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Other movies that push limits like MR does badly, namely DAD, lack the finesse, craftsmanship and overall style that would forgive those lapses the way others can manage. It helps that the decade in which MR occurred was the perfect climate for such a film to exist, where it was a refreshing bit of popcorn cinema in a decade full of movies that pushed the medium into cynical and often realistic (by which I mean dark) areas. In its day MR was refreshing, despite the obvious Star Wars cash in, and today it's still relatively innocuous and fun if you let it be. I don't take it seriously so I don't get offended by it, and it's Moore being Moore so who really cares at the end of the day. ;)
That is true to some extent. Even if people don't remember MR down to plot and character, it's not uncommon to hear its influence in the line, "James Bond has been to space and back!"
I am a big TB fan and I enjoy SP too. But I don't think TB crumbles under its own weight anywhere near the way SP does. TB has a credible threat throughout, which I don't feel at all in SP, it's all about what will Oberhauser/Blofeld do, which really doesn't turn out to be much.
You can trot out the worn out overlong underwater battle and sped-up Disco Volante claims. Those are still better compared with the exploding Morocco base followed by the never-ending ministry building/bridge finale, which seem to drag on forever.
And as the credits roll, TB's Blofeld is still out there, ready to cause further havoc and SP's is in jail. This is Blofeld, the villain we've waited years to return, with a fresh start after being disposed of supposedly at the end of a crane and dumped down a smokestack. Does this mean Bond 25 will include a spectacular jailbreak scene like we just had in SF?
Abso-bloody-lutely.
If you genuinely have no place in your heart for MR, there's something wrong with you.
And it's ending with a banger of a disco theme :-P. Here's the film version:
http://picosong.com/vSpF/
Enjoy @RC7 and @Getafix
Perhaps you've seen this movie as well :
Must have something wrong with me then. Everything people have said is spot on, there's a lot of good stuff there, but I think it's less than the sum of its parts. I just find it boring, mostly because it's all a bit predictable and samey but even forgetting that it's just a remake of TSWLM, I also don't think the film has much energy to it anyway. It's all just a bit going through the motions. I admire it but don't really enjoy it.
I used to have a problem with the fact that Bond is saved by gadgets every time (even Drax expresses frustration post-python encounter), but can overlook that now.
I love the campiness of it, the money up on screen, the cinematography, the wonderful travelogue feel & locations, the stunts (the PTS parachuteless dive is still one of the all time greats), Moore's performance (which is spot on given the tone of the film), Lonsdale, Chiles, Kiel, Clery, Ravalec et al.
The last of the really classic Bond films imho (last with Lee, Bassey, Adam etc.).
Both "Cubby" and Gilbert understood that. And because of that the film was a massive box office success, which got beaten only when GE premiered.
Having said this my most recent viewing was highly enjoyable and made me appreciate the film as a whole much more than I realized.
First the relationship between Bond and Madeleine is not as bad as many make it out to be. It's not anything close to Tracy or Vesper but its top five most meaningful in the series easy.
Second the action is much better than I remember. Sam Mendes clearly makes this a point of the film and does it quite well. I believe the action fit into the plot as well unlike most of the recent action movies I have watched.
When watching the film I think the key scene that is designed to show off Spectres power is the boardroom scene. I have always had a great appreciation for this scene because the dialogue is quite well written.
Overall this is easily a top ten Bond film that will only get better with age. It reminds me a lot of You Only Live Twice. A film that has flaws but really captures the essence and grandiose nature of Bond.
Either way, I like his efforts on SP much more than I like what he did with SF.
Funny. I feel the same way. I thought the SP score was less bad - although still largely forgettable.
It had some atmospheric moments that I really like. There's a soft love theme permeating the score when Madeleine and Bond are together. When she walks towards him in that stunning dress on the train, the music does a pretty Barry-esque thing that I really appreciate. There are other moments like that. The Rome car chase isn't scored as abysmally as some seem to think. It all narrows down to taste though.
May be it comes down to those elements working better in SP or that SP (for me at least) is just marginally less dull than SF.
They used the SF score as a holding score for SP and just found it worked well with SP - may be it did genuinely fit better with SP.
Two highlights in both scores are the single brief uses of the title song themes. A brief glimpse of what might have been had Newman not been so insufferable far up his own backside.
I don’t think Newman was given the title songs in time to use them through the scores.
Which is weird, as Writing's on the Wall had been recorded back in January 2015.
As for Skyfall, it has been said several times that Newman himself didn't want to use the track in his score and even asked someone else to write the first half of "Komodo Dragons" (the Skyfall cue).
I hadn’t heard that about SF. He must have really hated it.
Even more reason for him to never return to the series.