementioned scene with M and Bond and the exchange of the Beretta for the Walther seems primarily to demonstrate that M is on the ball (or that Bond is surprisingly rubbish at spying)
James Bond films have always been feminist (note how Honey Ryder pulls a knife on Bond and that Rosa Klebb was Number Three even in the early 1960s, and that the female lead is frequently a scientist, engineer, or another spy and counterpart to Bond)
There's that - but at the same time Bond's overt toxic masculinity has a habit of wooing the women such that it doesn't matter what their capabilities are, Bond has his way anyway.
Goldfinger is overrated and Thunderball is a far better film.
I enjoy both, but yes, Goldfinger is definitely overrated.
You Only Live Twice is the best Connery.
Absolutely.
On Her Majesty's Secret Service is the best Lazenby (and one of the best overall).
Well, since there's only the one Lazenby... I found OHMSS interesting, not only because of the change of Bond, their mannerisms and so on, plus the ending - but also "This never happened to the other guy." which is at least a neat nod to 'changing of the guard'.
The best Moores are Man with the Golden Gun, Moonraker and For Your Eyes Only, and the rest of the Moores are simply "okay."
Sorry, I can't agree with this: Moonraker is mostly awful, saved only by Jaws as far as I'm concerned. Golden Gun is pretty good - "the plane, the plane!" as is For Your Eyes Only, but I will admit I actually quite like A View To A Kill just because Walken plays the role with just enough crazy to make it work for me, plus I love the theme song.
Licence to Kill is hands down the worst Bond film (because it's a 1980s buddy cop gore porn druglord movie and doesn't follow the recipe). It's worse than some of the Craigs, and that's saying something.
I definitely think Dalton was done dirty in general; the writing of both Living Daylights and Licence to Kill is weaker. I do think LtK is an interesting diversion from the recipe - asking 'what if Bond went rogue for a personal cause' - which is also interesting given the finale of OHMSS where he... sort of doesn't. It makes you wonder a little bit about 'what would tip him over the edge'.
That said I didn't dislike LtK. I liked the fact it wasn't just another by the numbers Bond film, and especially that I liked it more than Living Daylights for poking some fun at some of the televangelists that seemed to me to start becoming a 'thing' around that time.
Die Another Day is the best Brosnan (but the rest are all right)
Sorry, no, just no. DAD's plot is kinda garbled and messy, with the whole 'gene therapy' deal that makes Zao look a bit different but Colonel Moon completely different. Also, the car was one gimmick too far for me, and Jinx was just a character I fundamentally didn't like. The fact also that Bond was betrayed by one of the women he picks up along the way - for the second film in a row - just seems like a mistake Bond shouldn't make.
Personally I have Tomorrow Never Dies and GoldenEye up there, then The World Is Not Enough, then Die Another Day. TND always struck me a very slick commentary on the modern world, while still having enough action set-pieces and a compelling enough villain to keep it on recipe. GE of course has the 'world is changing' deal as the old enemies are no longer the same as they were, and the twist of 006 was just well done, I thought.
TWINE has the problem of a weak secondary antagonist and the entire submarine arc is somewhat unnecessary. Electra King was more than compelling enough on her own, and Robert Carlisle is utterly wasted in this.
Casino Royale is a couple of chase scenes and a Texas Hold 'Em game. I'd much rather watch the unofficial 1967 version.
Not only that but it's not even a particularly interesting round of Texas Hold 'Em. Nor particularly realistic.
Quantum of Solace is someone looking at the grim and grit of The Dark Knight and its attendant annoying, Nolanesque sound design, and saying, "Hey, let's make this into a Bond movie!"
QoS is... originally I saw it in the cinema, and I haven't rewatched since. It's a bad rehash of the plot arc of LtK transposed to the Craig era - what if Bond went rogue, over someone he cared about being killed? - but frankly, it's bland and uninteresting as a direct sequel to Casino Royale. It's not really following either the Bond formula or Bourne formula, or even the beats of LtK, and as such it doesn't really know what it's trying to be. Could have been a decent enough thriller if it hadn't been a Bond film where its baked-in expectations would have been more realistic.
Spectre is the best Craig, and one of the few that are watchable, because it follows the recipe.
Fair assessment, though the whole shared family history thing is the sort of quality of material I'd have expected from an Austin Powers movie. It felt clunky and awkward and didn't really do anything for Blofeld; there were any number of better explanations for his actions than deep internalised resentment for his father preferring the orphan boy.
Bond films also capture the zeitgeist of when they were made, so I was not at all surprised that No Time to Die had a Covid-stand-in for the subject matter. It seems such a shame to become an hero because of blood nanites when one's watch has a perfectly functional EMP which would ostensibly disable those blood nanites on account of their being nanites.
This struck me as one of the less stupid things that the franchise has delivered. Still stupid, but not so badly.
I still think Moonraker's entire existence - spurred on by Star Wars - is a bigger problem.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
Discuss. Fight me. Or both.
Fuck that!
You're going to encounter discussion, fighting, or both.
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@HardwareGeek said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
irregardless
I've been mostly agreeing with you up to this point, but you just lost all your credibility.
Had to make sure you were paying attention!
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@HardwareGeek said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Arantor said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
not one of the ones I have read.
This. I've read Octopussy and another I remember the plot of, but not the name. It's set in Berlin, before the construction of the Wall. Both sides are aware that a particular person is going to escape to the West, and even know where he's going to try to cross. The East Germans (or Soviets) have an assassin ready to shoot him as he tries to escape. Bond's job is to assassinate the assassin before he (spoiler) can shoot the guy escaping.
That sounds like what happened in the Dalton I prefer, with some alterations.
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@Groaner Indeed, it is:
The book originally contained two stories, "Octopussy" and "The Living Daylights", with subsequent editions also including "The Property of a Lady" and then "007 in New York".
My ex had the version of the book with only the two stories.
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@Arantor said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
Sorry, I can't agree with this: Moonraker is mostly awful, saved only by Jaws as far as I'm concerned.
If it was saved by Jaws, does that mean that you preferred The Spy Who Loved Me?
Golden Gun is pretty good - "the plane, the plane!"
I like it because it's a lot more intimate in developing Scaramanga as a villain than some of the other movies, and it gives Bond a chance to duel with Count Dooku and Saruman. Sheriff J.W. Pepper is an eyesore (as much as he was in Live and Let Die), but what can you do.
as is For Your Eyes Only, but I will admit I actually quite like A View To A Kill just because Walken plays the role with just enough crazy to make it work for me, plus I love the theme song.
My favorite part of A View To A Kill is where Zorin says "More power!" in a manner that could easily be confused with "More cowbell!" I mean, overall, it's a decent movie (all the Moores are decent), and not one of the three Bond movies I actively hate, but the others I mentioned I like more.
Licence to Kill is hands down the worst Bond film (because it's a 1980s buddy cop gore porn druglord movie and doesn't follow the recipe). It's worse than some of the Craigs, and that's saying something.
I definitely think Dalton was done dirty in general; the writing of both Living Daylights and Licence to Kill is weaker. I do think LtK is an interesting diversion from the recipe - asking 'what if Bond went rogue for a personal cause' - which is also interesting given the finale of OHMSS where he... sort of doesn't. It makes you wonder a little bit about 'what would tip him over the edge'.
That said I didn't dislike LtK. I liked the fact it wasn't just another by the numbers Bond film, and especially that I liked it more than Living Daylights for poking some fun at some of the televangelists that seemed to me to start becoming a 'thing' around that time.
I don't disagree that it explored some heretofore unexplored facets of Bond, but I don't think it was necessary that five minutes into the movie, one guy is vivisected and his heart torn out and a woman flogged, and the deaths only get more gruesome from then on.
The most positive thing I can say about Licence to Kill is that Pam Bouvier is a totally ride-or-die Bond girl, and Bond ignores her in spite of all she does for him. If I had a woman that devoted to me in my life, I would not allow my eyes to wander towards Stockholm Syndrome-suffering druglord girlfriends, but would be so busy attending to her, um, "intimate needs" that she might occasionally need a mobility scooter.
Die Another Day is the best Brosnan (but the rest are all right)
Sorry, no, just no.
No need to apologize, I like hearing different perspectives. Hence this thread.
DAD's plot is kinda garbled and messy, with the whole 'gene therapy' deal that makes Zao look a bit different but Colonel Moon completely different.
The movie made it reasonably clear that the procedure was complete for Moon but ongoing for Zao (and rudely interrupted by Bond).
Also, the car was one gimmick too far for me, and Jinx was just a character I fundamentally didn't like. The fact also that Bond was betrayed by one of the women he picks up along the way - for the second film in a row - just seems like a mistake Bond shouldn't make.
That's what he gets for trusting an Aes Sedai.
Personally I have Tomorrow Never Dies and GoldenEye up there, then The World Is Not Enough, then Die Another Day. TND always struck me a very slick commentary on the modern world, while still having enough action set-pieces and a compelling enough villain to keep it on recipe. GE of course has the 'world is changing' deal as the old enemies are no longer the same as they were, and the twist of 006 was just well done, I thought.
TWINE has the problem of a weak secondary antagonist and the entire submarine arc is somewhat unnecessary. Electra King was more than compelling enough on her own, and Robert Carlisle is utterly wasted in this.
Yeah, I enjoy TWINE up until the skiiing and glider attack scene, and the second half of the movie goes downhill from there.
Quantum of Solace is someone looking at the grim and grit of The Dark Knight and its attendant annoying, Nolanesque sound design, and saying, "Hey, let's make this into a Bond movie!"
QoS is... originally I saw it in the cinema, and I haven't rewatched since.
I have to watch it one more time in the Bond marathon I'm hosting
Spectre is the best Craig, and one of the few that are watchable, because it follows the recipe.
Fair assessment, though the whole shared family history thing is the sort of quality of material I'd have expected from an Austin Powers movie. It felt clunky and awkward and didn't really do anything for Blofeld; there were any number of better explanations for his actions than deep internalised resentment for his father preferring the orphan boy.
The other option was to not even attempt to develop Blofeld as a character and leave him shrouded in mystery (à la From Russia With Love), but I'm not sure modern audiences would have played ball.
That said, Waltz as Blofeld is a very close second-best in my book (with Savalas the best). It's a shame he didn't get much screen time in NttD.
Bond films also capture the zeitgeist of when they were made, so I was not at all surprised that No Time to Die had a Covid-stand-in for the subject matter. It seems such a shame to become an hero because of blood nanites when one's watch has a perfectly functional EMP which would ostensibly disable those blood nanites on account of their being nanites.
This struck me as one of the less stupid things that the franchise has delivered. Still stupid, but not so badly.
I still think Moonraker's entire existence - spurred on by Star Wars - is a bigger problem.
Wasn't the Moonraker book originally about missiles, and not a space station? I mean, it seems like several of us here are treating the films as canon in their own right, but that was quite a leap. I still enjoyed it regardless. A more common criticism I hear about Moonraker is that it's Thunderball in space, scene for scene, and you have to admit that the EVA battle in Moonraker has an uncanny resemblance to the underwater battle in Thunderball.
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@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
That sounds like what happened in the Dalton I prefer, with some alterations.
Also, I said earlier I'd been a fan of Brosnan before he played Bond. This was largely due to his role as the suave detective Remington Steele. Well, TIL (I might have known this previously, but forgotten) he was originally selected to play Bond in The Living Daylights, but the offer was withdrawn due to Remington Steele. The TV show had been cancelled because of declining ratings, but when Brosnan was announced as the next Bond, interest in the TV show revived, and NBC exercised a last-minute option to renew his contract. This caused the Bond offer to be withdrawn, which in turn caused interest in the TV show to fall again, and it was cancelled again after only a few more episodes, leaving Brosnan with neither job.
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@HardwareGeek said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
That sounds like what happened in the Dalton I prefer, with some alterations.
Also, I said earlier I'd been a fan of Brosnan before he played Bond. This was largely due to his role as the suave detective Remington Steele. Well, TIL (I might have known this previously, but forgotten) he was originally selected to play Bond in The Living Daylights, but the offer was withdrawn due to Remington Steele. The TV show had been cancelled because of declining ratings, but when Brosnan was announced as the next Bond, interest in the TV show revived, and NBC exercised a last-minute option to renew his contract. This caused the Bond offer to be withdrawn, which in turn caused interest in the TV show to fall again, and it was cancelled again after only a few more episodes, leaving Brosnan with neither job.
That reminds me that I'd been meaning to check out some of Savalas' other work (when I have a large amount of spare time, which is unlikely anytime soon), where he also plays a detective.
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@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
I mean, it seems like several of us here are treating the films as canon in their own right, but that was quite a leap.
I think you have to. Some of the movies are so loosely adapted that the original book or short story contributes nothing to the movie except the title and maybe some incidental character background. Case in point: Octopussy. The movie plot bears not the slightest resemblance to the story except (according to Wikipedia) that it uses the story as throwaway background for Octopussy's character — such a minor plot element I didn't even remember it at all. Although it's been many years since I watched Octopussy and barely remember the movie plot at all; I remember the story plot much better.
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@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
If it was saved by Jaws, does that mean that you preferred The Spy Who Loved Me?
Compared to Moonraker, fuck yes.
I like it because it's a lot more intimate in developing Scaramanga as a villain than some of the other movies, and it gives Bond a chance to duel with Count Dooku and Saruman. Sheriff J.W. Pepper is an eyesore (as much as he was in Live and Let Die), but what can you do.
Yup, it's up there for that reason.
The other one we haven't talked about is Live And Let Die which... I am a bad person because I quite like it and in hindsight it's pretty racist.
I don't disagree that it explored some heretofore unexplored facets of Bond, but I don't think it was necessary that five minutes into the movie, one guy is vivisected and his heart torn out and a woman flogged, and the deaths only get more gruesome from then on.
It's been a little while since I'd seen it, I'd forgotten it had ramped up the gore to that extent; I remember the shark attack, henchman in the decompression chamber, henchman in the drugs grinder, and the explosive finale. But it's also possible I'd seen an edited-for-TV version before (which is not as grim over here as the edits made for TV to most things in the US).
The most positive thing I can say about Licence to Kill is that Pam Bouvier is a totally ride-or-die Bond girl, and Bond ignores her in spite of all she does for him. If I had a woman that devoted to me in my life, I would not allow my eyes to wander towards Stockholm Syndrome-suffering druglord girlfriends, but would be so busy attending to her, um, "intimate needs" that she might occasionally need a mobility scooter.
Dalton plays an interestingly chaste version of Bond where only one woman per film, and Bouvier is absolutely neglected.
The other option was to not even attempt to develop Blofeld as a character and leave him shrouded in mystery (à la From Russia With Love), but I'm not sure modern audiences would have played ball.
That said, Waltz as Blofeld is a very close second-best in my book (with Savalas the best). It's a shame he didn't get much screen time in NttD.
Honestly, this is the sort of point where I just say 'fuck modern audiences'. Because, honestly, too much time gets devoted to explaining things that don't need explaining. Modern audiences might be a bit too fucking wiki-happy for the details but I'm a solid believer in that you don't need everything explained.
The Harry Potter franchise suffers from JK's need to keep explaining things that no-one cared too hard about or looked too deeply into, and it's just showcasing the cracks in the worldbuilding.
Similarly, parts of the problem that Doctor Who has right now stems from the chief fanboy in charge feeling the need to explain a side detail that was sort of dropped into a 1974 story, not properly explained there and he's ended up retconning the entire fucking life history of the Doctor to explain that detail that had plenty of better fan canon explanations than what he shat out.
There's a point at which you can overanalyse and overexplore, and just... no.
Would admit Waltz was good though, but he brings a presence to most things he does.
Wasn't the Moonraker book originally about missiles, and not a space station? I mean, it seems like several of us here are treating the films as canon in their own right, but that was quite a leap. I still enjoyed it regardless. A more common criticism I hear about Moonraker is that it's Thunderball in space, scene for scene, and you have to admit that the EVA battle in Moonraker has an uncanny resemblance to the underwater battle in Thunderball.
So, Moonraker departed greatly from the original book (so much so that there is a separate novelisation of the movie)... but here's the thing. At the end of Spy Who Loved Me, the credits clearly indicate Bond will return - in For Your Eyes Only.
TSWLM would have been in late production in May 1977 (for a July release) when Star Wars debuted, and this apparently led to a reframing of the next story in space because Space Is Cool. The fact that they actively switched what the next film would be is because of Star Wars' popularity as far as I can tell. Wikipedia doesn't have many particularly good sources for it, though.
The original novel has Drax as an industrialist who makes missiles and rockets and also a literal Nazi, which is turned into the 'master race' concept in the film, but other than that there's definitely a push from the studio to make something more in keeping with then-comtemporary science fiction rather than tonally consistent with Bond as it had been up to then.
As for the 'remake of Thunderball'... I think the bar for that particular label really belongs to the later Never Say Never Again. There are some similarities between Thunderball and Moonraker - but at the same time if you look hard enough between any two of the films you can find similarities. I get the EVA battle == the underwater battle but as a scene for scene remake, nah, I'm not really seeing it.
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@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
That reminds me that I'd been meaning to check out some of Savalas' other work
I'd recommend Kelly's Heroes, though Kojak is definitely watchable.
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@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Unperverted-Vixen said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
- Casino Royale is a couple of chase scenes and a Texas Hold 'Em game. I'd much rather watch the unofficial 1967 version.
On the one hand, you're not wrong. On the other hand, even if I can't argue that it's the best with a straight face, it's still probably my favorite Bond movie overall.
Interesting. What about it is appealing?
I think @Gąska's thoughts on this are pretty similar to mine. As I said, I'm not going to pretend it's a great adherent to the formula; but I find it to be very rewatchable.
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@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Zenith said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
Die Another Day is the best Brosnan (but the rest are all right)
That's a strange way to spell GoldenEye.
GoldenEye is my second favorite Brosnan. Can you elaborate on why you deem it superior?
Obviously I haven't put as much thought into the subject as you have.
I don't believe I've ever been able to make it through Die Another Day. All I remember is a fencing scene and Bond driving his car through an ice cave or something. But Toby Faire, I remember liking Tomorrow Never Dies in the theatre but not being able to make it through that at home either. Plus GoldenEye has a really great N64 game that probably helped solidify its position in my mind. The World Is Not Enough wasn't horrible but its game didn't do it any favors...
Of course, I can't say that I ever really "got" most Bond movies so take everything I say with a grain of salt. The earlier movies feel very slowly paced compared to even late 80s media. The Craig movies...I liked them but even I recognize they're more of a deconstruction of James Bond than anything.
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@Zenith said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Zenith said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Groaner said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
Die Another Day is the best Brosnan (but the rest are all right)
That's a strange way to spell GoldenEye.
GoldenEye is my second favorite Brosnan. Can you elaborate on why you deem it superior?
Obviously I haven't put as much thought into the subject as you have.
I may not be an expert in many things, but I've put in the hours to be an expert in Bond films, damn it!
I don't believe I've ever been able to make it through Die Another Day. All I remember is a fencing scene and Bond driving his car through an ice cave or something. But Toby Faire, I remember liking Tomorrow Never Dies in the theatre but not being able to make it through that at home either. Plus GoldenEye has a really great N64 game that probably helped solidify its position in my mind. The World Is Not Enough wasn't horrible but its game didn't do it any favors...
If we're going by the N64 games, then yes, obviously GoldenEye wins easily. Though some purists will dispute it and insist that Perfect Dark was a better game.
Of course, I can't say that I ever really "got" most Bond movies so take everything I say with a grain of salt. The earlier movies feel very slowly paced compared to even late 80s media. The Craig movies...I liked them but even I recognize they're more of a deconstruction of James Bond than anything.
Thunderball is, imo, where the pacing begins to hold up to more modern standards. I would like to say the same for From Russia With Love, but that train sequence is soooooo looooong.
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@Groaner I always thought the train sequence was actually really well done from a pacing perspective because the whole time we know what must happen and it’s waiting to see when Bond will figure it out, and just how he’ll deal with it.
In the same way I wonder how modern audiences cope with wry humour, I wonder how modern audiences cope with suspenseful tension.
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@Arantor said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
@Groaner I always thought the train sequence was actually really well done from a pacing perspective because the whole time we know what must happen and it’s waiting to see when Bond will figure it out, and just how he’ll deal with it.
In the same way I wonder how modern audiences cope with wry humour, I wonder how modern audiences cope with suspenseful tension.
They flip to a different Twitch channel looking for actual bewbs.
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By sheer coincidence I watched the "original" Casino Royale yesterday evening.
The first half (or so... no idea about the actual timing, plus it was a gradual thing anyway) is absolute comedy gold and caused that movie to jump at or very close to the top of my favourite James Bond films' list.
The second part and ending caused it to go down a bit, because, well, it does down quite a bit. Still funny, but a bit too disjointed and over the top.
Overall, much better than a lot of James Bond movies that are at best mediocre, if not outright bad.
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@remi said in No Time to Make a Bond Thread:
The first half (or so... no idea about the actual timing, plus it was a gradual thing anyway) is absolute comedy gold
Intentional or unintentional comedy?
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@Gąska Definitely intentional.
They overplay the "spoof James Bond" thing with James Bond being the Perfect Agent in so many ways and yet not at all like the "true" James Bond, and have a lot of fun poking fun at the "true" James Bond. Plus some gags that made me laugh even though you see them coming, or though they drag them for a while (I loved the grouse hunting scene, for example, despite it being almost a pure nonsensical comedy sketch rather than a movie scene).
It's not subtle comedy, but for me it really worked.
The second half isn't that different, but I guess there is a combination of getting tired of those small gags and comedy sketches, plus it doesn't have the small je ne sais quoi that makes it work (at least for me).
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@remi I wasn't aware the "original" Casino Royale wasn't a "real" Bond movie. Sounds like something I'd watch. I'm a big fan of Mel Brooks-style comedy.
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@remi part of the problem is that production was pretty troubled. Five different directors, Sellers being all over the map (e.g. avoiding Welles, leaving before the end of filming, minor things) and the script was rewritten multiple times.
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@Arantor I read the wiki page afterwards and indeed, it had a weird story, which probably partly explains why it feels so disjointed at times. Actually, given how messy its production was, it's astonishing that it turned out pretty well in the end!
for 
Casino Royale (novel) - Wikipedia
