It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
Essentially all we're left with is your personal dislike for Roger Moore and Octopussy. A point of view I find more sad than anything else. If you can't appreciate Sir Rog in arguably one of his best performances then I just feel sorry for you TBH .[/quote]
No, all we are left with are a few posters on this thread about GE and TND that opine differently about OP and Roger Moore in general.
To answer the original question, GE was somewhat original, given the givens. It had it both ways: play it safe with a known actor, tick the right boxes, but at the same time give us an unexpected bad guy, and an OTT femme fatale not seen before. Tied into the whole post Cold-War thing and you have the winner.
TND was a supremely well made formula-chaser with a little twist here & there. I happen to prefer TND by a little bit, but they were both hugely entertaining films. To quote Malcolm McDowall from Blue Thunder, "anyone who tells you different is a damn liar." ;)
Some terrible lines in that sequence like 'he was like a father to me,' are just cringe-worthy and conversely, GE ends with perhaps one of the most intense showdowns of the series, which is just so impressively constructed and shot. Easily and clearly the BRoz's best moment as Bond.
I love TND more because of Brosnan's more fully fleshed out, somber at times, stronger Bond. I love his Bond in this one. I enjoy his partnership and chemistry with Wai Lin very much. He has some great, more serious scenes (all of those Paris, leading up thru her death and his confrontation with Dr. Kaufman) and other lighter, nice moments. I cherish Pierce's Bond with Q; all of their scenes glow with a genuine fondness. They really suit each other. I like the motorcycle chase a lot. I watch TND more often than most Bond films. If the general public (which is this main topic) prefer GE, I think it is because of it being the first after so long, its good production quality (it did not look cheap), and very fine actors (Pierce, Isabella, Robbie, Famke).
And action sequences are constructed just as much as a set is.
I know I have read a little about Judi and Roger not having a really great time together on TND in a few sources, and I don't want to blow this up out of proportion. She is, by all account, professional and I hardly ever her hear her say anything negative about anyone. But here is just one small bit, taken from a 2011 article. Judi talks about aging, how she has changed, and how she started out as M. The whole article is interesting enough; here it is: article.http://www.express.co.uk/expressyourself/259189/Dame-Judi-Dench-I-ve-turned-into-Mrs-Angry . It says in one part:
Her role as secret service boss M in the 1995 film Goldeneye, Pierce Brosnan’s debut as 007, sparked a new-found career. But it still did not stop her giving director Roger Spottiswoode a piece of her mind in her second Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies.
The director regularly sent her script changes late at night, which she had to learn in the car on the way to the film set. And during a process called “looping” (rerecording dialogue) she got even. She told him: “It was very off-putting indeed to have to learn the script and then, at a quarter to 10 the night before filming, to get a loud knocking on the door by the courier with a new script. That’s not fair.”
When Spottiswoode tried to apologise with an offer of a car to take her to the next destination, she retorted: “No, I’d rather walk.”
She couldn’t even bring herself to shake hands with him. She says: “I can be really difficult when I want to be.”
Also, I really liked discovering this, in the same article, about during filming of Goldeneye: (the author of this article is Garth Pearce;unknown to me):
I was there on the day in February 1995 when Dame Judi Dench made her Bond debut as M on the film GoldenEye. She was a bag of nerves.
She arrived at Leavesden studios, near Watford, clutching the hand of her actress daughter Finty, then 22. Dame Judi sat in costume and make-up, visibly shaking, as if waiting to have a major operation.
I pointed out that she had spent three hours at a time on stage playing every major female role Shakespeare had written.
“This is completely different,” she said. “I am never really happy in front of a film camera. If I get the performance wrong it can’t be put right the next night.”
The scene involved M greeting Bond in her office and accusing him of being a “misogynist”. She was supposed to light and hold a cigarette and use metal tongs to put “ice” into glasses to make drinks for them.
But her hands were shaking so much that she had difficulty in doing both. Director Martin Campbell took out the smoking and allowed her to turn away from the camera before putting the ice in the glasses.
She fluffed one of her lines. Pierce Brosnan, who had told me how excited he was just to be in a scene with her, fluffed one of his lines in the next take.
Whether deliberate or not, it relaxed proceedings. “OK,” said Campbell, “that makes it one-one. Let’s go again.”
The scene on film was memorable and Dame Judi Dench hasn't looked back in Bond since.
;)
Certainly for the purposes of this discussion I'd consider Casino Royale as a little more closer to the topic, and thereby more significant.
SImply put, Campbell is a better Bond director. His film was more critically received than Spot's, and therefore he was given the reboot to do, which turned out to be even BETTER received.
(sorry for this in advance- I just can't help myself any more)
doubleohdad, you're an [apparently unenlightened fellow].
Now, instead of taking offence, try thinking just a tiny bit more than you spew. A little bit each day. Pretty soon you'll be able to have REAL conversations wherein it's not just YOU explaining things to people, but an actual give and take.
Know you like TND more and I understand that, but the facts are what they are.
Right?
:))
French Connection 2 makes French Connection bad?
Exorcist 2 makes Exorcist horrid?
Certainly GL is a mediocre excursion, but that does not diminish his other works.
Spottiswoode, meanwhile is nowhere near big-boy action films. If TND was as good as GE and CR, then that would be the case.
"Spottiswoode not only was not asked but also made less than high profile pictures afterward."
Campbell was not asked back after CR, and has made less than high profile pictures afterwards.
More like comparing two entertaining Bond movies.
Come on, GE isn't THAT bad.
Yes, Spottiswoode no longer makes big budget action films like Martin Campbell does, that's correct!
No, just someone who knows a thing or two about cinema and can see the bigger picture. GE is an objectively better movie than TND. I don't care which movie is more "Bondian"...
I agree with you, but everyone has their own opinion.
There's a style by which GE and CR were shot, none of that is present in TND, a picture without a very good third act. Contrasting that are the two films that Campbell made, which were not only better received than TND critically shot so much more stylishly.
Second, who said anything about either being more 'Bondian'?
I agree with you completely, man. Not even close. GE is is clearly the better picture.