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The bizarre and somewhat unsettling title credits
SPECTRE meeting
Rome car chase
Bond's interview with Dr. Swann in the Hoeffler Clinic
Q giving Bond a new watch, and Bond's classic response--"Well...does it DO anything?"
Bond's conversation with Mr. White
The entire Tangier sequence is striking and so every Fleming
The Bond/Hinx punch-up on the train
Bond and Dr. Swann awaiting the '48 Rolls Royce
The meteorite crater lair
Bond, Dr. Swann and ESB in the meteor enclosure
The ghastly torture of Bond by ESB
ESB showing Swann and Bond the footage of Mr. White's suicide
It's easier to list what's NOT memorable.
On the contrary, the only action that wasn't reasonably fresh was the London finale.
Bloody hell. I can't believe some of you people. Everything in China and on Silva's island is marvelous. Indeed, the casino conversation between Bond and Severine, and the fight between Bond and Patrice with the neon sign backdrop are as good as anything Bond films have ever done.
All of this is so true. It seems pretty clear to me that many (most?) posters form a totalizing position about a film--and SP really seems to encourage this behavior--and then attempt to selectively eviscerate every single aspect of that film in any thread allowing it. In other words, once one comes out against a particular film, that person then feels compelled to trash every single aspect of it to maintain their position as a detractor. And what this procrustean bed amounts to is the failure to give credit where it's due.
The island is a total waste, it could have been the greatest set ever IF anything memorable would happen there.
And that's the story of SF really. couldashouldawoulda and if
Macau was ok, at least a casino scene, but hurt by those whateverCGIthoughtitshouldbe things.
The casino conversation is in another league, yes. It feels like something out of CR. Probably the only thing P+W got right in SF but of course Severine afterwards just gets wasted...
The fight in the tower is too choreographed, it looks like Craig and the other guy always think: ok, next move is...done, ok, next move: let me think...done
It looks nice but that's all.
Scotland on the other hand is atmospheric, tense and suspenseful. It almost felt Hitchcockian in some parts. Of course the greatness stops as soon as the setting changes to the church, then it's Grey's Anatomy.
Silva's introductory oration, the murder of Severine, and the bizarre Charles Trenet song "Boum" playing over loudspeakers are nothing? Heh. OK.
Damn you @Murdock and @bondjames. I was planning a low-key night with FYEO and FRWL thanks to @BondJasonBond006, but the thought of watching a pairing of YOLT and TSWLM is too tempting.. I'll have to think which double feature I'll watch tonight, and the other will be for tomorrow.
Come on, if you are going to watch YOLT and TSWLM, throw in MR for the hat-trick. You know it makes sense.
Silva's introductory oration as you call it is just annoying and yes, Mommy....was....verybad. I rather watch the DAD CGI surfing ten times in a row.
The murder of Severine is just annoying as it shows how idiotic P+W can be, one of the most promising Bond girls ever gets wasted immediately.
For the song...well...ok...if you call it memorable...I call it strange.
SP is still superior Bond entertainment to me! No. 7 in my list.
There's no accounting for taste.
I'm so glad because that's precisely the tone I was aiming for.
Well doesn't Bond finally overcome Grant thanks to flicking a switch? So why isn't flicking a switch to get out of trouble in GF copying FRWL?
Or is it only flicking switches in cars that counts? So presumably you also consider the Lotus in TSWLM, the Volante in TLD and the BMWs in TWINE and DAD equally derivative and therefore as unoriginal as SP?
Obviously TND gets off because flicking switches on an app on his phone is completely different.
Well yes Camille is a Bond girl in the sense that she is a girl in a Bond film but how can you say she leaves him given the only relationship they have is just allies in their quest for revenge? The kiss at the end says to me that perhaps in different circumstances something might have happened between them but that at that point Bond is still cut up about Vesper so she just goes. Might as well say Bibi leaves Bond when she allows Columbo to be her sponsor at the end of FYEO.
I'm just pointing out when people are wrong. It's about the content of a particular argument, I couldn't care less who wrote it so please don't flatter yourself that I sit up at night throwing knives into a dartboard with a picture of your face on it.
Cant I do it nicely? I thought I was being was nice. I haven't even got warmed up yet old son.
1. The SP car chase is trying to recall memories of the GF car chase. The switches look exactly like and function closely to the ones in the original Aston Martin. The significance of this is that right down to the smallest details SP is trying to 'homage' previous Bond films and ends up having no identity of its own.
You are right about some of the other chases (Lotus and DAD BMW are way too different) but I didn't say that those films weren't derivative, just that SP is more derivative. In none of those cases do I think they are trying to evoke GF's car chase to that extent. SP - for crying out loud - had an ejector seat. And before you call me on that, DAD BMW had the invisibility feature as well which isn't becoming a classic but it was at least audacious. Very little, post-PTS in SP or post-Rome, was audacious.
2. Camille is THE Bond girl of QOS. She is different in the sense that she never slept with Bond, but she is still the Bond girl and if you asked anyone they'd probably agree with me... So QOS did it first. "Who was the Bond girl in SF" is probably the harder question. But as I said that is not important.
3. I'm sorry if I'm taking you the wrong way. I can do that sometimes. It is true that most of the stuff I wrote on here is drivel so you'll probably find a lot more problems with my writing in the future. I can't help it, I'm not quite as witty as you and I wasn't gifted with very good writing abilities. I'm not sure if you or @Perilagu_Khan care (to whom I also apologise) but I am going through a bit of a rough point in my life right now and I sort of view anything against me as an attack. It isn't my intention to make enemies, I want this to be a place where I can wind down. So I'm sorry if this is my fault, which it seems like it is.
A million miles and poles apart even!
Well okay but I don't find all these sequences to be that memorable and unique. The crater lair could have been great for instance if it was properly used. However it is destroyed by a few shots. So even though they propbaly spend more money for it than for any other set piece it won't rank nowhere near the most memorable and impressive villains' lairs.
Really grasping at straws now.
It's a copy of GF because it has the same style of switches that function closely to GF? Well there's no rear machine gun, Frank Sinatra or flame throwers in GF and the ejector seat is operated by the gearstick so not sure how they are functioning closely. Unless of course you are getting so desperate you mean the switches go from the on position to the off position which I will concede is a direct rip off of GF which as we all know invented the binary switch mechanism.
If as you've stated SP is the most derivative film of the lot then where does that leave SF which uses the exact same car (and same switches FFS) as GF?
Well clearly we disagree on what constitutes 'leaving ' Bond. Madeline and Bond have some sort of relationship (OK badly developed but that's a different debate) to the point when she says she loves him and when she then turns her back on him I would contend that this is unique for a Bind film. That the filmmakers totally piss that aspect of the story away by having her caught and tied to a bomb like some bloody heroine in a strip cartoon (silly bitch!) is irrelevant.
Bond and Camile have no such relationship and even though she is the main Bond girl the fact that she leaves at the end is merely her leaving after they have both completed the tasks they set out to accomplish. They are both too caught up in their revenge to even consider getting together. I don't see how you can say she left him when they were never together as an item just allies?
But do you think about this kind of uniqueness when you discuss how unique or creative a Bond film is. I actually don't care whether Swann was the first who actually left Bond because it is not really important for any character development. They only created this plot point for having her kidnapped and finally brought back to Bond.
As a whole I don't think that Swann is a bad Bond girl but she does not stand out at all because she does not really do anything important in the film. The relationship to her father could have been something very interesting but this opportunity was just wasted since Mr. White commits suicide early in the film and anyway had already lost all his evilness at that point of time.
I love the crater. Obviously. And insofar is it's not a volcanic crater I consider it a very mild at worst rip-off from YOLT. I love the shots of the crater as Bond and Swann approach via Rolls Royce, the shockingly green and perfectly manicured grounds in the middle of the Sahara, Bond and Swann's "champagne" meet-and-greet with a bespectacled SPECTRE goon, and the industrial machines and equipment that take up much of the background. All of this fairly screams Bond. And yes, it could have been utilized more extensively, but with the film already the longest in series history...
Heh. In a Bondian context strange is good.
Presumably preventing Hinx from murdering James Bond doesn't qualify as anything.
OK I assume almost every Bond girl has saved Bond's life before or at least helped him in a very unpleasant situation. This is really nothing special. It's like Stacey Sutton knocking out Scarpine or Octopussy shooting one of the attackers. And the sequence is just one minute of the whole film and apart from that there is not so much she actually contributes to the story. Her backstory actually does not really matter for the whole film and she could just have been removed from the film without any bigger consequence.
Mendes comes in for a lot of criticism, but one aspect he utilises very well is silence, the Rome meeting and the meteor make a great impression.
I don't agree with all the comments about Seydouxs character, apart from the "I love You" line, I could understand how she could be drawn to someone like Bond. She is attracted to him and fascinated by his lifestyle choice, and what makes him want to continue. Overall SP is going to be one of my most regular re-watches, and I'm even liking the last section a little bit more than my first viewing.
I see. So what are the "special" things previous Bond girls have done, and how have other Bond girls been integral to their movies? Most Bond girls have two primary functions--eye candy and as the distressed damsel to be rescued by Bond. In that respect few of them are absolutely crucial to the plot, but Bond films would be considerably duller without them. And by these lights, Dr. Swann is a dam' sight better than most Bond girls.
Good point about the use of silence. I hadn't thought of that.
It is true that one part of the Bond girls are not really relevant for the plot. But there are many exceptions: Tracy, Pussy Galore, Vesper, Kara, Tatjana, Natalya, Octopussy all have very relevant parts in their respective film and you could not easily remove them from it (And you can easily expand this list).
My previous comment just highlights that Swann's character is not really special and that there is nothing unique about her. It was a reply to another comment which described that Swann's character was unique in some way.
I don't mind that Swann is just a very typical Bond girl. I even like her since she is very natural and very well acted. But I still have the opinion that they could have done more out of her, especially since besides Bond she is the only relevant character with enough screne time.
SPECTRE (oh my, #1 :D )
MI: Rogue Nation
Terminator: Genysis
Ant Man
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Mad Max Fury Road
Jurassic World 8-|
Unfortunately the action in neither are very good, in QOS the action scenes are so aggressively edited and in SP the action is thoughtless and drags. But SP at least had two good action scenes (helicopter, train) and a good henchman.
I wouldn't say that Hinx is a great henchman. I mean of course he has the strength and the evilness. But I find that he is poorly written. His motivations are unclear. He is also extremely unsuccessfull in what he is doing and thus not really scary. But the biggest problem is that he just diappears in the second act. But ok maybe they are going to bring him back for Bond25.