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Vengeance was better than DH2 but still cartoonish and overblown imo.
Anyway, I can't disagree with our American cousins when they say that had LTK been moved to their late Fall release dates, it would have fared considerably better. I always used to think it was crazy of the studios to pitch these movies against each other so close on each other's heels. I take it LTK was the only MGM big movie to be released in the summer of '89 and was seen as their only chance of grabbing some of that perceived big BO pie?
Just kidding. It only became a cult film later on. Sadly, I paid to see it at the time, but as part of the experience got to see the trailer for LTK ahead of it.
Roadhouse had something LTK didn't have...
I love Dalton, but going up against that he never stood a chance. Add in some of those other good (but not great) competitors and it was a tough summer.
Nope, but the ghost of Moore, certainly.
In the US in 1986, Brosnan was seen as the first choice (thwarted by the un-cancellation of Remington Steele) and Dalton as the runner-up. I think there was a curiosity factor to see Dalton in TLD that didn't carry over to LTK.
Mind you, I say this as someone who prefers Dalton over Brosnan. But the US media was all about Brosnan losing out on Bond.
Can you imagine the equivalent in Bond fandom in the UK press? The "slash my wrists" comment would be child's play compared to that.
Even when he fell into 90s B movie he kept himself in the public eye as potential.
Pretty much. Indiana Jones was mostly out of the picture by the time Licence to Kill came out.
Here's the Box Office Mojo chart for the July 14-16 weekend.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=1989&wknd=28&p=.htm
I also see the other big release the same weekend as LTK was When Harry Met Sally... which with an R-certificate would go on to a domestic gross of $92,823,546, whilst LTK only received $34,667,015.
When Harry met Sally one of my favorite movies of all time.
With all this talk of LTK's strong box office competition in the US during 1989, it's interesting to look back to the beginning of the same decade. FYEO more than held its own against the likes of RAIDERS and SUPERMAN II (again with Indy and a superhero flick; different results). I believe Bond admissions in the U.S. were downhill all the way from there, TLD making more money than AVTAK but selling less tickets.
I do think LTK could've done better for itself later in the year, but I'd expect it (and even Dalton's third) would have still fit that trend of diminishing numbers. If Tim's third had remained on track for 1991, the production machine would've kept full steam ahead without having had time for the contemplation which ultimately led to GE. I'm not a huge GE fan myself but there's no doubt it came along and did just what it needed to at the right moment.
Again, this is your chance to say whatever you would have done differently with the film, so things like; plot changes, character additions or subtractions. Anything you like. People will be given the chance to give their responses within 7 DAYS from today (this may change so let me know if you want me to extend the time for longer) until the discussion moves on to the next James Bond film. This will run until we reach SPECTRE.
Looking forward to hearing what you guys think. Don't worry if you missed out on discussing any of the films. Once we've finished all the James Bond films, this will become a general discussion about what we would change.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=99LsFRmRE1c
To me Brosnan's Bond has never been more unlikable here -- unbearably smug, with a callous disregard for those bikers (and anyone else on the road) who are an obstacle to his stunt driving form of "meet cute." It's like Tony Scott suddenly took over the direction and decided he wanted to put Brosnan in a sequel to DAYS OF THUNDER. Bloody awful.
-introduce Brozza in some other place rather than hanging upside down in a toilet. It’s unbecoming of a OO7 intro imho, particularly after six years.
-fix some of the shoddy CGI during the PTS escape from the Russian facility (when Bond is flailing to catch the plane). It takes away from the excellence of the opening jump.
-put a bit more money into the scale sets which can appear cheap at times. Examples include the Severnaya dish destruction and the plane crash in Cuba, both of which could have been done better. That final confrontation with Xenia in particular is a bit cheap looking and it's pretty obvious it was done on some set.
-do another take of the Brosnan/Samantha Bond intro scene at MI6 HQ and perhaps modify some of the dialogue. It’s a bit affected and awkward, and both actors seem nervous (particularly Brosnan).
-beg Serra not to disgrace himself on the final track. I can perhaps tolerate the song, if it was purely an instrumental, but ideally I would have insisted on a different (perhaps slower) version of Tina’s class title track to end things as per tradition. I'm a fan of his score by the way.
That's about it.
----
@Strog, good points about how the later Moore entries held up relatively well against competition. I agree that a third Dalton entry in 1991 might not have given sufficient time for much needed introspection, as you noted.
.Keep the deleted scene of Zukovsky and the arms dealer and the scene of Bond and Wade driving in St. Petersburg. Just because it sets up Bond's meeting with Zukovsky.
It's my favorite. I refuse to change anything else.
Brozzer's hair was too long, his neck and body, way too thin. If he was on a true fitness regimen (not saying he had to be built like a tank, I just want my Bond to be more like a man, than a boy with body hair), he potentially would have commanded the screen more, since he would have more confidence.
As it is, Brozzer is diminutive. Bean is stronger. Onatopp is as well. So is M. Grigorovitch blows him off the screen. Natalya is one of my least favourite Bond girls-- she's beautiful but all she does is hen-peck and lecture Bond (SeanC-Bond would have quickly told her to be quiet)-- she makes Brosnan look even weaker...
So make James Bond stronger. Tear off that stupid 'kerchief he wears in the Aston-- he looks like the stuffy-pussy-Brit he shouldn't be. Have him not look like an anorexic coming out of the pool when Onatopp attacks him. Stop his male-model posing, and just be....
Get Barry-- or Arnold-- to do the score.
I truly hate Boris. He's a caricature-- not a character.... Make a sinister tech-guy/hench-man... The "I'm invincible" nonsense was the cherry on an ice cream sundae that was made of s**t...
... I think that's it for now... But this is not, in my view, one of the iconic Bond films. This was a filler that was very important in saving the franchise by re-creating Bond tropes in a non-threatening way. It was safe and it was successful.
Unless I've completely mis-understood the plot for the last 23 years, I 'd say Sean Bean was far too young considering the WW2 1945 Leinz Cossack angle of the story. He'd be the right age for it now.
GoldenEye is actually one Bond I wouldn't change much as far as casting goes. I love Izabella and Famke. Gottfried John is an underrated villain, IMO. A great screen presence.
I would replace the Jack Wade character with Felix, though. I always felt Jack Wade was the Sheriff J.W. Pepper of the nineties.
This is probably better for the controversial thread, but to be honest, I would have preferred Robert Brown to come back as M. I love do Judi, and she made the character iconic for a new generation, but being a traditionalist, I'd prefer to see Miles Messervy (or Hargreaves as it were). My attitude was Bond already confronted a new M who didn't approve of his methods in the rival NSNA.
As for Bond himself, I feel Pierce pulled through here. The audience was rooting for him from the start, and many agreed he rightly earned the role. I do ponder the what if's. What might a Liam Neeson GoldenEye be like? Mel was touted for the role as was Hugh Grant. I'm grateful Mel or Hugh didn't actually get the part. But compared to pretty much ALL the names being thrown at us as Craig's replacement, I'd have been more open to those possibilities.
The things I'd have changed about Pierce he remedied later. He has more bulk in TND, and IMO a more Bondian haircut. He still looks like Remington Steele in GE.
One thing I would certainly change if I could go back in time and magically fix things, would be to free up John Barry's schedule or whatever prevented him from partaking this time.
There is much I like in Serra's score, but tracks like "Ladies First" throw that down the drain. I won't even go into "The Experience of Love".
Serra does, IMO, use the correct section of the Bond theme for the gun-barrel in spite of the main melody being somewhat indecipherable. Sounds like it was pounded on a tympani. That doesn't bother me as much as TND, TWINE and especially SP which completely changes the arrangement. Brosnan has a confident walk, turn and fire, and I like the extra 3-D movement Kleinmann gives the design. Pity he just didn't use that for Craig's sequences.
On the first theatrical screening I felt the blood was too maroon, but liked it anyway. None of the DVD's or Blu-rays I've seen accurately present the GE gunbarrel as it looked in the cinema. All home releases (and later Brosnan films) brightened the blood.
GoldenEye, at times feels to me like it's trying too hard to BE a James Bond film
to the point that classic Bondian images call attention to itself, The casino scene, for instance feels too obviously obligatory to me. The DB5 was unnecessary as well, and pretty much started this new tradition of it making a mandatory appearance in later films. I tend to wonder whether the original Michael France script would have resulted in the film having the same tone. Or would the formula have felt more natural?
Of course now, I'm practically begging for a traditional formulaic Bond.
Some tighter pacing wouldn't hurt, When I watch GE today it feels too leisurely paced, especially compared to something like TLD, LTK or SF.
I actually like this scene over all-- hate the snot-rag tucked into his shirt, hate his toothy-grins (he looks like a cartoon rat), hate him trying to be slick and calling the evaluator (who "enjoys a spirited ride"), "dear"... Bond/Brosnan fails, but the scene, in context of Bond, and Bond history, works-- think of the "discipline, 007. Discipline" scene in GF... Except Connery's horn-dog-jack-rabbit sells it. Brozzer says lines and tries to be cool.
- have Brosnan bulk up a bit
-change Bean’s unconvincing posh English accent.
-have more scenes involving Trevelyan as a character. As it is we never really get to know him.
-get rid of Alan Cummin. His performance is often pretty awful.
-liven up some of the cinematography -especially from Cuba onwards (this is where the “tv movie” criticisms show the most in my view).
-scrap Eric Serra’s song at the end. I admit I’ve never had much of a problem with Serra’s score - but his song is bloody dreadful.
Firstly, the PTS is incredibly strong and is the sort of PTS that I felt was missing from LTK, especially as it was a callback to the marvelous ski-jump in TSWLM. Okay, Bond appearing upside-down in a toilet might not have been the greatest and most flattering entry in Bond history, nor his line: “Beg your pardon, forgot to knock” as if it were a common practice that Bond barges into men’s toilet cubicles but normally knocks first. But it’s a small quibble, as are the conveniently stacked metal barrels that rain down on the army when Bond strategically shoots the right bolt keeping them all neatly in place. In fact, I could nitpick a lot of things, such as the geography of the base camp being at the bottom of the dam and Bond having an easy escape route through the mountaintop airstrip many hundreds of feet above. Or the fact that the bad guys can’t shoot straight even though they're carrying machine guns and are only standing a few feet away. But these would all be minor quibbles that really don’t deserve to be highlighted. It’s still a great PTS, flaws and all.
So what would I change? Well, not a lot really. How can you honestly change a movie that performed as well as it did at the BO plus revive a flatlining interest in 007 and expect to stay credible? The title song is again very strong. Superb title graphics by Daniel Kleinman. Again, something that was missing from LTK, along with a great title song. Here, they're all present and correct.
Okay, we all know the movie’s strengths: Great direction, better cinematography, better song, some might argue a better Bond. Well, the ladies would anyway. Which brings me to what I would change, and the first thing on my list would be the music by Éric Serra. It’s most noticeable when Bond races Xenia Onatopp in her red Ferrari around the mountain roads of Monaco. It’s bloody awful, there’s no other word to describe it. I disliked it then and I dislike it now. Sorry Éric Serra fan(s) but his music in GE sucks. I know I said I found Michael Kamen’s score rather too bland, but it’s like comparing Beethoven to Bobby Crush listening to Kamen’s score alongside that of Serra’s. It’s like a poor man’s electro-kitsch as if recycled through a Casio musical calculator. On my first viewing, I was afraid that as the movie progressed that the score might spoil the whole viewing experience for me. Though I needn’t have worried, because Alan Cumming managed to do what the music score couldn’t. His acting is so hammy and over-the-top, he made Steven Berkoff look positively restrained in OP. In fact, Cumming’s performance was so annoying and distracting at times I just wanted to punch him in the face until he was a bloody pulp. Which brings me to the whole Severnaya scenes: They just drag the front half of the movie down. The office banter in cod-Russian accents begins to grate, so much so that I was relieved when Ourumov and Xenia eventually burst through the door to massacre the bloody lot of them. Sadly, Cumming survived due to him playing a much larger role than I needed or wanted at the time.
So, my second big change (after begging Michael Kamen to return) would be to recast Alan Cumming. Anybody will do, so long as it’s not Cumming.
I’d also dial back a lot of Natalya screaming and hurling herself about. She too could be quite irritating at times.
Change Xenia Onatopp’s surname. It’s far too silly and bawdy for Brosnan’s first Bond movie.
Also, when the dead body of Admiral Chuck Farrel falls stiffly to the floor, remove the comical smile from his face. It looked like a direct steal from Batman, which made sense in the context of that movie but not in GE.
And as enjoyable as Bond’s escape from the kamikaze helicopter might be, I think it should have been cut completely. It’s just too dumb with that giant red ejector button sat right in front of him. It also reminded me of John McClane’s similar ejector seat escape scene in Die Hard 2. I don’t think too many people spotted the similarity at the time, but it didn’t go unnoticed by me or a few others.
Change Trevelyan’s motivation of avenging his parents being Lienz Cossacks betrayed by the British in 1945. It’s too much of a stretch to believe that he’d hold such a grudge for so long, being too young and all. Plus, you’d have thought that MI6 (or whatever they call themselves now instead of 00 Division) would have picked this up in their psychology evaluation tests long ago. I dunno, I just didn’t buy his motivation. Maybe if it had been an incident that occurred in the Sixties I might have bought it more. And how did he end up concocting that ruse with Ouromov? I can’t remember whether that was explained or not, considering that there were so many exposition dumps going on.
Another thing I’d do is make CIA agent Jack Wade less of a twat. We already have Alan Cumming fulfilling that role, we don’t need another, thank you.
I really liked Judy Dench as M in GE. This is her best performance and best dialogue by a country mile. I’m not so sure about Samantha Bond though. She always struck me as a bit too aloof as Moneypenny. Surely it would’ve made more sense to have a softer actress with a kinder face playing the role, especially when M was already fulfilling the same function? Maybe it was a pairs thing? We had 2 twats, therefore we must have 2 ice maidens. Basically, I’d recast Samantha Bond. I just couldn’t see Brosnan wanting to get it on with old frosty knickers.
I’m not going to pick holes in the plot or the magically teleporting tank along the train track for the simple reason everything is so much more better directed and photographed in GE than it was in LTK. Brosnan is pretty good in GE and his exchanges with Judi Dench are what elevates this movie above all his others IMO.
Natalya, on the other hand, I find a bit drab and irritating. She’s probably the least glamorous Bond girl alongside Maryam d'Abo to feature in a Bond movie. She’s not helped by Famke Janssen as Onatopp who completely overshadows her throughout the entire proceedings. Now, I’ve seen photos of Izabella Scorupco with her blonde hair and I think she looks stunning. That aside, I just find her quite irritating and dreary in GE. Maybe it’s the delivery of her lines like: “Boys with toys” or “You think I'm impressed? All of you with your guns, your killing, your death. For what? So you can be a hero? Etcetera, etcetera.” Maybe it’s her dialogue? Maybe it’s her acting? It’s strange that I never see her mentioned very much in many Top 10 Bond Girls lists that do the rounds in the media anymore. She’s certainly not in mine.
Anyway, that’s pretty much my list of things I would change. I will just add that I never particularly cared for the pre-credits ending which reminded me a bit of the GF and YOLT endings combined, but this is made far worse by the appearance of Jack Wade and his clowns popping up late for the showdown. Then we have the song to end all songs, “The Experience of Love” sung by the egotistical Mr Electro-kitsch himself, Éric Serra. Quite, quite dreadful. This would be the last thing I’d change. I can’t understand why we couldn’t have just had a simple reprise of Tina Turner’s excellent song rather than this dirge? After all, the end titles should be screaming: Bond Is Back!
I agree that they should have made more with Trevelyan too as his grand plan never really seems to have a lot of weight to it or at least as much weight as it should have.
I think it was suggested that the British government knew of his connections/history:
Bond: “how did the mi6 screening miss that your parents were Lienz Cossacks?”
Trevelyan: “Once again your faith is misplaced. They knew!”
It's OK to like Izabella Scorupco but I'm hard pushed to remember her name without having to look it up first. Same goes for her character's name. The adult in me just wanted to give her a good slap Connery/Lazenby-style in certain scenes, she was that annoying.