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"GE" vs "TND": Why is the first generally considered better than the second?
Because in all honesty. I can't see it really. Both GE and TND for me have exactly the same kind of quality, look, feel and tone. And if we mostly look at the entertaining value, than I really find both having the same kind of quality. The tank chase vs. the car parking chase. The rather grotesque villain's plot: Creating havoc with the UK in mind. Eithe involving them in another war or destroy them.
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As for the plot and action, I agree they are pretty even. And Brosnan's performance seem to get better in Tomorrow. I don't like neither film particularly, but if I had to choose I would have to og with Goldeneye.
I give GE the edge for the following reasons:
1. JB had been absent for 6 long, painful years, so the event experience of seeing him back on screen again was huge
2. a lot of people were waiting for Brozza to get his shot at Bond, myself included. We were 'willing' this movie to succeed. It subconsciously may be affecting our recollection of how good it was.
3. there were some absolutely classic and hyper cool moments in GE. Some terribly classic 'Bond moments', such as
- the opening jump (evoking classics like TSWLM),
- the Ferrari chase (subconsciously evoking classics like GF in the swiss alps or Cary Grant's To Catch a Thief) which brought back the Aston DB5 after decades,
- the larger than life caricature villains with the suggestive names (which had been absent for a long time) such as Onatopp
4. the classic lines in that movie (they were so cartoon like but they are so memorable as well, in a classic campish, but not too campish JB fashion......."For England James"....)
5. Martin Campbell capturing the essence of Bond somehow....don't know why but he gets it
6. it was glamourous to me, particularly in Monaco. More so than TND which was more action oriented (Hamburg was the best part of TND IMO but it was dreary). I like sunny, glamourous Bonds generally
7. I absolutely loved Scorupco's Natalya......she was my favorite of the 90's and the best for me until Green's Vesper came along. I did not like Paris or Wai Lin. Especially Paris. I could not 'buy' that the great Bond, who has bedded so many beauties in his movie life, was so taken with her.
8. preferred Bean's 006 to Pryce's Carver as villain. It was more personal between him and Bond, they had a great fight at the end, and his lines were great to me ("lovely girl........tastes like Strawberries.......")
9. Brozza's hair was better IMO
10. call me mad (and I'm knowingly but cautiously exposing myself to ridicule now so be gentle), but I liked Serra's score, especially what's known as the 'Goldeneye Overture'. Very industrial but yet Bond sounding.
So I liked them both a lot, but preferred GE. To me it's similar to comparing FRWL to GF. GE was much more intimate and smaller scale, but resonated more with me.
Indeed. I'm beginning to think that GoldenEye "being the first Bond after 6 years and the first Brosnan film" still fuels the ratings and reviews. And how we think of this movie as of today.
Character-wise, Trevelyan and Onatopp might be...better developed than Carver and Stamper. But still, compare both films to the latest Craig films. And then I think both the characters from GE and TND rank considerably lower than many Craig-film characters (still the same Judi Dench, but M with more gravita, villains like Le Chiffre and Silva, Bond girls being way more complex than those in both TND and GE.
Although I must say that, given the short screentime of Paris Carver, I prefer Paris Carver over Natalia Simonova. Simply because the acting is better. Natalia for me always acted a bit....desperate.....especially her anger. While Paris' slap in Bond's face is truly more believable anger.
So what was TND exactly missing/lacking then?
In any case.......I really think "Cubby" success formula was also the reason that during the end of his producer's role -Cubby did not produce GE, they simply did not precede the film with EON Productions present. Barbara & Michael were the sole producers- the new producers, Barbara and Michael, were still using Cubby's template heavily. And I think that's what made the Brosnan Bond films very much like a post-Cubby event.
Yes, Barbara and Michael replaced many roles, including M, played by Judi Dench. But still, in essence, they were very formularic. Only after DAD Barbara and Michael trully shook themselves loose from Cubby's reign. They did a major overhaul. Especially screenplay/story-wise. Something that Cubby himself didn't want to do when Timothy Dalton became Bond.
I really think Craig IS the Bond of a complete new era. Having said that, I can't really say which Brosnan Bond films is better: GE or TND. I find them both equally entertaining. And they both have the same kind of quality. Though it is a quality that we luckily don't see anymore in the current Fleming-esque Craig-era. Craig's films IMO overpower many of Brosnan's outings. They are written way smarter. They have acting that is way smarter.
That said, I enjoy Tomorrow Never Dies just as much as GoldenEye. I think the preference for GE over TND is one of those strange fan things that doesn't just include feelings about quality, but other elements too.
1. Villains: As much as I love Elliot Carver, Alec Trevelyan is a top 5 Bond villain IMO.
Onatopp and Ouromov blow Stamper/Kaufman out of the water.
2. Bond girl: Natalya is top ten material. Always felt indifferent to Wai Lin, never particularly cared for her.
3. Action: Some of the best action scenes of the Bond series are from Goldeneye. On the other hand, TND's action scenes (particularly in the Stealth Boat) are rather generic and I sometimes drift away from the action in the second half of the film.
4. Music: Eric Serra's score has certainly grown on me. It is distinctive, and suits the film perfectly. Serra is also very apt at creating tension (take, for example, the scene where Bond and Natalya escape from the armoured train). I also very much like Tina Turner's title song.
While TND's score is good, Serra's different take on the Bond score edges it for me. I also don't particularly care for Sheryl Crow's title song.
Overall, I feel that GE is a far superior film. No.6 in my ranking, where TND sits around the 19-20 mark.
Agreed. I think there is definitely something to that. You can count me in the 'Goldeneye is overrated' camp here at the forum, and I think one of the reasons might be what you mentioned. I think it was a bit telling what @bondjames wrote:
That might explain a bit as far as I am concerned, although I realize its not the case for everyone...
While Brosnan may be more 'refined' in TND, like all other Bonds, I find Pierce to be at his 'coolest' in GE. Throw in the unfair nostalgia of GoldenEye 007 for n64 and I give GE a decent advantage.
Electro Magnetic Pulse, the Goldeneye satellite. Come on, it's just a better version of the Diamonds Are Forever laser satellite, combined with emphasis-proof microchips, that were still failing in AVTAK.
The ex-00 agent seeking revenge is a nice bit of storytelling though. But in the end he's out for destruction of the UK. Not creating havoc by letting two countries go into war.
The only real advantages TND has is that Brosnan is a bit "better" but I personally like his cautious and tentative performance as Bond in GoldenEye.
It was like we could let Pierce forge his own take but no F**k it lets just rip off the Moore era everyone liked that and throw every conceivable cliche at the screen with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, that being said at least it was at least consistent in it's execution, whereas TWINE was an utter mess of an entry.
:))
In a less esoteric venue, there is a useful four letter word, and you're full of it. =))
I don't think I have ever seen a more fake skylline in my life. Its not the only example either... I think I might even prefer LTK in that regard. That at least looked real...
You can barely see it because their heads block it. I don't even see a problem with it. It's not the clearest of days but your complaining over a barely in shot skyline. That is hardly a detail worth discussing as it's one tiny scene. Who cares? You're grossly exaggerating.
Another exaggeration. Bond climbing into the plane was a short 5 second scene. Having watched it recently it doesn't look bad at all. At least the plane and motorcycle going over the ramp was a real stunt done for real.
I also just realised Brosnan also looks and acts incredibly cool - his choice of car and tux helps too - in this film before he started overacting in later films ("isn't that your motto?" "same person who set me up...."). The car park chase and Dr Kaufman are very entertaining, the Arnold score despite what you think of his style, is quite hummable in parts and I have found a new appreciation for his scores after the disappointing Skyfall soundtrack. The rest of it isn't that memorable. I have to say TND has my favourite gunbarrel in the whole series.
All in all, GE is the film I love more. It "ticks all the boxes", perhaps too neatly at times but like CR it's well paced and very entertaining throughout. Thinking a bit more about it and forgetting about rankings for a moment, I am sentimental about both as they were almost certainly my first Bond films and why I am on this forum today
As for the plane jump - yes it is ridiculous. But it's no more ridiculous than surviving a fall from a railway bridge after taking a bullet to the shoulder. Bond films are never meant to be 100% realistic, even the 'realistic' ones. If they were they'd be a damn sight more boring. The plane sequence from QOS is a good example. With the amount of time Bond and Camille were free falling and their proximity to the ground when they pulled the chute, they should have been total pancakes. But it's a Bond film, so I can accept that they're able to walk away with no broken bones.
I think its more to do with the execution of the sequence rather than the believability. Chasing after the plane is ridiculous in the GE PTS because its done against a bad back projection. The freefall off the bridge after the "take the bloody shot" is excecuted well with no visible dodgy effects work. There fore it makes it all the more real even if we have to question if Bond could surely have survived the fall. Before this thread also turns into a cgi vs pratical effects thread I will state that I have always thought that TND was the best of the Brosnan films followed by GE.
Fair point. The back projection in GE is probably made worse by the fact that the bike going off the cliff immediately before hand is so damn good.
Im not exaggerating! Im showing one of many (yes, there are many more of them) scenes where far from convincing effects are used to enhance or glamorize the frame. Those effects were probably modern in the 90s but they have not aged well, and the result is a film that in parts looks cheap and dated. Why is cinematography 'hardly worth discussing' because it happens to be one of Goldeneye's weaker points?
In addition to that Goldeneye uses many miniatures and set designs that look fake and, as a result, the film looks far less glamorous than what the filmmakers aimed for. The evidence is there in the movie, if you can't see it, I think nostalgia is clouding your judgement. On these threads we can nitpick every film to pieces, of course we're gonna point out flaws, even in your beloved Goldeneye, if there are any.
I kind of agree here. Miniatures in the old days looked realistic. But today it's different. A good example is the terrorist attacks on the MI6-building: One in TWINE and one in SF. The first one was done entirely with miniatures. Although kind of realistic, it's really a fart compared to the combination of miniatures, CGI and greenscreen used in SF. That latter terrorist attack in SF is a perfect example how CGI should be used.
Ask yourself which terrorist attack really blew you away....and gave you a shock and goosebumps upon watching that scene for the very first time.
So miniatures alone really don't do it for me in Bond films. It's about the combination of CGI and miniatures.
I think holding that against TWINE is a bit unfair. There were barely any films from the 90's that utilised CGI that well and there were only two filmmakers who could do it appropriately - Cameron and Spielberg. I remember seeing TWINE in the cinema in '99 and I thought the miniature was great. Obviously it's not as good now but holding it up against modern special effects is unfair. Approaches to that sort of stuff has changed massively in such a short space of time.
So, no pre-CGI Bond films would do it for you then?