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
It all goes down hill from here on.
1. Implementation of the Theme Song – 4
2. Use of Bond Theme – 9
3. Style – 6
4. Romance – 8
5. Excitement – 8
6. Brass – 6
7. Suspense – 6
8. Iconography – 5
9. Epicness – 6
10. Timelessness – 5
63/100
MayDay's score ranking
DN- 42%
FRWL- 78%
GF- 91%
TB- 78%
CR'67- 62%
YOLT- 92%
OHMSS- 98%
DAF- 79%
LALD- 82%
TMWTGG- 74%
TSWLM- 87%
MR- 96%
FYEO- 90%
NSNA- 22%
OP- 89%
AVTAK- 95%
TLD- 91%
LTK- 63%
1. Theme Song – 6
2. Use of Bond Theme – 8
3. Style – 5
4. Romance – 5
5. Excitement - 8
6. Brass – 6
7. Suspense – 7
8. Iconography – 5
9. Epicness – 7
10. Timelessness – 5
62%
Tanaka123 Rankings
You Only Live Twice - 89%
Goldfinger - 86%/ On Her Majesty's Secret Service - 86%
Thunderball - 81%/ Moonraker - 81% / The Living Daylights - 81%
Diamonds Are Forever - 79%
Octopussy - 77%
Live and Let Die - 75% / A View to a Kill - 75%
From Russia with Love - 74% / For Your Eyes Only - 74%
The Spy Who Loved Me - 73%
The Man with the Golden Gun - 66%
Licence to Kill - 62%
Dr. No - 52%
1. Implementation of the Theme Song – 0
2. Use of Bond Theme – 8
3. Style – 4
4. Romance – 4
5. Excitement - 7
6. Brass – 4
7. Suspense – 5
8. Iconography – 4
9. Epicness – 6
10. Timelessness – 4
Probably my least favourite score of the franchise besides Dr. No
46%
1. Implementation of the Theme Song – 10 (three songs, all good. I have a soft spot for A-Ha, such an underrated group IMHO. The pieces by The Pretenders are the pivotal action and romance pieces of the film. Excellent.)
2. Use of Bond Theme – 9 (impressive, exciting, almost danceable version with 80s arrangements)
3. Style – 10 (Barry completely updated his style to the 80s)
4. Romance – 9 (If There Was A Man: you can't go more romantic than that)
5. Excitement – 9 (In all moment)
6. Brass – 6 (the least brassy of Barry's scores, leaving the rhythm section to drum machines and sequencers)
7. Suspense – 8 (again, it's Barry. One takes it for granted)
8. Iconography – 7 (your typical British 80s sountrack)
9. Epicness – 6 (not that epic, still has its moments, though)
10. Timelessness – 7 (a bit dated, but quite interesting)
81/100 %: Barry went with bang and left us with a groovy and romantic score featuring three good songs
Licence To Kill
1. Implementation of the Theme Song – 9 (when talking abut the implementation of the theme song, I also value its quality and that of the other songs in the soundtrack. Here we have four: License To Kill is my fav Bond song. An earwormy R&B remake of Goldfinger by my admired Walter Afanasieff and Narada Michael Walden, sung splendidly by Mrs. Gladys Knight in top form. Wedding Party, meanwhile, is a horrendous remake of Jump Up. It's so awful it deduces a whole point in my book: a serious candidate for my personal worst Bond song along with Only Myself To Blame and Writing's on The Wall. Dirty Love gives us a dose of Rocky saga-like AOR, fitting for the bar fight scene. Finally If You Asked Me To shows veteran Miss Patti LaBelle singing a sweet R&B piece, very easy on the ears. Other than that, only Dirty Love has a minimal relevance in the movie).
2. Use of Bond Theme – 9 (Call him boring, but Michael Kamen did a great job in the Bond Theme, putting it again in a symphonic orchestra arrangement. Highly effective).
3. Style – 7 (It's Kamen. Almost all of his soundtracks sounded the same: his greatest virtue was how admirably catched the pulse of the action to create music that absolutely merged with it. He understood music should accompany the action, without spoiling it).
4. Romance – 8 (Pam, so full of tension, so full of romance. If You Asked Me To is an excellent romantic ending song)
5. Excitement – 9 (Kamen wasn't the king of 80s action scores for nothing)
6. Brass – 5 (mostly based in strings)
7. Suspense – 8 (perfectly captures the tension when needed)
8. Iconography – 6 (Just another 80s soundtrack with nice songs and music. But nothing especially iconic here)
9. Epicness – 9 (Oh, yeah, it is, from the glorious two hits of the gunbarrel to the truck chase)
10. Timelessness - 8 (some of the songs, especially WP and DL show the age of the movie. Otherwise, nothing by the late Michael Kamen sounds dated: he was a purely classic composer).
78/100 %: My fav Bond song ever, two nice tunes and and a bloody awful one accompany a decent work by a consolidated cinema personality.
BLM's ratings
NSNA: 25 %
DN: 35 %
TMWTGG: 66 %
OP : 77 %
LTK: 78 %
FRWL: 79 %
CR'67, FYEO and TLD: 81 %
TSWLM: 84 %
TB and YOLT: 86 %
DAF and LALD: 88 %
GF: 91 %
MR and AVTAK: 93 %
OHMSS:99%
1. Implementation of the Theme Song – 8
2. Use of Bond Theme – 8
3. Style – 7
4. Romance – 6
5. Excitement - 9
6. Brass – 6
7. Suspense – 7
8. Iconography – 6
9. Epicness – 7
10. Timelessness – 7
Total Score: 71
1. Theme Song – 9
2. Use of Bond Theme – 8
3. Style – 8
4. Romance – 8
5. Excitement - 8
6. Brass – 8
7. Suspense – 8
8. Iconography – 7
9. Epicness – 8
10. Timelessness – 8
Overall: 80%
On Her Majesty's Secret Service: 97%
The Living Daylights: 94%
You Only Live Twice: 93%
A View to a Kill: 88%
Thunderball: 85%
The Spy Who Loved Me: 82%
Moonraker: 81%
Licence to Kill: 80%
From Russia with Love: 78%
Diamonds Are Forever: 78%
Goldfinger: 77%
Octopussy: 77%
The Man with the Golden Gun: 77%
Live and Let Die: 75%
For Your Eyes Only: 68%
Dr. No: 49%
That's what I did to begin with - i'm just going to rate the song on its own merits then I think
1. Implementation of the Theme Song – 5
2. Use of Bond Theme – 6
3. Style – 4
4. Romance – 5
5. Excitement – 5
6. Brass – 5
7. Suspense – 6
8. Iconography – 4
9. Epicness – 5
10. Timelessness – 5
Final Score - 50%
This one always leaves me underwhelmed. Just like the DN score, a lot of the music feels like a generic product of its time. I suppose it's appropriate that we have a Jump Up tribute included in the mix. I don't have a whole lot to say about Kamen's score. It's not offensive to my ears but nothing really stands out either.
pachazo's picks
1) YOLT - 93%
2) OHMSS - 92%
3) AVTAK - 90%
4) DAF - 87%
5) TB - 83%
6) GF - 82%
7) LALD - 80%
8) MR -79%
9) TSWLM - 75%
10) TLD - 74%
11) FRWL - 73%
12) OP - 72%
13) FYEO - 71%
14) TMWTGG - 67%
15) DN - 52%
16) LTK - 50%
1. Implementation of the Theme Song – 8
2. Use of Bond Theme – 8
3. Style – 7
4. Romance – 7
5. Excitement – 9
6. Brass – 7
7. Suspense – 8
8. Iconography – 6
9. Epicness – 7
10. Timelessness – 7
Final Score: 74%
vzok ratings:
OHMSS - 93
Moonraker - 92
A View To A Kill - 92
Diamonds - 89
You Only Live Twice - 84
The Living Daylights - 82
Live And Let Die - 81
Spy Who Loved Me - 79
From Russia - 76
CR67 - 75
Thunderball - 75
Licence To Kill - 74
Goldfinger - 73
Golden Gun - 67
FYEO - 64
Dr No - 56
NSNA - 17
1. Implementation of the Theme Song – 6
2. Use of Bond Theme – 9
3. Style – 7
4. Romance – 7
5. Excitement – 7
6. Brass – 8
7. Suspense – 8
8. Iconography – 6
9. Epicness – 6
10. Timelessness – 6
Final score: 70%
On Her Majesty's Secret Service – 95.08%
A View To A Kill – 89.75%
You Only Live Twice – 89.72%
Moonraker - 86.27%
Goldfinger – 86%
Diamonds Are Forever – 85.4%
Thunderball – 85.08%
The Living Daylights – 83.83%
Octopussy - 81.09%
The Spy Who Loved Me – 79.7%
Live and Let Die - 79.6%
From Russia With Love – 77.5%
The Man With The Golden Gun – 72.4%
For Your Eyes Only – 71.27%
Casino Royale '67 – 70.87
Licence to Kill - 68.66%
Dr. No – 51.45%
Never Say Never Again – 29.75%
Ow, that's rough for Mr. Kamen.
See you later for the next 'un...
James Bond will return...
The Brosnan Era
GoldenEye, 1995
1. Theme Song (just ranking the theme song itself, as there was confusion) – 8
2. Use of Bond Theme – 4 (dreadful. At least “Drive in St. Petersburg was all right)
3. Style – 5
4. Romance – 7
5. Excitement – 7
6. Brass – 4
7. Suspense – 8 (I like the piece as 007 and 006 traverse the dish)
8. Iconography – 6
9. Epicness – 4
10. Timelessness – 3
56/100
Tomorrow Never Dies, 1997
1. Theme Song – 7 (meh)
2. Use of Bond Theme – 8
3. Style – 8 (classic for the first third, techno, as fitting with the German setting for the second third, and sound of the Far East for the final third)
4. Romance – 8
5. Excitement – 8 (White Knight and Surrender)
6. Brass – 8
7. Suspense – 8
8. Iconography – 7
9. Epicness – 7
10. Timelessness – 8
77/100
The World Is Not Enough, 1999
1. Theme Song – 7
2. Use of Bond Theme – 7 (slightly overused)
3. Style – 8 (let down by the electronics)
4. Romance – 8
5. Excitement – 7 (like the film, strangely lacking in this department)
6. Brass – 7
7. Suspense – 8
8. Iconography – 7
9. Epicness – 7
10. Timelessness – 8 (again due to the electronics)
74/100
Die Another Day, 2002
1. Theme Song – 6 (works better in conjunction with the main titles)
2. Use of Bond Theme – 8 (for this film, the more JB theme it has, the better!)
3. Style – 7 (slightly too techno for my liking)
4. Romance – 8
5. Excitement – 8 (Hovercraft Chase baby)
6. Brass – 8 (listen to those trumpet wahs, on the bit of the score when the Aston and Jag are fighting it out!)
7. Suspense – 8
8. Iconography – 6
9. Epicness – 8
10. Timelessness – 6
73/100
royale's Rankings -
On Her Majesty's Secret Service – 98%
You Only Live Twice – 94%
Goldfinger – 94%
The Living Daylights – 90%
Moonraker – 90%
Diamonds Are Forever 90%
Thunderball – 89%
The Spy Who Loved Me – 85%
A View To A Kill – 84%
Octopussy – 83%
From Russia With Love – 83%
Live and Let Die – 81%
For Your Eyes Only – 79%
Tomorrow Never Dies – 77%
Licence to Kill – 77%
The World Is Not Enough – 74%
Die Another Day – 73%
The Man With The Golden Gun – 69%
Dr. No – 69%
Casino Royale, '67 – 62%
GoldenEye – 56%
Never Say Never Again – 38%
I do hope that isn't too much bother for you chaps to complete.
GoldenEye, 1995
1. Theme Song – 9
2. Use of Bond Theme - 4
3. Style – 6 (Befitting the film, is all.)
4. Romance – 8 (It's not baaaad.)
5. Excitement - 6
6. Brass – 6
7. Suspense - 9
8. Iconography – 5
9. Epicness – 5
10. Timelessness – 7
65%
TomorrowNeverDies, 1997
1. Theme Song – 6
2. Use of Bond Theme - 9
3. Style – 8
4. Romance – 6 (Too much ID4)
5. Excitement - 9
6. Brass – 8
7. Suspense - 6
8. Iconography – 7
9. Epicness – 6
10. Timelessness – 9
74%
The World Is Not Enough, 1999
1. Theme Song – 7
2. Use of Bond Theme - 9 (I think Arnold rock in that department)
3. Style – 5
4. Romance – 7
5. Excitement - 7
6. Brass – 7
7. Suspense - 6
8. Iconography – 6
9. Epicness – 6
10. Timelessness – 6
66%
Die Another Day, 2002
1. Theme Song – 5
2. Use of Bond Theme - 8
3. Style – 6
4. Romance – 6
5. Excitement - 8
6. Brass – 8
7. Suspense - 7
8. Iconography – 6
9. Epicness – 7
10. Timelessness – 7
68%
DD's Rankings
Never Say Never Again - 17%
Dr. No – 57%
For Your Eyes Only - 60%
Live And Let Die - 61%
GoldenEye - 65%
The World Is Not Enough - 66%
Casino Royale '67 - 66%
Die Another Day - 68%
The Spy Who Loved Me - 70%
TomorrowNeverDies - 74%
The Man With The Golden Gun - 75%
Octopussy - 75%
Licence To Kill - 76%
From Russia With Love - 77%
Moonraker - 81%
Goldfinger - 82%
Thunderball - 83%
You Only Live Twice - 85%
A View To A Kill - 87%
On Her Majesty's Secret Service - 89%
Diamonds Are Forever - 93%
The Living Daylights - 94%
Thanks for doing 4 Bond scores in a row old boy btw!
I'm very pleased with my top 5 which, I'm quite sure, isn't going to change a lot any more. ;-)
1. Theme Song – 8
2. Use of Bond Theme – 7
3. Style – 7
4. Romance – 7
5. Excitement - 7
6. Brass – 4
7. Suspense – 8
8. Iconography – 7
9. Epicness – 7
10. Timelessness – 4
66%
Tomorrow Never Dies, 1997
1. Theme Song – 7
2. Use of Bond Theme – 8
3. Style – 7
4. Romance – 7
5. Excitement - 8
6. Brass – 7
7. Suspense – 6
8. Iconography – 7
9. Epicness – 7
10. Timelessness – 7
71%
The World is Not Enough, 1999
1. Theme Song – 7
2. Use of Bond Theme – 8
3. Style – 6
4. Romance – 7
5. Excitement - 8
6. Brass – 6
7. Suspense – 7
8. Iconography – 6
9. Epicness – 7
10. Timelessness – 6
68%
Die Another Day, 2002
1. Theme Song – 3
2. Use of Bond Theme – 7
3. Style – 7
4. Romance – 6
5. Excitement - 8
6. Brass – 6
7. Suspense – 7
8. Iconography – 6
9. Epicness – 8
10. Timelessness – 5
63%
Tanaka123 Rankings
You Only Live Twice - 89%
Goldfinger - 86%/ On Her Majesty's Secret Service - 86%
Thunderball - 81%/ Moonraker - 81% / The Living Daylights - 81%
Diamonds Are Forever - 79%
Octopussy - 77%
Live and Let Die - 75% / A View to a Kill - 75%
From Russia with Love - 74% / For Your Eyes Only - 74%
The Spy Who Loved Me - 73%
Tomorrow Never Dies - 71%
The World is Not Enough - 68%
The Man with the Golden Gun - 66% / GoldenEye - 66%
Die Another Day - 63%
Licence to Kill - 62%
Dr. No - 52%
1. Theme Song – 8
2. Use of Bond Theme – 6
3. Style – 8
4. Romance – 9
5. Excitement - 9
6. Brass – 6
7. Suspense – 9
8. Iconography – 8
9. Epicness – 8
10. Timelessness – 7
Overall: 78%
Tomorrow Never Dies
1. Theme Song – 8
2. Use of Bond Theme – 8
3. Style – 8
4. Romance – 7
5. Excitement - 9
6. Brass – 8
7. Suspense – 7
8. Iconography – 8
9. Epicness – 7
10. Timelessness – 7
Overall: 77%
The World Is Not Enough
1. Theme Song – 8
2. Use of Bond Theme – 7
3. Style – 8
4. Romance – 9
5. Excitement - 8
6. Brass – 6
7. Suspense – 8
8. Iconography – 8
9. Epicness – 7
10. Timelessness – 7
Overall: 76%
Die Another Day
1. Theme Song – 6
2. Use of Bond Theme – 6
3. Style – 7
4. Romance – 5
5. Excitement - 7
6. Brass – 6
7. Suspense – 7
8. Iconography – 6
9. Epicness – 7
10. Timelessness – 7
Overall: 64%
On Her Majesty's Secret Service: 97%
The Living Daylights: 94%
You Only Live Twice: 93%
A View to a Kill: 88%
Thunderball: 85%
The Spy Who Loved Me: 82%
Moonraker: 81%
GoldenEye: 78%
From Russia with Love: 78%
Diamonds Are Forever: 78%
Goldfinger: 77%
Tomorrow Never Dies: 77%
Octopussy: 77%
The Man with the Golden Gun: 77%
The World Is Not Enough 76%
Live and Let Die: 75%
For Your Eyes Only: 68%
Die Another Day: 64%
Dr. No: 49%
Always been one of the few Serra fans in Bond fandom. Quite like Arnold's first two scores too. DAD is a bit less satisfactory, it's still better than many other aspects of the film though.
1. Implementation of the Theme Song – 8 (well, two songs, again, apart from the main soundtrack: Tina Turner, Bono and The Edge return us to the Shirley Bassey times with a haunting and sexy title song. Eric Serra makes his bed and lies in it in The Experience Of Love: nice song, awful singing by the composer. Next time, hire Shane MacGowan: he sounds even drunker).
2. Use of Bond Theme – 6 (the stick and the carrot if we take it into perspective: Serra tried an electronica version of the Bond Theme. Nice but a tad silly. But Moby and Arnold did it several years later).
3. Style – 6 (as a fan of synthpop, from Perrey and Gerson through Kraftwerk, The Human League, Cerrone or the electronic phase of Herbie Hancock to Daft Punk, I have some kind of soft spot for Serra's ideas, but, it sounds quite un-bondian, which it's not a bad thing: variety is always welcome, but sometimes it sounds silly, especially with those "male chorus" and trying to imitate Blade Runner's OST by having some kind of Demis Roussos imitator, and the contrast with John Altman's pieces is too jarring. And both end up being repetitive)
4. Romance – 6 (Serra is not a romantic composer, Altman sounds too sickly-sweet sometimes, but whoever composed Whispering Statues did a good job)
5. Excitement – 9 (I think it's quite an exciting score: Ladies First is a good action piece, and Altman nails it in the St. Petersburgh chase music)
6. Brass – 1 (just some pre-recorded thingies here and there)
7. Suspense – 0 (What? No: It's a good action score, but it lacks suspense. Completely)
8. Iconography – 8 (a sign of the times)
9. Epicness – 7 (Altman saves this. Serra's music is groovy, but he's not an epic composer).
10. Timelessness - 9 (OK, this is where I think different from the rest: as weird and even preposterous as this soundtrack is at times, I think it already achived a cult status much like Andrew Powell and Alan Parsons's work for Ladyhawke (I actually love it). Many people love it, many more hate its guts).
60/100 %: It looked like a nice idea to launch Bond into the 90s, ended up being a polarizing hodgepodge of hullaballoos by two vastly different composers. However, it managed to become a cult sountrack.
BLM's ratings
NSNA: 25 %
DN: 35 %
GE: 60 %
TMWTGG: 66 %
OP : 77 %
LTK: 78 %
FRWL: 79 %
CR'67, FYEO and TLD: 81 %
TSWLM: 84 %
TB and YOLT: 86 %
DAF and LALD: 88 %
GF: 91 %
MR and AVTAK: 93 %
OHMSS:99%
EXTRA (because I love ya, guys): THE UA LOGOS MUSIC
I love movie logos and TV idents. In fact, I'm an admin in a logo site called CLG (Closing Logo Group) Wiki. So I decided to rate the music of the UA logos seen on Bond Movies (in fact at least one of them premiered in a Bond movie according to Michael J. Wilson in the commentary track of TSWLM):
'Rotating UA (1982, Joe Harnell): 10. Pretty sure you saw this iconic piece from the 80s on MGM/UA or Warner VHS and Betamax releases of the 80s (not sure about those ancient Magnetic Video releases), starts with some somber piano playing and after a fast crescendo, explodes in an epic orchestral fanfare with some HUGE string playing. So much for a piece of wood mounted on a manual rotary platform (it's been said there was a guy with a stick kneeling under the thing and turning it manually) and filmed against a black velvet curtain.
I'll be posting the rest during the week.
1. Implementation of the Theme Song – 7
2. Use of Bond Theme – 9
3. Style – 6
4. Romance – 6
5. Excitement – 8
6. Brass – 5
7. Suspense – 4
8. Iconography – 4
9. Epicness – 6
10. Timelessness - 3
58/100
Tomorrow Never Dies, 1997
1. Implementation of the Theme Song – 8 (One should regard "Surrender" here)
2. Use of Bond Theme – 10
3. Style – 8
4. Romance – 7
5. Excitement – 8
6. Brass – 8
7. Suspense – 8
8. Iconography – 7
9. Epicness – 8
10. Timelessness - 8
80/100
The World Is Not Enough, 1999
1. Implementation of the Theme Song – 8
2. Use of Bond Theme – 9
3. Style – 8
4. Romance – 7
5. Excitement – 9
6. Brass – 7
7. Suspense – 8
8. Iconography – 8
9. Epicness – 8
10. Timelessness - 9
81/100
Die Another Day, 2001
1. Implementation of the Theme Song – 7
2. Use of Bond Theme – 9
3. Style – 7
4. Romance – 6
5. Excitement – 8
6. Brass – 7
7. Suspense – 8
8. Iconography – 6
9. Epicness – 6
10. Timelessness - 8
71/100
1. Implementation of the Theme Song – 7
2. Use of Bond Theme – 9
3. Style – 9
4. Romance – 8
5. Excitement – 9
6. Brass – 6
7. Suspense – 8
8. Iconography – 8
9. Epicness – 7
10. Timelessness - 5
76/100
Tomorrow Never Dies, 1997
1. Implementation of the Theme Song – 8 (incl. Surrender)
2. Use of Bond Theme – 10
3. Style – 9
4. Romance – 7
5. Excitement – 9
6. Brass – 8
7. Suspense – 8
8. Iconography – 8
9. Epicness – 8
10. Timelessness - 8
83/100
The World Is Not Enough, 1999
1. Implementation of the Theme Song – 8
2. Use of Bond Theme – 10
3. Style – 10
4. Romance – 8
5. Excitement – 10
6. Brass – 9
7. Suspense – 8
8. Iconography – 8
9. Epicness – 8
10. Timelessness - 10
89/100
Die Another Day, 2002
1. Implementation of the Theme Song – 8
2. Use of Bond Theme – 10
3. Style – 10
4. Romance – 8
5. Excitement – 10
6. Brass – 9
7. Suspense – 8
8. Iconography – 8
9. Epicness – 8
10. Timelessness - 9
88/100